Chapter VII: Appendix (2)

Let me conclude these tedious sheets of paper with a most capital subject for a painter, from Chatterton’s _tournament_, which you may add to the subjects I have before suggested to you. It will surprise you to find how _very_ modern it is. The advocates to Rowley must explain this to you, if they can, and if Rowley has still any advocates; for I do assure you, as you will find by turning to the poem, that I have only altered _four_ words, and those _only_ by changing them for Chatterton’s words of explanation in his notes to the poem.

When battle, steaming with new-quicken’d gore,
Bending with spoils and bloody dropping head,
Did the dark wood of ease and rest explore,
Seeking to lie on pleasure’s downy bed—
Pleasure, dancing from her wood,
Wreath’d with flowers of eglantine,
From his visage wash’d the blood,
Hid his sword and gaberdine.

The manner in which you account for the self-destruction of that most wonderful boy, Chatterton, is physical, I assure you, as well as sensible. Tissot, in his “Essay on the Diseases Incident to Literary Persons,” starts some ideas very much like yours, only they are wrapped up in harder words. You shall see:

* * * * *

“When the mind, long time occupied, has forcibly impressed an action upon the brain, she is unable to repress that forcible action. The shock continues after its cause; and, re-acting upon the mind, makes it experience ideas which are truly delirious: for they no longer answer to the external impressions of objects, but to the internal disposition of the brain, some parts of which are now become incapable to receive new movements transmitted to it by the senses.”

“The brain of Pascal was so vitiated by passing his life in the laborious exercises of study, thought, and imagination, that certain fibres, agitated by incessant motion, made him perpetually feel a sensation which seemed to be excited by a gulph of fire situated on one side of him; and his reason, overpowered by the disorder of his nerves, could never banish the idea of this fiery abyss. Spinello painted the fall of the rebel angels, and gave so fierce a countenance to Lucifer, that he was struck with horror himself; and during the remainder of his life, his imagination was continually haunted by the figure of that dæmon, upbraiding him with having made his portrait so hideous. Gasper Barlæis, the orator, poet, and physician, was not ignorant of these dangers. He warned his friend Hughens against them: but, blind with regard to himself, by immoderate studies he so weakened his brain, that he thought his body was made of butter, and carefully shunned the fire, lest it should melt him; till at last, worn out with his continual fears, he leapt into a well. Peter Jurieu, so famous in theological dispute, and for his “Commentary on the Apocalypse,” disordered his brain in such a manner that, though he thought like a man of sense in other respects, he was firmly persuaded his frequent fits of the cholic were occasioned by a constant engagement between seven horsemen, who were shut up in his belly. There have been many instances of literature persons who thought themselves metamorphosed into lanterns; and who complained of having lost their thighs.”

* * * * *

No one can deny that Chatterton must have gone through as much wear and tear of the imagination as any person whom Tissot mentions. But I would give a good deal, were it possible for me never again to think about Chatterton, or about his death, as long as I live, for I never do without being miserable.

What you let fall about the propensity of the English to suicide, is not true; though a very popular idea. And yet I will relate to you, in the words of another person, an instance of English suicide much more cool and deliberate than any you ever heard, I daresay. It is a fact, and happened in 1732.

Richard Smith, a bookbinder, and prisoner for debt within the liberties of the King’s Bench, persuaded his wife to follow his example, in making away with herself, after they had murdered their little infant. This wretched pair were, in the month of April, found hanging in their bedchamber at about a yard’s distance from each other; and in a separate apartment the child lay dead in a cradle. They left two papers inclosed in a short letter to their landlord, whose kindness they implored in favour of their dog and cat. They even left money to the porter, who should carry the inclosed papers to the person to whom they were addressed. In one of these the husband thanked that person for the marks of friendship he had received at his hands; and complained of the ill-offices he had undergone from a different quarter. The other papers, subscribed by the husband and wife, contained the reasons which induced them to act such a tragedy on themselves and their offspring. This letter was altogether surprising for the calm resolution, the good humour, and the propriety, with which it was written. They declared that they withdrew themselves from poverty and rags; evils that, through a train of unlucky accidents, were become inevitable. They appealed to their neighbours for the industry with which they had endeavoured to earn a livelihood. They justified the murder of their child by saying, it was less cruelty to take her with them, than to leave her friendless in the world, exposed to ignorance and misery. They professed their belief and confidence in an Almighty God, the fountain of goodness and beneficence, who could not possibly take delight in the misery of His creatures: they therefore, resigned up their lives to Him without any terrible apprehensions; submitting themselves to those ways, which, in His goodness, He should appoint after death. These unfortunate suicides had been always industrious and frugal, invincibly honest, and remarkable for conjugal affection.

* * * * *

This tragedy I have shown you, because I think France, lively France, in whose language suicide is an _Anglicism_, can supply me with an anecdote as authentic of something still more cool and more deliberate, since the motives to the crime (to which no motive can be sufficiently strong) were so much weaker.

