The Chatterton Classes*

The Death of Chatterton, 1856, by Henry Wallis (Tate Britain, London)

(An obvious play on the term, the 'Chattering Classes', coined by Auberon Waugh and still in general use. It represents the 'liberal elite' or those who dominate the public discourse, dismissively described by Stephen Perrault as, 'those that like to listen to themselves'. It can be contrasted to what President Richard Nixon referred to as, the 'Silent Majority')

The death of young and talented people, before their time, is always tragic. In some instances, the person gains an iconic status and a claim to immortality. This was never more applicable than to the circumstances surrounding the death of the young - he was seventeen years and nine months at the time - 18th Century Bristol poet, Thomas Chatterton.

As so often happens, Chatterton may have lived and died in obscurity, were it not for the intervention of others. What is the value of appreciation or fame when you are dead? It is certainly not worth dying for. It may however hold some consolation for the living, who may take from it some humanising and empathising lessons, that might hopefully contribute to greater understanding and a lessening of human suffering.

There is little doubt that Chatterton's mental and social suffering contributed to his death in 1770. He obtained and consumed arsenic and despite some suggesting this may have been an accidental overdose (arsenic was commonly used to treat venereal disease) there is little doubt it was an intentional act, borne of disappointment and desperation.

He died on the 24th August, 1770 in his garret room at 39 Brooke Street, Holborn, London, and although there are no photographs (obviously) the Wallis painting shown above, for ever cemented the pathos and circumstance, whether factually accurate or not. Note the dome of St Pauls faintly in the distance, and the torn fragments of his papers on the floor. The glass phial that contained the poison, lies on the floor next to his flaccid and lifeless right arm. There is undoubtedly artistic licence and romanticism at play, but it encapsulates as no photograph could, the tragic loss of a young life, with all of its unfulfilled potential. 

As I have said, Chatterton could easily have lived and died unremarked, were it not for the controversy that followed his death and the way in which other individuals, particularly a fraternity of poets, championed his cause and reputation. His unnecessary death at such a young age, largely from want of practical support, touched a raw 18th Century nerve. It was totemic of a much wider issue of poverty which was everywhere. No doubt we can think of many modern examples of crimes and tragedies that have acted as spurs to social and legal reforms.

Shelley's 1821 poem 'Adonais', was dedicated to Keats who had died in Rome from TB aged only 25, some weeks before. The two poets had known one another for five years and had had something of a rocky relationship. However in the course of the poem, which Shelley regarded as one of his best, he imagines other poets coming to greet him, including Chatterton, who had obviously by then achieved a certain status in his mind.

In William Wordsworth's much earlier poem (written 1802; published 1807) 'Resolution and Independence' in which he extols the virtues of poets who died young,  he refers to Chatterton as "the marvellous Boy / The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride".

Earlier still, and only twenty years after his death, Samuel Taylor Coleridge devotes a whole poem to the death of Chatterton, which he keeps revising to 1834. (See full text below)  The second stanza is as follows:

When Want and cold Neglect had chill'd thy soul,
Athirst for Death I see thee drench the bowl!
Thy corpse of many a livid hue
On the bare ground I view,
Whilst various passions all my mind engage;
Now is my breast distended with a sigh,
And now a flash of Rage
Darts through the tear, that glistens in my eye.

It is suggested that Coleridge was only 13 when the idea for the poem entered his head and he started composing it. He was born only two years after Chatterton's death (1772) in Ottery St Mary, the son of the local parson. He with Wordsworth and others, was central to the early 19th Century Romantic Movement. As we have seen there is a strong west country influence, and to some extent Chatterton initiated it. Chatterton's muse and creative genius was embedded in the distant past, but it was this gothic and early English past that inspired much of the literature, art and architecture of the Victorian era. Chatterton may also have contributed to a resurgence of interest in 15th Century Chaucer and his early English prose, which itself he to some extent, emulated.

Chatterton's father died just before his birth in November, 1752, and he was brought up by his widowed mother and aunt in a modest house in the shadow of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, described a couple of centuries before as "The comeliest  Parish Church in all my kingdom." It was this building and its contents - either real or imagined - that was to have a deep and lasting influence on Chatterton and his work. 

