Let me mention one circumftance which ftrikes me here, after which I maintain it to be impoffible that a fingle individual should doubt, for a fingle moment, whether Eila, &c. were all written by a poor fexton's fon, before he was (I may fay) feventeen---After Chatterton left Bristol we fee but one more of Rowley's poems, "The ballad of Charitie:" And that a very fhort one. What was the reafon of this? Had C. given to the world all the contents of Canynge's cheft? Certainly not--for he is known to have spoken of other MS, both at Bristol and in town; and you have feen him write to his mother, that, had "Rowley been a Londoner, inftead of a Bri ftowyan, he could live by copying his "works." Is it likely that a lad, poffeft of a cheft full of fuch poems (fome of which he fold for trifles to a pewterer, before he wanted money or knew its value), fhould, when in real diftrefs, and when he could have lived by only copying them, part with none of them, offer not one of them to any bookseller? Ridiculous! Impoffible! This was the very moment to produce them. In my own mind I am perfuaded that, had poems in an old cheft, the idea of forging others, as like them as he could, would now C. really found the have have ftruck him. But, in truth, Canynge's old cheft was only his own, fruitful invention. At Bristol, undisturbed by the cares, or the. pleasures of the world, his genius had nothing to do but to indulge itself in creating Rowley and his works. In London, was to be learnt, that which even Genius cannot teach, the knowledge of life---Extemporaneous bread was to be earned more fuddenly than eyen Chatterton could write poems for Rowley and, in confequence of his employments, as he tells his mother, public places were to be vifited, and mankind to be frequented. He who fabricated fuch poems, in the calm and quiet of Bristol, must have been almost more than man. Had C. produced them to the world as faft, amidst the avocations, the allurements, the miferies of his London life, I would immediately become a convert to Rowley. At prefent, if I fall down and worship Rowley, it can only be as the golden image which Chatterton has fet up. The ballad of Charity, the laft of Rowley's poems, in addition to the internal proofs that it was a compofition of the day, carries melancholy conviction to the mind, that it was the compofition of Chatterton. The note, which, the editor of Rowley's poems tells us, accom panied this paftoral to the printer, is dated "Bristol, July 4, 1770." Now, in what month is the scene laid? In virgyne the fweltrie fun gan fheene, And hotte upon the meads did cast his ray. If C. had this by him all 1769, is it not odd that this should be the only poem he did not fhow Catcott? Is it not fingular he should not produce it till July 1770? Till the very month in which it was originally written? Look in his glomed face, his sprite there scan, Is charity and love among high elves; Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves. This feems too plainly defigned for a sketch of himself, and of the coldness with which he conceived he had been treated; especially as "the Memoirs of a Sad Dog" appeared in the Town and Country Magazines for July and Auguft 1770: wherein C. ridicules Mr. Walpole with fome humour, under the title of Baron Otranto. And, more especially, as in a * note There is a very remarkable paffage in this ridicule. "Should any critic affert it is impoffible fuch an imagina"tion" note of his own, upon the fourth word in the ftanza (glommed), he writes thus "clouded, dejected. A person of some note in the lite❝rary world, is of opinion that glum and glom are modern “cant words; and from this circumstance doubts the au"thenticity of Rowley's MSS. Glum-mong, in the Saxon, fignifies twilight, a dark and dubious light; and the "modern word gloomy is derived from the Saxon glum.”, rr -Again, the confidence with which he speaks of Rowley's merit, now that he is more convinced of his own abilities than he was when he carried the productions of them to Catcott ." An excelent balade of Charitie." Can't you fee his indignation penning the note to the printer? I can. "If the Gloffary annexed "to the following piece will make the lan guage intelligible; the fentiment, defcription, “and versification are highly deferving the atten"tion of the literati." Had it been thought to "tion" (that by the charms of Robin Hood's Ramble he was carried back to the age of his favourite hero, Richard the Third)" could enter the cerebellum of the Baron, who « confines all his ideas within the narrow limits of propriety (for the fongs of Robin Hood were not in being "till the reign of Elizabeth)-His affertion shall stand "uncontradicted by me, as I know," fays C. in the character of Harry Wildfire, "by woeful experience, that, "when an author refolves to think himself in the right, it "is more than human argument can do to convince him be " is in the wrong.' T deserve the attention of the magazine, it might poffibly have made its way to the literati, and the author might have been snatched from the fangs of fuicide by the hand of Fame. But, although the note is dated July 4, no fuch poem appears in the magazine for that month, nor for any other. Yet, furely, Rowley's "ballad of Charitie" could not have difgraced the chafte records of an immortal magazine of 1770, more than Rowley's « Elinoure and "Juga" in 1769! Addison faid, he would put his friend Sir Roger de Coverley to death, lest any one fhould murder him. Is it poffible that C. fhould have determined to murder himself, because the Town and Country Magazine doubted the exiftence of his friend Rowley? In turning over their volume for 1770, I thought I had found room for fome fuch fufpicion, when I met with the following paffage among the acknowledgements to correfpondents———— "The Paftoral from Briftol, figned D. D." (which I conclude to be an error of the prefs for D.B.-efpecially, as no other acknowledgment is made for Chatterton's Paftoral) "has "fome share of merit; but the author will, " doubtless, difcover, upon another perufal of "it, many exceptionable paffages." However, on looking again, I saw this was prefixed to |