a more dignified or sentimental style, he mounted the fatal and easily recognised car of the son of Fingal. Thus, in an account of St Marie Magdalene's chapelle, after informing us it "was ybuilden bie Elle, warden of the castle near Elle-gate, Sythina clessen, New-gate-yn this chapelle was ysworne a treatye betweene Goddwynne Erle or Abthane of Kent, Harold eftsoons Kynge of England," etc. etc.; he of a sudden thus changes his tone in commemorating his favourite Elle Elle, descended from the kyngelie bloude of Mercyans, raged in the fyghte like a wilde boare in the woode; drearie as a blacke cloude yn ungentle wedder he sweept whole rankes to helle. Lyke to the castle of Bryghstowe was his mind gentle and meeke," etc. etc. Again, in a very sober narrative of the "Ryse of Peyncteyne in Englande," written by Rowley for his friend Cannynge, after a sort of matter of fact account of various artists, we come to one called Aflem, a notable perfourmer of the counynge mysterie of steineynge glass. This person was taken by the Danes, and ordered to be slain. The Dane to whom the execution was intrusted, discovered Aflem to be his brother. At this crisis, Rowley tucks up his monkish frock, and mounts the Celtic Pegasus." Affrighte chaynede uppe hys soule; ghastnesse dwelled yn his breaste. Oscarre," (a name of some import, as proving the existing idea in the mind of the author)Oscarre, the great Dane, gave histe he should be forslagen; no teares colde availe; the morning, cladde in robes of ghastnesse, was come," etc. etc. An instance of a curious mistake committed by Chatterton, occurs in these excerpts from the Pseudo-Rowley prose writings. In a MS. in Chatterton's handwriting, in the Museum, there occur several excerpts from Chaucer, apparently culled to bolster out some intended imitations. Among others we find the two lines respecting the mormal on the leg of the pilgrim's cook.

"But great harm was yt, as it thought me,

That on his skinne a mormall had he."

Skinne is here mis-copied for shin. This mistake, and another more whimsical, we can trace into the Rolle of Seyncte Bartholemeweis Priorie, printed in Barret's History of Bristol, to whom it was communicated by Chatterton. Among a list of medical books, said to be preserved in the Infirmary, or Ache-chamber of the Priorie, we find "Gylbertines rolle of Ypocrates: the same fryarres booke of brenninge Johan Stowe of the cure of mormalles and the waterie leprosie: the rolle of the blacke mainger." In a note on these two last articles, we are told, "Chaucer says, on his skin a mormalle had he and a blacke manger." Now, in the first place, Chatterton adhering to his erroneous transcript from Chaucer, of skinne for shinne, has made Johan Stowe lecture on the cure of mormalles, as if they were, like the leprosy, a cutaneous distemper, and not a can

as to take blanc-manger, a dish of exquisite cookery, which is pronounced by Chaucer to be the cook's masterpiece of skill, for blacke manger, some strange and nondescript disease, under which he laboured in addition to his mormal; and upon which there was a roll or essay in the Ache-chamber of St Bartholomew's priory. Chaucer's words are "

"But gret harme was it, as it thoughte me,

That on his shinne a mormal hadde he,
For blanc-manger that made he with the best."

พ

The principal ingredient of blanc-manger (if we recollect) was a cock brayed in a mortar, The resemblance of the letters n and u in the black-letter, probably led Chatterton to read blaue for blanc; and as he understood no French, his judgment could not correct his eye. We are thus able decidedly to trace the taste and the errors of Chatterton into the productions of Rowley. We do not, however, suppose that all the information contained in the works of Rowley was actually the invention of Chatterton. The keen eye and ardent research of the young poet, probably traced and interweaved with his narrative traditionary anecdotes preserved in his native city. Nothing that had an antique or uncouth appearance seems to have escaped his notice. Mr Tyrwhitt detected a curious instance of his minuteness of remark. In the Ballad of Charité, mention is made of a horse-millanere, a phrase at which the reader has usually paused with surprise. In the town of Bristol, and precisely in the street through which Chatterton passed to school, is hung forth a wooden horse decorated with ribbons, purposing to be the sign o a horsemillanere.

Nothing can afford a stronger picture of the force and weakness of the human mind, than the readiness with which Chatterton supplied himself and his particular friends with flourishing trees of genealogy, in which the sextons and pewterers of Bristol are deduced from a line of ancestry, which Howards and Hastings might envy, and decorated with all the splendid emblazonment of heraldry. We are mute with astonishment at the grave and sober advice of the sexton's son of Radcliffe to his relation Mr Stevens of Salisbury: "When you quarter your arms, in the mullet, say Or, a fess, vert, by the name of Chatterton. I trace your family from Fitz-Stephen, son of Stephen, Earl of Aumerle in 1095, son of Od, Earl of Bloys, and Lord of Holdernesse." If the imagination of Chatterton was not actually so far vitiated, as in some degree to believe the reveries which he imposed upon others, we cannot help thinking that as Johnson says of Milton, his impudence must have been at least equal to his stupendous abilities. We were also diverted with the conclusion of the pedigree made out for Mr Burgum of Bristol, which begins with the Conqueror, and very prudently concludes about the reign of

VI.

9

Charles II., when Mr Burgum might perhaps know something of his ancestors. Chatterton linked and gilded this splendid chain of ancestry through all the ages remote enough to leave unbounded scope for fiction when he approached the regions of probability, he let the end loose, that his friend might attach himself to it the best way he could. There is in Cumberland an ancient family, who have long possessed and taken their name from the manor of Brougham, to which Chatterton seems to allude, when he mentions the Castle of Bourgham in Northumberland. But the castle was, we believe, an appanage, not of the De Bourghams, lords of the manor, but of the Veteriponts and Cliffords.

