full of tears, the sister of car-borne Morar. She retired from the song of Ullin, like the moon in the west, when she foresees the shower, and hides her fair head in a cloud. I touched the harp, with Ullin; the song of mourning rose! Ryno. The wind and the rain are past; calm is the noon of day. The clouds are divided in heaven. Over the green hills flies the inconstant sun. Red through the stony vale comes down the stream of the hill. Sweet are thy murmurs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear. It is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead! Bent is his head of age; red his tearful eye. Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? why complainest thou, as a blast in the wood; as a wave on the lonely shore? Alpin. My tears, O Ryno! are for the dead; my voice for those that have passed away. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the vale. But thou shalt fall like Morar; the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more; thy bow shall lie in the hall, unstrung! Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the desert; terrible as a meteor of fire. Thy wrath was as the storm. Thy sword in battle, as lightning in the field. Thy voice was a stream after rain; like thunder on distant hills. Many fell by thy arm; they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain; like the moon in the silence of night; calm as the breast of the lake when the loud wind is laid. Narrow is thy dwelling now! dark the place of thine abode! With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only memorial of thee. A tree with scarce a leaf, long grass which whistles in the wind, mark to the hunter's eye the grave of the mighty Morar. Morar! thou art low indeed. | Thou hast no mother to mourn thee; no maid with her tears of love. Dead is she that brought thee forth. Fallen is the daughter of Morglan. Who on his staff is this? who is this, whose head is white with age? whose eyes are red with tears? who quakes at every step? It is thy father, O Morar! the father of no son but thee. He heard of thy fame in war; he heard of foes dispersed; he heard of Morar's renown; why did he not hear of his wound? Weep, thou father of Morar! weep; but thy son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead; low their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice; no more awake at thy call. When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake? Farewell, thou bravest of men! thou conqueror in the field! but the field shall see thee no more; nor the dark wood be lightened with the splendour of thy steel. Thou hast left no son. The song shall preserve thy name. Future times shall hear of thee; they shall hear of the fallen Morar! The grief of all arose, but most the bursting sigh of Armin. He remembers the death of his son, who fell in the days of his youth. Carmor was near the hero, the chief of the echoing Galmal. Why bursts the sigh of Armin, he said? Is there a cause to mourn? The song comes, with its music, to melt and please the soul. It is like soft mist, that, rising from a lake, pours on the silent vale; the green flowers are filled with dew, but the sun returns in his strength, and the mist is gone. Why art thou sad, O Armin! chief of sea-surrounded Gorma? Sad I am! nor small is my cause of wo! Carmor, thou hast lost no son; thou hast lost no daughter of beauty. Colgar the valiant lives; and Annira, fairest maid. The boughs of thy house ascend, O Carmor! but Armin is the last of his race. Dark is thy bed, O Daura! deep thy sleep in the tomb! When shalt thou awake with thy songs with all thy voice of music? Arise, winds of autumn, arise; blow along the heath! streams of the mountains, roar! roar, tempests, in the groves of my oaks! walk through broken clouds, O moon! show thy pale face at intervals! bring to my mind the night when all my children fell; when Arindal the mighty fell; when Daura the lovely failed! Daura, my daughter! thou wert fair; fair as the moon on Fura; white as the driven snow; sweet as the breathing gale. Arindal, thy bow was strong; thy spear was swift in the field; thy look was like mist on the wave; thy shield, a red cloud in a storm. Armar, renowned in war, came, and sought Daura's love. He was not long refused; fair was the hope of their friends! Erath, son of Odgal, repined; his brother had been slain by Armor. He came disguised like a son of the sea; fair was his skiff on the wave; white his locks of age; calm his serious brow. Fairest of women, he said, lovely daughter of Armin! a rock not distant in the sea bears a tree on its side; red shines the fruit afar! There Armor waits for Daura. I come to carry his love! She went; she called on Armar. Nought answered but the son of the rock, Armar, my love! my love! why tormentest thou me with fear? hear, son of Arnart, hear; it is Daura who calleth thee! Erath the traitor fled laughing to the land. She lifted up her voice; she called for her brother and her father. Arindal! Armin! none to relieve your Daura! Her voice came over the sea. Arindal my son descended from the hill; rough in the spoils of the chase. His arrows rattled by his side; his bow was in his hand : five dark gray dogs attend his steps. He saw fierce Erath on the shore; he seized and bound him to an oak. Thick wind the thongs of the hide around his limbs; he loads the wind with his groans. Arindal ascends the deep in his boat, to bring Daura to land. Armar came in his wrath, and let fly the gray-feathered shaft. It sung; it sunk in thy heart, O Arindal, my son! for Erath the traitor thou diedst. The oar is stopped at once; he panted on the rock, and expired. What is thy grief, O Daura! when round thy feet is poured thy brother's blood! The boat is broken in twain. Armar plunges into the sea, to rescue his Daura, or die. Sudden a blast from the hill came over the waves. He sunk, and he