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And Edinburgh was heard to sing
"Now Heaven be prais'd for such a king."
All join'd in joy and expectation,
And union echoed thro' the nation.
A council call'd-

EXTRACT FROM KEW GARDENS.

[From a manuscript of Chatterton in the possession of Dr. Halifax.]

How commendable this, to turn at once

To good account the vintner and the dunce;
And by a very hocus pocus hit

Dispose of damag'd claret and bad wit.

Regard thy interest, ever love thy-self;
Rise into notice as you rise in pelf:
The Muses have no credit here, and fame
Confines itself to the mercantile name;
Then clip imagination's wing, be wise,
And, great in wealth, to real greatness rise:
Or, if you must persist to sing and dream,
Let only panegyric be your theme;
With pulpit adulation tickle Cutts,
And wreath with ivy garlands, tavern butts:
Find sentiment in Dampier's empty look;
Genius in Collins; harmony in Rooke:
Swear Broderip's horrid noise the tuneful spheres;
And rescue Pindar from the songs of Shears.
Would you still further raise the fairy ground,
Praise Broughton for his eloquence profound,
His generosity, his sentiment,

Search through the ragged tribe that drink small His active fancy, and his thoughts on Lent.

beer,

And sweetly echo in his worship's ear,
What are the wages of the tuneful Nine?

What are their pleasures when compared to mine?
Happy I eat, and tell my numerous pence,
Free from the servitude of rhyme and sense.
Tho' sing-song Whitehead ushers-in the year,
With joy to Britain's king and sovereign dear;
And, in compliance with an ancient mode,
Measures his syllables into an ode:
Yet such the scurvy merit of his Muse,

He bows to deans, and licks his lordship's shoes,
Then leave the wicked barren way of rhyme,
Fly far from poverty, be wise in time;
Regard the office more, Parnassus less;
Put your religion in a decent dress:

Then may your interest in the town advance,
Above the reach of Muses or romance.
Beside the town, a sober, honest town,
Which smiles on virtue, and gives vice a frown,
Bids censure brand with infamy your name,
I, even I, must think you are to blame.
Is there a street within this spacious place,
That boasts the happiness of one fair face,
Where conversation does not turn on you,
Blaming your wild amours, your morals too?
Oaths, sacred and tremendous oaths, you swear,
Oaths that might shock a Luttrell's soul to hear:
Those very oaths, as if a thing of joke,
Made to betray, intended to be broke;
Whilst the too tender and believing maid
Remembers pretty ** is betray'd.

Then your religion, Ah! beware! beware!
Altho' a deist is no monster here,

Yet bide your tenets, priests are pow'rful foes,
And priesthood fetters Justice by the nose.
Think not the merit of a jingling song
Can countenance the author's acting wrong.
Reform your manners, and with solemn air
Hear Ct bray, and Rs squeak in prayer.
R, a reverend cully-mully puff,
Who thinks all serinons but his own are stuff;
When harping on the dull unmeaning text,
By disquisitions he's so sore perplext,
He stammers, instantaneously is drawn
A border'd piece of inspiration lawn;
Which being thrice unto his nose apply'd,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now we hear the jumping doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.
Honour the scarlet robe, and let the quill
Be silent when old Isaac eats biş fill.

Make North or Chatham canonize his grace;
And beg a pension, or procure a place.”

Damn'd narrow notions! notions which disgrace
The boasted reason of the human race.
Bristol may keep her prudent maxims still:
I scorn her prudence, and I ever will.
Since all my vices magnified are here,
He cannot paint me worse than I appear,
When, raving in the lunacy of ink,

I catch the pen and publish what I think'.

FRAGMENT.

[Transcribed from a MS. in Chatterton's hand-
writing.]

INTREST, thou universal God of men,
Wait on the couplet and reprove the pen:
If aught unwelcome to thy ears shall rise,
Hold jails and famine to the poet's eyes,
Bid satire sheath her sharp avenging steel,
And lose a number rather than a meal.
Nay, prithee, Honour, do not make us mad,
When I am hungry something must be had:
Can honest consciousness of doing right
Provide a dinner or a bed at night?
What tho' Astrea decks my soul in gold,
My mortal lumber trembles with the cold,
Then, curst tormentor of my peace, be gone
Flattery's a cloak, and I will put it on.

