Joseph Cottle, Robert Southey and the 1803 Works of Thomas Chatterton

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TITLE With Certain Grand Cottleisms: Joseph Cottle, Robert Southey, and the 1803 Works of Thomas Chatterton

AUTHORS Groom, N

JOURNAL Romanticism

DEPOSITED IN ORE 10 January 2013

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The version presented here may diﬀer from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication Nick Groom

‘With certain grand Cottleisms’: Joseph Cottle, Robert Southey and the 1803 Works of Thomas Chatterton

On 12 January 1803, Robert Southey wrote to (1798), but he had effectively retired from John Rickman with the news that he had finally bookselling by the time the Works of published his edition of the complete Works of Chatterton appeared.2 It was in fact the Thomas Chatterton. Now completed, the book commercial failure of Lyrical Ballads –towhich proved to be much to the satisfaction of the public were slow to respond – that had Southey’s co-editor Joseph Cottle: ‘Chatterton hastened the collapse of Cottle’s publishing is finished – with certain grand Cottleisms activities, with the result that he was gradually wherewith I shall make mirth for you when we selling his copyrights to T. N. Longman. The meet’.1 These ‘grand Cottleisms’ were not just Works of Chatterton was underwritten by uttered extempore: certain of them have Longman and produced as an act of charity for survived in letters, and they reveal not only the Chatterton’s surviving family – his sister, Mary impulses behind the edition and the ambitions Newton, and her daughter, also called of the two editors, but also suggest why this Mary – and it had, somewhat ironically, a far edition mattered so much, and why it was greater immediate impact than Lyrical Ballads. destined to be a significant document in making This was due in part to the considerable the Romantic myth of Chatterton. At the time, impetus the edition received from a public row the project confirmed Bristol’s position at the between Southey and Herbert Croft, author of centre of what would later be known as the Love and Madness (1780) waged in the pages of Romantic movement – Chatterton was the Monthly Magazine and the Gentleman’s considered to be a Bristolian, as were Southey Magazine (1799–1800).3 But the and Cottle, and completing the project had Southey-Cottle Works was also the earliest involved various members of the regional attempt to produce a comprehensive account of intelligentsia. The story of its inception, the Chatterton phenomenon that had been compilation, and publication presents, then, an haunting the literary world for a quarter of a alternative to narratives of the period that are century. The edition presented an opportunity focussed upon the poetic collaborations of to investigate Chatterton’s precocious – if William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor fatal – genius, and to examine the staggering Coleridge. range of his literary production. Chatterton Cottle is indeed best known as the publisher appealed because he was young, passionate, of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads wayward, and radical. His writings were 226 Romanticism similarly wild, ranging from intricate medieval predominantly unpublished or uncollected forgeries (the Rowley works) to vituperative pieces (including those texts used for William political satires – but how could the dreamy Barrett’s History and Antiquities of the City of imaginative richness of the Rowley world Bristol, 1789); much use is also made of Robert coexist with his extreme radicalism? Southey, Glynn’s bequest to the British Library.5 The the onetime Pantisocrat, was initially drawn to edition concludes with extracts from Edward Chatterton’s strange brew of medievalism and Gardner’s Miscellanies (1798), various letters political savvy, but it was Cottle’s tampering including one from Mary Newton on her emphasizing certain aspects of Chatterton’s brother admitting to writing various Rowley œuvre against others (the Rowley forgeries poems, and a bibliography of the Rowley against the political satires), that would help to Controversy compiled by Joseph Haslewood.6 mould the poet into an archetypal figure for a Annotation is very sparse, except in the Rowley new generation of writers. This edition was volume, and although Southey-Cottle is in no then the canonical Chatterton for the Romantic sense a variorum the footnotes here are period (Wordsworth and Coleridge were both collected from Tyrwhitt, Milles, Bryant, and subscribers to the edition), and was of Barrett, and from notices in newspapers and enormous influence in presenting for the first magazines.7 The edition is very fastidiously time the dizzying extent of Chatterton’s printed, particularly in this Rowley volume: for literary achievements – and it is revealing to example, a page of ‘Eclogue the Second’ has five discern the hand of Cottle in Southey’s strata of type – four lines of text, Chatterton’s high-minded project. footnotes, Tyrwhitt’s footnote, a note According to Donald Taylor, the 1803 continued from the previous page, and a further Southey-Cottle Works is of little interest footnote to that note.8 textually, ‘derived primarily from previous Ostensibly, Southey arranged the texts and editions, earlier printings, holographs still Cottle wrote a handful of explanatory essays, extant, and non-authoritative transcripts’, and but Cottle also seems to have done a it also tends to be inaccurate.4 Butitwasthe considerable amount of editing – not to mention first and until Taylor himself in 1971, the only bowdlerizing – himself; indeed, Cottle was attempt at a collected edition covering all of much more involved in publishing Chatterton Chatterton’s verse and prose. Southey and than he had been in the production of Lyrical Cottle published 32 authentic pieces for the first Ballads, to the extent that his values are time, and brought 45 previously printed pieces perhaps stamped on the edition far more into the canon; they also reproduced nine pieces deeply than those of his co-editor. This is how of doubtful authenticity (seven of which were the more conservative version of Chatterton as from the ‘Hunter of Oddities’ series) and an ineffable genius, barely of this world, erroneously printed two texts not by became delineated. In this, Cottle was assisted Chatterton. Including correspondence and by help received from such characters as memoirs, a total of 112 pieces were collected or George Catcott (associate – one might say printed for the first time. dupe – of the poet, and by then a professional The three volumes of the Southey-Cottle Chattertonian), Thomas Eagles (who had Works begin with George Gregory’s Life (1789) financed The Execution of Sir Charles and a reprint of Chatterton’s Miscellanies in Bawdin, 1772), and Edward Williams Prose and Verse (1778), volume two is drawn (a.k.a. the Welsh antiquarian and forger, Iolo from Jeremiah Milles’s edition of the Rowley Morganwg, who had transcribed Chatterton’s poems (1782), and volume three is father’s catch for three voices from the ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 227