Chatterton's father was the school master at the local Pyle Street school which for a while he attended at age five until considered unsuited for whatever reason, when his basic education (the three 'r's') fell to his mother until aged eight, when he entered the Colston's Hospital as a boarder until the age of fourteen where in addition to the basics, he was introduced to historical works, probably a little basic Latin and encouraged to write poetry by one of the masters there, Thomas Phillips, who seems to have taken a liking to him.  Of course the affluent merchant Colston, who endowed the institution, besides other charitable acts, has recently gained notoriety when his statue was pulled down - apropos Saddam Hussein! - and thrown into the harbour, in response to his alleged profiteering from slavery. Much of Bristol's wealth at the time was built on the three way Africa/ West Indies trade - manufactured goods/slaves/sugar and tobacco. 

At fifteen he was apprenticed to a local attorney as a 'Scrivener', effectively copying legal documents. A facsimile of his writing in my possession, shows it to be very clear and accurate, which in an age of much illiteracy, was something of an achievement. By all accounts he was a precocious and self-opinionated child. His sister after his death quoted him as saying, "Paint me an angel, with wings, and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." As a child he was said to be a slow learner but this may only have been indicative of attributes that would today have been diagnosed as autistic, that enabled him to imitate and create both poetry and prose in an archaic style. 

In effect, he created his own language and a romantically influenced view of historic events, either real or legendary, such as the inauguration of the new Bristol Bridge in the 14th or 15th centuries. Amazingly he began to contribute to local journals from the age of eleven. Chatterton’s first known poem was, “On the Last Epiphany,” aping Milton, written when he was 10! Similarly his "Elinoure and Juga," an imaginary 15th Century script, was written before he was 12.  So there is no doubt that from an early age he demonstrated real literary genius, later confirmed.

There is no doubt that Bristol and particularly its historic past and the environs of Redcliffe itself, had an enormous creative influence on the lad. He was outraged when an individual burnt a medieval relic from the church and published a scathing satire on the act. His obsession with the period may have been a reaction to the commercialism of the day. 

He certainly took an ambivalent view of the city of his birth, extolling its past but decrying its present and the evils of the slave trade. It was this and the fact that Bristol was unable to fulfil his literary ambitions, that persuaded him to move to London in the spring of 1770 - what proved to be a fateful decision, for in only a few months he was dead.

Chatterton had strong family connections to St Mary Redcliffe in that his uncle was the verger there, as had been several generations of the family. It was this that enabled him to gain access to the muniments room over the north porch in which were stored numerous parchments relating to the church and its benefactor William Canynges (c. 1399–1474), wealthy merchant, Lord Mayor and three times MP who late in life took holy orders. These under rather dubious circumstances, were removed and stored in the Chatterton attic, and studied by the boy himself. They seem to have provided the inspiration for his later work, which he fraudulent presented as the genuine original. 

Canynges or Canynge burial effigy is prominent in St Mary's Redcliffe and he is acknowledged as the principal benefactor of the church. A good deal of Chatterton's output is centred around this character, but rather akin to Netflix's take on the 'Crown', it is fact inspired fiction. 

For years after Chatterton's death, controversy raged whether the works alleged to be by a 15th Century monk and cleric Thomas Rowley, claimed to have come from the nearby parish of Norton Malreward, were real or not. After a hundred years or so it became generally agreed they were talented frauds of Chatterton's imagination. To get a feel for it, a short abstract is printed below:-

ECLOGUE THE SECOND. 

Sprytes[1] of the bleste, the pious Nygelle sed, 

Poure owte yer pleasaunce[2] onn mie fadres hedde. 

Rycharde of Lyons harte to fyghte is gon, 

Uponne the brede[3] sea doe the banners gleme[4]; 

The amenused[5] nationnes be aston[6], 

To ken[7] syke[8] large a flete, syke fyne, syke breme[9]. 

The barkis heafods[10] coupe[11]the lymed[12] streme; 

Oundes[13] synkeynge oundes upon the hard ake[14] riese; 

The water slughornes[15] wythe a swotye[16] cleme[17] 

Conteke[18] the dynnynge[19] ayre, and reche the skies.  

Sprytes of the bleste, on gouldyn trones[20] astedde[21], 

Poure owte yer pleasaunce onn mie fadres hedde. 

