rate a competent judge; but Mr. Malone “believes him to have been the greatest genius that England has produced since the days of Shakspeare." Dr. Gregory says, "he must rank, as a universal genius, above Dryden, and perhaps only second to Shakspeare." Mr. Herbert Croft is still more unqualified in his praises; he asserts that "no such being, at any period of life, has ever been known, or possibly ever will be known." He runs a parallel between Chatterton and Milton; and asserts that an army of Macedonian and Swedish mad butchers fly before hum,” meaning, I suppose, that Alexander the Great and Charles the Twelfth were nothing to him; "nor," he adds, "does my meme ry supply me with any human being, who, at such an age, wh such advantages, has produced such compositions. Under the heathen mythology, superstition and admiration would have plained all, by bringing Apollo on earth; nor would the Gal ever have descended with more credit to himself”—Chatterton › physiognomy would at least have enabled him to pass ancı q'uata. It is quite different from the look of timid wonder and deight with which Annibal Caracci has painted a young Apolio listening to the first sounds he draws from a Pan's pipe, under the tutelage of the old Silenus! If Mr Croft is sublime on the casion, Dr. Knox is no less pathetic. The testimony of Ir Knox," says Dr. Anderson, (essays, p. 144,) does equal credit to the classical taste and amiable benevolence of the writer, and the genius and reputation of Chatterton." "When I read, masy the Doctor, the researches of those learned antiquaries who have endeavoured to prove that the poems attributed to Roway were really written by him, I observe many ingenous remarks in confirmation of their opinion, which it would be tedious, af not difficult, to controvert."

Now this is so far from the mark that the whole controversy might have been settled by any one but the learned antaguanes themselves, who had the smallest share of their learning, trum this single circumstance, that the poems read as smooth as modern poems, if you read them as modern compon.tions, and that you cannot read them, or make verse of them at ah, sí pronounce or accent the words as they were spoken at the time when the poems were pretended to have been written The

whole secret of the imposture, which nothing but a deal of learned dust, raised by collecting and removing a great deal of learned rubbish, could have prevented our laborious critics from seeing through, lies on the face of it (to say nothing of the burlesque air which is scarcely disguised throughout) in the repetition of a few obsolete words, and in the mis-spelling of com

mon ones.

"No sooner," proceeds the Doctor, "do I turn to the poems, than the labour of the antiquaries appears only waste of time; and I am involuntarily forced to join in placing that laurel, which he seems so well to have deserved, on the brow of Chatterton. The poems bear so many marks of superior genius that they have deservedly excited the general attention of polite scholars, and are considered as the most remarkable productions in modern poetry. We have many instances of poetical eminence at an early age; but neither Cowley, Milton, nor Pope, ever produced any thing while they were boys, which can justly be compared to the poems of Chatterton. The learned antiquaries do not indeed dispute their excellence. They extol it in the highest terms of applause. They raise their favourite Rowley to a rivalry with Homer: but they make the very merits of the works an argument against their real author. 'Is it possible,' say they, that a boy should produce compositions so beautiful and masterly?' That a common boy should produce them is not possible," rejoins the Doctor; "but that they should be produced by a boy of an extraordinary genius, such as was that of Homer or Shakspeare, though a prodigy, is such a one as by no means exceeds the bounds of rational credibility."

Now it does not appear that Shakspeare or Homer were such early prodigies; sr that by this reasoning he must take precedence of them too, as well as of Milton, Cowley, and Pope. The reverend and classical writer then breaks out into the following melancholy raptures:

"Unfortunate boy! short and evil were thy days, but thy fame shall be immortal. Hadst thou been known to the munificent patrons of genius.....

"Unfortunate boy! poorly wast thou accommodated during thy short sojourning here among us;-rudely wast thou treat

ed-sorely did thy feelings suffer from the scorn of the thy; and there at last those who wish to rob thee of thy cal meed, thy posthumous glory. Severe too are the censures st thy morals In the gloomy moments of despondency. I fear - thou hast uttered impious and blasphemous thoughts. But bet thy more rigid censors reflect that thou wast literally and striesly but a boy. Let many of thy bitterest enemies reflect what were their own religious principles, and whether they had any. at the age of fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Surely it as a severe and an unjust surmise that thou wouldst probably have endet thy life as a victim to the laws, if thou hadst not ended a thou didst."

He

Enough, enough, of the learned antiquaries, and of the classical and benevolent testimony of Dr Knox Christm was, indeed, badly enough off; but he was at least saved fres the pain and shame of reading this woful lamentation over fa ba genius, which circulates, splendidly bound, in the fourteen edition, while he is a prey to worms As to those who are me ally capable of admiring Chatterton's genius, or of feeling an interest in his fate, I would only say that I never heard any speak of any one of his works as if it were an cèl known favourite, and had become a faith and a rebova i mind. It is his name, his youth, and what he might have I vest to have done, that excite our wonder and admiration the same sort of posthumous fame that an actor of the cast are has--an abstracted reputation which is independent of any thing we know of his works The admirers of CJ think of him without recalling to their minds b (g Evening, or on the Poetical Character Gray's Elegy and popularity, are identified together, and inseparab → imagination. It is the same with respect to Burns w speak of him as a poet, you mean his works, his Tum ter, or his Cotters Saturday Night But the enthusias Chatterton, if you ask for the proofs of his extraordinary gen un are obliged to turn to the volume, and perhaps find there they seek, but it is not in their minde; and it is of that I spoke

The Minstrel's song in Ælla is, I think, the best

Wythe mie hondes I'll dent the brieres
Rounde hys hallie corse to gre,
Ouphante fairies, lyghte your fyres,
Heere my boddie stille schalle bee.
Mie love y's dedde,

Gonne to hys deathe bedde,

Al under the wyllowe-tree.

Con me wy he acorne coppe and there,
Drayne my hartys blødde awaie,

Lyfe and all yttes goode 1 scorne
Daunce bie nete, or feaste by daje.

Mie love ys dedde,

Gonne to his deathe-bedde,

Al under the wylowe tree

Water wytches crownede wythe resten,
Bere mee to yer leath.lle tyde

I die, I com.ne, le true love wayles
Thos the damselle spike, and dye l

To proceed to the more immedi ve subi,t of the pre ture, the character and writings of Burns -Shakspeare seve some one, that he was like a man made ar ser cheese-paring" Burns, the poet, wis not such a ni an a strong mind, and a strong body, the fellow tat real heart of flesh and blad beating in his hom−y vu can a. 1. st hear it throb Some one said, that if yu hai stvarn hinds with him, his hand would have burnt yours

u. leed, made him poctival " but nature had a hand in hra first His heart was in the right place. He difet soul under the ribs of death,' by tinking stren piling up centos of portic diction, but for the art:" 5.5. petry, he plucked the mountain-daisy under his teet field-mouse, hurrying from its runed dwelling, end mes him with the sentiments of terror and pay He h-14th. or the pen with the same firm, manly grasp ndit petry as we cut out warh, paners, with finial dextern from the same f. may rule

B

han. He was not a sickly sentimentalist, a nam?y pamby