well verfed in the Greek tragedians. He was as well acquainted with Butler, or Butler with him; for, a chaplain of the late Bishop of Exeter has found in Rowley a line of Hudibras*. Well, Sir, being fatisfied with my intelligence about Chatterton, I wrote him a letter with as much kindness and tendernefs, as if I had been his guardian; for, though I had no doubt of his impofitions, fuch a spirit of poetry breathed in his coinage as interested me for him; nor was it a grave crime in a young bard to have forged falfe notes of hand that were to país current only in the parish of Parnaffus, I undeceived him about my being a person of any intereft, and urged to him, that, in duty and gratitude to his mother, who had ftraitened herfelf to breed him up to a profeffion, he ought to labour in it, that in her old age he might abfolve his filial debt; and I told him, that, when he thould have made a fortune, he might unbend himself with ftudies confonant to his inclinations. I told him alfo, that I had communicated his tranfcripts to much better judges, and that they were by no means fatisfied with the authenticity of his fuppofed manufcripts. I mentioned their reafons, particularly that there were no fuch metres known in the age of Richard I. and that might be a reafon with Chatterton himfelf to shift the era of his productions. He wrote me rather a peevith anfwer, faid he could not conteft with a perfon of my learning, (a compliment by no means due to me, and which I certainly had not affumed, having mentioned my having confulted abler judges,) maintained the genuineness of the poems, and demanded to have them returned, as they were the property of another gentleman. Remember this. When I received this letter, I was go. ing to Paris in a day or two, and either forgot his request of the poems, or perhaps, not having time to have them copied, deferred complying till my return, which was to be in fix weeks. I proteft, I do not remember which was the cafe; and yet, though in a cause of fo little importance, I will not utter a fyllable of which I am not pofitively certain; nor will charge my memory with a tittle beyond what it retains. Soon after my return from France, I received another letter from Chatterton, the ftyle of which was fingularly impertinent. He demanded his poems roughly, and added, that I fhould not have dared to ufe him fo ill, if he had not acquainted me with the narrowness of his circumftances. now My heart did not accufe me of infolence to him. I wrote an answer, expoftulating with him on his injustice, and renewing good advice; but, upon fecond thoughts, reflecting that fo wrong-headed a young man, of whom I knew nothing, and whom I had never seen, might be abfurd enough to print my letter, I flung it into the fire; and wrapping up both his poems and letters, without taking a copy of either, for which I am ferry, I returned all to him, and thought no more of him or them till about a year and a half after, when, dining at the Royal Academy, Dr. Goldfmith drew the attention of the company with an account of a marvellous treature of antient poems lately difcovered at Bristol, and exprefied enthusiastic belief in them, for which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnfon, who was prefent. 1 foon found this was the trouvaille of my friend Chatterton; and I told Dr. Goldsmith, that this novelty was known to me, who might, if I had pleafed, have had the honour of ushering the great difcovery to the learned world. You may nagine, Sir, we did not at all agree in the meafure of our faith; but though his credu lity diverted me, my mirth was foon dafhed; for, on asking about Chatterton, he told me he had been in London, and had destroyed himself. I heartily wished then, that I had been the dupe of all the poor young man had written to me; for who would not have his understanding impofed on to fave a fellow-being from the utmoft wretchedness, defpair, and fuicide!—and a poor young man not eighteen, and of fuch miraculous talents! For, dear Sir, if I wanted credulity on one hand, it is ample on the other. Yet heap all the improbabilities you please on the head of Chatterton, the The line here alluded to is probably the following: "A man as caunte upponn a piece maye looke, P. 72. Mr. Myrrwhit's edition. Hudibras, p. 2. c. 3. 1. 