6 but the preludes to those gloomy forebodings which haunted him when a boy. His mother had said, she was often apprehensive of his going mad.' And so, the verdict having been pronounced, he was cast into the burying-ground of Shoe Lane workhouse-the paupers' burying-ground,— 6 the end, as far as his clayey tabernacle was concerned, of all his dreamy greatness. When the ear was deaf to the voice of the charmer he received his meed of posthumous praise. Malone, Croft, Dr. Knox, Wharton, Sherwin, Pye, Mrs. Cowley, Walter Scott, Hayley, Coleridge, Dermody, Wordsworth, Shelley, William Howitt, Keats, who dedicated his Endymion' to the memory of his fellow-genius; the burly Johnson, whose praise seemed unintentional; the gentle and most Christian poet, James Montgomery, have each and all offered tributes to his memory. Robert Southey, whose polished, strong, and long unclouded mind was a treasurehouse of noble thoughts, assisted Mr. Cottle in providing for the poet's family by a collection of his works; and, though last, not least, excellent John Britton has laboured all his long life to render justice to the poor boy's memory. To him, indeed, it was mainly owing, that the cenotaph to which we have referred (and which now lies mouldering in the Church vault), was erected in the graveyard of Redcliffe Church, by subscription, -of which the contributions of Bristol were very small.* Chatterton's Cenotaph. The cenotaph erected to Chatterton, in 1838, from a design by S. C. Fripp, has now been removed; it stood close to the north porch, beside the steps leading into it. One of the Chatterton was another warning, not only that 'Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine-' but that no mortal should ever abandon Hope! For a reverend gentleman, —who was, in all things, what, unhappily, Horace Walpole was not,—had actually visited Bristol, to seek out and aid the boy, while he lay dead in London. 'Beware of desperate steps; the darkest day, The knowledge of these facts cheered us as we set forth to the neighbourhood of Shoe Lane to see the spot where he had been laid. Alas! it is very hard to keep pace with the progress of London changes. After various inquiries we were told that Mr. Bentley's printing-office stands upon the ground of Shoe Lane Workhouse. We ascended the steps leading to this emporium of shifting letters, and found ourselves face to face with a kind gentleman, who told us all he knew upon the subject, which was, that the printing-office stands-not upon the burying-ground of Shoe Lane Workhouse, where he had always understood Chatterton was buried-but upon the church burial-ground. He showed us a very curious basso-relievo, in cut stone, of the Resurrection, which he assured us had been time out of mind' above the entrance to the Shoe Lane burying-place over the way,' and which is now the site of Farringdon Market. This, when all the bones' were moved to the old graveyard in Gray's Inn Road, had come somehow' into Mr. Bentley's possession. We were told also that Mr. Taylor, another printer, had lived, before the workhouse was pulled down, where his office-window looked upon the spot pointed out as the grave of Chatterton, and that a stone, a rough white stone,' was remembered to have been set in a wall' near the grave, with Thomas Chatterton' and something else 'scratched ' into it. 6 We strayed back through the damp chill of the city's evening fog to To the inscriptions, which he directs in his will to be placed on his tomb, has been adopted. 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.' the market-place, hoping, even unconsciously, to stand beside the pit into which the marvellous boy had been thrust; but we grew bewildered. And as we stood upon the steps looking down upon the market—alone in feeling, and unconscious of everything but our own thoughts-St. Paul's bell struck, full, loud, and clear; and, casting our eyes upward, we saw its mighty dome through the murky atmosphere. We became still more mazed,' and fancied we were gazing upon the monument of Thomas Chatterton ! THE BIRTH-PLACE OF RICHARD WILSON. HERE are few things more vexatious than, after enjoying the manifestations of genius, after paying the fervent homage of admiration to the work of some mighty painter or poet, who has drawn us above, or away from, all the troubles of the world, and made us exult in the proud feeling of My countryman did this!'-there are few things more vexatious than the disappointment that arises from the impossibility of collecting information concerning men whose works are almost their only records. They are their works-all else is so confounded with the rubble' of our worldly chaos, that while we render heartfelt reverence to the mind, we know nothing of the man. We usually set forth on a pilgrimage to some English shrine-to seek the dwelling-place, and search out mementos of a British worthy'-with fear and trembling; knowing how little existing inhabitants think or care about the past greatness of those who sighed out their toilsome days and weary nights within walls which anywhere but here-in England-would have been hallowed as sacred temples. It is melancholy to turn over meagre 'biographies' that were unthought of until years after their subjects had been dust. At length friends and acquaintances, half indifferent to, and half forgetful of the past, are questioned. Out of their weak memories and unhearty' testimonies a 'life' is compiled-for lucre, not for love. That which might have been of the rarest value is sent forth a mere skeleton, clothed in shreds and patches, without vitality or strength. Where is it we have read, or where is it we heard this rude couplet ?— 'He who writes not his epitaph before he dies Shall live as long as the cock crows, or the widow cries.' may This our English Claude has certainly done. The memory of one of his delicious landscapes has often changed before our eyes, the bare walls on which we looked into a scene of dewy, airy brightness. One in particular we remember well, a white cow was standing among trees— a perfect phantom of summer beauty. Yet how little, labour as we may, can we know of the life of Richard Wilson. Scraps of it be had now and then-tales, half-fact, half-legend—things to make us weep, or raise a smile. He lived while in London over the north arcade of the Piazza, Covent Garden; in Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square; in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields; at the corner of Foley Place, Great Portland Street; in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road; but, with the solitary exception of the one habitation in Foley Place, the houses are unknown. And he sketched-(how strangely it sounds now!)-he sketched and painted from nature in the fields of Marylebone! To the first exhibition of 1760 held in the great room at Spring Gardens,' he sent his picture of Niobe.' His heart beat high when it was bought by William, Duke of Cumberland; but, as one swallow makes no summer, neither does a solitary sale, even to royalty, create for an artist fame and fortune. The public, who understood a little less about pictures in those days than they do now-the public would have it that Barrett painted better works than Wilson, and a committee of taste' sitting' upon Mr. Wilson's production, sent him a message by a Mr. Penny that 'his manner was not suited to English feeling, and if he hoped for patronage he must change for the lighter style of Zucarelli.' No wonder the crushed, yet proud spirit of a man, conscious of his own power, rebelled at this; that he stormed forth a reply, which converted the committee from sneering friends into open foes. We find the painter refused money by a dealer, because his attic' was |