Chapter 23

A resolution, which had passed the Board of the Executive Government of Bengal, for altering the mode of paying the salaries of the judges, produced from him a very spirited remonstrance. The affair, however, seems to have been misconceived by himself and his brethren on the Bench; and on its being explained the usual harmony was restored. At the commencement of 1786, while this matter was pending, he made a voyage to Chatigan, the boundary of the British dominions in Bengal towards the east. In this "Indian Montpelier," where he describes "the hillocks covered with pepper vines, and sparkling with blossoms of the coffee tree," in addition to his other literary researches he twice perused the poem of Ferdausi, consisting of above sixty thousand couplets. This he considered to be an epic poem as majestic and entire as the Iliad; and thought the outline of it related to a single hero, Khosrau, (the Cyrus of Herodotus and Xenophon), whom, as he says, "the Asiaticks, conversing with the Father of European History, described according to their popular traditions by his true name, which the Greek alphabet could not express." A nearer acquaintance with the great epic bard of Persia had now taught him therefore to retract the assertion he had made in his Commentary on Asiatic Poetry, that "the hero, as it is called, of the poem, was that well known Hercules of the Persians, named Rustem; although there are several other heroes, or warriors, to each of whom their own particular glory is assigned." At the time of writing this, he had an intention, if leisure should be allowed him, of translating the whole work. A version of Ferdausi, either in verse unfettered by rhyme, or in such numerous prose as the prophetical parts of the Bible are translated into, would, I think, be the most valuable transfer that our language is now capable of receiving from foreign tongues.

In 1787 he flattered himself that his constitution had overcome the climate; but his apprehensions were awakened for the health of Lady Jones, to which it had been yet more unfavourable; and he resolved, if some amendment did not appear likely, to urge her return to her native country; preferring, he said, the pang of separation for five or six years, to the anguish, which he should hardly survive, of losing her.

At the beginning of 1789 appeared the first volume of the Society's Researches, selected by the President. Two other volumes followed during his life-time, and a fourth was ready for the press at the time of his decease.

In the same year he published his version of an Indian drama of Calidas, entitled Sancontala, or the Fatal Ring; a wild and beautiful composition, which makes us desire to see more by the same writer, who has been termed the Shakspeare of India, and who lived in the last century before the Christian era. The doubts suggested by the critics in England, concerning the authenticity of this work, he considered as scarcely deserving of a serious reply.

In his discourses, delivered before the Society, he discusses the origin of the several nations which inhabit the great continent of Asia, together with its borderers, mountaineers, and islanders; points out the advantages to be derived from the concurrent researches of the members of the Society, amongst which the confirmation of the Mosaic account of the primitive world is justly insisted on as the most important; and enlarges on the philosophy of the Asiatics. Besides several other essays, particular dissertations are allotted to the subjects of the Indian chronology; the antiquity of their zodiac, which he maintains not to have been formed from the Greek or Arabs; the literature of the Hindus; and the musical modes used by that people.

In the course of the last two years he edited the Persian poem by Hatefi, of Laile and Majnoon, the Petrarch and Laura of the Orientals. The book was published at his own cost; and the profits of the sale appropriated to the relief of insolvent debtors in the gaol at Calcutta.

In 1793 Lady Jones, to whose constitution, naturally a weak one, the climate continued still unpropitious, embarked for England. The physicians had long recommended a return to Europe as necessary for the restoration of her health, or rather as the only means of preserving her life; but her unwillingness to quit her husband had hitherto retained her in India. His eagerness to accomplish his great object of preparing the Code of Laws for the natives would not suffer him to accompany her. He hoped, however, that by the ensuing year he should have executed his design; and giving up the intention he had had of making a circuit through Persia and China on his return, he determined to follow her then without any deviation from his course. In the beginning of 1794 he published a translation of the Ordinances of Menu, on which he had been long employed, and which may be regarded as initiatory to his more copious pandect.

The last twenty years of his life he proposed passing in a studious retreat after his return to England; and had even commissioned one of his friends to look out for a pleasant country-house in Middlesex, with a garden, and ground to pasture his cattle.

But this prospect of future ease and enjoyment was not to be realized. The event, which put an unexpected end both to that and to his important scheme for the public advantage, cannot be so well related as in the words of Lord Teignmouth. "On the 20th of April, or nearly about that date, after prolonging his walk to a late hour, during which he had imprudently remained in conversation in an unwholesome situation, he called upon the writer of these sheets, and complained of agueish symptoms, mentioning his intention of taking some medicine, and repeating jocularly an old proverb, that "an ague in the spring is medicine for a king." He had no suspicion at the time of the real nature of his indisposition, which proved in fact to be a complaint common in Bengal, an inflammation in the liver. The disorder was, however, soon discovered by the penetration of the physician, who after two or three days was called in to his assistance; but it had then advanced too far to yield to the efficacy of the medicines usually prescribed, and they were administered in vain. The progress of the complaint was uncommonly rapid, and terminated fatally on the 27th of April, 1794.

