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under the care and from the design of John Britton, the antiquary, who, so much to his honour, long zealously exerted himself to rescue Chatterton's memory from apparent neglect in his native city. The man who can gaze on this monument; can contemplate the boyish figure and face of the juvenile poet; can glance from this quarter, where he was born in poverty, to that old porch, where he planned the scheme of his fame; and can call to mind what he was, and what he did, without the profoundest sensations of wonder and regret, may safely pass It is, in my through life without fear of an astonishment. opinion, one of the most affecting objects in Great Britain. How much, then, is that feeling of sympathy and regret augmented when you approach, and upon the monument read the very words written by the inspired boy himself for his supposed monument, and inserted in his "will."

"TO THE MEMORY OF

"THOMAS CHATTERTON.

"Reader, judge not: if thou art a Christian-believe that

he shall be judged by a Superior Power;-to that Power alone
is he now answerable."

One of the spots in Bristol which we should visit with the intensest interest connected with the history of Chatterton, would be the office of Lambert the attorney, where he wrote the finest of his poems attributed to Rowley. The first office of this person was on St. John's Steps, but he left this during Chatterton's abode with him; and, ceasing to be an office, it does not now seem to be exactly known in which house it was. From this place he removed to the house now occupied by Mr. Short, silversmith, in Cornhill, opposite to the Exchange; and here Chatterton probably wrote the greater portion of Rowley's poems. Another favourite haunt of Chatterton's, Redcliffe meadow, is now no longer a meadow, but is built all over; so rapidly has about seventy years eradicated the footsteps of the poet in his native place. There are two objects, however, which from their public character remain, and are likely to remain, unchanged; and around which the recollections of Chatterton and his singular history will for ever vividly cling—these are, Colston's school and the church of St. Mary's.

The school in Pyle-street, where he was sent at five years of age, and which his father had taught, I believe no longer exists. The school on St. Augustine's Back exists, and is likely to exist. It is one of those endowments founded by the great merchants of England, which, if they had been preserved from the harpy and perverting fingers of trustees, would now suffice to educate the whole nation. This school, founded at a comparatively recent date, and in the midst of an active city like Bristol, seems to be well administered. There you find an ample schoolroom, dining hall, chapel, and spacious bed-rooms; all kept in most clean and healthy order; a hundred boys, in their long blue full-skirted coats, and scarlet stockings, exactly as they were in the days of Chatterton. You may look on them and realize to yourself precisely how Chatterton and his schoolfellows looked when he was busy there devouring books of history, poetry, and antiquities, and planning the Burgum pedigree, and the like. Take any fair boy, of a similar age, let him be one of the oldest and most attractive,-for, says his biographer, "there was a stateliness and a manly bearing in Chatterton, beyond what might have been expected from his years." "He had a proud air,” says Mrs. Edkins, and, according to the general evidence, he was as remarkable for the prematurity of his person, as he was for that of his intellect and imagination. His mien and manner were exceedingly prepossessing; his eyes were grey, but piercingly brilliant; and when he was animated in conversation, or excited by any passing event, the fire flashed and rolled in the lower part of the orbs in a wonderful and almost fearful way. Mr. Calcott characterized Chatterton's eye "as a kind of hawk's eye, and thought we could see his soul through it." As with Byron, "one eye was more remarkable than the other; and its lightning-like flashes had something about them supernaturally grand." Take some fine, cleverlooking lad then, from the crowd, and you will find such, and you will feel the strangest astonishment in imagining such a boy appearing before the grave citizen Burgum, with his pedigree, and within a few years afterwards, acting so daring and yet so glorious a part before the whole world.

To the admirers of genius, and the sympathizers with the

strange fate of Chatterton, a visit to this school must always be a peculiar gratification; and under the improved management of improved times, and that of a zealous committee, and so excellent a master as the present one, Mr. Wilson, that gratification will be perfect. All is so airy, fresh, and cheerful; there is such a spirit of order evinced even in the careful rolling up of their Sunday suits, with their broad silver-plated belt clasps, each arranged in its proper place, on shelves in the clothes room, under every boy's own number; and yet without that order degenerating into severity, but the contrary,—that you cannot help feeling the grand beneficence of those wealthy merchants who, like Edward Colston, make their riches do their generous will for ever; who become thereby the actual fathers of their native cities to all generations; who roll in every year of the world's progress some huge stone of anxiety from the hearts of poor widows; who clear the way before the unfriended but active and worthy lad; who put forth their invisible hands from the heaven of their rest, and become the genuine guardian angels of the orphan race for ever and ever; raising from those who would otherwise have been outcasts and ignorant labourers, aspiring and useful men, tradesmen of substance, merchants the true enrichers of their country, and fathers of happy families. How glorious is such lot! how noble is such an appropriation of wealth how enviable is such a fame! And amongst such men there were few more truly admirable than Edward Colston. He was worthy to have been lifted by Chatterton to the side of the magnificent Canynge, and one cannot help wondering that he says so little about this great benefactor of his city.

