same age.' The remains of the unhappy youth were interred in a shell in the burying-ground of ShoeLane workhouse. His unfinished papers he had destroyed before his death, and his room, when broken open, was found covered with scraps of paper. The citizens of Bristol have erected a monument to the memory of their native poet. The poems of Chatterton, published under the name of Rowley, consist of the tragedy of Ella, the Execution of Sir Charles Bawdin, Ode to Ella, the Battle of Hastings, the Tournament, one or two ¦ Dialogues, and a description of Canynge's Feast. Some of them, as the Ode to Ella (which we subjoin), have exactly the air of modern poetry, only disguised with antique spelling and phraseology. The avowed compositions of Chatterton are equally inferior to the forgeries in poetical powers and diction; which is satisfactorily accounted for by Sir Walter Scott by the fact, that his whole powers and energies must, at his early age, have been converted to the acquisition of the obsolete language and peculiar style necessary to support the deep-laid deception. He could have had no time for the study of our modern poets, their rules of verse, or modes of expression; while his whole faculties were intensely employed in the Herculean task of creating the person, history, and language of an ancien poet, which, vast as these faculties were, were sufficient wholly to engross, though not to overburden them.' A power of picturesque painting seems to be Chatterton's most distinguishing feature as a poet. The heroism of Sir Charles Bawdin, who Summed the actions of the day and who bearded the tyrant king on his way to the scaffold, is perhaps his most striking portrait. The following description of Morning in the tragedy of Ella, is in the style of the old poets: Bright sun had in his ruddy robes been dight, Her sable tapestry was rent in twain: The meads be sprinkled with the yellow hue, In daisied mantles is the mountain dight, The fresh young cowslip bendeth with the dew; The trees enleafed, into heaven straight, When gentle winds do blow, to whistling din is brought. The evening comes, and brings the dews along, The ruddy welkin shineth to the eyne, In the epistle to Canynge, Chatterton has a striking censure of the religious interludes which formed the early drama; but the idea, as Warton remarks, is the result of that taste and discrimination which could only belong to a more advanced period of society Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet; 1 The sign-post of an alehouse. The satirical and town effusions of Chatterton are often in bad taste, yet display a wonderful command of easy language and lively sportive allusion. They have no traces of juvenility, unless it be in adopting the vulgar scandals of the day, unworthy his original genius. In his satire of Kew Gardens are the following lines, alluding to the poet laureate and the proverbial poverty of poets :— Though sing-song Whitehead ushers in the year, In a poem entitled The Prophecy are some vigorous stanzas, in a different measure, and remarkable for maturity and freedom of style : This truth of old was sorrow's friend— The boy who could thus write at sixteen, might soon have proved a Swift or a Dryden. Yet in satire, Chatterton evinced but a small part of his power. His Rowleian poems have a compass of invention, and a luxuriance of fancy, that promised a great chivalrous or allegorical poet of the stamp of Spenser. Bristow Tragedy, or the Death of Sir Charles Baudin.* The feathered songster chanticleer And told the early villager The coming of the morn: King Edward saw the ruddy streaks And heard the raven's croaking throat, 'Thou'rt right,' quoth he, 'for by the God Then with a jug of nappy ale But when he came, his children twain, With briny tears did wet the floor, 'Oh good Sir Charles!' said Canterlone, 'Speak boldly, man,' said brave Sir Charles ; 'I grieve to tell: before yon sun He hath upon his honour sworn, That thou shalt surely die.' 'We all must die,' said brave Sir Charles; 'Of that I'm not afraid; What boots to live a little space? But tell thy king, for mine he's not, I'd sooner die to-day, Than live his slave, as many are, Then Canterlone he did go out, Then Mr Canynge sought the king, And fell down on his knee; 'I'm come,' quoth he,' unto your grace, To move your clemency.' 'Then,' quoth the king, 'your tale speak out, We will to it attend.' *The antiquated orthography affected by Chatterton being evidently no advantage to his poems, but rather an impediment to their being generally read, we dismiss it in this and other specimens. The diction is, in reality, almost purely modern, and Chatterton's spelling in a great measure arbitrary, so that there seems no longer any reason for retaining what was only designed at first as a means of supporting a deception. 'My noble liege! all my request Is for a noble knight, Who, though mayhap he has done wrong, He has a spouse and children twain; If that you are resolved to let 'Speak not of such a traitor vile,' 'Before the evening star doth shine, Bawdin shall lose his head: Justice does loudly for him call, And he shall have his meed: 'My noble liege!' good Canynge said, And lay the iron rule aside; Was God to search our hearts and reins, In all this mortal state. Let mercy rule thine infant reign, But if with blood and slaughter thou Thy crown upon thy children's brows Canynge, away! this traitor vile 'My noble liege! the truly brave 'Canynge, away! By God in heaven I will not taste a bit of bread Whilst this Sir Charles doth live! By Mary, and all saints in heaven, With heart brimful of gnawing grief, He to Sir Charles did go, And sat him down upon a stool, And tears began to flow. 