Chatterton

by Peter Ackroyd

  In those far-off Dayes, I would put on my brown cloth coat, and my round hat, and wander into the Fields in the hope of finding hidden Tumuli or inscriptions upon Stones. I would lie down upon the cropped grass, or lean against a tree, and look with wonder upon the Church which so dominated the fields and alleys beside it. There,’ I would say to myself, ‘there is the spot where the lightning hit the steeple – and there is the place where they formerly acted Playes. On the west side, there, the old monks blessed the well on the feast-day of St Mary – and there it may be that my Father used to sit on an evening, when he was tired of Singing.’ And all these things came together, so that I fell into a kind of Ecstacy.

  About this time I was put into a Dame-school, where I was taught how to calculate the price of Corn and other such Bristolian necessities (for there is no Love except for Lucre in that Jakes, that Privy, that Burial-Ground for Merchants and for Whores), and after that I advanc’d to Colston’s School in Redcliffe Street. There is nothing so sordid or so obstinate as the Schoolboy, and it was all I could do to restrain my immoderate Laughter when my companions prattled on about their Brothers and their Sisters, their Parents and their Pet-mice, their Ball-games and their Writing-lessons. They called me Tom Chanticleer, or Chanty, because of my red hair; but they never guess’d the Names by which I knew them. They also called me Tom-all-Alone because of my solitariness: but I was not alone, since I had as many Companions as I required in my Books. My Father had purchased a hundred dusty Volumes, and these I would take from their Shelves (scattering the Mice) with as much Reverence as if they had been written in his own Hand: I read heraldry, English antiquities, metaphysical disquisitions, mathematicall researches, music, astronomy, physic and the like. But nothing enthralled me so much as Historicall works, and indeed I could not learn so much at Colston’s as I could at home: I had not books enough at School but in my Closet I studdied Speight’s Chaucer and Camden’s Britannica, Percy’s Reliques and Miss Elizabeth Cooper’s Muses Library; then I was at Peace, because my Father’s world had also become like to mine.

  I never stopp’d my reading but yet there came a time when I chang’d it, and this on the winter Morning when my Mother showed me an old manuscript in French with illuminated capitals and all its antique Finery preserv’d. Tom,’ she said, Tommy, look at this musty Parchment lodged in one of your father’s Singing-books. The colouring is very pretty for such an old thing, do you think? Shall we sell it, and turn this paper into Fire-wood?’

  I was amazed, for the manuscript was perfect of its kind. ‘You have found a treasure,’ I said, hugging her, ‘which may kindle more than a winter’s fire. Nothing can be like it!’ And I put my fingers across the intense golds and greens of its Capitals, which glowed like a Tapestry or like a Field of Flowers.

  ‘Oh,’ says she, surprised by my Enthusiasm. ‘No doubt there is plenty more such Stuff in the Church. Your poor Father used to tell me of it.’

  ‘My dear Dame and Relict,’ said I, thus making her laugh despite herself, ‘do give me an exact Description of the place or I will surely die.’

  ‘Well, well, Tom, you are too young to die yet. I must save you.’ And then she set herself to thinking where my father had found the Parchment: ‘Was it in the Vestry? No, not there, not with old Mr Crowe in attendance with his dirty Snuff… was it in the Tower, no, too high for him… was it, no… I have it, Tom, it was in the locked room above the north Porch, where there was talk of Bats and such like. All the old Coffers and Cabinets are there.’

  I hugged her again. ‘Mother,’ said I, ‘you are worth a thousand Vestal Virgins!’ (For I had lately been reading Mudie’s History of Rome.)

  ‘I hope I may be modest, Tom,’ she replied, ‘but I am no Virgin, unless there is to be another Age of Miracles.’

  ‘I will perform a Miracle,’ I said. ‘I will bring the Past to light again.’

  And at once I set off across the path to find Mr Crowe, the verger of St Mary Redcliffe, an old and rambling party who never could leave off his Snuffing and his Sniffling. ‘Mr Crowe,’ I said when finally I found him in the Vestry, brooding over his sadly arranged Accounts, ‘may I trouble you for the key to the little room above the north Porch?’

