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CNAT7ERTON AND 111.4StER nion and the favourite of the treat—the wonder
and the idol of the 'ingot; frfr him Ito honour was
thought too high—no reward ton liberal ; ever, the
voice of censure was employed in vain, or, if heard,
was heard without attention.
To (linnet ttm, the voice of praise and the smiles
of fortune were equally unknown. He had no
wealth to purchase enjoyment—no name to com-
mand attention. To loin the ephemera of fathion
were the insulters of poverty, and the mockers of
distress. Hope never brightened his prospects—no
friend to genius ever lightened his labours. He did
not languish away his youth iu the po ion of
pleasure, elegance, or comfort. A penny tar/ was 1a
dim is luxury. lie lived in misery. and died by
poison !
My colouring of these two portraits is not ton
high. Ido sot, however, think that the fate of
Chatterton does so much dishonour to the age itself,
as some seem to imagine. Had Chatterton procured
to his works the publicity which necessarily attended
the exertions of Master Betty, he would have bees,
perhaps, equally rewarded. He seems to have be-
lieved that, because he had discovered one example
of avaricious pride, all our nobility were proud and
avaricious. Chatterton deferred equal honours ssith
Master Betty ; but it does not impeach the candour
of the age, that they were not granted ; for how can
he be rewarded, who is not known. This neglea
can only reflect disgrace upon a few individuals.
Chatterton trusted to a Walpole, and Betty sub-
mitted to a Hough. The former was an Urford,
the latter was a wee.
In this opinion of the age, I hope that I am not
mistaken: I have, indeed, some reasons for fear.
In what circumstances are she relations of Chatter-
ton ? It is easy to see an error after it has been com-
mitted, but our repentance ought to render ns more
cautious. Perhaps the cotemporaries of Chatterton
would have declaimed with vehemence against their
predecessors, had Chatterton lived tie cotemporary
of Addison. The since.rity of this, or a future age,
will be best displayed upon the appearance of ano-
ther Chatterton. !Ito som