rose no more. Alone, on the sea-beat rock, my daughter was heard to complain. Frequent and loud were her cries. What could her father do? All night I stood on the shore. I saw her by the faint beam of the moon. All night I heard her cries. Loud was the wind; the rain beat hard on the hill. Before morning appeared, her voice was weak; it died away like the evening breeze among the grass of the rocks. Spent with grief, she expired; and left thee, Armin, alone. Gone is my strength in war! fallen my pride among women! When the storms aloft arise, when the north lifts the wave on high, I sit by the sounding shore, and look on the fatal rock. Often by the setting moon I see the ghosts of my children. Half-viewless, they walk in mournful conference together. Will none of you speak in pity? They do not regard their father. I am sad, O Carmor! nor small is my cause of wo! Such were the words of the bards in the days of song, when the king heard the music of harps, the tales of other times! The chiefs gathered from all their hills, and heard the lovely sound. They praised the voice of Cona! the first among a thousand bards! But age is now on my tongue; my soul has failed! I hear, at times, the ghosts of bards, and learn their pleasant song. But memory fails on my mind. I hear the call of years! They say, as they pass along, why does Ossian sing? Soon shall he lie in the narrow house, and no bard shall raise his fame! Roll on, ye dark-brown years; ye bring no joy on your course! Let the tomb open to Ossian, for his strength has failed. The sons of song are gone to rest. My voice remains, like a blast that roars, lonely, on a sea-surrounded rock, after the winds are laid. The dark moss whistles there; the distant mariner sees the waving trees! When Macpherson had not the groundwork of Ossian to build upon, he was a very indifferent poet. The following, however, shows that, though his taste was defective, he had poetical fancy :— The Cave. [Written in the Highlands.] The wind is up, the field is bare, Some hermit lead me to his cell, Where Contemplation, lonely fair, With blessed content has chose to dwell. Behold! it opens to my sight, Dark in the rock, beside the flood; Dry fern around obstructs the light; The winds above it move the wood. Reflected in the lake, I see The downward mountains and the skies, The flying bird, the waving tree, The goats that on the hill arise. The gray-cloaked herd* drives on the cow; Curved o'er the ruin of an oak, The woodman lifts his axe on high; Some rural maid, with apron full, Brings fuel to the homely flame; I see the smoky columns roll, And, through the chinky hut, the beam. Beside a stone o'ergrown with moss, A lake at distance spreads to sight, One tree bends o'er the naked walls; As blows the blast along the sky. On grassy bank, two lovers lean; Bend on each other amorous looks, And seem to laugh and kiss between. The wind is rustling in the oak; They seem to hear the tread of feet; They start, they rise, look round the rock; Again they smile, again they meet. But see! the gray mist from the lake Ascends upon the shady hills; Dark storms the murmuring forests shake, Rain beats around a hundred rills. *Neat-herd. To Damon's homely hut I fly; I see it smoking on the plain; From Macpherson's manuscripts at Belleville we copy the following fragment, marked, An Address to Venus, 1785: Thrice blest, and more than thrice, the morn What need is there of other day, Than the twin-stars that light those hills of snow! of age, but both were inferior to the verses of Chatterton at eleven; and his imitations of the antique, executed when he was fifteen and sixteen, exhibit a vigour of thought and facility of versification-to say nothing of their antiquarian character, which puzzled the most learned men of the day-that stamp him a poet of the first class. His education also was miserably deficient; yet when a mere boy, eleven years of age, this obscure youth could write as follows: Almighty Framer of the skies, *Wordsworth. 48 The sun of glory gleamed, the ray And hailed Salvation's morn? To gaudy pomp unknown: Despised, oppressed, the Godhead bears Nor bids his vengeance rise: He saw with Mercy's eyes. romantic imagination. He would also lie down on the meadows in view of St Mary's church, Bristol, fix his eyes upon the ancient edifice, and seem as if he were in a kind of trance. He thus nursed the enthusiasm which destroyed him. Though correct and orderly in his conduct, Chatterton, before he was sixteen, imbibed principles of infidelity, and the idea of suicide was familiar to his mind. It was, however, overruled for a time by his passion for literary fame and distinction. It was a favourite maxim with him, that man is equal to anything, and that everything might be achieved by diligence and abstinence. His alleged discoveries having attracted great attention, the youth stated that he found the manuscripts in his mother's house. 'In the muniment room of St Mary Redcliffe church of Bristol, several chests had been anciently deposited, among which was one called the "Coffre" of Mr Canynge, an eminent merchant of Bristol, who had rebuilt the church in the reign of Edward IV. About the year 1727 those chests had been broken open by an order from proper authority: some ancient deeds had been taken out, and the remaining manuscripts left exposed as of no value. Chatterton's father, whose uncle was sexton of the church, had carried off great numbers of the parchments, and had used them as covers for books in his school. Amidst the residue of his father's ravages, Chatterton gave out that he had found many writings of Mr Canynge, and of Thomas Rowley (the friend of Canynge), a priest of the fifteenth century." These fictitious poems were published in the Town and Country Magazine, to which Chatterton had become a contributor, and occasioned a warm controversy among literary antiquaries. Some