"On the morning of that day, his attendants, alarmed at the evident symptoms of approaching dissolution, came precipitately to call the friend who has now the melancholy task of recording the mournful event: not a moment was lost in repairing to his house. He was lying on a bed in a posture of meditation, and the only symptom of remaining life was a small degree of motion in the heart, which after a few seconds ceased, and he expired without a pang or groan. His bodily suffering, from the complacency of his features, and the ease of his attitude, could not have been severe; and his mind must have derived consolation from those sources where he had been in the habit of seeking it, and where alone in our last moments it can be found." "The funeral ceremony," adds his noble biographer, "was performed on the following day, with the honours due to his public station; and the numerous attendance of the most respectable British inhabitants of Calcutta evinced their sorrow for his loss, and their respect for his memory. The Pundits who were in the habit of attending him, when I saw them at a public _durbar_, a few days after that melancholy event, could neither restrain their tears for his loss, nor find terms to express their admiration at the wonderful progress which he had made in the sciences which they professed."

A domestic affliction of the severest kind was spared him by his removal from life. Eight years after that event, his sister, who was married to an opulent merchant retired from business, perished miserably, in consequence of her clothes having taken fire.

His large collection of Sanscrit, Arabic, and other eastern manuscripts, was presented by his widow to the Royal Society. A catalogue of them, compiled by Mr. Wilkins, is inserted in his works.

The following list of desiderata was found among his papers, after his decease.

India.

The Ancient Geography of India, &c., from the Puranas.

A Botanical Description of Indian Plants, from the Cochas, &c.

A Grammar of the Sanscrit Language, from Panini.

A Dictionary of the Sanscrit Language, from thirty-two original Vocabularies and Niructi.

On the ancient Music of the Indians.

On the Medical Substances of India, and the Indian Art of Medicine.

On the Philosophy of the Ancient Indians.

A Translation of the Veda.

On Ancient Indian Geometry, Astronomy, and Algebra.

A Translation of the Puranas.

Translation of the Mahabharat, and Ramayan.

On the Indian Theatre, &c. &c.

On the Indian Constellations, with their Mythology, from the Puranas.

The History of India, before the Mohammedan Conquest, from the Sanscrit Cashmir Histories.

Arabia.

The History of Arabia before Mohammed.

A Translation of the Hamasa.

A Translation of Hariri.

A Translation of the Facahatal Khulafa. Of the Cafiah.

Persia.

The History of Persia, from authorities in Sanscrit, Arabic, Greek, Turkish, Persian, ancient and modern.

The five Poems of Nizami, translated in prose.

A Dictionary of pure Persian--Jehangiri.

China.

Translation of the Shi-cing.

The Text of Con-fu-tsu, verbally translated.

Tartary.

A History of the Tartar Nations, chiefly of the Moguls and Othmans, from the Turkish and Persian.

By an unanimous vote of the East India Company Directors, it was resolved, that a cenotaph, with a suitable inscription, should be raised to his memory in St. Paul's Cathedral; and that a statue of him should be sent to Bengal, for the purpose of being placed there in a proper situation.

A monument has also been erected to his memory in the anti-chapel of University College, Oxford, by Lady Jones, with the following inscription:

M. S. Gulielmi Jones equitis aurati, Qui clarum in literis nomen a patre acceptum Magna cumulavit gloria. Ingenium in illo erat scientiarum omnium capax, Disciplinisque optimis diligentissima exculturn. Erat indoles ad virtutem eximia, Et in Justitia, Libertate, Religione vindicanda Maxime probata. Quicquid autem utile vel honestum Consiliis, Exemplo, Auctoritate vivus promoverat, Id omne scriptis suis immortalibus Etiam nunc tuetur atque ornat. Praestantissimum hunc virum, Cum a provincia Bengala, Ubi judicis integerrimi munus Per decennium obierat, Reditum in patriam meditaretur, Ingruentis morbi vis oppressit, X. Kal. Jun. A. C. MDCCLXXXXIV. Aet. XLVIII. Ut quibus in aedibus Ipse olim socius inclaruisset, In iisdem memoria ejus potissimum conservaretur, Honorarium hoc monumentum Anna Maria filia Jonathan Shipley, Epis. Asaph. Conjugi suo, B. M. P. C.

To the name of poet, as it implies the possession of an inventive faculty, Sir William Jones has but little pretension. He borrows much; and what he takes he seldom makes hotter. Yet some portion of sweetness and elegance must he allowed him.