European Magazine, 1792, reprinted in the instance, was first published in the European edition).9 Magazine for January 1792 (interestingly, the Never one to resist interfering, the copytext ultimately used by Cottle was from Pumblechookian Catcott had already taken it on Glynn’s collection). Haslewood also had himself to visit Chatterton’s sister Mrs Newton cuttings from the Gentleman’s Magazine, with a progress report: Monthly Review, Critical Review, European Magazine, Morning Post, St. James’s I have the pleasure of informing you, that Chronicle, Public Advertiser, and many other the Plan meets entirely her approbation; ephemeral publications, detailing the ebb and and that she expresses the most lively flow of the Controversy from 1778 to the Gratitude for the trouble you & your Friend present, and these arguments gathered against have taken in behalf of herself and the authenticity of Rowley proved 10 Daughter. indispensable for Cottle when he came to write his critical essays.14 Mary Newton herself wrote to Cottle a week It was probably the poet, literary later (25 March 1802): journeyman, and eccentric, Mr Catcott calld on me with the pleasing nankeen-pantalooned George Dyer who first news that Mr. Southey &c had determind made contact with Haslewood, acting as an 15 upon a plan of Publishing my Brothers emissary for the Bristol editors. Southey had works. You had purposed the present plan to asked Dyer to try and authenticate Chatterton’s me before you left Bristol and I coincided burletta The Revenge (first published in 1795), with it, and I do assure you Sir, it have my and following the advice of a bookseller, Dyer’s full approbation.11 trail led to Haslewood. Southey immediately paid him a visit, and Haslewood wrote to Dyer It almost sounds as if this has been dictated by on 18 June 1802: Catcott, but the most telling feature of this letter is that she asks for an advance of a Sir/ ‘few pounds’. She was ailing and impoverished; The MS Copy of the Revenge was purchased r r Longman and Rees forwarded £30. by M King of the late M Luffman The main collaborator on the project was Atterbury of Abingdon Westminster for Joseph Haslewood – antiquarian, editor, and 5 Guineas it was afterwards given to the late subsequent founder of the Roxburghe Club.12 John Egerton in order to be published and r Haslewood’s collection of Chattertoniana was, from the information of M K I understand as Southey noted to John Britton, later the MS. was lost, or supposed to be lost at 16 renowned as an antiquarian topographer, the Printing House [.] 13 ‘extraordinary’. He had not only compiled a This note became literally the last word in the comprehensive library of books and pamphlets, Southey and Cottle Works, when it was but had also collected clippings of Chatterton’s reproduced in Haslewood’s bibliography, a contributions to the Middlesex Journal work that Southey had promptly commissioned (1769–70), Town and Country Magazine for the edition: (1769), and Lady’s Magazine (the latter proving that Chatterton did not write under the When Mr. Southey did me the favour of a name ‘Asaphides’). In other words, Haslewood call on the subject of Chatterton I gave him a supplied many details of Chatterton’s short list of the Pamphlets pro & con since uncollected verse, indicating that ‘Clifton’, for then I have perused every writer on the 228 Romanticism

subject and had made a complete Copy of it would perhaps then be proper to print all every Title page in the order they have been the others that have that signature at the end published intending to add some of Chattertons known poems. Whoever the observations on each and transmit them to writer was he certainly imitated Chatterton. Mr. Southey presuming as he adopted there are some “Saxon poems” like Ethelgar Gregory’s Life such list might be of use to & Gorthmond in the Ladys Magazine.18 him; but as you mention the work as nearly Those parallel passages which appeared closed presume my delay in that respect worth reprinting I have placed as notes to the renders the communication unnecessary. – passage in the text. I am now sorry that this method was adopted before I could proﬁt by Dyer leapt into action, insisting ‘There is yet those which you have collected. time for you to send the parcel. It should be For the assistance Sir which you have made into a parcel, and directed R. Southey, given & for what you may yet give, I shall Bristol.’ Dyer also made plans to visit make public acknowledgement – & feel Haslewood, although in the event was entirely private obligation. I am Sir with respect preoccupied with ‘dictioneering matters’ and your obliged humble servant quite typically forgot. Robert Southey Meanwhile, Haslewood sent his list of books Kingsdown. Bristol. and pamphlets on 2 July, insisting that especial July 12. 1802 care be taken over transcribing the title-pages; he had also made ‘observations’ on each entry, Shortly after this (8 August), Dyer was and was in a mood to go after ‘your antagonist’ reassuring Haslewood ‘that ye papers will be Herbert Croft. Haslewood evidently also sent a printed, that ye work will be out in about a parcel of books, which Dyer and Cottle had month or 6 weeks’. It actually took four times already gleefully perused, as Dyer indicated as long. But although the torrent of with a gloating gratitude: ‘I have sent your Haslewood’s erudition continued unabated, the parcel to Southey, who I doubt not has vast majority of his bibliographical references acknowledged the receipt of it. I thank you for were never incorporated into the much pleasure recd. from it myself: for as Cottle edition – indicative of the intentions of Southey thought himself authorized to open it, I pleaded and Cottle to make their Chatterton an privilege with my conscience. & read it‘. accessible poet rather than the preserve of Southey was duly impressed by Haslewood’s antiquarian bibliography. scholarship, and wrote a gracious letter on On Saturday 26 November, Cottle returned 12 July 1802. Haslewood’s books, and urged him to ‘let us have the List of Books on Monday, as that is Sir, the only article now for which we I feel myself greatly obliged for the list of wait’ – although in fact the engraved illustrative publications wherewith you have forwarded plates also remained to be ﬁnished. When the me, & think it should be printed at full list of publications appeared, however, Cottle length with the observations as you have decided to cut Haslewood’s longest written it. Collectors will value the observations, explaining on 29 November, minuteness & those who are not Collectors ‘We by no means wish an Epitomy of Works, will have a compleat view of the controversy. but the mere titles, with a few simple remarks if The pieces signed Asaphides17 in the there was any thing which particularly required Miscellanies have already been printed. them’. But Cottle was also concerned about ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 229