'We all must die,' said brave Sir Charles; 6 What boots it how or when? Death is the sure, the certain fate, Say why, my friend, thy honest soul Is it for my most welcome doom 'Then dry the tears that out thine eye When through the tyrant's welcome means I shall resign my life, The God I serve will soon provide For both my sons and wife. Before I saw the lightsome sun, Shall mortal man repine or grudge How oft in battle have I stood, When thousands died around; Ah, godlike Henry! God forefend, My honest friend, my fault has been Of parents of great note; I make no doubt but he is gone He taught me justice and the laws And eke he taught me how to know And summed the actions of the day I have a spouse, go ask of her I have a king, and none can lay Why should I then appear dismayed What though I on a sledge be drawn, And mangled by a hind, I do defy the traitor's power, He cannot harm my mind: Yet in the holy book above, Then welcome death! for life eterne Now death as welcome to me comes And from this world of pain and grief And now the bell began to toll, And clarions to sound; Sir Charles he heard the horses' feet And just before the officers His loving wife came in, Pray God that every Christian soul Sweet Florence! why these briny tears! And almost make me wish for life, "Tis but a journey I shall go Then Florence, faltering in her say, Ah, sweet Sir Charles! why wilt thou go The cruel axe that cuts thy neck, It eke shall end my life.' And now the officers came in To bring Sir Charles away, 'I go to life, and not to death, Teach them to run the noble race Florence! should death thee take-adieu! Then Florence raved as any mad, And did her tresses tear; 'Oh stay, my husband, lord, and life!'Sir Charles then dropped a tear. 'Till tired out with raving loud, With looks full brave and sweet; The friars of Saint Augustine next Bold as a lion came Sir Charles, Drawn on a cloth-laid sledde, By two black steeds in trappings white, Saint James's friars marched next, Then came the mayor and aldermen, Of citizens did throng; And when he came to the high cross, Soon as the sledde drew nigh enough, The brave Sir Charles he did stand up, "Thou seest me, Edward! traitor vile! By foul proceedings, murder, blood, Thou thinkest I shall die to-day; And soon shall live to wear a crown Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years, Shalt rule this fickle land, To let them know how wide the rule Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave! King Edward's soul rushed to his face, 'So let him die!' Duke Richard said; And now the horses gently drew His precious blood to spill. As long as Edward rules this land, You leave your good and lawful king, Like me, unto the true cause stick, And for the true cause die.' Then, kneeling down, he laid his head And out the blood began to flow, One part did rot on Kinwulph-hill, The other on Saint Paul's good gate, His head was placed on the high cross, Thus was the end of Bawdin's fate: God prosper long our king, And grant he may, with Bawdin's soul, [The Minstrel's Song in Ella.] O! sing unto my roundelay; O! drop the briny tear with me ; Gone to his death-bed, Black his hair as the winter night, White his neck as summer snow, Ruddy his face as the morning light, Cold he lies in the grave below: My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. Sweet his tongue as throstle's note, Oh! he lies by the willow tree. Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. Hark! the raven flaps his wing, In the briered dell below; Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. See! the white moon shines on high; Whiter is my true-love's shroud; Whiter than the morning sky, Whiter than the evening cloud. My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. Here, upon my true-love's grave, All the sorrows of a maid. Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow tree. With my hands I'll bind the briers, Gone to his death-bed, Come with acorn cup and thorn, The mystic mazes of thy will, And Mercy look the cause away. For God created all to bless. But ah! my breast is human still— I'll thank the inflicter of the blow; The gloomy mantle of the night, Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals. WILLIAM FALCONER. The terrors and circumstances of a Shipwreck had been often described by poets, ancient and modern, but never with any attempt at professional accuracy or minuteness of detail, before the poem of that name by Falconer. It was reserved for a genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the 'secrets of the deep,' and to enlist the sympathies of the general reader in favour of the daily life and occupations of his brother seamen, and in all the movements, the equipage, and tracery of those magnificent vessels which have carried the British name and enterprise to the remotest corners of the world. Poetical associations-a feeling of boundlessness and sublimity-obviously belonged to the scene of the poem-the ocean; but its interest soon wanders from this source, and centres in the stately ship and its crew-the gallant resistance which the men made to the fury of the storm-their calm and deliberate courage the various resources of their skill and ingenuity-their consultations and resolutions as the ship labours in distress-and the brave unselfish piety and generosity with which they meet their fate, when at last The crashing ribs divideShe loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide. Such a subject Falconer justly considered as 'new to epic lore,' but it possessed strong recommendations to the British public, whose national pride and honour are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have some friend, some brother there.' WILLIAM FALCONER was born in Edinburgh in 1730, and was the son of a poor barber, who had two other children, both of whom were deaf and dumb. He went early to sea, on board a Leith merchant ship, and was afterwards in the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he was second mate in the Britannia, a vessel in the Levant trade, which was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as de scribed in his poem. In 1751 he was living in Edinburgh, where he published his first poetical attempt, |