My father cou'dna work-my mother cou'dna spin; My heart it said na, and I look'd for Jamie back; My father argued sair-my mother didna speak, I hadna been his wife, a week but only four, Till he said, "I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!" O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a'; I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin ; THE CONTINUATION. THE wintry days grew lang, my tears they were a' spent ; They said my cheek was wan; I cou'd na look to see- My father he was sad, my mother dull and wae; But that which griev'd me maist, it was Auld Robin Gray; He gaed into his bed-nae physic wad he take; "I've wrong'd her sair," he said, "but ken't the truth o'er late; It's grief for that alone that hastens now my date; But a' is for the best, since death will shortly free A young and faithful heart that was ill match'd wi' me. "I loo'd, and sought to win her for mony a lang day; "O what cared I for Crummie! I thought of nought but thee, "But sickness in the house, and hunger at the door, "It was na very lang ere a' did come to light; "Is Jamie come?" he said; and Jamie by us stood- And the dear wife hersel, that ne'er should hae been mine." We kiss'd his clay-cold hands—a smile came o'er his face; The days at first were dowie; but what was sad and sair, But sweeter shines the sun than e'er he shone before, For now I'm Jamie's wife, and what need I say more? We hae a wee bit bairn-the auld folks by the fire THOMAS CHATTERTON, the posthumous son of the master of a free school in Bristol, was born in that city, on the 20th of November, 1752. He left the Bristol charity school in 1767, and was bound apprentice to a Mr. Lambert, a scrivener. His occupation here was laborious and servile, and he slept with his master's footboy. One by one, during the year 1768, and under circumstances which our space will not permit us even to advert to, he produced what he called the original manuscripts of the poems of Thomas Rowley. Gentlemen of Bristol afterwards beset him for participation in his fancied stores, flattered him for what they got, and left him only the more miserable for their flatteries. Mr. Lambert's friends were his friends, but he still slept with Mr. Lambert's foot-boy. In a desperate effort to escape such drudgery he made that remarkable application to Horace Walpole, which was defeated by his own pride, and the too late regretted coldness of Walpole. The taint of insanity which he appears to have inherited from his father now showed itself in an attempt he made upon his life, and Mr. Lambert dismissed him. Free at last, he turned his thoughts with impetuous hope to London. The rest of Chatterton's melancholy story is told in the letters he afterwards wrote to his mother and sister. Within four short months his London career began and closed, yet it witnessed all the most fitful extremes of hope and despair. In the hectic gaiety with which he struggles to conceal the latter feeling from his poor friends, and in the buoyant certainty of greatness to which he shows himself lifted by the most trifling success, his letters are models of the profoundest pathos. The "seething brains and shaping fantasies, which apprehend more than cooler reason can," were indeed Chatterton's; but these, we cannot help thinking, included also in his case qualities which redeem his short and unhappy life from the more ordinary class of literary miseries. His pride and his honour never deserted him. He did not die after descending to make his talents instruments of evil to others, or of disgrace to himself. Panting and jaded as he was, and pursued to the extremest verge by the dogs of hunger and necessity, literature still remained a refreshment and a hope to him, when madness suddenly terminated all. His poison draught is not to be compared to Boyse's blanket, or to the prison of Savage, or even to the loaf of the starving Otway. The last letter he wrote to his sister, a fortnight before his death, had honest pride and hope in it. He would not "humble" himself, he said, for any fortune. "I must be among the great." He had now removed from his lodgings in Shoreditch to Mrs. Angel's, a sash-maker, in Brook-street, Holborn. Great darkness rests over the few remaining days of his existence. His mother and sister still received small unnecessary presents, which kept up their hopes, and they little thought that the giver was at that time in want of the necessaries of life. Invitations to dinner and supper he invariably declined, that he might not seem to stand in need of them. On the 24th of August, 1770, according to his landlady's account, "as she knew he had not eaten any thing for two or three days, she begged he would take some dinner with her, but he was offended at her expressions, which seemed to hint he was in want, and assured her he was not hungry." In the evening of the same day he swallowed arsenic in water, and on the 25th of August, 1770, was found dead in his room, near a table covered with the scraps of papers he had destroyed. A verdict of insanity was returned, and the body, unclaimed by any friends, and unknown where he had lived, was buried in a shell in the burying ground of Shoe-lane workhouse. So perished in his pride, by a sudden fit of madness, this "marvellous boy." The Poems of Rowley" are proved, beyond doubt, to have been the work of Chatterton, though it is strange that, to the last, he would never distinctly avow them. The extracts we have made will enable the reader to judge somewhat of their vigour, their learning, their facility and sweetness, and the rich abundance of their thought. The fragment "from Goddwynn" is prodigiously fine. Any criticism on the writings of Chatterton, however, would be misplaced. The lovers of poetry have chiefly to regret the loss of the great things he would have done. His person, like his genius, was premature. Though only seventeen when he died, he had a manliness, a dignity, and a singular power of address, far beyond his years. His mouth was marked with the deep lines of sensibility and thought, and his eyes, though grey, CHATTERTON. ELINOURE AND JUGA. ONNE Rudborne bank twa pynynge maydens sate, Who at Seyncte Albonns shouke the morthynge speare. Dydde speke acroole, wythe languishment of eyne. Lyche droppes of pearlie dew, lemed the quyvryng brine. ELINOURE. O gentle Juga! heare mie dernie plainte, To fyghte for Yorke mie love ys dyghte in stele; that time in want of the necessaries of life. Invitations to dinner and supper he invariably declined, that he might not seem to stand in need of them. On the 24th of August, 1770, according to his landlady's account, "as she knew he had not eaten any thing for two or three days, she begged he would take some dinner with her, but he was offended at her expressions, which seemed to hint he was in want, and assured her he was not hungry." In the evening of the same day he swallowed arsenic in water, and on the 25th of August, 1770, was found dead in his room, near a table covered with the scraps of papers he had destroyed. A verdict of insanity was returned, and the body, unclaimed by any friends, and unknown where he had lived, was buried in a shell in the burying ground of Shoe-lane workhouse. So perished in his pride, by a sudden fit of madness, this "marvellous boy." The "Poems of Rowley" are proved, beyond doubt, to have been the work of Chatterton, though it is strange that, to the last, he would never distinctly avow them. The extracts we have made will enable the reader to judge somewhat of their vigour, their learning, their facility and sweetness, and the rich abundance of their thought. The fragment "from Goddwynn" is prodigiously fine. Any criticism on the writings of Chatterton, however, would be misplaced. The lovers of poetry have chiefly to regret the loss of the great things he would have done. His person, like his genius, was premature. Though only seventeen when he died, he had a manliness, a dignity, and a singular power of address, far beyond his years. His mouth was marked with the deep lines of sensibility and thought, and his eyes, though grey, |