all the originals, might, in any hour he thought proper, (so it was said,) elucidate the obscure, and command credence, by producing demonstration; but that bubble, also, is burst; and the controversy, it is presumed, is so far determined, in the judgment of all who are capable of estimating the force of moral evidence, that now to advance any new argument against Rowley, appears almost ungenerous, and like the smiting of a prostrate foe.

But the confidence we express, as to the result of this inquiry, must be tempered by an abstinence from all asperity towards those who have confided in the reality of the Bristol Priest. When the public saw men of great research, like Dr. Glynn, and Jacob Bryant, affirming the genuineness of Rowley; and when they found the learned Dean Milles, President of the Antiquarian Society, not only concurring in their views, but publishing a splendid royal quarto edition of Rowley'sPoems, accompanied with corroborative dissertations, it required, in every oppugner, the profoundest reliance on the convictions of his understanding. In the calmest estimation it did appear little less than impossible that an uneducated boy, of about fifteen, should have produced the matured excellencies of Rowley; but genius expatiates in an atmosphere of its own, and, occasionally confounds the rigid scrutinizer, by exhibiting effects beyond the range of his calculation; and this example of Chatterton absolutely furnishes a New Feature in the History of the Human Mind!

REMARKS,

PRELIMINARY TO THE CONSIDERATIONS ON

CHATTERTON's ARMORIAL BEARINGS. IT will now be necessary to notice a subject on which Rowleians have laid great stress. Four of Chatterton's juvenile friends, Thistlethwaite, Cary, Smith, and Rudhall, have concurred in expressing a decided conviction that his natural talents were not, by any means, equal to the composition of Rowley. These opinions, so confidently pronounced by those who were the associates of Chatterton, and which many have received as oracular, will require a few observations.

If these young depreciators of Chatterton's genius had known more of the human mind, even though our illustrious bard had failed in conversational power, they would have calculated less on the external, and been aware that the man of genius often surveys, with a dignified unconcern, the flippancies of the declaimer, and that, (from moving in a wider sphere,) he is indifferent to the applause with which inferior minds are inflated. Participating in these views,, it was, doubtless, a subordinate object with Chatterton to shine, invariably, in those scenes of verbal gladiatorship, where his companions, perhaps, out-talked him, and congratulated themselves on an imagined superiority! If, however, in these seasons of social intercourse, he condescended to act a secondary part, desiring, (with a provident reserve of strength,) to unbend, rather than to astonish, he still knew, that, by his writing, (the most infallible test,) he could ascend, in any moment, to a sufficient height above his feeble competitors.

Maturer experience would have taught these presuming youths that the man, possessed of much original vigour, has generally cultivated a fastidious taste, which is satisfied with nothing short of excellence, either in writing or conversation, and as excellence, in its loftiest sense, is of slow growth, and attained with difficulty, even when all the faculties are deliberately called into exercise, in his desultory moments he is frequently, from a distrust of being able, extemporaneously, to do justice to his sentiments, content to remain silent, or to discourse on those casual, and unimportant subjects, where he voluntarily descends to the common level; and yet this perhaps is the season when some superficial observer forms his settled estimate of him, and takes the " gauge and dimensions" of his intellectual powers.

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From having conversed with some, (of undoubted competence to decide,) who personally knew Chatterton, the writer is authorized in affirming, that, instead of sinking below the average standard, many talented men have done, his conversation was ingenious, and often strikingly animated. It is impossible to know what these companions deemed to be essential to the author of Rowley, but one who well knew Chatterton, described him to the writer, as a boy who appeared "like a Spirit," and to be possessed of, almost, supernatural attributes. His eye was black and penetrating; his forehead broad, and his whole aspect, in moments of excitement, unapproachably commanding and if there occasionally appeared a vacancy in his countenance, with an inattention to passing occurrences, instead of resulting from dulness, as was apprehended, it originated in some mental process, above the comprehension of these his associates, and which, for a season, as might readily be conceived, abstracted him from the world.