Haslewood’s remarks concerning Herbert Chatterton, but Haslewood clearly felt that he Croft, and his first objection was to ‘the whole had now discharged all of his knowledge on relating to Love and Madness. It will be Chatterton: ‘ < Upon > the point of any construed into an attack upon < living > Sir H publicon from me wd. have been pieces by C. Croft, and as neither Mr Southey or myself omitted by his Editor as those have said any thing concerning him, we should < have been > are communicated there is not not chuse for a 3d Person.’ Significantly, Croft < any > sufficient reason for me to use pen is not explicitly criticized in the edition, despite < further > on ye. subject – ’ Love and Madness being given as the source for Nonetheless, Haslewood dashed off a frantic early material such as ‘Apostate Will’. letter two days later with a handful of Certainly neither Southey nor Cottle had corrections to his bibliography (which were anything to fear from him: they had already more or less incorporated), before succumbing laid before the public the ‘black scene’ of Croft’s to a sore throat and cold. He wrote to Cottle duplicity in obtaining papers from Chatterton’s from his sick bed on 10 December, hoping that mother and sister, Southey had defeated Croft the book was printed to help him through ‘the in the magazines, and they had assembled their lassitude of illness . . . convinced I shall be much subscribers, as I have argued elsewhere.19 But it better pleased with Chs. notions “Than is remarkable that Croft is treated so lightly. He counting the clock for gargles & potions”‘. was very much the villain of the piece and in Cottle replied on ‘Saturday Decr something effect the entire reason that Southey and Cottle 1802’ that although the Works would not be embarked on the edition. This reluctance to ready until the new year, nevertheless ‘You attack Croft suggests the growing conservatism may depend upon having one of the first copies of a project, if it also suggests a certain that is delivered’.20 high-mindedness in refusing to allow petty Much of Haslewood’s collection of criticism of Croft’s heinous exploits to tarnish Chattertoniana related to the political satires, the poetic memorial. and so it is perhaps surprising that more use Haslewood wrote back straightaway, was not made of his sources. But this reluctance somewhat flustered: to engage fully with the worldly, Churchillian Chatterton plying his wares in the literary it is not worth mentioning my rule of marketplace is symptomatic of the adopting a Cause is to do my best to support Southey-Cottle edition. Southey had initially it & certainly thought myself doing it as been drawn to Chatterton’s ability to switch Mr. Southey’s expressed himself obliged by rapidly between voices, styles, and registers, the List of Publicons and “that it should be from imaginative introspection to radical printed at full length with the observons as politics; but whether to save Mrs Mary I had < wh > written it Collectors would Newton’s blushes, or out of his own sheer value the minuteness & those that were not embarrassment or moral cowardice, Cottle left Collectors would have a complete view of the some pieces out of the edition, and bowdlerized controversy.” and where on second perusal others. For example, on 18 March 1802 the I had any way enlarged it was only only elderly and meddlesome Catcott had written to with an intention to render it more worthy Cottle objecting to the inclusion of ‘The any work he put his name to as Editor. Exhibition’ in the forthcoming Works.21 This is a ripe example of Chatterton’s ‘political and Cottle had also reminded Haslewood of his own obscene ribaldry’, describing a clerical sometime plans to publish an account of exhibitionist: 230 Romanticism

What is that thing of Flatulence and Noise Indeed, later, in Malvern Hills (1829), Cottle Whose Surgery is but a Heap of Toys insisted that Chatterton’s reputation ‘rests, That thing once Slave to me, who boasts he’s got exclusively, on Rowley, the deliberate effusion A Treatise on the Matrix piping hot of his genius. None of his other writings, it Who can with Microscopic Glass descry must be admitted, possess the principles of New hidden Beauties in the nether Eye vitality’.25 He goes on to say that the Works is What if that Thing was suffer’d to escape marred by accepting all of the pieces in Because his Manhood could not reach a Miscellanies as genuine. He was now satisfied Rape . . . [and so on] (ll.371–8)22 that ‘Memoirs of a Sad Dog’ and several other pieces had been wrongly attributed to Catcott wrote thus: Chatterton – although Cottle is the only editor seriously to have doubted ‘Sad Dog’ and the Dear Sir, nature of his objection is completely I have consulted with some of my most unknown.26 confidential Friends, respecting the Cottle fiddled with other texts. Among Publication of the Exhibition and they are Haslewood’s collection was a graingerized copy unanimously of Opinion, that it ought to be of Milles’s 1782 edition that included a altogether suppressed. I confess to you that manuscript of ‘Kew Gardens’ in Isaac Reed’s this coincides entirely with my own Ideas hand – the source of printed extracts of the upon the subject, and I am persuaded that poem from perhaps as early as 1778.27 Cottle both Mr Southey & yourself, would see the must have examined this version – which was impropriety of laying it before the World. almost eleven hundred lines long – and yet he published a version a tenth of the size, taken Catcott admitted to be ‘almost ashamed to be in from a manuscript possibly made by Michael possession of such an abusive Libel’ and warned Lort, in the hands of one Dr Halifax. ‘Kew that ‘The insertion of any part of it would not Gardens’ was not published in full until only be a stigma to the Volume, but would raise Taylor’s edition of 1971. a Cloud of Enemies against the Undertaking’.23 Likewise, Cottle specifically requested from ‘The Exhibition’ was expelled from the Haslewood the text of ‘Resignation’ printed in edition. Even Southey was surprised and the Freeholder’s Magazine (1770), ‘to compare slightly dismayed – if philosophical – by some of a couple of doubtful Words’, although in the the transcription he found himself engaged event the poem as printed not only contained upon. He wrote to Charles Danvers on various lacunae, but was also bowdlerized of 23 March 1802: several couplets. The poem attacks the Prime Minister Bute for his supposed affair with I have a heavy job upon my hands. To day Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, the Princess Dowager the Museum doors were opened to me and of Wales (‘the Carlton Sybil’): alack and a-well-a-day I find not less than 1500 unpublished lines of Chatterton to Nor yet be unthankful he for power and Place transcribe from manuscripts not always the He prais’d the Sybil with distinguished Grace most legible. However this will give the book And oft repairing to her Cell of Hate a value, tho between you and I, neither you He laid aside the Dignity of State or I are likely to be delighted with poetry Fierce suck’d her secret teat: the wither’d hag upon temporary or local subjects – wit and Repaid his Ardor with a wealthy bag; genius wasted.24 Oft when replenished with superior might ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 231