In a low cottage shaking with the wind,
A door in front, a span of light behind,
Tervono's lungs their mystic play began,
And Nature in the infant mark'd the man,

'The general sense of this extract seems to intimate that it consists of the supposed advice of some friend of Chatterton, who concludes his speech with apostrophes ("); when Chatterton represents himself as replying.

Every effort has been made to obtain the remainder of this poem, but without success. The last possessor who can be traced was the late Dr. Lort. His excutor, Dr. Halifax, has obligingly communicated the preceding fragment, but the remainder of the poem never came into his possession. Many lines in the Extract from Kew Gardens will appear in the Whore of Babylon, but differently arranged.

Six times the youth of morn, the golden Sun,
Thro' the twelve stages of his course had run,
Tervono rose, the merchant of the plain,
His soul was traffic, his elysium gain;
The ragged chapman found his word a law,
And lost in barter every fav'rite taw.

Thio' various scenes Tervono still ascends,
And still is making, still forgetting friends:
Full of this maxim, often heard in trade,
Friendship with none but equals should be made.
His soul is all the merchant. None can find
The shadow of a virtue in his mind,
Nor are his vices reason misapplied;
Mean as his spirit, sneaking as his pride.
At city dinner, or a turtle feast,
As expeditious as a hungry priest;
No foe to Bacchanalian brutal rites,
In vile confusion dozing off the nights.
Tervono would be flatter'd; shall I then
In stigmatizing satire shake the pen?
Muse, for his brow, the laurel wreath prepare,
Tho' soon 'twill wither when 'tis planted there.
Come panegyric: adulation haste,

And sing this wonder of mercantile taste;
And whilst his virtue rises in my lines,
The patron's happy, and the poet dines.
Some, philosophically cas'd in steel,
Can neither poverty or hunger feel;
But that is not my case: the Muses know
What water-gruel stuff from Phoebus flow.
Then if the rage of satire seize my brain,
May none but brother poets meet the strain:
May bulky aldermen nor vicars rise,
Hung in terrorem to their brother's eyes,
When lost in trance by gospel or by law,
In to their inward room the senses draw,
There as they snoar in consultation deep,
Are by the vulgar reckon'd fast asleep.

ELEGY,

WRITTEN AT STANTON-DREW.

[Transcribed from a MS. in Chatterton's
writing.]

JOYLESS I hail the solemn gloom,
Joyless I view the pillars vast and rude,
Where erst the fool of superstition trod,
In smoking blood imbrued,
And rising from the tomb,
Mistaken homage to an unknowu God.

Fancy whither dost thou stray,
Whither dost thou wing thy way,
Check the rising wild delight,
Ah! what avails this awful sight
MARIA is no more!

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[Transcribed from a MS. in Chatterton's hand-
writing.]

FAR from the reach of critics and reviews,
Brush up thy pinions and ascend, my Muse;
Of conversation sing an ample theme,
And drink the tea of Heliconian stream.
Hail, matchless linguist! prating Delia, bail!
When scandal's best materials hackney'd fail,
Thy quick invention lends a quick supply,
And all thy talk is one continued lie.
Know, thou eternal babbler, that my song
Could show a line as venom'd as thy tongue.
In pity to thy sex I cease to write

Of London journeys and the marriage-night.
The conversation which in taverns ring
Descends below my satire's soaring sting:
Upon his elbow throne great Maro sits,
Revered at Forster's by the would-be-wits;
Delib'rately the studied jest he breaks,
And long and loud the polish'd table shakes,
Retail'd in every brothel-house in town,
Each dancing booby vends it as his own:
Upon the empty'd jelly-glass reclin❜d,
The laughing Maro gathers up his wind;
hand- The tail-bud 'prentice rubs his hands and grins,
Ready to laugh before the tale begins:
To talk of freedom, politics, and Butes,
And knotty arguments in law confutes,

I leave to blockheads, for such things design'd,

Be it my task divine to ease the mind.