The gule[22] depeyncted[23] oares from the black tyde, 

Decorn[24] wyth fonnes[25] rare, doe shemrynge[26] ryse; 

Upswalynge[27] doe heie[28] shewe ynne drierie pryde, 

Lyche gore-red estells[29] in the eve[30]-merk[31] skyes; 

The nome-depeyncted[32] shields, the speres aryse, 

Alyche[33] talle roshes on the water syde; 

Alenge[34] from bark to bark the bryghte sheene[35] flyes; 

Sweft-kerv'd[36] delyghtes doe on the water glyde.  

Sprites of the bleste, and everich Seyncte ydedde, 

Poure owte youre pleasaunce on mie fadres hedde. 

The Sarasen lokes owte: he doethe feere, 

That Englondes brondeous[37] sonnes do cotte the waie. 

Lyke honted bockes, theye reineth[38] here and there, 

Onknowlachynge[39] inne whatte place to obaie[40] 

The banner glesters on the beme of daie; 

The mittee[41] crosse Jerusalim ys seene; 

Dhereof the fyghte yer corrage doe affraie[42] 

In baleful[43] dole their faces be ywreene.[44]

NOTES TO ECLOGUE THE SECOND. 1. Sprytes, Spirits, souls. 2. pleasaunce, pleasure. 3. brede, broad. 4. gleme, shine, glimmer. 5. amenused, diminished, lessened. 6. aston, astonished, confounded. 7. ken, see, discover, know. 8. syke, such, so. 9. breme, strong. 10. heafods, heads. THOMAS CHATTERTON -40- 11. coupe, cut. 12. lymed, glassy, reflecting. 13. oundes, waves, billows. 14. ake, oak. 15. slughorne, a musical instrument, not unlike a hautboy. 16. swotye, sweet. 17. cleme, sound. 18. conteke, confuse, contend with. 19. dynnynge, sounding. 20. trones, thrones. 21. astedde, seated. 22. gule, red. 23. depeyncted, painted. 24. Decorn, carved. 25. fonnes, devices. 26. shemrynge, glimmering. 27. Upswalynge, rising high, swelling up. 28. heie, they. 29. estells, a corruption of estoile, Fr. a star. 30. eve, evening. 31. merk, dark. 32. nome-depeyncted, rebus'd shields; a herald term, when the charge of the shield implies the name of the bearer. 33. alyche, like. 34. alenge, along. 35. sheene, shine. 36. sweft-kerv'd, short-lived. 37. brondeous, furious. 38. reineth, runneth. 39. Onknowlachynge, not knowing. 40. obaie, abide. 41. mittee, mighty. 42. affraie, affright. 43. balefull, woeful. 44. ywreene, covered

For full text see: https://www.exclassics.com/rowley/rowley.pdf

Chatterton's extraordinary talent at emulating poetry in the guise of early English, is here demonstrated. Maybe he even persuaded himself it was genuine. That he was convinced of his own genius in producing it is undoubted. This was a young man not yet eighteen witnessing aghast his own creative talent, believing it would in time be recognised and bring him fame and fortune, which indeed it deserved. 

However his attempts to impress and ingratiate himself with those with money and status largely failed. In the year preceding his death, he sent his work to Horace Walpole (1717 – 1797) man of letters and youngest son of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert, who at the second attempt decided they were talented forgeries and rejected them.  Had Chatterton honestly admitted they were his alone, he might have been more successful.

Chatterton escaped the confines of his Bristol indenture to his employer John Lambert  by writing a 'last will and testament' intimating his imminent death, thus revealing such possibilities were already on his mind but no one is quite sure whether his final demise was intentional or accidental. Arsenic was clearly involved but at the time this was also medicinal, principally for venereal diseases, from which he was probably suffering, given his lothariotic reputation and the prevalence of infection generally. The Wikipedia entry relates an event that if true, throws light on his state of mind at the time, as follows: 

"In August 1770, while walking in St Pancras Churchyard, Chatterton was much absorbed in thought, and did not notice a newly dug open grave in his path, and subsequently tumbled into it. On observing this event, his walking companion helped Chatterton out of the grave, and told him in a jocular manner that he was happy in assisting at the resurrection of genius. Chatterton replied, "My dear friend, I have been at war with the grave for some time now."