The Thane has sucked three Million in a Night discovered in the parchments.30 [Transcript Or when the Treasury was sunk with spoil taken from the original manuscript rather Three Coronets have recompensed his Toil than from the printed text.] And had not virtuous Chudleigh held the Door She to this moment might have been a Whore. A minor textual cruce (probably Chatterton’s (ll. 255–66)28 deliberate error) was declared ‘the strongest argument that has been adduced for the Cottle silently omitted this section, presumably authenticity of the poems’, and Southey and for reasons of decorum. While he was happy to Cottle even reprinted such things as reprint bawdy innuendo in ‘The Whore of Chatterton’s notes on medieval writers.31 The Babylon’ (for example, ll. 101–2, and 420), the main burden of proof, however, was carried by queasy reference to the witches’ mark (or Cottle’s essays – notably his research into supernumerary nipple) here was certainly not Chatterton’s ‘Account of the Family of the to his taste.29 De Berghams’.32 But the main thrust of the Works was not Cottle believed that this fake pedigree was simply to celebrate Chatterton’s diversity, but the key to Chatterton’s œuvre and could ‘throw to establish that he was the sole author of the very important light on ROWLEY’s POEMS, if Rowley works, and it was upon those pieces, not to decide the Controversy’.33 Cottle rather than ephemeral political doggerel, that proceeds by examining Chatterton’s sources, his reputation should stand. Cottle had a little and discovering that while he had indeed used coup here: another contribution from Mary genuine sources, there was no evidence there of Newton. She had written to Cottle again on the quotations he had used, and moreover, he 17 October 1802 with the following had interpolated extra material into the information: pedigree. Cottle then declares the oral tradition You desire me to inform you all I know ‘a new and inadmissable species of evidence’, concerning Rowleys Poems, the whole of my and discovers some sources to be non-existent.34 knowledge amounts to no more than this. The heraldic designs lack consistency and My Brother read to me the Poem on our historical conformity, and contain errors; Ladies Church. after He had read it several although ‘It appears very evident that times, I insisted upon it He had made it. He Chatterton had paid particular attention to the begd. to know what reason I had to think so, subject of Heraldry’.35 Cottle finds only one I added, His stile was easyly discovered in indisputable fact, derived from John Weever’s that poem[.] He replyd, I confess I made this, Antient Funeral Monuments (1767, first but dont you say any thing about it. When published 1631), and then points out that he read the Death of Sir Charles Bawden to Chatterton uses this work elsewhere. my Mother she admired it and asked him if He concludes that this document, He made it. He replyd I found the argument and I versified it. I never saw any will exhibit Chatterton, to the advocates of parchment in my Brothers posession but the Rowley, in a new light, it will demonstrate account of Cannings Feast with several scraps him to have indulged a peculiar taste for of the Tragedy of Ella on paper of his own subjects connected with antiquities; it will writing, that He read to his family, as a prove him to have possessed a sound specimen of the treasure He had discovered judgment in selecting names and incidents, in the parchment and He always spoke of the adapted to his purpose; and will exhibit a poems to his friends as treasure He had mind capable forming a great and intricate 232 Romanticism

