A very monument of
ignorant
perversity.
Thomas Chatterton - Rowley Poems
1856. _Chatterton: a biography_ by Professor Masson--published
originally in a volume of collected essays; re-published and in
part re-written as an independent volume in 1899. The Professor
reconstructs scenes in which Chatterton played a part; but it is
suggested (with diffidence) that his treatment is too sentimental, and
the boy-poet is Georgy-porgied in a way that would have driven him
out of his senses, if he could have foreseen it. The picture is
fundamentally false.
1857. _An Essay on Chatterton_ by S. R. Maitland, D. D. , F. R. S. , and
F. S. A.
A very monument of ignorant perversity. The writer shamelessly
distorts facts to show that Chatterton was an utterly profligate
blackguard and declares finally that neither Rowley nor Chatterton
wrote the poems.
1869. Professor D. Wilson's _Chatterton: a Biographical Study_, and
1871. Professor W. W. Skeat's _Poetical Works of Thomas Chatterton_ (in
modernized English) of which mention has been made above.
1898. A beautifully printed edition of the Rowley poems with decorated
borders, edited by Robert Steele. (Ballantyne Press. )
1905 and 1909. The works of Chatterton, with the Rowley poems in
modernized English, edited with a brief introduction by Sidney Lee.
1910. _The True Chatterton--a new study from original documents_ by
John H. Ingram.