He was discovered dead with the empty arsenic vessel on the floor, surrounded by torn manuscript fragments. The scene might suggest a disturbed and distressed mind, in which optimism had given way to despair. There is a lack of clarity over his burial with some reports suggesting he was returned to his beloved St Mary Redcliffe. 

His death spurred much soul searching and recriminations for a society that failed to appreciate his talent. It also infused a generation of poets with a sense of tragedy and inspired what has become known as the 'Romantic Period', an emotional response to the dry and intellectual 'Enlightenment', a phase that had its corollary in both France and Germany, embedded in poetry, prose, music and art.

It is perhaps surprising the extent to which the South West and its poets were instrumental in this chapter of cultural evolution. An edited version of the Rowley verses was published by Thomas Tyrwhitt only seven years after his death in 1777. Other editions followed before the century ended. Controversy continued as to the authorship and authenticity for some time.

All the well known poets of the age appear to be influenced by Chatterton and his tragic death.

William Blake (1757 – 1827) something of a mystic was like Chatterton only regarded after his death but nevertheless a pivotal figure in the Romantic Movement, not least for his nationalistic hymn, 'Jerusalem'. It has been pointed out that a significant amount of his verse was either inspired by or directly attributed to Chatterton's work, and both by Milton and Spencer before them. (See: https://bq.blakearchive.org/11.1.gleckner )

John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet from Northamptonshire who briefly won fame and acclaim in the 1820's as the novel 'Peasant Poet'. He also in some ways was made mad by poverty and the demands it placed on his family, spending the last twenty four years of his life committed to the Northampton Asylum. Chatterton was obviously an influence on him, including a fear of plagiarism and a wariness of fame. He wrote, "As great as the unfortunate Chattertons were, on his first entrance into London, which is now pictured in my Mind--& undoubtedly like him I may be building 'Castles in the Air' but Time will prove it..." (See: http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/3921/1/186099_3775%20Goodridge%20PostPrint.pdf )

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) who was the son of the parson in Ottery St Mary, Devon, is the first to extol the author's literary virtues in his "Monady on the Death of Chatterton", composed in 1790 and rewritten throughout his lifetime.  

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) born the year of Chatterton's death in Cumbria, obtaining a BA from Cambridge, refers to him in 'Resolution and Independence' from 1802 published five years later.

Robert Southey (1774 – 1843) an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death, who with Joseph Cottle published Chatterton's works in 1803 for the benefit of his sister. Southey was born in Wine Street, Bristol and educated at Westminster and Oxford. 

William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language. When he was twenty he met Coleridge and Wordsworth at Nether Stowey, Somerset, and was impressed by both. Undoubtedly Chatterton's demise would have never been far from their minds.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 8 July 1822) a scion of West Sussex and Eton commemorated Chatterton's genius in his 1821 poem devoted to Keats.

John Keats' (1795 – 1821) born in Moorgate, London, wrote a sonnet "To Chatterton" and also inscribed his poem Endymion "to the memory of Thomas Chatterton".

Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (1828 – 1882) commemorates Chatterton in "Five English Poets".

I could of course list more, but beyond individuals, Chatterton gained a sort of iconic status for the generality of the population, encapsulating the horrors of poverty and the cruel tragedy of unrecognised and unrewarded genius.

It is now just over two hundred and fifty years since Thomas Chatterton died by his own hand in an Holborn garret. He is probably remembered, if at all, more for the tragic circumstance of his death, than for the considerable literary outpourings from his unique brain. 

He died, largely unappreciated in London, but it is to Bristol, at the time the second most important commercial centre in the country, to which he owed his inspiration and foibles, but it was an ambivalent relationship. Everything he had learned and achieved was Bristol based, yet he despised its obsession with commerce, it's dirt and squalor, its failure to appreciate the finer arts. In addition he no doubt  resented his exclusion from higher society, although with the assistance of the noted Hannah More and certain others, he was making inroads into it when he left. If he had been less impetuous of gaining fame in the metropolis, he might have achieved it with greater certainty. 