plan, on the most slender materials, various works. Cottle also answers the supported alone by nice arrangement and argument that Chatterton interpolated genuine specious falsehood.36 manuscripts in a similar fashion, declaring, ‘Whoever examines the beautiful Tragedy of Henceforth, however, Chatterton’s pure genius Ella, will find an accurate adjustment of plan, is confirmed. It is a characteristic Cottle move, a which precludes the possibility of its having Cottleism: Chatterton’s forgery is transcended been matured by different persons at the by his genius. Cottle’s reasoning is that distance of centuries’.41 In other words, Cottle In identifying the Priest of the 15th Century was emphasizing the contiguous poetic subject. with the Bard of the 18th, as far as intellect Cottle concludes this essay by insisting again extends, Chatterton must ever be considered on the significance of the two pedigrees, De as an almost miraculous Being, on whom Bergham and De Chatterton: both was showered “The Pomp and Prodigality of Heaven!” . . . All difficulties vanished before exhibit unquestionable proof of that radical him, and every branch of knowledge became tendency of mind which Chatterton felt for familiar to which he momentarily directed inventing Plausible Fictions (the grand key his luminous attention.37 to his character!) and in support of which sentiment his whole life forms one mass of This, then, is the figure of Chatterton that authority. These additional proofs of his emerges in the Southey-Cottle edition, as creative faculty, connected with that body of steered by Cottle: the identification of an diversified anti-rowleian evidence already eighteenth-century poet with a before the public, can leave a doubt on few fifteenth-century priest is an awe-inspiring minds, but that Chatterton possessed that imaginative feat. Cottle briefly speculates what peculiar disposition, as well as those another seventeen years would have brought, pre-eminent talents, the union of which was before concluding that Chatterton is perhaps both necessary and equal to the great ‘the greatest Genius that ever appeared in the production of Rowley.42 “Tide of Times”‘.38 A ‘grand’ Cottleism indeed. On 28 October 1800, Cottle had effectively set the seal on his analysis, branding De Bergham Cottle’s own emphases guide the reader here: copy books as fakes by inviting the notorious Chatterton is both ‘radical’ and ‘creative’, Shakspeare forger William Henry Ireland to a prototypical Romantic rebel. And yet sign the actual manuscripts with forged Chatterton’s actual political and satirical signatures of the bard – an utterly imbecilic radicalism, involving precisely those Cottleism.39 ‘temporary or local subjects’ in which Southey Cottle continued his delighted attack against found ‘wit and genius wasted’, is played down. the existence of Rowley in his essay, Instead, radicalism is now – like creativity – a ‘Observations on Chatterton’s Arms’.40 This is state of mind, which Cottle can justifiably another heraldic analysis giving a potted career valorize in Chatterton. Heraldry, interpreted by of Chatterton’s impositions (making great and Cottle as a sign system ‘inseparable from heroic rather spurious use of his Ossianics), and action’, is replaced by a heroizing code of argues convincingly for the similarities genius. This underscores Cottle and Southey’s between Rowley himself and the dozen other ambitions to canonize Chatterton and celebrate writers in Chatterton’s medieval corpus – thus Bristol, in which ‘Chatterton’s tracing of proving a single-author coherency among the imagined, individual heraldic identities was ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 233 inseparable from the making of a history for that it proved ‘so conclusive of the controversy, Bristol and the creation of a regional identity’.43 as identifying Chatterton with Rowley’.47 Finally, in his ‘Account of Rowley’s MSS’, And by the time Malvern Hills was published, Cottle offers a bibliographical/forensic analysis Cottle’s demolition of Rowley in favour of of Robert Glynn’s collection bequeathed to the Chatterton was considered complete. None British Library, in sometimes rather droll form: other than William Wordsworth congratulated ‘This [MS] consists of two or three scratches Cottle on his acumen (in a letter that Cottle with a pen, which, with the help of a strong assiduously reproduced): imagination, may be supposed to mean a cathedral’.44 Cottle describes Chatterton’s aging My dear Sir, techniques – with a sooty candle, with glue or I received yesterday, through the hands of varnish – and in the version of this essay Mr. Southey, a very agreeable mark of your rewritten for Malvern Hills, Cottle goes on to regard, in a present of two volumes of your dwell upon Horace Walpole’s questionable miscellaneous works. I have read a good deal conduct, before returning to his favourite of your volumes with much pleasure, and, in theme: ‘In the calmest estimation it did appear particular, the ‘Malvern Hills,’ which I found little less than impossible that an uneducated greatly improved. I have also read the boy, of about fifteen, should have produced the ‘Monody on Henderson,’ both favourites of matured excellencies of Rowley; but genius mine. And I have renewed my acquaintance expatiates in an atmosphere of its own, and, with your observations on Chatterton, which occasionally confounds the rigid scrutinizer, by I always thought very highly of, as being exhibiting effects beyond the range of his conclusive on the subject of the forgery. calculation; and this example of Chatterton With many thanks, I remain, absolutely furnishes a New Feature in the My dear Mr. Cottle, History of the Human Mind!’45 Another grand Your old and affectionate friend, Cottleism: ‘genius’ becomes the key to all William Wordsworth Patterdale, August 2d, mythologies. 182948 In Malvern Hills, Cottle returns to this otherworldly theme, using the letters he had Cottle’s defining statement in Malvern Hills is printed at the end of the 1803 Works to present to return Chatterton to the prototypical Chatterton as an almost spiritual being: originality of the pre-Romantic poet: ‘the very first of all premature geniuses’.49 He his conversation was ingenious, and often distinguishes him from the Admirable Crichton strikingly animated . . . one who well knew and other child prodigies, autistic geniuses, Chatterton, described him to the writer, as a autodidacts, and impostors like George boy who appeared “like a Spirit,” and to be Psalmanazar: ‘Chatterton’s superiority arises possessed of, almost, supernatural attributes. from that which is far more unequivocal; from His eye was black and penetrating; his his writings; from his original effort!’50 forehead broad, and his whole aspect, in The Southey-Cottle edition was a success on moments of excitement, unapproachably a number of fronts: the war of the Rowley was commanding....46 finally over, and even the Scottish reviewers were impressed with the production – much to This paper was read in Bristol ‘to a crowded Southey’s gratification: ‘the Chatterton’, he audience’ in December 1828, shortly before the said, had ‘been noticed very respectfully publication of Cottle’s collection. All agreed there’.51 ThiswasWalterScottinthe 234 Romanticism

