The evening comes, and brings the dews along, Albeit all is fair, there lacketh something still. In the epistle to Canynge, Chatterton has a striking censure of the religious interludes which formed the early drama; but the idea, as Warton remarks, is the result of that taste and discrimination which could only belong to a more advanced period of society: Plays made from holy tales I hold unmeet; Let some great story of a man be sung; In my poor mind we do the Godhead wrong. Archbishop Trench has shewn that the whole fabric of Chatterton's literary imposture could have been blown up by one short monosyllable of three letters, the word its. This word did not find its way into our literature until two hundred years after the period of Chatterton's monk Rowley. It occurs only once in our translation of the Scriptures (Levit. xxv. 5), and only three times, Archbishop Trench says, in all Shakspeare. Even Milton, in describing Satan, says His form had not yet lost The satirical and town effusions of Chatterton are often in bad taste, yet display a wonderful command of easy language and lively sportive allusion. They have no traces of juvenility, unless it be in adopting the vulgar scandals of the day, unworthy his original genius. In his satire of Kew Gardens are the following lines, alluding to the poet-laureate and the proverbial poverty of poets: Though sing-song Whitehead ushers in the year, 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, The Prophecy, a Political Satire. This truth of old was sorrow's friend'Times at the worst will surely mend.' The difficulty's then to know How long Oppression's clock can go; When vile Corruption's brazen face See Pension's harbour, large and clear, And your redemption stand complete. The boy who could thus write at sixteen, might soon have proved a Swift or a Dryden. Yet in satire, Chatterton evinced but a small part of his power. His Rowleian poems have a compass of invention, and a luxuriance of fancy, that promised a great chivalrous or allegorical poet of the style of Spenser. Bristow Tragedy, or the Death of Sir Charles Bawdin.* And told the early villager The coming of the morn: King Edward saw the ruddy streaks And heard the raven's croaking throat 'Thou 'rt right,' quoth he, for by the God That sits enthroned on high! Charles Bawdin, and his fellows twain, Then with a jug of nappy ale He leaves this mortal state.' *The antiquated orthography affected by Chatterton being an impediment to their being generally read, we dismiss it in this and other specimens. The diction is, in reality, almost purely modern, and Chatterton's spelling in a great measure arbitrary, so that there seems no longer any reason for retaining what was only designed at first as a means of supporting a deception. Then Mr Canynge sought the king, And fell down on his knee ; 'I'm come,' quoth he, 'unto your grace, To move your clemency.' 'Then,' quoth the king, 'your tale speak out, You have been much our friend; Whatever your request may be, We will to it attend.' 'My noble liege! all my request Is for a noble knight, Who, though mayhap he has done wrong, He thought it still was right. 'He has a spouse and children twain; All ruined are for aye, If that you are resolved to let Charles Bawdin die to-day.' 'Speak not of such a traitor vile,' The king in fury said; 'Before the evening-star doth shine, 'By Mary, and all saints in heaven, 'We all must die,' said brave Sir Charles; 'Say why, my friend, thy honest soul Is it for my most welcome doom Saith godly Canynge: 'I do weep, And leave thy sons and helpless wife; 'Tis this that wets mine eye.' 'What though I on a sledge be drawn, I do defy the traitor's power; 'What though, uphoisted on a pole, 'Yet in the holy book above, Which time can't eat away, 'Then welcome death! for life eterne Upon a sledge he mounted then, With looks full brave and sweet; And when he came to the high cross, At the great minster window sat Soon as the sledde drew nigh enough, That Edward he might hear, The brave Sir Charles he did stand up, And thus his words declare: 'Thou seest me, Edward! traitor vile! Exposed to infamy; But be assured, disloyal man, I'm greater now than thee. "By foul proceedings, murder, blood, "Thou thinkest I shall die to-day; And soon shall live to wear a crown 'Whilst thou, perhaps, for some few years, Shalt rule this fickle land, To let them know how wide the rule 'Thy power unjust, thou traitor slave ! King Edward's soul rushed to his face, "To him that so-much-dreaded death 'So let him die!' Duke Richard said; each one our foes And may Bend down their necks to bloody axe, And now the horses gently drew Sir Charles did up the scaffold go, Of victory, by valorous chiefs And to the people he did say: For serving loyally my king, 'As long as Edward rules this land, Your sons and husbands shall be slain, And brooks with blood shall flow. 