795. impoffibility on Rowley's fide will remain. An amazing genius for poetry, which one of the n poffefed, might flash out in the darkeit age; but could Rowley anticipate the phrafeology of the eighteenth century? His poetic fire might burit through the obftacles of the times; like Homer or other original bards, he might have formed a poetical style; but would it have been precifely that of an age fubfequent to him by fome hundred years? Nobody can admire the poetry of the poems in queftion more than I do; but, except being better than most modern verfes, in what do they differ in the conftruction? The words are old, the conftruction evidently of yesterday; and by fubftituting modern words, aye, fingle words to the old, or to thofe invented by Chatterton, in what do they differ? Try that method with any compofition, even in profe, of the reign of Henry VI. and fee if the confequence will be the fame; but I am getting into the controverfy, initead of concluding my narrative, which indeed is ended. Rowley would be a prophet, a foreseer, if the poems were his; yet, in any other light, he would not be fo extraordinary a phenomenon as Chatterton; whom, though he was a bad man, as is faid, I lament not having feen. He might at that time have been lefs corrupted, and my poor patronage might have faved him from the abyfs into which he plunged ;— but, alas! how could I furmife, that the well-being and existence of a human creature depended upon my fwallowing a legend, and from an unknown perfon? Thank God! So far from having any thing to charge myfelf with on Chatterton's account, it is very hypothetical to fuppofe that I could have toad between him and ruin. It is one of thofe ponible events, which we fhould be miferable indeed if imputable to a confcience that had not the finalleft light to direct it! If I went to Bengal, I might perhaps inter. pofe, and fave the life of fome poor Indian devoted by the fury of a British nabob; but amiable as fuch quixotifi would be, we are not to facrifice every duty to the poffibility of realizing one confcientious vition. I believe I have tired you; I am fure I have wearied my own hand, which has written all thefe pages without paufing; but, when any thing takes poffefion of my mind, I forget my gouty fingers and my age, or perhaps betray the latter by my garrulity; however, it will fave me more trouble-I fhall certainly never write a word more about Chatterton. You are my confeffor; I have unburthened my foul to you, and I trust you will not enjoin me a public penance. Your's molt fincerely, You feem to think Chatterton might have affittance, I do not know but he might; but one of the wonderful parts of his prodigious story is, that he had formed difciples, yes, at eighteen. Some of his youthful companions have continued to walk in his paths, and have produced Saxon and other poems of antique caft, but not with the poetic fpirit of their master; nor can it be discovered, that Chatterton received inftruction or aid from any man of learning or abilities. Dr. Percy and Mr. Loft have collected every thing relating to him that can be traced, and all tends to concentre the forgery of Rowley's poems in his fingle perfon. They have numerous pieces of Chatterton's writing in various ways; nay, fo verfatile, fo extenfive, fo commanding, was his genius, that he forged architecture and heraldry, that is, could invent both in art and in folly.-In fhort, I do not believe that there ever exifted fo masterly a genius, except that of Plalmanazar, who, before twenty-two, could create a language, that all the learned of Europe, though they fufpected, could not detest. Thus, Sir, with the moft fcrupulous veracity, I have told you my fhare in that unhappy young man's story. With more pains I could add a few dates, but the fubitance would be indentically the fame. P. S. I recollect another paffage that I muft add. A gentleman of rank, being truck with the beauty of the poems, and believing their antique originality, purchafed a copy of them, and fhewed it to me. I expreffed my doubts; now then, faid the perfon, I will convince you; here is a painter's bill that you cannot question. What think you now? This I replied, I do believe genuine; and I will tell you why-and, taking down the first volume of my anecdotes of painting, I fhewed him the identic bill printed fome years before. This, faid I, I know is antient: Vertue tranfcribed it twenty years ago from fome old parchments in That amongst thefe old parchments there might be fome old poetry is very poffible. All I contend for is, that most of what Chatterton produced for Rowley s was ficti tious, in the church of St. Mary Ratcliffe, at Bristol.That was the origin of Chatterton's lift of great painters, and probably of his other inventions. Can it be fuppofed that Vertue thould have feen that old bill, and with his inquifitive and diligent