Edinburgh Review, whose sixteen-page essay Indeed, when Crabb Robinson inquired a day had praised the edition for its breadth and later of Wordsworth of Chatterton’s abilities, clarity. Despite the inferiority of the satirical Wordsworth responded with a warm sense of material, Scott argued the Southey and Cottle his ‘marvellous Boy’s’ achievement: Works gave a fuller understanding of ‘the strange ambiguity of Chatterton’s character’.52 I asked Wordsworth this evening wherein Scott also concurred with the editors that this Chatterton’s excellence lay. He said his was not economic forgery: ‘Without genius was universal; he excelled in every considering the forgery of Rowley’s poems in species of composition, so remarkable an so heinous a light as if they had been a bill or a instance of precocious talent being quite bond, and pecuniary advantage the subject of unexampled. His prose was excellent, and his the fraud,’ he wrote, nevertheless ‘we cannot powers of picturesque description and satire regard the imposture as of an indifferent or great....56 harmless nature’.53 The Scott review confirms that Chatterton’s Rowley vision was Wordsworth’s opinion is surprising because it fundamentally different from his satirical and demonstrates a clear acknowledgement of miscellaneous writing, which helpfully makes Chatterton’s achievements as a prose writer and him a stranger, more ambiguous and variegated satirist, which is what Cottle in particular had writer – ultimately a genius. Scott also asserts drawn attention from. The question of the at the end of his review the insistent moral of political Chatterton had, however, recently Chatterton’s life and death: ‘it is better to prefer re-emerged in John Dix’s semi-fraudulent Life obscurity, than to attain, by the crooked path of (1837), which resurrected the teenage rebel literary forgery, the ambiguous reputation of who had originally enthused the young an ingenious forger’.54 Coleridge and Southey.57 This troubling shift into ethical aesthetics or What was at stake for the editors of the 1803 crimes of writing became more insistent as the edition, then, was this residual sense that nineteenth century progressed, and was Chatterton was a suicidal monster, a lying generally yoked with attempts at character hound, and a political opportunist. The analysis, psychological profiling, and, as the Romantic myth that Southey tried, madness thesis gained ground, with psychiatric half-consciously, to promote, was of a mad diagnosis. Henry Crabb Robinson remained no genius and a radical freethinker, whose work great fan of Chatterton, despite Wordsworth’s was imbricated by poverty and suicide.58 This benign influence. On 16 January 1842, he story took precedence, and has since survived complained: for over two centuries. But this version of Chatterton nevertheless needed to come to I never could enjoy Chatterton – tant pis terms with his political and libertine excesses: pour moi, I have no doubt – but so it is....I although Chatterton had indeed written the defer to the highest authority, Wordsworth, Rowley poems, his genius required he spoke that Chatterton would have probably proved with a single voice – and this, as Wordsworth one of the very greatest poets in our recognized, had to include Chatterton’s satirical language. I must, therefore think he was not voice as well. Yet the 1803 Southey-Cottle a monster of wickedness, but he had no other edition ultimately sidestepped this problem virtue than the domestic affections very through Cottle’s anxious concern for propriety. strongly. He was ready to write for both It was conservative in the failure of the editors politicalpartiesatonce....55 to confront Croft again and press home ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 235

Southey’s attack; it was conservative in their Upon receiving the draft for the for the inadequate annotation to the political and money, she seemed overwhelmed with joy, satirical works (which, as Southey admitted, and said that she should immediately put the made the poems appear merely opportunistic, money in the Stocks....Shethenheldthe or local – and that from a Bristolian himself!); Draft for 154–15 in her hands, and, in a and it was conservative in their unfortunate sort of ecstasy, said to her Daughter ‘Well, bowdlerization – in a word, in Cottle tempering Mary, I have often had valuable papers in the rebel Chatterton that had so viscerally my hands, but I never had such a valuable appealed to Southey. Whether this paper as this before.’ I then told her that the conservatism was the result of a failure of object of this money was to render her last nerve, or just a misguided attempt to make the days comfortable, and that I hoped she would Works palatable for Chatterton’s sister Mary take every thing that was nourishing, and Newton and to curb the excessive libertinism of have a Nurse and proper medical advise (for the myth, remains open to further debate. she appeared in a very weak state) this she Mary Newton was ceertainly extremely promised me she would do, and began to sensitive about the ceaseless sexual gossip that overwhelm me with gratitude. I told her that tainted the memory of her brother – from his we were only the instruments, and that she own adolescent boasting in Bristol to his death must return thanks to a higher Power.61 in the garret of a brothel – and this may have affected the integrity of the edition. A grand Cottleism – and indeed a ﬁne gesture What then of Mrs Mary Newton? Cottle (Cottle did not omit to transcribe the accounts described the scene in a letter to Southey of this episode for Southey). Despite its (24 February 1804). Despite being forwarded shortcomings, the Southey-Cottle edition £30, Mary Newton was desperate for the succeeded marvellously in its primary aim: to money that Longman and Rees were bestow charity on Chatterton’s kin by erecting laboriously collecting from the subscribers, and a literary monument to the poet. But it has to sent several people around to visit Cottle be said that for some he would always be a inquiring after it. Cottle’s letter reveals that he poetaster and a nobody. When William Smith, was very hurt by the suspicions entertained by a childhood friend of Chatterton’s who lived to Mrs Newton and her friends: ‘There is nothing the ripe old age of 89, was shown the Southey so distressing to my mind, as a behaviour which and Cottle Works shortly before he died on implies a suspicion, and I could not help 8 January 1836, he merely shook his head and believing that Mrs Newton and her friends exclaimed, entertained some doubts of the integrity of my intentions’.59 Nevertheless, Cottle corresponded ‘He, Sir! What Tom Chatterton write with Longman and Rees, who replied on 11 Rowley’s poems? No, Sir, he was incapable January 1804 with an account of the sale of of so doing! He no more wrote them than I Chatterton’s Works: 97 remained of the 350 did!’62 sold in her aid. She had already been advanced £30, and was owed another £154–15s from Notes sales.60 Cottle took the draft for £154–15s to Transcriptions are diplomatic: to give a taste of Mrs Newton, who was living in Cathay on Haslewood’s self-consciously archaic penmanship, Redcliffe Hill. She conﬁned to bed when he superscript letters are retained, and the ‘tilde’ visited, but received him and he presented the contraction is shown by underlining; <>indicate money. deletions, indicate interlineation above line. 236 Romanticism