of them he had submitted to Horace Walpole, who showed them to Gray and Mason; but these competent judges pronounced them to be forgeries. After three years spent in the attorney's office, Chatterton obtained his release from his apprenticeship, and went to London, where he engaged in various tasks for the booksellers, and wrote for the magazines and newspapers. He obtained an introduction to Beckford, the patriotic and popular lord-mayor, and his own inclinations led him to espouse the opposition party. But no money,' he says, 'is to be got on that side of the question; interest is on the other side. But he is a poor author who cannot write on both sides.' He boasted that his company was courted everywhere, and that he would settle the nation before he had done.' The splendid visions of promotion and consequence, however, soon vanished, and even his labours for the periodical press failed to afford him the means of comfortable subsistence. He applied for the appointment of a surgeon's mate to Africa, but was refused the necessary recommendation. This seems to have been his last hope, and he made no farther effort at literary composition. His spirits had always been unequal, alternately gloomy and elevated-both in extremes; he had cast off the restraints of religion, and had no steady principle to guide him, unless it was a strong affection for his mother and sister, to whom he sent remittances of money, while his means lasted. Habits of intem THOMAS CHATTERTON was born at Bristol, November 20, 1752. His father, who had taught the Free School there, died before his birth, and he was educated at a charity school, where nothing but English, writing, and accounts were taught. His first lessons were said to have been from a blackletter Bible, which may have had some effect on his youthful imagination. At the age of fourteen he was put apprentice to an attorney, where his situation was irksome and uncomfortable, but left him ample time to prosecute his private studies. He was passionately devoted to poetry, antiquities, and heraldry, and ambitious of distinction. His ruling passion, he says, was unconquerable pride.' He now set himself to accomplish his various impositions by pretended discoveries of old manuscripts. In October 1768 the new bridge at Bristol was finished; and Chatterton sent to a newspaper in the town a pretended account of the ceremonies on opening the old bridge, introduced by a letter to the printer, intimating that the description of the friars first passing over the old bridge was taken from an ancient manuscript.' To one man, fond of heraldic honours, he gave a pedigree reaching up to the time of William the Conqueror; to another he presents an ancient poem, the Romaunt of the Cnyghte,' written by one of his ancestors 450 years before; to a religious citizen of Bristol he gives an ancient fragment of a sermon on the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, as wroten by Thomas Rowley, a monk of the fifteenth century; to another, solicitous of obtaining information about Bristol, he makes the valuable present of an account of all the churches of the city, as they appeared three hundred years before, and accompanies it with drawings and descriptions of the castle, the whole pretended to be drawn from writings of the 'gode prieste Thomas Rowley.' Horace Walpole was engaged in writing the History of British Painters, and Chatterton sent him an account of eminent Carvellers and Peync-perance, succeeded by fits of remorse, exasperated ters,' who once flourished in Bristol. These, with various impositions of a similar nature, duped the citizens of Bristol. Chatterton had no confidant in his labours; he toiled in secret, gratified only by 'the stoical pride of talent.' He frequently wrote by moonlight, conceiving that the immediate presence of that luminary added to the inspiration. His Sundays were commonly spent in walking alone into the country about Bristol, and drawing sketches of churches and other objects which had impressed his his constitutional melancholy; and after being re- *Campbell's Specimens. 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 ancient poet, which, vast as these faculties were, were sufficient wholly to engross, though not to overburden them.' 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 A and who bearded the tyrant king on his way to the Her sable tapestry was rent in twain: The meads be sprinkled with the yellow hue, 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, Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet; 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 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 Bawdin.* The feathered songster chanticleer 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 His knights did on him wait; 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 We all must die,' said brave Sir Charles; "Of that I'm not afraid; What boots to live a little space? Thank Jesus, I'm prepared. But tell thy king, for mine he's not, 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, You have been much our friend; Whatever your request may be, 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 Justice does loudly for him call, 'My noble liege!' good Canynge said, And lay the iron rule aside; Be thine the olive rod. Was God to search our hearts and reins, In all this mortal state. Let mercy rule thine infant reign, "Twill fix thy crown full sure; From race to race thy family All sovereigns shall endure: 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, And sat him down upon a stool, And tears began to flow. 'We all must die,' said brave Sir Charles; 'What boots it how or when? Death is the sure, the certain fate, Of all we mortal men. Say why, my friend, thy honest soul Is it for my most welcome doom Saith godly Canynge, 'I do weep, Then dry the tears that out thine eye |