On the day before Christmas Day, 1773, about eleven o’clock, two soldiers came to the Cross-Bow Inn, at St. Dennis, and ordered a dinner. Bordeaux, one of the soldiers, went out and bought a little paper of powder and a couple of bullets, observing to the person who sold them to him, that as St. Dennis seemed to be so pleasant a place, he should not dislike to spend the remainder of his life there. Returning to the inn, he and his companion passed the day together very merrily. On Christmas Day they again dined as merrily, ordered wine, and about five o’clock in the afternoon were found at the fire, on breaking open the door, sitting on the opposite sides of a table, whereon were three empty champaign bottles, the following will and letter, and a half-crown. They were both shot through the head; two pistols lay upon the floor. The noise of the pistols brought up the people of the house, who immediately sent for M. de Rouilleres, the Commandant of the _Maréchaussée_ at St. Dennis.

The will I translated myself from a formal copy, which was taken for a friend of mine at St. Dennis in 1774.

+The Will.+

A man, who knows he is to die, should take care to do everything which his survivors can wish him to have done. We are more particularly in that situation. Our intention is to prevent uneasiness to our host, as well as to lighten the labours of those whom curiosity, under pretence of form and order, will bring hither to pay us visits.

Humain is the bigger, and I, Bourdeaux, am the lesser of the two.

He is drum-major of _mestre de camp des dragons_, and I am simply a dragoon of Belzunce.

Death is a passage I address to the gentleman of the law of St. Dennis (who, with his first clerk as assistant, must come hither for the sake of justice) the principle; which, joined to the reflexion that everything must have an end, put these pistols into our hands. The future presents nothing to us but what is agreeable. Yet that future is short and must end.

Humain is but twenty-four years of age; as for me, I have not yet completed four lustres. No particular reason forces us to interrupt our career, except the disgust we feel at existing for a moment under the continual apprehension of ceasing to exist. An eternity is the point of re-union; a longing-after which leads us to prevent the despotic act of fate. In fine, disgust of life is our sole inducement to quit it.

If all those who are wretched would dare to divest themselves of prejudice, and to look their destruction in the face, they would see it is as easy to lay aside existence as to throw off an old coat, the colour of which displeases. The proof of this may be referred to our experience.

We have enjoyed every gratification in life, even that of obliging our fellow-creatures. We could still procure to ourselves gratifications: but all gratifications must have a period. That period is our poison. We are disgusted at the perpetual sameness of the scene. The curtain is dropped: and we leave our parts to those who are weak enough to feel an inclination to play them a few hours longer.

Two or three grains of powder will soon break the springs of this moving mass of flesh, which our haughty fellow-creatures stile the King of Beings.

Messrs. the officers of justice, our carcases are at your discretion! We despise them too much to give ourselves any trouble about what becomes of them.

As to what we shall leave behind, for myself, Bordeaux, I give to M. de Rouilleres, commandant of the _maréchaussée_ at St. Dennis, my steel-mounted sword. He will recollect, that, last year, about this very day, as he was conducting a recruit, he had the civility to grant me a favour for a person of the name of St. Germain, who had offended him.

The maid of the inn will take my pocket and neck handkerchiefs, as well as the silk stockings which I now have on, and all my other linen.

The rest of our effects will be sufficient to pay the expense of the useless law proceedings of which we shall be the subject.

The half crown upon the table will pay for the last bottle of wine which we are going to drink.

+Bourdeaux.
Humain.+

At +St. Dennis+, _Christmas Day, 1773_.

Of the following letter from Bordeaux to his lieutenant in the regiment of Belzunce, I have not seen the French; I cannot therefore answer for the translation, which does not appear to have been done carefully. Another friend supplied me with it. You shall have it as I had it from him.

* * * * *

“+Sir+,

“During my residence at Guise, you honoured me with your friendship. It is time that I thank you. You have often told me I appeared displeased with my situation. It was sincere, but not absolutely true. I have since examined myself more seriously, and acknowledge myself entirely disgusted with every state of man, the whole world, and myself. From these discoveries a consequence should be drawn: if disgusted with the whole, renounce the whole. The calculation is not long. I have made it without the aid of geometry. In short, I am on the point of putting an end to the existence that I have possessed for nearly twenty years, fifteen of which it has been a burden to me; and, from the moment that I write, a few grains of powder will destroy this moving mass of flesh, which we vain mortals call the King of Beings.

“I owe no one an excuse. I deserted, that was a crime; but I am going to punish it; and the law will be satisfied.

“I asked leave of absence from my superiors, to have the pleasure of dying at my ease. They never condescended to give me an answer. This served to hasten my end.

“I wrote to Bord to send you some detached pieces I left at Guise, which I beg you to accept. You will find they contain some well-chosen literature. These pieces will solicit for me a place in your remembrance.

“Adieu, my dear lieutenant; continue your esteem for St. Lambert and Dorat. As for the rest, skip from flower to flower, and acquire the sweets of all knowledge, and enjoy every pleasure.

“Pour moi, j’arrivé au trou
Qui n’échappe ni sage ni fou,
Pour aller je ne scais où.”

“If we exist after this life, and it is forbidden to quit it without permission, I will endeavour to procure one moment to inform you of it; if not, I should advise all those who are unhappy, which is by far the greatest part of mankind, to follow my example.

