THOMAS CHATTERTON.
Thomas Chatterton. By Charles Edward Russell. (Grant _ Richards. .7s. 6d. net.)—It was-inevitable that. Chatterton should have his turn in the whitewashing process which. is one of the
literary activities of the day. We cannot help thinking that much of Mr. Russell's energy is misplaced. To talk of "false report and malignant elaxider" seems a little absurd. No one is disposed to judge harshly the unhappy lad—he had not completed his eighteenth year when he died—but it is useless to deny that he was "a literary forger." Mr. Russell's suggestion is this:— "Some of the documents Chatterton furnished [to Barrett for his book] were not only genuine but of real interest and value. Now Chatterton supplied these documents in return for books, books that were the life of him, books that he must have or perish intellectually. Supposing, therefore, that the fictitious docu- ments were not made at the instance of another, we may believe that so long as he could he delivered the genuine relics. When they failed, the thought of losing the supply of books was more than he could endure, and the repeated demands of the surgeon drove him to the fabricating of other documents?' It might, of course, be argued that if the urgency of the want at all excuses the wrongdoing, food should come before books; still, we may concede Mr. Russell's contention. The motive had a certain nobility about it; yet it was forgery that he did, and did, not as a literary amusement or tour de force, but to obtain what he wanted. There is much that is interesting in the book. It would have been attractive if it could have been given without the addition of all this paradox. For paradox certainly attracts Mr. Russell. He is, we find, a " Wilkesith,"—Wilkes himself, as he took occasion to assure the world, never was.
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