In the hymns to the Hindu deities, the imagery, which is derived chiefly from Eastern sources, is novel and attractive. That addressed to Narayena is in a strain of singular magnificence. The description, in the fourth stanza, of the creative power or intelligence, issuing from the primal germ of being, and questioning itself as to its own faculties, has something in it that fills the mind with wonder.

What four-form'd godhead came, With graceful stole and beamy diadem, Forth from thy verdant stem? Full-gifted Brahma! Rapt in solemn thought He stood, and round his eyes fire-darting threw But whilst his viewless origin he sought, One plain he saw of living waters blue, Their spring nor saw nor knew. Then in his parent stalk again retired, With restless pain for ages he inquired What were his powers, by whom, and why, conferr'd, With doubts perplex'd, with keen impatience fired, He rose, and rising heard Th' unknown, all-knowing word, Brahma! no more in vain research persist. My veil thou canst not move.--Go, bid all worlds exist.

To the hymns he subjoins the first Nemean ode of Pindar, "not only," he says, "in the same measure as nearly as possible, but almost word for word with the original; those epithets and phrases only being necessarily added which are printed in Italic letters." Whoever will be at the trouble of comparing him with Pindar, will see how far he is from fulfilling this promise.

Of the Palace of Fortune, an Indian tale, the conclusion is unexpected and affecting.

The Persian song from Hafez, is one of those pieces that, by a nameless charm, fasten themselves on the memory.

In the Caissa, or poem on Chess, he is not minute enough to gratify a lover of the game, and too particular to please one who reads it for the poetry. The former will prefer the Scacchia Ludus of Vida, of which it is a professed imitation; and the latter will be satisfied with the few spirited lines which the Abbe de Lille has introduced into his L'Homme des Champs, on this subject. Vida's poem is a surprising instance of difficulty overcome, in the manner with which he has moulded the phraseology of the classics to a purpose apparently alien from it; and he has made his mythology agreeable, trivial as it is, by the skill with which it is managed. But I find that both the Caissa, and the Arcadia, which is taken from a paper in the Guardian, were done, as the author says, at the age of 16 or 17 years, and were saved from the fire in preference to a great many others, because they seemed more correctly versified than the rest. It is, therefore, hardly fair to judge them very strictly.

His Latin commentary on Asiatic poetry is more valuable for the extracts from the Persian and Arabic poets, which he has brought together in it, than to be commended for anything else that it contains, or for the style in which it is written. Certain marks of hurry in the composition, which his old schoolfellow, Doctor Parr, had intimated to him with the ingenuousness of a friend and a scholar, are still apparent. He takes up implicitly with that incomplete and partial, though very ingenious system, which Burke had lately put forth in his essay on the Sublime and Beautiful. He has supported that writer's definition of Beauty by a quotation from Hermogenes. A better confirmation of his theory might have been adduced from the Philebus of Plato, in which Socrates makes the same distinction as our eloquent countryman has taken so much pains to establish between that sensation which accompanies the removal of pain or danger, and which he calls delight--and positive pleasure.[2] As the work, however, of a young man, the commentary was such as justly to raise high expectations of the writer.

His style in English prose, where he had most improved it, that is, in his discourses delivered in India on Asiatic History and Literature, is opulent without being superfluous; dignified, yet not pompous or inflated. He appears intent only on conveying to others the result of his own inquiries and reflections on the most important topics, in as perspicuous a manner as possible; and the embellishments of diction come to him unbidden and unsought. His prolixity does not weary, nor his learning embarrass, the reader. If he had been more elaborate, he might have induced a suspicion of artifice; if he had been less so, the weightiness of his matter would seem to have been scarcely enough considered. But he has higher claims to the gratitude of his country, and of mankind, than either prose or poetry can give. His steady zeal in the cause of liberty, and justice, and truth, is above all praise; and will leave his name among the few

--quos aequus amavit Jupiter, aut ardens evexit ad aethera virtus, Dis geniti.

FOOTNOTES [1] [Greek: Leimhon], a meadow. [2] [Greek: Alaethehis dhan tinas, o Sokrates, upolambanon, orthos tis dianooit an; SO. Tas peri te ta kala legomena chromata kai peri ta schaemata, kai ton osmon tas pleistas, kai tas ton phthongon, kai osa tas endeias anaisthaetous echonta kai alupous, tas plaeroseis aisthaetas kai aedeias katharas lupon paradidosi.] "What pleasures then, Socrates, may one justly conclude to be true ones?--_Soc._ Those which regard both such colours as are accounted beautiful; and figures; and many smells and sounds; and whatsoever things, when they are absent, we neither feel the want of, nor are uneasy for; but when present, we feel and enjoy without any mixture of uneasiness." He then goes on to exemplify these true pleasures in forms, colours, &c. Compare the De Rep. p. 534.