I would like to thank Lynda Pratt for reading and Tyrwhitt (London, 1777); Jacob Bryant, commenting upon this essay. Observations upon the Poems of Thomas Rowley: in which the Authenticity of those Poems is 1. New Letters of Robert Southey, ed. Kenneth Ascertained (London, 1781). Curry (2 vols, New York and London, 1965), i. 8. Works, ii. 16. 302. 9. Works, iii. 495. 2. Nathaniel Biggs was Cottle’s master printer, and 10. Bristol Reference Library [hereafter BRL], so the work is under the imprimatur of Biggs and B20957v. Cottle. 11. BRL, B20956r. 3. Accounts of Southey’s spat with Croft are given 12. Catcott wrote rather witlessly to Robert Glynn on by Brian Goldberg, ‘Romantic Professionalism in 19 March 1799 with regard to Southey, ‘whose 1800: Robert Southey, Herbert Croft, and the poetical abilities are superior to the late Letters of Thomas Chatterton’, ELH, 63 (1996), unfortunate Thos. Chatterton’ (quoted by 681–706; and Nick Groom, ‘Love and Madness: Meyerstein, 488n). Regarding Eagles, see a letter Southey Editing Chatterton’ in Lynda Pratt (ed.), by Richard Smith on the absence of ‘The Merrie Robert Southey and the Contexts of English Tricks of Lamyngetowne’ from Southey and Romanticism (Aldershot, 2005), 41–64: the Cottle, despite their having applied to Thomas current essay is a companion piece to this latter Eagles (or found it in Milles, 183–6, for that work. John Brewer has also reconsidered the case matter); Richard Smith received it from John that inspired Croft in Sentimental Murder: Love Eagles (see The Poetical Works of Thomas and Madness in the Eighteenth Century Chatterton, ed. Walter W. Skeat (2 vols, London, (New York, 2004). See also Basil Cottle, Joseph 1872), ii. 318). Halsewood’s publications include Cottle and the Romantics: The Life of a Bristol an edition of Ancient Critical Essays upon English Printer (Bristol, 2008), ch. 8. Poets and Poësy (2 vols, Triphook, 1811–15), and 4. The Complete Works of Thomas Chatterton,ed. he also wrote Some Account of the Life and Donald S. Taylor and Benjamin B. Hoover (2 vols Publications of the late Joseph Ritson, Esq continuously paginated, Oxford, 1971), (London, 1824), about whom see The Life and i. xxxiii. Correspondence of Robert Southey, ed. Charles 5. George Gregory, The Life of Thomas Chatterton, Cuthbert Southey (6 vols, London, Brown, Green, with Criticisms on his Genius and Writings, and a and Longman, 1849–50), ii. 203. Concise View of the Controversy concerning 13. BRL, B20855v. Rowley’s Poems (London, 1789); Thomas 14. Haslewood had compared his collection with that Chatterton, Miscellanies in Verse and Prose,ed. of Edmond Malone’s volume of ‘Chattertoniana’ John Broughton (London, 1778); Thomas (Boston Public Library, 1873.XG.3843.5) which Chatterton, Poems, Supposed to have been while very incomplete in its magazine clippings, Written at Bristol in the Fifteenth Century, by contains some George Steevens contributions to Thomas Rowley, Priest, &c., ed. Jeremiah Milles the SJC and other papers that Haslewood was (London, 1782); Barrett, William, The History and unable to trace. For Steevens’s contributions, see Antiquities of the City of Bristol; compiled from Arthur Sherbo, The Achievement of George Original Records and Authentic Manuscripts, in Steevens (New York, 1990), 169–98. Public Ofﬁces or Private Hands (Bristol, 1789). 15. It is worth noting that Dyer, himself as former The British Library has the copy of William bluecoat of Christ’s Hospital, had sent money to Barrett’s History and Antiquities of the City of the impoverished Coleridge in 1796, and may have Bristol (Bristol, 1789) used and annotated by also helped Coleridge to get ten guineas from the Southey and Cottle in the course of their edition Royal Literary Fund. Coleridge was, of course, (BL C.60.m.2). pursued by the fear of poverty, and this is how 6. Edward Gardner, Miscellanies, in Prose and Verse Paul Magnuson interprets his ‘Monody on the (2 vols, Bristol, 1798). Death of Chatterton’: as a predominantly ﬁnancial 7. Thomas Chatterton, Poems, Supposed to have plea (Paul Magnuson, ‘Coleridge’s Discursive been Written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, and “Monody on the Death of Chatterton”’, Others, in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Thomas Romanticism on the Net, 17 (Feb 2000). For a ‘With certain grand Cottleisms’ 237