  He knew me well, and knew me in every respect to be my Father’s son. There is nothing there but Dust and old Ragged things, Tom,’ says he. ‘Nothing for a Boy.’

  ‘My Father found Parchments there,’ I replied. ‘I came to find some others of a like kind.’

  ‘Oh there are Papers.’ He sneezed and wiped his Nose with his Sleeve, as was his Custom. ‘But they are Tattered and Rotten ones. They are no use except as Thread-papers or as Fools’ Caps for Boys such as you.’ He laughed, and gave a little Sniff.

  ‘Venerable Mr Crowe,’ I began, and he laughed again. ‘If I am a Fool then pray humour my Folly. For they say that a Man out of his Wits is close to being Wise.’

  ‘Thomas Chatterton,’ said he, ‘you have an old Head on young Shoulders.’

  Then old Papers are mine by Right of Primogeniture.’

  He gave me a Look and then smil’d. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘it is true that the church has no further use for them.’ So he led me, by way of the winding stair beside the north Porch, to the old Muniment Room; he unlock’d the thick wooden door and then left me with great Despatch, the Cold entering his Bones (or so he thought).

  It is said that there comes an Instant when any Man may see his whole Fate stretching in front of him, as it were in a Vision, and so imagine my own Astonishment and Joy when I saw within the bare stone Chamber two wooden Chests. I hasten’d to open them, and there all higgledy-piggledy were old Papers, Parchments, Accounts and Bills which were thrown together like so many Leaves fallen after a Hurricanoe. With much delicacy and gentleness did I hold them up, the Parchments seeming to burn my Hands so great was my Delight in them; some were inscrib’d in Latin or in French, while others had numbers scrawled across them as if they might be Church Accounts or Tables of Interest. But there were some Fragments that I could easily make out to be in the English tongue (although curiously writ) and, leaving the other Papers in the Chests for the moment, took these away with me homewards. With trembling Fingers I laid them out in my Closet and, tho’ much decay’d and composed in the native Gothick of that time, I could read them pritty easily: in truth there was not much to decipher, being the peeces of Words or sentences only, but it was enough; my Imagination was all on Fire, and I began to transcribe them in my own Hand. Here were such phrases as ‘Sendes owte his greetings’, ‘ye have gyvyn me a grete charge’, ‘the nombres therewythalle’ and it seemed even then that the Dead were speaking to me, face to face; and when I wrote out their words, coppying the very spelling of the Originals, it was as if I had become one of those Dead and could speak with them also. I was brought to such a Pitch that, when I left off transcribing, I found that I could continue in my own right; there was a pritty little Sentence, viz ‘And so they toke him by every parte of the body’, to which I then added, ‘and bare hym into a chambir and leyde him a rych bedde’. The very words had been called forth from me, with as much Ease as if I were writing in the Language of my own Age. Schoolboy tho’ I was, it was even at this time that I decided to shore up these ancient Fragments with my own Genius: thus the Living and the Dead were to be reunited. From that very moment, I ceased to be a meer Boy.

  And so I, Thomas Chatterton, at the age of Twelve, began my own Great Ledger of the Past. My first task was to give myself as good a Lineage as any Gentleman in Bristol, and this I did by combining my own knowledge of Heraldic devices with a document which, as I put it, was ‘just newly found in St Mary Redcliffe and writ in the language of auntient Dayes’. All this issued from me so freely that I could not bridle my bursting Invention, and speedily I composed Trew Histories of Bristol and of the Church itself. My Method was as follows: I had already around me, in Volumes taken from my Father’s shelves or purchas’d from the Booksellers, Charters and Monuments and such like Stuff; to
these I added my Readings from Ricat, Stow, Speed, Holinshed, Leland and many another purveyour of Antiquity. If I took a passage from each, be it ever so short, I found that in Unison they became quite a new Account and, as it were, Chatterton’s Account. Then I introduc’d my own speculations in physic, drama, and philosophy, all of them cunningly changed by the ancient Hand and Spelling I had learn’d; but conceeved by me with such Intensity that they became more real than the Age in which I walked. I reproduc’d the Past and filled it with such Details that it was as if I were observing it in front of me: so the Language of ancient Dayes awoke the Reality itself for, tho’ I knew that it was I who composed these Histories, I knew also that they were true ones.