"To morrow" says a church-of-England priest, "Is of good St. Epiphany the feast.

It nothing matters whether he or she,
But be all servants from their labour free."
The laugh begins with Maro, and goes round,
And the dry jest is very witty found;

In every corner of the room are seen
Round altars covered with eternal green,

Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind, Piled high with offerings to the goddess Fame,

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Which mortals, chronicles and journals name;
Where in strange jumble flesh and spirit lie,
And illustration sees a jest-book nigh:
Anti-venereal med'cine cheek-by-joul
With Whitfield's famous physic for the soul;
The patriot Wilkes's ever-fam'd Essay,
With Bute and justice in the self-same lay;
Which of the two deserved (ye casuists tell)
The conflagrations of a hangman's hell?

The clock strikes eight; the taper dully shines;
Farewell my Muse, nor think of further lines:
Nine leaves, and in two hours, or something odd,
Shut up the book; it is enough by G―d.

3

28th Oct.

Sage Gloster's bishop sits supine between
His fiery floggers, and a cure for spleen;
The son of flame, enthusiastic law,
Displays his bigot blade, and thunders draw,
Unconscious of his neighbours, some vile plays
Directing-posts to Beelzebub's highways;
Fools are philosophers in Jones's line,
And, bound in gold and scarlet, Dodsleys shine;
These are the various offerings fame requires,
For ever rising to her shrines in spires;
Hence all Avaro's politics are drain'd,
And Evelina's general scandal's gain'd.
Where Satan's temple rears its lofty head,
And muddy torrents wash their shrinking bed;
Where the stupendous sons of commerce meet
Sometimes to scold indeed, but oft to eat;
Where frugal Cambria all her poultry gives,
And where th' insatiate Messalina lives,
A mighty fabric opens to the sight;
With four large columns, five large windows dight;
With four small portals, 'tis with much ado
A common-council lady can pass through:
Here, Hare first teaches supple limbs to bend,
And faults of nature never fails to mend.
Here conversation takes a nobler flight,
For nature leads the theme, and all is right;
The little god of love improves discourse,
And sage discretion finds his thunder hoarse;
About the flame the gilded trifles play,
Till, lost in forge unknown, they melt away,
And, cherishing the passion in the mind,
Their each idea's brighten'd and refin'd.

Ye painted guardians of the lovely fair,

Who spread the saffron bloom, and tinge the hair;
Whose deep invention first found out the art

Of making rapture glow in every part;

Of wounding by each varied attitude,

Sure 'twas a thought divinity endued.

ELEGY

ON THE DEATH OF MR. PHILLIPS 1.

Corrected from the old edition, by a MS. in Chat-
terton's hand-writing.]

ASSIST me, powers of Heaven! what do I hear?
Surprise and horrour check the burning tear.
Is Phillips dead, and is my friend no more!
Gone like the sand divested from the shore !
And is he gone?-Can then the Nine refuse
To sing with gratitude a favour'd Muse.

ELEGY.

No more I hail the morning's golden gleam,
No more the wonders of the view I sing;
Friendship requires a melancholy theme,
At her command the awful lyre I string.

1 After the Elegy to Thomas Phillips had been printed (page 453) a more correct copy came into the possession of the editor (through the medium of T. Hill, esq.) in the hand-writing of Chatterton. As this latter Elegy contained seven or eight new stanzas, besides many verbal alterations, instead of cancelling the old, it was deemed proper to let it remain, and to print the corrected copy also, by which the reader will be pleased in Fracing Chatterton's various emendations,

Now as I wander thro this leafless grove,
Where tempests howl, and blasts eternal rise;
How shall I teach the chorded shell to move,
Or stay the gushing torrent from my eyes?
Phillips! great master of the boundless lyre,
Thee would my soul-rack'd Muse attempt to paint;
Give me a double portion of thy fire,

Or all the powers of language are too faint.