(FROM THIL TYMI
It perhaps will not be doing Master Betty injus-
tice to compare him with a youthful prodigy of the
eighteenth contitry ; to one, wh.i, with superior
genius, was condemned to waste his life in poverty
and sorrow -to linger foe a while beneath the frown
of insolence and pride, and to pay by grief, indi-
gence. and labour, for a literary immortality.
To fot m the after are required eiegance of form,
melody of voice, v;vacity or the eye, and expression
of the countenance ; a mind observing and intelli-
7ent, lot :lied readily to receive impressions, and to
reten 'hen) ; a memory, retentive and capacious ; a
col-eption, sapid and acute.
To mint the poet ar,, required, as to form the
,r, acuteii-ss and rapid iv of conception, and re-
•tntion and capas irusness of memory. But to these
must be added, an intimacy with the human heart,
yrofundity of thotiglit, and readiness of invention ;
that genius which creates, and that imagination
which sinsp!ifies ; a knowledge of nature and of
mm, and an acquarmenze with science and with
books.
l he piwers of Betty were discovered w!.en it was
yet easy to mature them. Before he ventured to
appear upon the stage, his talents had been im-
proved by instrodion, and his efforts encouraged by
praise. In the lap of leisure, secure from the storms
of indigence, he was never condemned to mourn
over the pages of Shakespeare, by the feeble gleam-
ings of a midnight taper. He enjoyed all that af-
fedion and indulgence could procure—a mind ex-
empted from pecuniary anxiety, and a day unclouded
by the frown of insolence.
Chatterton owed his improvement to his own ge-
nies and for-ittle : he had no praise to animate—
no care to cherish—no gnat-dials to protect. By
him, excellence was pursued in defiance of poverty,
restraint, and inconvenience. In the hours stolen
from labour, and perhaps from sorrow, he raised
his own future immortality. The moss valuable of
his produdiens were the offspring of difficay ..nd
distress : Genius alone enabled him to war above
the clouds of ignorance. To example or instrudion
he owed nothing.
The superiority of natural powers must, therefore,
without hesitation, be allowed to Chatterton. It it he
difficult to arrive at excellence, when encouraged by
leisure, indulgence, and applause, what must he the
pools of him who can reach the magnificence of po-
etry, amid grief, poverty, and ignorance. Betty, in
the aims of leisure, was enabled to attend to the
precepts of his friend, to correct she faults of
negligence, or hAbit ; to snatch new beauties, and to
improve excellence. Chatterton, beneath the power
of poverty, had neither opportunity to corm& nor
leisure to polis;i. He did not arrive at excellence,
like Betty, by gradual improvement, bat appeared
at once in perfect lustre. Betty may be compared
to the rising sue, which ascends slowly to its zenith.
Chatterton to the risen sun which disperses the
clouds that obscure its radiance, and bursts most the
sight in meridian splendour. All that astonishes is
the works of Chatterton was his own creation, sad
all that pleases in the performance of Mater Betty,
has been acquired by unwearied attention. The
genius of Chatterton conquered difficulty ; the tn•
lents of Betty equalled his instruCtion. ChatteMois
is the child of Nature, and Betty the pupil of An.
The admirers of Master Betty will have no reason
to accuse me of partiality to Chatterton, for lam
doubtful whether, to constitute an aftor, genius is
necessary. By genius, I mean that power, without
which judgment, acuteness, penetration. and know-
ledge, are of no avails that power which conquers
restraint, and animates the page of unlettered ig-
norance. He who is possessed of elegance of form,
expression of countenance, acuteness of perception,
retention of memory, and power -and melody of
voice, may, by attention, become an aZior ; but, of
what avail are all these qualifications to form the
poet ? The poems of Bloomfield and of Burns were
composed at the plough, but where shall we find a
lemble or a Betty who attained, in the same
sphere, an equal excellence. No one can believe
that, to form the poet, requires less observation or
intimacy with the world, than to form the player s
but observation alone will perfedt the player, while
genius alone will form the poet. The art of an
actor may be acquired, but that of the poet can only
be improved.
In acquired powers, the superiority must be al-
lowed to Betty, bat those powers were not mole
happily employed in proportion to the number of
advantages he possessed. Chatterton, under the
impression of fear and anxiety, attained a consider-
able smoothness of versification. Master Betty, in
the lap of security and indulgence, attained pro-
priety of accent and emphasis, ease of motion, and
grace of attitude.
The superiority of Chatterton will be somewhat
diminished by the difference of age. Master Betty
appeared to the world before he was twelve years of
age—Chatterton when he was fifteen. This differ-
ence, however, will not appear considerable, when
it is remembered, that Chatterton had but two hours
a day in which he could employ his pen. His ma-
nuscript must have been a considerable time beneath
his hands, and opportunity would not allow him to
male much correCtion. But there is a more import-
ant consideration. A boy at any age, if he have
every other requisite, will be able to express the
passions by his voice and countenance; but the
words of a language, after every other requisite is
acquired, must be gained by observation. The
player, it is true, must feel the words he pronounces,
but there is a very material difference between this
knowledge and that which is necessary to apply
them. Every school-boy can read Yield, hut how
many will be found who can put a translated sen•
tence of The Lend into its original language? This
subjed will, perhaps, require a future explanation.
It is more extraordinary, if every other circumstance
had been equal, that Chatterton should have written
The Battle It Heathy at sixteen, than that Master
Betty, at twelve, sdould have played Dore fes.
The rewards which Chatterton and Betty have
respedively received, are like the circumstances
wider which they attained excellence.
Betty rose at once. to fame and affluence. Ile
was never condemned to feel the stings of insult and
of want, to mitre against poverty, sir to bow to in-
solence and pride. His talents were at the same
time admired and rewarded. Ile found himself, at
the age of fourteen, the possessor of a tortoise fully
adequate to all Lie elegancies of life; the comka-

REMJRKABI.K PERSONS.

RIT■ ACT TROY AN HISTORICAL DICTIONARY.