'You leave your good and lawful king, When in adversity; Like me, unto the true cause stick, And for the true cause die,' Then he, with priests, upon his knees, Then, kneeling down, he laid his head Most seemly on the block; Which from his body fair at once The able headsman stroke.... Thus was the end of Bawdin's fate : And grant he may, with Bawdin's soul, The Minstrel's Song in Ælla. O sing unto my roundelay; Gone to his death-bed, Black his hair as the winter night, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Sweet his tongue as throstle's note, Gone to his death-bed, All under the willow-tree. Hark! the raven flaps his wing, Gone to his death-bed, See! the white moon shines on high; Gone to his death-bed, Here, upon my true love's grave, Gone to his death-bed, With my hands I'll bind the briers, Round his holy corse to gre; Gone to his death-bed, 3 Water-witches, crowned with reytes,1 Freedom-A Chorus in the Imperfect Tragedy of When Freedom, dressed in blood-stained vest, She danced on the heath, She heard the voice of death. Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue, On high she hoist her shield, And flies along the field. Power, with his head straight unto the skies, She bends before his spear, Hard as the thunder doth she drive it on, Yet closely wimpled" guides it to his crown, His fiery helmet, nodding to the air, WILLIAM FALCONER. to epic lore,' but it possessed strong recommendations to the British public, whose national pride and honour, and commercial greatness, are so closely identified with the sea, and so many of whom have some friend, some brother there.' WILLIAM FALCONER was born in Edinburgh on the 11th of February 1732, and was the son of a poor barber, who had two other children, both of whom were deaf and dumb. He went early to sea, on board a Leith merchant-ship, and was afterwards in the royal navy. Before he was eighteen years of age, he was second-mate in the Britannia, a vessel in the Levant trade, which was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna, as described in his poem. In 1751 he was living in Edinburgh, where he published his first poetical attempt, a monody on the death of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The choice of such a subject by a young friendless Scottish sailor, was as singular as the depth of grief he describes in his poem; for Falconer, on this occasion, wished, with a zeal worthy of ancient Pistol, To assist the pouring rains with brimful eyes, He continued in the merchant-service for about No The terrors and circumstances of a shipwreck had been often described by poets, ancient and modern, but never with any attempt at professional accuracy or minuteness of detail before the poem of that name by Falconer. It was reserved for a genuine sailor to disclose, in correct and harmonious verse, the 'secrets of the deep,' and to enlist the sympathies of the general reader in favour of the daily life and occupations of his brother-seamen, and in all the movements, the during the author's life. The second (1764) was Three editions of the Shipwreck were published equipage, and tracery of those magnificent vessels greatly enlarged, having about nine hundred new which have carried the British name and enter- lines added. Before embarking on his last fatal prise to the remotest corners of the world. Poetical associations—a feeling of boundlessness and sub- October 1, 1769-the day preceding his departure voyage, Falconer published a third edition, dated limity-obviously belonged to the scene of the from England. About two hundred more lines poem-the ocean; but its interest soon wanders from this source, and centres in the stately ship alterations and transpositions made in the text. were added to the poem in this edition, and various and its crew-the gallant resistance which the men These were not all improvements: some of the made to the fury of the storm-their calm and most poetical passages were injured, and parts of deliberate courage-the various resources of their the narrative confused. Hence one of the poet's skill and ingenuity-their consultations and reso-editors, Mr Stanier Clarke, in a splendid illustrated lutions as the ship labours in distress-and the brave unselfish piety and generosity with which they meet their fate, when at last The crashing ribs divide- 1 Water-flags. 