* * * * *

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

If it were allowable for one who professes to write the lives of English poets to pass the name of Chatterton in silence, I should think the literature of our country more honoured by the concealment of his fate than by the record of his genius. Yet from his brief story, the young will learn, that genius is likely to lead them into misery, if it be not accompanied by something that is better than genius; and men, whom birth and station have rendered eminent, may discover that they owe some duty to those whom nature has made more than their equals; and who--

Beneath the good tho' far--are far above the great.

Thomas Chatterton was born in the parish of St. Mary Redcliffe, at Bristol, on the twentieth of November, 1752. His father, who was of the same name, and who died about three months before the birth of his son, had been writing-master to a classical school, singing-man in Bristol cathedral, and master of the free-school in Pyle-street in that city; and is related to have been inclined to a belief in magic, and deeply versed in Cornelius Agrippa. His forefathers had borne the humble office of sexton to St. Mary Redcliffe church for a century and a half, till the death of John Chatterton, great uncle of the poet.

From what is recorded of the infancy of Chatterton, parents may be satisfied that an inaptness to learn in childhood, is far from being a prognostic of future dullness. At the age of five years, he was sent to the school of which his father had been master, and was found so incorrigibly stupid, that he was rejected by the teacher, whose name was Love, as incapable of profiting by his instruction. His mother, as most mothers would have done in the like case, bitterly lamented her son's untowardness; when an old musical manuscript in French coming in his way, he fell in love, as she expressed it, with the illuminated capitals. Of this fancy she eagerly availed herself to lead him on to an acquaintance with the alphabet; and from hence proceeded to teach him to read in an old Testament or Bible in the black letter. Doctor Gregory, one of his biographers, justly observes, that it is not unreasonable to suppose his peculiar fondness for antiquities to have originated in this incident.

It is related, on the testimony of his sister, as a mark of his early thirst for distinction, that being offered a present of china-ware by a potter, and asked what device he would have painted on it, he replied, "Paint me an angel with wings, and a trumpet to trumpet my name about the world." It is so usual with those who are fondly attached to a child, to deceive themselves into a belief, that what it has said on the suggestion of others, has proceeded from its own mind, that much credit is seldom due to such marvels.

A little before he had attained his eighth year, he was admitted into Colston's charity school in Bristol, an institution in some respects similar to that excellent one of Christ's Hospital in London, the boys being boarded and clothed, as well as instructed, in the house. In two years his dislike to reading was so thoroughly overcome, that he spent the pocket-money allowed him by his mother in hiring books from a circulating library. He became reserved, thoughtful, and at times melancholy; mixed little in childish sports; and between his eleventh and twelfth years had made a catalogue of the books he had read to the number of seventy. It is to be regretted, that with a disposition thus studious, he was not instructed in any language but his own. The example of one of the assistants in the school, named Thomas Phillips, spread a poetical emulation among the elder boys, of whom Thistlethwaite, Cary, and Fowler, figured in the periodical publications of the day. Chatterton did not escape the contagion; and a pocket-book presented to him by his sister, as a new-year's gift, was returned at the end of the year filled with his writing, chiefly in verse. Phillips is probably the person whose skill in poetry is extolled by Chatterton in an elegy on the death of his acquaintance of that name, which has some stanzas of remarkable beauty.

Soon after his confirmation by the bishop, at twelve years of age, he was prompted by the serious reflections which the performance of that ceremony had awakened in him, to compose some lines on the Last Day, and a paraphrase of the ninth chapter of Job, and of some chapters in Isaiah. Had his life been protracted, there is every reason to believe, from the process which usually takes place in minds constituted like his, that after an interval of scepticism, these feelings of piety would have returned in their full force. At the same time he indulged himself in satirical effusions on his master, and such of his schoolfellows as had provoked either his resentment or his ridicule.

On the first of July, 1767, he was taken from school, and apprenticed for seven years to Mr. John Lambert, attorney, of Bristol, to be instructed in the art of a scrivener. The apprentice fee was only ten pounds; he slept in the room with the footboy, and was confined to the office from eight o'clock in the morning, with the usual interval for dinner, till the same hour at night. His conduct was such as left his master no room for blame. He never exceeded the hours limited for his absence, except on one occasion, when he had been to spend an evening in the company of his mother and some friends. Once only he incurred correction. His old schoolmaster had received an abusive anonymous letter; and Lambert having discovered from the hand-writing, which was ill disguised, and by the paper, which was the same as that used in his office, that Chatterton was the writer, thought it necessary to check so mischievous a propensity, by inflicting on him one or two blows. Though he was compelled to pass so large a portion of time in confinement, he had much leisure left him, as his master's business frequently did not occupy more than two hours in the day. His chief employment was the copying of precedents, with which he filled a folio book of 344 pages closely written.