portrait of Dyer, see Charles Lamb’s essay, (4 April 1782), in which ‘R.F.’ presents a ‘Oxford in the Vacation’. preliminary checklist. 16. All the following letters are transcribed from 21. See Meyerstein, 355n.-6n. ‘The Exhibition’ was Haslewood’s collection in the British Library, first printed in John Ingram, The True Chatterton: C.39.h.20 [unfoliated]. A New Study from Original Documents (London, 17. On the question of ‘Asaphides’, Haslewood wrote 1910), Appendix B: 295–304 (nevertheless, this is on Friday 12 August that he would visit Southey still bowdlerized: see Taylor, Works, ii. 1079). with a selection of texts: ‘I propose putting them 22. Taylor, Works, i. 557. in my pocket & calling on you either Saty or 23. BRL, B20957r. Monday afternoon & will then produce to you 24. New Letters of Southey, i. 273. See also Southey sufficient proof that C. did not write under the to Grosvenor Bedford (30 March 1802): ‘I am busy signature of Asaphides’. He must have spoken at the Museum, copying unpublished poems of with Cottle there also, who wrote next on 20 Chatterton, the which forthwith go to press’ August, ‘Since JC had the pleasure of seeing Mr H, (Life and Correspondence, ii. 183). he has, in opposition to Mr H’s conjecture, 25. Joseph Cottle, Malvern Hills, with Minor Poems, received demonstrative evidence that the pieces in and Essays (4th edn, London, 1829), ii. 425n. the Town & Country, with the signature of 26. See also Cottle’s Early Recollections (293n) for “Asaphides” were really written by Chatterton.’ persistent (and ungrounded) doubts over Chatterton did explicitly admit to the signature ‘Memoirs of a Sad Dog’. Nearly all of the ‘Hunter (letter to Stephens, 20 July 1769, Taylor, i. 338), of Oddities’ series was attributed to Chatterton, but it was also a name used by John Lockstone, who had himself claimed only June 1770. a linen draper, and probably other writers of the 27. Haslewood’s graingerized copy of Milles, Spouting Club when they wrote in the Augustan unfoliated (BL, C.39.h.20); see Taylor, Works, ii. style as well. Taylor admits three Asaphidean 1068. ‘Graingerizing’ refers to the habit of pieces to the canon. collectors of interleaving their books with 18. This assumption led to the erroneous attribution additional pages mounted with prints or cuttings, and publication of ‘Cutholf’. and for annotation. 19. Life and Correspondence of Southey, i. 319; for a 28. Taylor, Works, i. 476. new transcription of this letter, see Lynda Pratt, 29. The ‘witches’ teat’, a tell-tale mark bestowed by ‘Interaction, Reorientation, and Discontent in the the devil and the place where devilkin and Coleridge-Southey Circle, 1797: Two New Letters familiars might suckle, was often in a ‘secret by Robert Southey’, Notes & Queries (Sept., place’, suggesting a more salacious reading of 2000), 314–21, 318. See n.3 above on the Croft these lines; see John Gay, ‘The Old Woman and affair. her Cats’: ‘Straws laid across my pace retard, / The 20. Haslewood’s list is very comprehensively horse-shoe’s nail’d (each threshold’s guard) / The transcribed, and very briefly annotated. It is odd, stunted broom the wenches hide, / For fear that I however, that he attributes Edward Rushton’s should up and ride; / They stick with pins my Neglected Genius to ‘William Bagshaw bleeding seat, / And bid me show my secret teat’ Steevens’ – particularly in light of Cottle’s (Fables (London, 1728), XXIII, 90). knowledge of the cancelled note to Coleridge’s 30. BRL, B22225r; Works, iii. 524–5. Interestingly, ‘Monody’. See John Goodridge, ‘Rowley’s Ghost: this letter goes on to describe again the discovery A Checklist of Creative Works Inspired by of the parchments, and her father’s researches into Thomas Chatterton’s Life and Writings’, in the sextons of St Mary Redcliffe: ‘Father affirmd Thomas Chatterton and Romantic Culture the family had held that Office to use his own ed. Nick Groom (London, 1999), 262–92: item 115. phrase, Time out of Mind’. William Bagshaw Stevens [sic] wrote about 31. Works, iii. 524, ii. 66n, iii. 375–6. Chatterton in his poem ‘Retirement’ – for which 32. The De Bergham pedigree and Chatterton’s letter he was praised by Anna Seward. The pursuit of to the herald Ralph Bigland had first been collecting Chattertonian pamphlets and cuttings is published 10 Oct 1787 in GM, and by 1789 the apparent in a letter attributed to George Steevens, two copybooks were in the possession of Thomas but more likely by Richard Farmer, in the SJC Eagles. Cottle obtained them via Mary Newton. 238 Romanticism

Chatterton’s letter to Ralph Bigland ‘proves him 43. Inga Bryden ‘The Mythical Image: Chatterton, to have been no mean adept in the science of King Arthur, and Heraldry’ in Thomas Chatterton Heraldry’ (GM (Nov 1787), 954). The article, and Romantic Culture, 73. signed ‘J.D.’, also alludes to the De Bergham 44. This too is rewritten in Malvern Hills: ii. 396–409; pedigree. Works, iii. 507. 33. Works, ii. 455. This essay appears in an almost 45. Cottle, Malvern Hills, ii. 409. completely rewritten version in Cottle’s Malvern 46. Cottle, Malvern Hills, ii. 411. Hills (ii. 382–95), incorporating some 47. Bristol Journal, 27 Dec 1828: see BRL, B35. semi-ﬁctitious exchanges between Chatterton and 48. Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections; chieﬂy relative Henry Burgum, lengthy quotation from the text to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, during his of the pedigree, and the accounts from long residence in Bristol (2 vols, London, 1837), Chatterton’s pocket book – although it does i. 273–4. See also Joseph Cottle, Reminiscences of conclude on the same note. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey 34. Works, ii. 457. (London: Houlston and Stoneman, 1847). 35. Works, ii. 458. 49. Cottle, Malvern Hills, ii. 431. 36. Works, ii. 460. 50. Cottle, Malvern Hills, ii. 431. 37. Works, ii. 461–2. 51. Life and Correspondence of Southey, ii. 298. 38. Works, ii. 462. 52. Edinburgh Review 4 (April 1804), 218. The edition 39. William Henry Ireland was presumably in Bristol was subsequently translated into French prose in to negotiate with Biggs and Cottle over his Ballads 1839 by Javelin Pagnon, and in 1840 seven Rowley in Imitation of the Ancient (1801). He also visited poems were translated into German by Hermann Mary Newton on this trip: see The Confessions of Püttmann. William-Henry Ireland (London, 1805), 13. 53. Edinburgh Review 4 (April 1804), 218. Ireland is an interesting case of another ‘early 54. Edinburgh Review 4 (April 1804), 230. Romantic’ who wrote in as bewildering an array of 55. Henry Crabb Robinson on Books and their styles as did Chatterton (see Nick Groom, The Writers, ed. Edith J. Morley (2 vols, London, Forger’s Shadow: How Forgery Changed the 1938), ii. 610. Course of Literature (London, 2002), 251–2). 56. Crabb Robinson, ii. 611. 40. Also heavily revised for Malvern Hills, ii. 412–32, 57. John Dix, The Life of Thomas Chatterton including some remarks upon Chatterton’s (London, 1837). plagiarisms from Shakespeare, inspired by George 58. See Groom, ‘Love and Madness’, passim. Steevens’s series of articles in the SJC (these 59. BRL, B20877 (1) 1v. commenced 22 January 1782). 60. BRL, B21041 (1)r. In the accompanying letter, the 41. Works, ii. 518. For such arguments, see, for publishers expected that as many as 30–40 of the example, a letter signed ‘Y.Z’ (SJC 21 September subscriptions would be returned due to subscribers 1782), and Poems, by the Rev. W. Tasker, A.B. dying. (London: privately printed, 1779), 48–9nn. 61. BRL, B20877 (1) 1v. 42. Works, ii. 518–19. 62. Quoted by Ingram, 118.

DOI: 10.3366/E1354991X09000749