3 To chill or freeze. carded lines, and presented a text compounded of copy of the poem (1804), restored many of the dis the three different editions. This version of the poem is that now generally printed; but in a subsequent illustrated edition, by the Messrs Black, edition is more closely followed. Mr Clarke conEdinburgh (1858), Falconer's third and latest jectured and other editors have copied his error --that Falconer, overjoyed at his appointment to Chaucer has: And appetite the Aurora, and busy preparing for his voyage, had intrusted to his friend David Mallet the reviWimpled, veiled. sion of the poem, and that Mallet had corrupted 2 A short sword or dagger. 4 Undismayed or unbanished. flemeth discretion.' 5 Meteors. the text. Now, it is sufficient to say that Mallet had been four years dead, and that Falconer, in the advertisement prefixed to the work, expressly states that he had himself subjected it to a strict and thorough revision. Unfortunately, as in the case of Akenside, the success of the poet had not been commensurate with his anxiety and labour. The Shipwreck has the rare merit of being a pleasing and interesting poem, and a safe guide to practical seamen. Its nautical rules and directions are approved of by all experienced naval officers. At first, the poet does not seem to have done more than describe in nautical phrase and simple narrative the melancholy disaster he had witnessed. The characters of Albert, Rodmond, Palemon, and Anna were added in the second edition of the work. By choosing the shipwreck of the Britannia, Falconer imparted a train of interesting recollections and images to his poem. The wreck occurred off Cape Colonna-one of the fairest portions of the beautiful shores of Greece. 'In all Attica,' says Lord Byron, 'if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "isles that crown the Ægean deep;" but for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep.' Falconer was not insensible to the charms of these historical and classic associations, and he was still more alive to the impressions of romantic scenery and a genial climate. Some of the descriptive and episodical parts of the poem are, however, drawn out to too great a length, as they interrupt the narrative where its interest is most engrossing, besides being occasionally feeble and affected. The characters of his naval officers are finely discriminated: Albert, the commander, is brave, liberal, and just, softened and refined by domestic ties and superior information; Rodmond, the next in rank, is coarse and boisterous, a hardy, weather-beaten son of Northumberland, yet of a kind, compassionate nature; Palemon, charged with the commerce,' is perhaps too effeminate for the rough sea: he is the lover of the poem, and his passion for Albert's daughter is drawn with truth and delicacy: 'Twas genuine passion, Nature's eldest born. The truth of the whole poem is indeed one of its greatest attractions. We feel that it is a passage of real life; and even where the poet seems to violate the canons of taste and criticism, allowance is liberally made for the peculiar situation of the author, while he rivets our attention to the scenes of trial and distress which he so fortunately survived to describe. Evening at Sea. The sun's bright orb, declining all serene, Now glanced obliquely o'er the woodland scene. Creation smiles around; on every spray Appearance of the Ship on the Shores of Greece. The natives, while the ship departs the land, Ashore with admiration gazing stand. Majestically slow, before the breeze, In silent pomp she marches on the seas. Her milk-white bottom casts a softer gleam, While trembling through the green translucent stream. The wales, that close above in contrast shone, Clasp the long fabric with a jetty zone. Britannia, riding awful on the prow, Gazed o'er the vassal-wave that rolled below: Where'er she moved, the vassal-waves were seen To yield obsequious, and confess their queen. High o'er the poop, the flattering winds unfurled The imperial flag that rules the watery world. Deep-blushing armours all the tops invest; And warlike trophies either quarter drest : Then towered the masts; the canvas swelled on high; And waving streamers floated in the sky. Thus the rich vessel moves in trim array, Like some fair virgin on her bridal-day. Thus like a swan she cleaves the watery plain, The pride and wonder of the Ægean main !2 Cape Colonna-The Storm and Wreck. But now Athenian mountains they descry, And o'er the surge Colonna frowns on high. Beside the cape's projecting verge is placed A range of columns long by time defaced; First planted by devotion to sustain, In elder times, Tritonia's sacred fane. 1 The wales here alluded to are an assemblage of strong planks, which envelop the lower part of the ship's side. In the Pope controversy (1821), Mr Bowles quoted Lord Byron's beautiful image of the ship in the Corsair: That seems to walk the waves a thing of life! But Mr Bowles himself had some years before written a fine description of a ship on her way: The tall ship, That like a stately swan, in conscious pride |