“When you receive this letter, I shall have been dead at least twenty-four hours.”

“With esteem, &c.,
“+Bourdeaux+.”

Is there any thing like this in English story?

_If we exist after this life._ Ah, my brave Bourdeaux, that is the question; and a question which even you could not answer in the _negative_.

... There’s the retrospect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns o’ th’ time,
_The pangs of despised love_,

(Which I could never bear.)

... The law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
Which patient merit of th’ unworthy takes?
But that the dread of something after death
Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.

The pains these two poor fellows took (or rather Bourdeaux, for he seems to have been the principal) to prevent any trouble or uneasiness to their survivors, lead me to reflect how very uniformly the contrary is the conduct of suicides with us. One would sometimes almost fancy that they studied how they might commit the abominable crime so as to be found by those whom the discovery would most affect. Have they wives, children? It must be done sometimes in their presence, in bed with them; often in their hearing; almost always in such a manner that they may be the first spectators of it. Mr. Y., Lord F., Mr. S., Lord C., Mr. B., are cruel instances of this. Oh, for Omnipotence, to call such savages back to life, and chain them to the hardest tasks of existence! Is not the crime of suicide sufficient, without adding to it the _murder_, or a heartbroken wife or child? Hence you may, perhaps, draw an argument that every suicide is a madman. For my part, I have no doubt of it; and if Humain had fallen into the hands of a friend less mad than Bourdeaux, he might have lived to have fought another day.

And here ends a long, dull letter, about a short, entertaining conversation (on your part at least).

_Printed by_ +Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.+
_London and Edinburgh._

Transcriber’s notes

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

The text contains words in a somewhat strange spelling. This might be due to it being older, or the use of dialect. In one letter in particular errors might very well have been made intentionally: e.g. “sencible”, “ocation”, “corrispondence”, “verasity” and more. These are not corrected. There are however errors that seem most probably due to printing errors. These have been corrected. Below is a list.

Corrections

Page 27 “Come then to morrow” changed to “Come then to-morrow”; Page 29 “t” added to “regimen” in “I should be drummed out of my regiment”; Page 32 period instead of comma after “Her yielding waist should want a zone”; Page 34 “’ee” changed to “e’e” in “The woes of my heart fall in showers from mine e’e”; Page 50 “Had the frost and snow contiued” changed to “Had the frost and snow continued”; Page 52 “fellow creature” hyphenated in “The happiness, the existence of a fellow-creature”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 57 period added after “Hinchinbrook, Feb. 24, 1776”, as customary in the rest of the text; Page 65 “Charing-cross” de-hyphenated in “Cannon Coffee House, Charing cross, March 17, 1776.”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 65 “coffee-house” de-hyphenated in “from a coffee house near Charing Cross”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 69 “Storgè” changed to “Storgé” in “as Storgé prophetically says in Jephtha”; Page 89 “by-the-way” de-hyphenated in “(which, by the way, is almost worn out)”, as is customary; Page 99 “afte swinging in terrible suspense” changed to “after swinging in terrible suspense”; Page 105 “new” changed to “knew” in “because they once knew what it was to be miserable”; Page 106 “some some” changed to “some” in “I will send you some hasty lines”; Page 114 comma removed after “April” in “Ireland, April 20, 1777.”; Page 119 comma changed to period after “I have been to see the last of poor Dodd”; Page 122 “might have been heard at a considerable disstance” changed to “might have been heard at a considerable distance”; Page 124 “weeeping” changed to “weeping” in “are weeping over the crime and punishment”; Page 133 period inserted at the end of the sentence “One trifling circumstance I must mention”; Page 135 hyphen assumed missing in “enquiring”; Page 135 comma added after “on entering the world of spirits”; Page 147 period added at the end of the sentence “now they rage too fiercely”; Page 148 “brandy-and-water” de-hyphenated in “at the Bedford Coffee House to take brandy and water”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 165 period added after the date in “Newgate, Saturday Night. April 17, 1779”; Page 173 “fellow creatures” hyphenated in “Take warning from me, my fellow-creatures”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 177 “fellow creatures” hyphenated in “ye who might save hundreds of your fellow-creatures”, as elsewhere in the text; Page 185 “to day” in “through which these things were to emerge to-day” hyphenated, as elsewhere in the text; Page 202 capital “H” at the beginning of the sentence “He was proud and exceedingly impetious”; Page 203 period added after “sent the footman and other servants there to see”; Page 210 period added at the end of the poem, in the line “and some believ’d him mad”; Page 219 period added after “Mr” in “upon the same person (Mr. W.)”; Page 233 “Commandent of the Maréchaussée at St. Dennis” changed to “Commandant of the Maréchaussée at St. Dennis”; Page 236 one of two occurences of “about” removed from “to give ourselves any trouble about about what becomes of them.”; Page 238 “and enjoy overy pleasure” changed to “and enjoy every pleasure”.

Formating conventions

_Word_ means that “Word” is in italic; +Word+ means that “Word” is in small capitals.