If any mildly would reprove his faults, Say, sages-if not sleep-charmed by the rhyme, Is it more noble to torment than please? Come to my pen, companion of the lay, Nor lash his generosity to Hoare; Praise him for sermons of his curate bought, His great devotion when he drawls to pray; Varo, a genius of peculiar taste, His misery in his happiness is plac'd; No disappointment can his peace invade, When first his farce of countenance began, Ere the soft down had mark'd him almost man, A solemn dulness occupied his eyes, And the fond mother thought him wondrous wise; But little had she read in Nature's book, O Education, ever in the wrong, Mould'ring in dust the fair Lavinia lies; The saint and sinner, fool and wise attain When or how Chatterton was unfortunate enough to receive a tincture of infidelity we are not informed. Early in the year 1769, it appears from a poem on "Happiness," addressed to Mr. Catcott, that he had drunk deeply of the poisoned spring. And in the conclusion of a letter to the same gentleman, after he left Bristol, he expresses himself, Heaven send you the comforts of Christianity; I request them not, for I am no Christian."-DR. GREGORY. As to religion, with which a fashionable doctrine will have it that the poetical temperament is congenial, or rather so nearly identical that it may be admitted in substitution, we observe Chatterton manifesting his alienation and aversion. sometimes (as common with profane wits) by sneers and sarcasms levelled in such manner at what folly, hypocrisy, or mere canonical ceremony have odiously connected with religion, as to betray, by implication, a disregard of religion itself; sometimes avowedly, as when, derisively wishing an acquaintance who was under misfortune the benefit of his Christian notions, he says, with an evident air of self-complacency, and superiority, 'I am no Christian.' His naming, on supposition of the failure of other expedients, that of setting out as a methodist preacher, as an adventure to profit by the gullibility of mankind, did not perhaps mean an actual intention to do so; but it showed that he deemed the affair of religion no forbidden ground on which to play a part-the part of a knave, if a man were so disposed and had occasion.-ECLECTIC REVIEW. THE WHORE OF BABYLON.* BOOK THE FIRST. NEWTON,† accept the tribute of a line How shall I satirize the sleepy Dean?‡ None could be certain worthy Barton sat. Come then, my Newton, leave the musty lines In search of hidden truths let others go Be thou the fiddle to my puppet-show. • The reader will remark that a considerable portion of the following Poem has already appeared in the "Kew Gardens."-See ante, page 369. The circumstance has been referred to in the Life. + Dr. Newton, then Bishop of Bristol. Dr. Barton, Dean of Bristol. |