Say, soul unsullied by the filth of vice,
Say, meek-ey'd spirit, where's thy tuneful shell,
Which when the silver stream was lock'd with ice,
Was wont to cheer the tempest-ravag'd deil ?

Oft as the filmy veil of evening drew
The thick'ning shade upon the vivid green;
Thou, lost in transport, at the dying view,
Bid'st the ascending Muse display the scene.

When golden Autumn wreath'd in rip'ned corn,
From purple clusters prest the foamy wine,
Thy genius did his sallow brows adorn,
And made the beauties of the season thine.
With rustling sound the yellow foliage flies,
And wantons with the wind in rapid whirls,
The gurgling riv'let to the valleys hies,
Whilst on its bank the spangled serpent curls.
The joyous charms of Spring delighted saw
Their beautics doubly glaring in thy lay;
Nothing was spring which Phillips did not draw,
And every image of his Muse was May.

So rose the regal hyacinthal star,
So shone the verdure of the daisied bed,
So seemed the forest glimmering from a-far;
You saw the real prospect as you read.

Majestic Summer's blooming flow'ry pride,
Next claim'd the honour of his nervous song;
He taught the stream in hollow trills to glide,
And led the glories of the year along.

Pale rugged Winter bending o'er his tread,
His grizzled hair bedropt with icy dew;
His robe, a tinge of bright etherial blue.
His eyes, a dusky light congeal'd and dead

His train a motley'd sanguine sable cloud,
He limps along the russet dreary moor,
Whilst rising whirlwinds, blasting keen and lou1,
Roll the white surges to the sounding shore.
Nor were his pleasures unimproved by thee;
Pleasures he has, tho' horridly deform'd;
The polished lake, the silver'd hill we see,
Is by thy genius fir'd, preserv'd and warm'd.

The rough October has his pleasures too;
But I'm insensible to every joy:

yew,

Farewell the laurel! now I
grasp the
And all my little powers in grief employ.

Immortal shadow of my much-lov'd friend
Cloth'd in thy native virtue meet my son',
When on the fatal bed, my passions bend,
And curb my floods of anguish as they roll.
In thee each virtue found a pleasing cell,
Thy mind was honour and thy soul divine;
With thee did every god of genius dwell
Thou wast the Helicon of all the Nine.

Fancy, whose various figure-tinctur'd vest
Was ever changing to a different hue;
Her head with varied bays and flowrets drest,
Her eyes two spangles of the morning dew.

With dancing attitude she swept thy string;
And now she soars, and now again descends;
And now reclining on the Zephyr's wing,
Unto the velvet-vested mead she bends.

Peace, deckt in all the softness of the dove,
Over thy passions spread her silver plume;
The rosy veil of harmony and love,
Hung on thy soul in one eternal bloom.

Peace, gentlest, softest of the virtues, spread
Her silver pinions, wet with dewy tears,
Upon her best distinguish'd poet's head,
And taught his lyre the music of the spheres.
Temp'rance, with health and beauty in her train
And massy-muscled strength in graceful pride,
Pointed at scarlet luxury and pain,
And did at every frugal feast preside.

Black melancholy stealing to the shade,
With raging madness, frantic loud and dire,
Whose bloody band displays the reeking blade,
Were strangers to thy heaven-directed lyre.
Content, who smiles in every frown of fate,
Wreath'd thy pacific brow and sooth'd thy ill;
In thy own virtues and thy genius great,
The happy Muse laid every trouble still.

But see the sickening lamp of day retires,
And the meek evening shakes the dusky grey;
The west faint glimmers with the saffron fires,
And like thy life, O Phillips! flies away.
Here, stretch'd upon this Heaven-ascending hill,
I'll wait the horrours of the coming night,
I'll imitate the gently-plaintive rill;
And by the glare of lambient vapours write.

"Wet with the dew the yellow hawthorns bow;
The rustic whistles thro' the echoing cave;
Far o'er the lea the breathing cattle low,
And the full Avon lifts the darken'd wave.
Now as the mantle of the evening swells
Upon my mind, I feel a thick'ning gloom;
Ah could I charm by necromantic spells,
The soul of Phillips, from the deathy tomb!