Edward Colston was not merely the founder of this school for the clothing, maintaining, and apprenticing of one hundred boys, at a charge of about 40,000l., but he also founded another school in Temple-street, to clothe and maintain forty boys, at a cost of 3,000l.; and he left 8,500l. for an almshouse for twelve men and twelve women, with 6s. per week to the chief brother, and 38. per week to the rest, with coals, &c.; 600l. for the maintenance of six sailors in the Merchants' Almshouse; 1,500%. to clothe, maintain, instruct, and apprentice six boys; 2001. to the Mint Workhouse; 500l. to rebuild the Boys' Hospital; 2007.

to put out poor children; 1,200l. to be given in 1007. a year, for twelve years, to apprentice the boys with, 10. each for his school; 1,230l. to beautify different churches in the city; 2,500l. to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London; and 2,000l. to Christ Church School, in London; 500l. to St. Thomas's Hospital; 500l. to Bethlehem Hospital; 2007. to New Workhouse in Bishopsgate Without; 3007. to the Society for Propagating the Gospel; 900l. for educating and clothing twelve poor boys and twelve girls, at 457. yearly, at Mortlake in Surrey; to build and endow an almshouse at Sheen in Surrey, sum not stated; 6,000l. to augment poor livings; besides various other sums for charitable purposes. All this property did this noble man thus bestow on the needs of his poorer brethren, without forgetting, as is often the case on great occasions, those of his own blood relatives, to whom he bequeathed the princely sum of 100,000. But, like an able and wise merchant, he did not merely bequeath these munificent funds, but "he performed all these charitable works in his lifetime; invested revenues for their support in trustees' hands; lived to see the trusts justly executed, as they are at this day; and saw with his own eyes. the good effects of all his establishments." Great, too, as were these bequests, they were not the result of hoarding during a long penurious life, as is often the case, to leave a boastful name at his death; his whole life was like the latter end of it. True, he did not marry, and when urged to it, used to reply with a sort of pleasantness, "Every helpless widow is my wife, and her distressed orphans my children." "He was a most successful merchant," says Barrett, in his History of Bristol, "and never insured a ship, and never lost one." He lived first in Small-street, Bristol, but having so much business in London, and being chosen to represent the city, he removed thither, and afterwards lived, as he advanced in years, a very retired life, at Mortlake, in Surrey. His daily existence was one of the noblest acts of christian benevolence; and his private donations were not less than his public. He sent at one time 3,000l. to relieve and free debtors in Ludgate, by a private hand; freed yearly those confined for small debts in Whitechapel prison, and the Marshalsea; sent 1,000l. to relieve distress

in Whitechapel; twice a week distributed beef and broth to all the poor around him; and were any sailor suffering or cast away, in his employ, his family afterwards found a sure asylum in him."

Why did not Chatterton, who by the splendid provision of this man received his education and advance into life, resound the praises of Edward Colston as loudly as he did those of William Canynge? There is no doubt that it was because time had not sufficiently clothed with its poetic hues the latter merchant, as it had the former. Canynge, too, as the builder of Redcliffe church, was to him an object of profound admiration. This church is the most lively monument of the memory of Chatterton. His mother is said to have lived on Redcliffe-hill, nearly opposite to the upper gate of this church, at the corner of Colston's parade; this must have been when he was apprentice at Lambert's, and also probably before, while he was at Colston's school. The houses standing there now, however, are too large and good for a woman in her circumstances to have occupied; and it is, therefore, probable that this abode of his, too, must have been pulled down. We turn, then, to the church itself, as the sole building of his resort, next to Colston's school, which remains as he used to see it. A noble and spacious church it is, as we have stated, of the lightest and most beautiful architecture. The graceful, lofty columns and pointed arches of its aisles; the richly groined roof; and the fine extent of the view from cast to west, being no less than 197 feet, and the height of the middle cross aisle, 54 feet, with a proportionate breadth from north to south, fills you, on entering, with a feeling of the highest admiration and pleasure. What does not a little surprise you, is to find in the church, where the great painted altar-piece used to hang, now as large a painting of the Ascension, with two side pieces; one representing the stone being rolled away from the sepulchre of our Saviour, and the other, the three Marys come to visit the empty tomb; and those by no other artist than-Hogarth! The curiosity of such a fact makes these paintings a matter of intense interest; and if we cannot place them on a par with such things from the hands of the old masters, we must allow that they are full of talent, and wonderful for a man whose ordinary walk was extremely different.

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