No More Learning

Walpole had further some
three years before this time indulged in the very harmless literary
fraud of publishing his _Castle of Otranto_ as a translation from a
mediaeval Italian MS. , only confessing his own authorship upon
the publication of the second edition. To Walpole then Chatterton
addressed a short letter enclosing some verses by John a Iscam and
a manuscript on the _Ryse of Peyncteyning yn Englande wroten by T.
Rowleie 1469 for Mastre Canynge_[5] with the suggestion that it might
be of service to Mr. Walpole 'in any future edition of his truly
entertaining anecdotes of painting. ' This drew from the connoisseur
one of the politest letters[6] that have been written in English, in
which the simple and elegant sentences expressed with a very charming
courtesy the interest and curiosity of its author. He gave his
correspondent 'a thousand thanks'; 'he would not be sorry to print'
(at his private press) 'some of Rowley's poems'; and added--which
reads strangely in the light of what follows--'I would by no means
borrow and detain your MS. ' Now Chatterton's _Peyncteyning yn
Englande_ is the clumsiest fraud of all the Rowley compositions,
with the single exception of a letter from the secular Priest
which exhibits the exact style and language of de Foe's _Robinson
Crusoe_. [7] Professor Skeat has pointed out that the Anglo-Saxon
words, which occur with tolerable frequency in the _Ryse_, begin
almost without exception with the letter _A_, and concludes that
Chatterton had read in an old English glossary, probably Somners,
no farther than _Ah_. Walpole however 'had not the happiness of
understanding the Saxon language,' and it was not until after he had
received a second letter from Chatterton, enclosing more Rowleian
matter both prose and verse, that he consulted his friends Gray
and Mason, who at once detected the forgery. If, as seems certain,
_Elinoure and Juga_ was among the pieces sent, it was inevitable
that Gray should recognize lines 22-25 of that poem as a striking if
unconscious reminiscence of his own _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_.
Now Walpole had some years before introduced Ossian's poems to
the world and his reputation as a critic had suffered when their
authenticity was generally disputed. Accordingly he wrote Chatterton
a stiff letter suggesting that 'when he should have made a fortune he
might unbend himself with the studies consonant to his inclination';
and in this one must suppose that he was actuated by a very natural
irritation at having been duped a second time by an expositor
of antique poetry, rather than by any snobbish contempt for his
correspondent, who had frankly confessed himself an attorney's
apprentice. Chatterton then wrote twice to have his MS. returned,
asserting at the same time his confidence in the authenticity of the
Rowley documents.
Walpole for some reason returned no answer to either
application, but left for Paris, where he stayed six weeks, returning
to find another letter from Chatterton written with considerable
dignity and restraint--a last formal demand to have his manuscript
returned. Whereupon, amazed at the boy's 'singular impertinence,' the
great man snapped up both letters and poems and returned them in a
blank cover--that is to say without a word of apology or explanation.
He might have acted otherwise if he had been a more generous spirit,
but an attempt had been made to impose upon him which had in part
succeeded, and he can hardly be blamed for showing his resentment by
neglecting to return the forgeries. One may notice in passing that
when Chatterton, more than a year later, committed suicide there were
not wanting a great many persons absurd enough to accuse Walpole of
having driven him to his death--a contemptible suggestion. Yet the
connoisseur's credit certainly suffers from the fact that he gave
currency to a false account of the transaction in the hope of
concealing his first credulity. [8]

We now come to the circumstance which procured Chatterton's release
from his irksome apprenticeship--his threat of suicide. He had often
been heard to speak approvingly of suicide, and there is a story,
which has, however, little authority, that once in a company of
friends he drew a pistol from his pocket, put it to his head, and
exclaimed 'Now if one had but the courage to pull the trigger! '
This anecdote--if not in fact true--illustrates very well the gloomy
depression of spirit which alternated with those outbursts of feverish
energy in which his poems were composed. And he had much to make
him miserable when with a change of mood he lost his buoyancy and
confidence of ultimate fame and success. His ambition was boundless
and his audience was as limited in numbers as in understanding. He
was as proud as the poor Spaniard who on a bitter day rejected the
friendly offer of a cloak with the words 'A gentleman does not feel
the cold,' and his pride was continually fretted. He was keenly
conscious of the indignity of his position in Lambert's kitchen; he
seems to have been pressed for money, and though he 'did not owe five
pounds altogether' he probably smarted under the thought that all
his hard work, all the long nights of study and composition in the
moonlight which helped his thought, could not earn him even this
comparatively small sum. Again, he was not restrained from a
contemplation of suicide by any scruples of religion--for he has left
his views expressed in an article written some few days before his
death. He believed in a daemon or conscience which prompted every
man to follow good and avoid evil; but--different men different
daemons--his held self-slaughter justified when life became
intolerable; with him therefore it would be no crime. Wilson suggests
too that the boy who had read theology, orthodox and the reverse, held
to the common eighteenth century view that death was annihilation; and
this may well have been the case. One thing at any rate is certain,
that Chatterton on the 14th of April 1770 left on his desk a number of
pieces of paper filled with a jumble of satiric verse, mocking prose,
and directions for the construction of a mediaeval tomb to cover the
remains of his father and himself.