The Rowley Poems by Thomas Chatterton
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page 15 of 413 (03%)
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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 |
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