  But it was not enough for me to Write. The cunning citizens of Bristol calculate only by outward Show and so, to confound and to outwit them, I learned how to give my own Papers the semblance of Antiquity. Into my Closet I smuggl’d a pounce bag of Charcole, a great stick of yellow ochre and a bottle of black lead powder, with which Materials I could fabricate an appearance of great Age as closely as if my new invented Papers were the very ones from the Chests of St Mary Redcliffe. I would rub the ochre and lead across the Parchments and sometimes, to antiquate my Writings still further, I would drag them through the Dust or hold them above a Candle – which process not only quite chang’d the colour of the Inke but blackened and contracted the Parchment itself. I was a willing Student but, at first, there was more madness than method in my labours; and my Mother, hearing sundry Groans and Curses coming from my Chamber on the first Day that ever I tried them, entered and found me in a clowd of Charcole. I was so cover’d in ochre and in lead that she threw up her hands, saying ‘Lord, Tom, do you colour yourself to join the Gypsies?’

  ‘Worthy Mother of a worthy son, I am a strolling Player and this Chamber is my Theatre.’

  She sniffed the Air. This musty Stuff is no play. Pugh! I blame Mr Crowe for it!’

  ‘Dear relict and bounteous Dame of Bristol,’ said I, ‘you are too curious and sharp-nosed for your poor Son. I wish you would go out of my Room – it is my Room.’ But, seeing that she was somewhat offended by this, I went on hastily, This musty stuff, as you put it, will make our Fortune. I have stumbled upon, with the help of the venerable Crowe, I admit it, I have stumbled upon true Narrations of our fair City and several famous Anecdotes of our leading Families.’ (So great was my Faith in my own Skill that I concealed the Truth even from her.) There will be many paunchy Citizens who will pay and pay again for these Memorials of their illustrious Ancestors.’ And then I went on, embroidering upon this fair Trick and goodly Device even as I conceived it, ‘It will delight our sweet Gentry at the same time as it will satisfy our Purse.’

  Now my Mother, whose mouth was so open that she could catch summer-bugs even as she talk’d, was not long in spreading this News throughout the Town, viz that her dear and learned Son had found withinne the Church some old Papers which would be of as much value as interest, as she put it, to the amiable Citizens of Bristol. And pritty soon I was able to offer proof of this when I fabricated various Memorials to Master Baker, Master Catcott, Mistress Higgins, and what not, proclaiming the Virtues of their Bristolian forebears. And when they ask’d, ‘how met you with this?’, I replied, This is authentick evidence, found in an old Parchment Roll and discover’d in the Chests of St Mary Redcliffe. You may ask the Verger, Mr Crowe, who directed me thither.’ And so fervent was their Hope, so froward their Belief, that they sprang from illustrious Stock, and not from the Sows and Whores which they resembled, that their Minds were soon put at Ease by this.

  So I was not short of Coins to jangle in my Pocket, even tho’ my own Tune was to be quite a different one. Poetry was my device. I invented my self as a monk of the fifteenth century, Thomas Rowley; I dressed him in Raggs, I made him Blind and then I made him Sing. I compos’d Elegies and Epicks, Ballads and Songs, Lyricks and Acrosticks, all of them in that curious contriv’d Style which speedily became the very Token of my own Feelings; for, as I wrote in Rowley’s hand, ‘Syke yn the Weal of Kynde’, which is as much to say, ‘All things are partes of One.’ I put it in another sense with the following: Now Rowlie ynne these mokie Dayes Sendes owte hys shynynge Lyghte And Turgotus and Chaucer live Inne every line hee wrytes.

  Thus do we see in every Line an Echoe, for the truest Plagiarism is the truest Poetry.