We now dismiss the works of the unfortunate Chatterton, heartily wishing they may experience from the public kinder treatment than their unfortunate and proud-spirited author. To the admirers of poetry they will ever be acceptable; nor can their history be heedfully perused, without imparting an awful lesson; for the fame of Chatterton is not merely a light to be wondered at-it shines as a beacon to point out the shoals upon which he was wrecked. The youthful reader, if conscious of powers which elevate him above his situation in life, may learn to avoid an overweening reliance upon his abilities, or an injudicious and unfair exertion of them. He may learn, that if neglect or contempt obstruct him in the fair pursuit of fame, it is better to prefer obscurity, than to attain, by the crooked path of literary forgery, the ambiguous reputation of an ingenious impostor. Above all, he may learn to guard against those sallies of an illregulated imagination, which buoyed up Chatterton with the most unreasonable expectations, only to plunge him into despair and suicide. And if there be one who, conscious of inferior mental powers, murmurs at being allotted but "the single talent," and looks with envy on the flights of superior genius, let him read the life of Chatterton, and remember of him it may be truly said—

"Largus et exundans letho dedit ingenii fons."

["Chatterton, as appears by the Coroner's Inquest, swallowed arsenic in water, on the 24th of August, 1770, and died the next day. He was buried in a shell, in the buryingground of Shoe-lane workhouse. Whatever unfinished pieces he might have, he cautionsly destroyed before his death; and his room, when broken open, was found covered with little scraps of paper."-Life by Gregory, p. 71.]

[From the Quarterly Review for 1809. Reliques of Robert Burns. Collected by R. H. CROMEK. 1808.]

WE opened a book bearing so interesting a title with no little anxiety. Literary reliques vary in species and value almost as much as those of the Catholic or of the antiquary. Some deserve a golden shrine for their intrinsic merit, some are valued from the pleasing recollections and associations with which they are combined, some, reflecting little honour upon their unfortunate author, are dragged by interested editors from merited obscurity. The character of Burns, on which we may perhaps hazard some remarks in the course of this article, was such as to increase our apprehensions. The extravagance of genius with which this wonderful man was gifted, being in his later and more evil days directed to no fixed or general purpose, was, in the morbid state of his health and feelings, apt to display itself in hasty sallies of virulent and unmerited severity: sallies often regretted by the bard himself; and of which justice to the living and to the dead, alike demanded the suppression. Neither was this anxiety lessened, when we recollected the pious care with which the late excellent Dr Currie had performed the task of editing the works of. Burns. His selection was limited, as much by respect to the fame of the living, as of the dead. He dragged from obscurity none of those satirical effusions, which ought to be as ephemeral as the transient offences which called them forth. He excluded every thing approaching to licence, whether in morals or in religion, and thus rendered his collection such, as doubtless Burns himself, in his moments of sober reflection, would have most highly approved. Yet applauding, as we do most highly applaud, the leading principles of Dr Currie's selection, we are aware that they sometimes led him into fastidious and over-delicate rejection of the bard's most spirited and happy effusions. A thin octavo published at Glasgow in 1801, under the title of" Poems ascribed to Robert Burns the Ayrshire bard," furnishes valuable proofs of this assertion. It contains, among a good deal of rubbish, some of his most brilliant poetry. A cantata in particular, called "The Jolly Beggars," for humorous description and nice dis

the whole range of English poetry. The scene indeed is laid in the very lowest department of low life, the actors being a set of strolling vagrants, met to carouse, and barter their rags and plunder for liquor in a hedge ale-house. Yet even in describing the movements of such a group, the native taste of the poet has never suffered his pen to slide into any thing coarse or disgusting. The extravagant glee and outrageous frolic of the beggars are ridiculously contrasted with their maimed limbs, rags, and crutches-the sordid and squalid circumstances of their appearance are judiciously thrown into the shade. Nor is the art of the poet less conspicuous in the individual figures, than in the general mass. The festive vagrants are distinguished from each other by personal appearance and character, as much as any fortuitous assembly in the higher orders of life. The group, it must be observed, is of Scottish character, and doubtless our northern brethren are more familiar with its varieties than we are; yet the distinctions are too well marked to escape even the South'ron. The most prominent persons are a maimed soldier and his female companion, a hackneyed follower of the camp, a stroller, late the consort of an Highland ketterer or sturdy beggar," but weary fa'the waefu' woodie!"-Being now at liberty, she becomes an object of rivalry between a "pigmy scraper with his fiddle" and a strolling tinker. The latter, a desperate bandit, like most of his profession, terrifies the musician out of the field, and is preferred by the damsel of course. A wandering ballad-singer, with a brace of doxies, is last introduced upon the stage. Each of these mendicants sings a song in character, and such a collection of humorous lyrics, connected by vivid poetical description, is not, perhaps, to be paralleled in the English language. As the collection and the poem are very little known in England, and as it is certainly apposite to the Reliques of Robert Burns, we venture to transcribe the concluding ditty, chaunted by the balladsinger at the request of the company, whose "mirth and fun have now grown fast and furious," and set them above all sublunary terrors of jails, stocks, and whipping posts. It is certainly far superior to any thing in the "Beggars' Opera," where alone we could expect to find its parallel.

"Then ou're again, the jovial thrang

The poet did request,

To loose his pack an' wale a sang,

A ballad o' the best:

He rising, rejoicing

Between his twa Deborahs,

Looks round him, an' found them
Impatient for the chorus.

AIR.

See! the smoking bowl before us,
Mark our jovial ragged ring!

Round and round take up the chorus,