turn, efpecially about pain ters, not have inquired whether there was nothing more? Vertue was even a verfifier, as I have many proofs in his manufcripts, and fearched much after Chaucer and Lidgate, of whom he engraved portraits-yet all Rowley's remains, it feems, were referved for Chatterton, who, it cannot be denied, did forge poetry and profe for others; and who, as indubitably was born a great poet-yet not a line of tolerable poetry in Rowley's hand can be produced. Did Chatterton deftroy the originals to authenticate their exiftence? He certainly wrote his forgeries on the backs of old parchments, and there is both internal ty of the poetry-but I will not take part and external evidence against the antiquiin that dispute. Error, like the fea, is always gaining as much teritory in one place as it lofes in another, and it is to little purpose to make it changed poffeffion. The HISTORY of KITTY WELLS. A TRUE STORY. KITTY WELLS was the daughter of with all the transports of unbounded at The an honeft pair, who lived in a low fection. The two old people had been very happy when together, and they were not miferable when they parted. hufband faid that his wife had strange megrims now and then, which he did not know how to defcribe; but which very nearly approached, in his opinion, to infanity. She alfo had her ftory, and said he was a dull, morofe, plodding, man, with only the vulgar qualites of honefty and induftry to recommend him. fhort, he was a fimple, plain, labourerand the did inherit a family obliquitya whirligig in the brain, as Mr. Charles Turner calls it, which hurried her occafionally into whimsical exceffes. When they parted, therefore, there were violent convulfions of grief; and, during their abfence, they seldom or ever correfponded: they were very well satisfied if station in the village of Eltham, in Kent, about eight miles from London. Soon after her birth, her mother was engaged as housekeeper in a gentleman's family in Yorkshire, to which the removed, leaving her young daughter to the care of her father, who remained in their native place. The father, like most others of the fame rank in life, thought nothing of his daughter's education: he provided for her the fame decent maintenance that he had for himself, and by his daily labour, made them both comfortable at least, if not luxurious. About two years after the establishment of her mother in this northern family, fhe fent for her young daughter, then about fix years of age. She was fent down to her in the waggon, and the mother received her into her bofom In no tious, especially all the pieces in modern metres, all that have nothing of antiquity but the fimple words, as Ælla, the Battle of Haftings, the death of Sir Charles Baldwin, &c. Chatterton was too great a poet for the age he copied; his foaring genius bestowed more elegance and harmony in Rowley than comported with the 15th century. Rowley muft either have polished the language so as to have made it adopted, or he would not have been understood. The idiom lent to him would have been more unintelligible to his contemporaries, than the old words, fprinkled on the poems afcribed to him, are to the prefent generation. Neither can any man of fenfe believe, that a master-genius can write with amazing abilities in an age however barbarous, and yet never be heard of till fome hundred of years after his death. The more a man foars above his contemporaries, the more he strikes, especially in a rude age. The more an age is polished, the inore are men on a par, and the more difficult it is for genius to penetrate. to the first, than in those early ages, when authors are rare. Rivals depreciate the former The next are nearer and their partizans conteft the merit of their competitors. Homer, on one hand, Shakfpeare and Milton, on the other, confirm this hypothefis. The Grecian's glory has rolled down to us with unabated luftre; he did not lie unknown for centuries. Shakf peare was during his life obfcured by the mock pretensions of Ben Jonfon; and Milton's Pradife Loit was fold for fifteen pounds. they they heard once or twice in a year that they were both alive and well; and he was quite happy when his old wife fent him up by the waggon a piece of hung. beef or a tongue, to relish his beer, and proved that the had not forgot him. The good woman's diftemper was very much fed by what is called the fun and the humbug of the large family in which the lived. There is a fpirit of wanton wickedness alive and active in the breafts of a certain description of people which urges them to mifchiefs of