01 TIM
MOST ItEMANCARLF. PERSONS IN lENI.MAND ANL)
WALES —Pun!i►led in MM.
(Cont;oLLecl bum a twiner ?spec)

RACCIT.
One Racket, a mean fellow of no learning, who
afterwards took up,m him to he Christ : when in
%hew of reconciliation to one, with whom he had
been at variance, he embraced him, and bit off his
nose; and the man desiring to have his nose again,
that it might be sewed on while the wound was
green, he most villainously eat it up, and swallowed
it down before his face, in 1545. A strange recon-
ciliation!

SIN MATTHEW KALE,
Born at Alderley, in Gloucestershire, and bred
at Magdalen Hall. at Oxford, studied the law At
Lincoln's Inn ; his parts were quick. his apprehen-
sions lively, his memory great, and his judgment
strong ; which made him soon attain to great va-
riety of knowledge in the Law, divinity, mathematics,
"natural philosophy, and physic; he used to say—
',ow-No-nun could be absolutely a master in any pro.
fession, without having some skill in other sciences."
For his great integrity and profound skill in the
law, he was preferred Lord Chief Justice of the
King's Bench, He died in 1676.

JOSEPH LORD 11411011NOTON.
Born at Consb-Abby, in Warwickshire, was no
less pious than noble. He began the fashion of a
diary, wherein be registered his daily failings ; being
a wise accomptant, he used that method of chiist-
ian arithmetic in numbering his days. which were
not many, for he died in his prime, and unmarried,
being the last male of that honourable family.

JOHN HALtINGTOPI, ZNIGNT,
Had a fair estate at Kelstone, near Bath, in Sn-
mersoshire ; was Master of St. John's College, and
afterwards one of the most ingenious poets of the
nation, witness his translation of Orlando lierhou,
out of Italian. He died about 1611.
JOSEPH H•RTOP,
Born at Bourn, in Lincolnshire, went chief gun-
ner with Sir John Hawkins, Queen Elizabeth's Ge-
neral, to make discoveries in New Spain. He wrote
a treatise of his voyage, wherein he makes mention
of a tree, that affords both meat and drink, yields
both needles and thread, and tyles for houses.
SIR JOHN IdAWILIKL.
Of Plymouth; in his youth he studied the mathe-
matics, and went divers voyages very •strange and
difficult ; he was the first Englishman that disco-
vered Guinea and Hispaniola, and taught the way
into those parts, where he did Queen Elizabeth many
considerable services ; as also on the Spanish arma-
da. in 1688, for which he was tnighted'; he was nix,
valiant, and loyal ; he was 48 years General to the
Queen, and 12 years Treasurer of the Navy Royal,
which he perfeaed from many defes'ls ; he invented
the chain-pumps fur ships, and sundry other devices.
By commission from the Queen, and with her ships.
he made divers voyages, adventures, and discove-
ries of many rivers, ialands, and harbours in the
Indies.

neoassa PAS.Ewoon,
Of Staffordshire, a common soldier in the Low
Countries, being taken in the war, with twenty-three
Spaniards, eight of them were sentenced, by the
Hollanders, to death, and that by lots; flasle.
wood's lot proving favourable to him, and observ-
ing one of the Spaniards greatly lamenting his fu-
ture danger, he offered to draw again for him, in
case he would give him 5:. which the timorous Spa-
niard freely accepted ; hereupon the Judges gave,
him leave to draw, and his fortune proved success-
ful the second time ; being asked by some, why he
would venture his life fur a crown ? yhe replied, that
since daily he venture.' his lac for 6d. why might
he not venture it now for s*.

Nestor,
A private Norwegian soldier, alone, upon a
bridge, resisted the whole army of the English, sh:w
forty, and maintained his post for several hours,
till one getting under the hr:dge, found means to
artist up a spear into Itis body, and killed him, in
William the Conqueror's time.
SIC OLIVER NISOIJAhI,
13nrn tt Ilingham, in Norl.,11;, was a valiant in in.
whims Ki.!,.; Edward 111. lett Governor of Acqui-