  These ancient Verses I then despatch’d to various of the Journals, both in London and in Bristol, with the same Postscriptum appended: ‘This Poem wrote by Thomas Rowlie, Priest, which I have discover’d in the Muniment Room of the Church of St Mary Redcliffe; I send the whole as Specimen of the Poetry of those Dayes, being greatly superior to what we have been taught to beleeve’. And so Antiquity, like the blind Prophet led by a Boy, was given over to my Care. I sold my Verses to the Booksellers also and, tho’ I met with some Success in London, for the most part the fame of Thomas Rowlie was bruited through Bristol – and that to such an extent that the Trade in my Work was very brisk. There was one Bookseller who suspected the Truth, viz that these were Verses of my own Devising; this was Sam. Joynson, a young Man lately gone into the Trade, who had lent me Books and Pamphlets before Rowlie was ever created. He knew what a bright Spark I was, and what a Soul I had for Learning, but at this time he said nothing and he purchas’d my Verse without so much as a remote Allusion to its Origin. You may ask, why did you not stand forth as the true Author and thus proclaim your own Merit? But you forget the elegant Town of Bristol, a very Ship of Fools where only Rank and Gold are the Captains. Being a boy of obscure Birth and imperfect Education, anything that I produc’d myself would have been despised and neglected: I am a poet born, which is a greater thing than a Gentleman, and even in those Dayes I had too much pride to become an Object for the low Jests and carping Examinations of the sordid Bristolians.

  And so it was that, even while I was caught fast in this Shit-hole and Whorehouse which I blush to call my Native town, all my Thoughts began running upon London where (or so I thought) my Genius might blaze and consume all those who saw it. I first projected this Scheme to Sam. Joynson, on a morning when I was standing beside one of his Shelves filled with sad modern Stuff. ‘London is the lodestone which draws me,’ I said, ‘I am as uneasy in this place as a Drab in a Nunnery.’

  ‘Well, well,’ says Sam, with his bright Eyes upon my Face. ‘Be sure you are not drawn towards the Rocks.’

  ‘What Song was it the Sirens sang, Sam?’

  He laughed at my Alliteration. ‘No song of your devising, Tom.’ Then he stopped short. ‘Tho’, of course, I cannot be sure of that.’ He coughed a little and blamed the Dust for it. ‘Well, well,’ said he at last, ‘at least in London you may work in secrecy, which will suit you.’

  ‘Why should it?’ I asked him sharply. But he gave me another of his bright looks, and said no more.

  When I broach’d the matter with my Mother, and told her that I was resolv’d to go, she gave a little Moan and, sitting down heavily upon a Rush-chair, crack’d it. This made her laugh. ‘You used to kick so hard in my Belly,’ she said after a Moment, ‘I knew that you would be eager to go on your way. But beware of the Pox, Tom. They say that the Females of London are meer Sluts.’

  ‘Quite different, then, from the modest Maidens of Bristol?’ She tried to smile at this, but then put her Apron to her Eyes to wipe off a Tear.

  There was nothing more to be said, and so in the first week of April 1770 I coach’d it to London: each blast of the Horn seemed to be driving me closer to my Fortune, and tho’ the Wind cool’d my Cheeks it also warm’d my Heart. When we entred Leadenhall and Old Jewry I was already considering my self to be a Citizen, and was lost in a Maze of Admiration long before I was ever lost in the Maze of the Streets. The sister of Sam. Joynson had a common Lodging-house in Holborn and, directing my Steps thither as Sam. had instructed me, I was greeted with much affection and taken to a small Chamber up three pair of Stairs: here in my aerial Abode I looked across the Ch
imneys and Rooftops, dreaming of my approaching Fame.

  But if my Course was set upon great Poetry, the Race was hard enough; and, on the next Morning, when I visited the Offices of those Journals that had published my Work while I was a meer Boy of Bristol, I found that they had more need for Satires than for Songs. Of course these I compos’d willingly enough, for I hold that Man in contempt who cannot write to Measure: for the Town and Country I wrote political Satires against all Parties, Whig or Tory, Papist or Methodist; for the Political Register I compos’d meer Squibs, which they took up gladly tho’ they did not know the true Range of my Shot; and, knowing my own Skill in the Art of Personation, for the Court and City I set myself to write the memoirs of a sad dog (a gentleman pursewed by Bailiffs), of a malefactor chain’d in Newgate, of an old Relict thirsting for a Man, and of a young ripe Girl about to be pluck’d. And these I related in their own Voices, naturally, as if they were authentick Histories: so that tho’ I was young Thomas Chatterton to those I met, I was a very Proteus to those who read my Works.