humour, as they are called, but which are really productive of fevere calamities. The lazy domeftics of large families are more than others tinctured with this vice-Pampered and diffipated, acquainted with all the follies of the times, by the luxury of a winter refidence in town, they play a thousand antic tricks for the fake of jollity, as they practise a thousand debaucheries for the fake of enjoyment. If there is any antient domeftic, whofe fidelity hath given him a fort of inheritance in the household, with all the fimple honesty of a countryman, who never emigrated a dozen miles from the cottage in which he was born, he is fure of being made the butt for the ridicule of the trim footman and the pert chambermaid-an old maid is chafed from every corner to which fhe retreats, and is found to take refuge, at laft, either in the out-houses among brutes, more human than thefe from which she has retired, or to fome unfortunate fifter, driven, like herself, from the abodes of men. A gentleman, by which appellation every one is called who has not had the good fortune, like themselves, to fit in the one fhilling galJery, and affift, by roaring and bellowing at the damnation of a new play—a gentleman is condemned to fuffer all that empty pride and little cunning can inflict. In fhort, the manners of a great man's hall are tainted with follies more difgufting even than thofe of his drawing-room-in the one, my lord and my lady, and my lord and my lady's friends,are politely complaifant, and cheat one another of their money, or whisper one another out of their reputation, with the most courteous and civil behaviour that can be imagined. In the other, there is a conftant feries of ill-natured offices, by which they vex, torment, scratch, and pelt, one another, with the beft difpofitions in the world, or rather with difpofitions towards one another neither good or bad. In fuch a family it was that the mother of Kitty Wells refided as housekeeper. By flow degrees, they difcovered that her mind was disordered with an irregular and unfortunate addiction to gentilityhe was conftantly fancying herself the defcendant of fome great family-her mind was fo fuperior to her ftation-her views were fo high-and her propensities fo different from the vulgar. This was but an odd right on which to found her claim to gentility. But how many pcople are feen pretending to birth and rank with no better pretenfions? How many miferable beings do we fee rejecting every kindly offer that is made to affift them, because they are, or fancy themselves to be, too much of gentlemen for the drudgery of bufinefs?and, for the ho nour of their families, they will rather starve as gentlemen, than submit to live, -as citizens, on the comforts of their industry. The maiden-name of Kitty Wells's mother was Howe; the family, in which the refided, lived in the neighbourhood of Castle Howard, the beautiful feat of the young Earl of Carlisle. One of the loweft of the fervants, to whom Mrs. Wells would never condefcend to fpeak, "Because it would arro gate from the indignation of her rank, "to hold averfion with fuch infernal fil"lies," had a good deal of archness in his mind; and, being inftigated by the haughty deportment of the housekeeper as well as by his natural love of humbug, he came home one evening from a route, given by the butler of Caftle Howard, with a most important face. He looked with all the gravity of a man who labours under the preffure of a weighty secret-his natural levity was gone-he was silent and circumfpect, and ever as Mrs. Wells paffed him with her uplifted creft, he would lay his hand upon his breast, and make her a low bow, without daring to lift his eyes from the ground. The fervants ftared-the housekeeper was gratified-and, in the courfe of half an hour, whifked into the hall fix or feven times, to receive the reverence of Robin upon all which occafions he started from his feat and repeated his bow. It was in vain for the fervants to inquire the caufe of this extraordinary conducthe preferved his gravity, his filence, and his fecret. The morning came, and Robin was ftill as troubled in his mind and as fubmiffive to Mrs. Wells. After carrying on this gloomy farce for fome days, and winding up to the utmost pitch the curofity of the whole family, he fuffered himself to be prevailed on by one of the dairy-maids," a talkative girl, with whom he had an intrigue, to declare the whole of the mystery. After extorting from her a folemn promife of fecrecy, which he very well knew he would with. out folemnity break, he told her a wonderful ftory of an