He knew his talent but must also have been plagued by the knowledge of the fraud that under scored it. In the bleak reality of his circumstances, he found refuge and escape in a romantic and chivalric medievalism. Despite less than eighteen years on the earth, his influence, though not necessarily overt, was profound, influencing the writers, poets and the spirit of the age that followed on. A reappraisal of nature and the emotions through the arts, had a humanising and civilizing effect on society, revealing itself in the Victorian era's - notwithstanding all its faults - urge to fight injustice and other social evils, shaping the country we know today. END.

Following from:  https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Monody_on_the_Death_of_

Chatterton_(1790)

Cold penury repress'd his noble rage,
And froze the genial current of his soul.

Now prompts the Muse poetic lays,
And high my bosom beats with love of Praise!
But, Chatterton! methinks I hear thy name,
For cold my Fancy grows, and dead each Hope of Fame.

When Want and cold Neglect had chill'd thy soul,
Athirst for Death I see thee drench the bowl!
Thy corpse of many a livid hue
On the bare ground I view,
Whilst various passions all my mind engage;
Now is my breast distended with a sigh,
And now a flash of Rage
Darts through the tear, that glistens in my eye.

Is this the land of liberal Hearts!
Is this the land, where Genius ne'er in vain
Pour'd forth her soul-enchanting strain?
Ah me! yet Butler 'gainst the bigot foe
Well-skill'd to aim keen Humour's dart,
Yet Butler felt Want's poignant sting;
And Otway, Master of the Tragic art,
Whom Pity's self had taught to sing,
Sank beneath a load of Woe;
This ever can the generous Briton hear,
And starts not in his eye th' indignant Tear?

Elate of Heart and confident of Fame,
From vales where Avon sports, the Minstrel came,
Gay as the Poet hastes along
He meditates the future song,
How Ælla battled with his country's foes,
And whilst Fancy in the air
Paints him many a vision fair
His eyes dance rapture and his bosom glows.
With generous joy he views th' ideal gold:
He listens to many a Widow's prayers,
And many an Orphan's thanks he hears;
He soothes to peace the care-worn breast,
He bids the Debtor's eyes know rest,
And Liberty and Bliss behold:
And now he punishes the heart of steel,
And her own iron rod he makes Oppression feel.

Fated to heave sad Disappointment's sigh,
To feel the Hope now rais'd, and now deprest,
To feel the burnings of an injur'd breast,
From all thy Fate's deep sorrow keen
In vain, O Youth, I turn th' affrighted eye;
For powerful Fancy evernigh
The hateful picture forces on my sight.
There, Death of every dear delight,
Frowns Poverty of Giant mien!
In vain I seek the charms of youthful grace,
Thy sunken eye, thy haggard cheeks it shews,
The quick emotions struggling in the Face
Faint index of thy mental Throes,
When each strong Passion spurn'd controll,
And not a Friend was nigh to calm thy stormy soul.

Such was the sad and gloomy hour
When anguish'd Care of sullen brow
Prepared the Poison's death-cold power.
Already to thy lips was rais'd the bowl,
When filial Pity stood thee by,
Thy fixéd eyes she bade thee roll
On scenes that well might melt thy soul—
Thy native cot she held to view,
Thy native cot, where Peace ere long
Had listen'd to thy evening song;
Thy sister's shrieks she bade thee hear,
And mark thy mother's thrilling tear,
She made thee feel her deep-drawn sigh,
And all her silent agony of Woe.

And from thy Fate shall such distress ensue?
Ah! dash the poison'd chalice from thy hand!
And thou had'st dash'd it at her soft command;
But that Despair and Indignation rose,
And told again the story of thy Woes,
Told the keen insult of th' unfeeling Heart,
The dread dependence on the low-born mind,
Told every Woe, for which thy breast might smart,
Neglect and grinning scorn and Want combin'd—
Recoiling back, thou sent'st the friend of Pain
To roll a tide of Death thro' every freezing vein.

O Spirit blest!
Whether th' eternal Throne around,
Amidst the blaze of Cherubim,
Thou pourest forth the grateful hymn,
Or, soaring through the blest Domain,
Enraptur'st Angels with thy strain,—
Grant me, like thee, the lyre to sound,
Like thee, with fire divine to glow—
But ah! when rage the Waves of Woe,
Grant me with firmer breast t'oppose their hate,
And soar beyond the storms with upright eye elate!