Then would we wander thro' this darken'd vale;
In converse such as heavenly spirits use,
And, borne upon the pinions of the gale,
Hymn the Creator, and exert the Muse.

But, horrour to reflection! now no more,
Will Phillips sing, the wonder of the plain!
When, doubting whether they might not adore,
Admiring mortals heard his nervous strain.

See! see! the pitchy vapour hides the lawn,
Nought but a doleful bell of death is heard,
Save where into a blasted oak withdrawn
The scream proclaims the curst nocturnal bird.

2 Note on this verse by Chatterton," Expunged as too flowery for grief."

Now rest, my Muse, but only rest to weep,
A friend made dear by every sacred tie;
Unknown to me be comfort, peace, or sleep:
Phillips is dead! 'tis pleasure then to die.

Few are the pleasures Chatterton e'er knew,
Short were the moments of his transient peace;
But melancholy robb'd him of those few,
And this hath bid all future comfort cease.

And can the Muse be silent, Phillips gone!
And am I still alive? My soul, arise!
The robe of immortality put on,
Aud meet thy Phillips in his native skies.

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HERVENIS, harping on the hackney'd text1,
By disquisitions is so sore perplex'd,
He stammers, instantaneously is drawn,
A border'd piece of inspiration lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose apply'd,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now again we hear the doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before;
I own at church I very seldom pray,
For vicars, strangers to devotion, bray.
Sermons, tho' flowing from the sacred lawn,
Are flimsy wires from reason's ingot drawn;
And to confess the truth, another cause
My every prayer and adoration draws;
In all the glaring tinctures of the bow,
The ladies front me in celestial row;
(Tho' when black melancholy damps my joys,
I call them Nature's trifles, airy toys;
Yet when the goddess Reason guides the strain,
I think them, what they are, a heavenly train;}
The amorous rolling, the black sparkling eye,
The gentle hazle, and the optic sly;
The easy shape, the panting semi-globes,

The frankness which each latent charm disrobes;
The melting passions, and the sweet severe,
The easy amble, the majestic air;
The tap'ring waste, the silver-mantled arms,
All is one vast variety of charms.
Say, who but sages stretch'd beyond their span
Italian singers, or an unman'd man,
Can see Elysium spread upon their brow,
And to a drousy curate's sermon bow.
If (but 'tis seldom) no fair female face
Attracts my notice by some glowing grace,

These lines occur in the Extract from Kev Gardens, p. 477.

Around the monuments I cast my eyes,
And see absurdities and nonsense rise.
Here rueful-visag'd angels seem to tell
With weeping eyes, a soul is gone to Hell;
There a child's head supported by duck's wings,
With toothless mouth a hallelujah sings:
In fun'ral-pile eternal marble burns,

And a good Christian seems to sleep in urns..
A self-drawn curtain bids the reader see
An honorable Welchman's pedigree;
A ruck of porph'ry darkens half the place,
And virtues blubber with no awkward grace;
Yet, strange to tell, in all the dreary gloom
That makes the sacred honours of the tomb,
No quarter'd coats above the bel appear,
No batter'd arms, or golden corsets there.

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481

AIR.

Sighing, Dying, Lying, Frying,

In the furnace of desire;
Creeping,
Sleeping,

Oh! how slow the hours retire!
When the busy heart is beating,
When the bosom's all on fire,
Oh! how welcome is the meeting!
Oh! how slow the hours retire!

RECITATIVE.

But see my fury comes; by Styx I tremble:
I'll creep aside'tis folly to dissemble.

SCENE II.

JUNO, JUPITER.

JUNO.
RECITATIVE.

In spite of his thunder,
See, see, my good man steals aside!

I make him knock under,
And own the superior right of a bride.

AIR.

How happy the life

Of a governing wife,

How charming, how easy, the swift minutes pass;

Let her do what she will,

The husband is still,

And but for his horns you would think him an ass.

How happy the spouse

In his dignify'd brows;

How worthy with heroes and monarchs to class:
Both above and below,
Experience will show,

But take off the horns, and each husband's an ass.

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