apparition that had appeared to him on the night of the route. "In coming, fays he, from the caftle, down the long avenue, which is fhaded with elms, I was not altogether at my eafe; for, you know, there was always a story that a ghoft has been feen wandering about the walls of the caftle-it was twelve o'clock, and the night was difmally dark; there was not a single ftar in all the Heaven, and there was no moon. I whiled to keep myfelf from thinking -but it would not do-my hair fomehow was unfettled-it felt as if it were bristling on my head--and I was conftantly turning my eyes, by compulfion, from one fide to another, attracted by the fuppofition of a glaring head-or of a bloody hand. Juft as I came to the pigeon-houte, and was in all this confufion, I heard a flutter of fomething behind me I started-ftool ftill-fhook and stared-but faw nothing. Well, I collected myfelt as well as I could-believed it was only a pigeon-and I crept away from the place-I had not gone a hundred yards, and just as I had made up my mind to believe that it was a pigeon -I was stopped of a fudden by fome invifible power. It came over me all at once, just like the night-mare; but fomehow I was not fo terrified as before-or rather I was petrified, and was not able to feel at all." "Robin," faid a voice, that came from I know not what-" Lord have mercy upon me!" said I. "Robin, don't be afraid," faid the voice. "O Father, which art in Heaven!" faid I— "Don't be afraid, Robin," it repeated "I am only a ghoft, and I have wandered up and down this avenue, and round the caftle for this hundred years and more-I am the ghost of Charles Howard-the unhappy Charles Howard, who was faid to have died an infant; but, who was really expofed and faved by accident-I was carried to Manchester-and brought up, by the name of Howe, to the mean employment of a weaver, although I was the ion of Caftle Howard-and Mrs. Wells, Robin, your houfekeeper, is my grand-daughter-oh that the granddaughter of Cattle Howard fhould be reduced to the station of a menial fervant -and that too under the very walls of her own feat! go, therefore, Robin, and contrive to make her leave a place where the cannot continue without degrading her ancestors-Robin, I fhall never be happy till my grand-child leaves this fpot. If the must be a fervant, let it not be upon my own haunts, for I dare not leave them.". This was the fecret with which Robin was fo full-he told it with great art, for he had an archness, accompanied with an eafy cunning addrefs, which he had acquired by living with a young barrifter of the Middle Temple. Just as he had imagined, the story was told, im. proved, heightened, and inflated, to a pitch of terrific wonder in less than four hours. The fame night, at an hour the most favourable to fuperftition and credulity, the ftory was communiated to the perfon whom it was intended to delude where the heart was predifpofed to favour the deception, the conqueft was very eafy-poor Mrs. Wells, who was but too fanciful before, became, in a great degree, frantic with the tale-fhe slept none that night-in the morning the fought for Robin-there was a formal ceremony in this interview-they were locked up in her room-and he told her the ftory twenty times over, with the fame inflexible mufcles, and without altering a fyllable of the ghoft's narrative. During all this time, the other fervants were watching at the door, liftening, and anxious to catch a glimpfe of the fcene tranfacting within. Mrs. Wells was fo infatuated with the ftory, that in half an. hour fhe came out perfectly ridiculousdreffed out-and bedizened with a profufion of taudry ornaments, in which the yellow was paramount, because the yellow was the livery of Howard. The fervants now preceived the humbug-Robin was extolled-careffed-and, for mere joy, the butler opened the best bin in the cellar, and treated the whole family with * bumpers, to the health of Robin, and "his new-created lady Mary Howard"— nay, in the opennefs of his heart, he treated his mafter at dinner with a bottle of that wine which he had referved for his own drinking. They entered into a confpiracy to further the plot-and Robin was fent over to engage the fervants of the castle in the fcheme. Alas! there was no need for fo much preparation-the poor woman's own temper fought more than half the battle. She determined, that very night, to have an interview with her great ancestor-to make his mind cafy-and alfo to gratify herself with a fight or a converfation-or, perhaps, the faid, "who knows (and the was enraptured with the thought) but the gentleman |