that assembly of impossible professions which Theodore de Banville
describes with so resigned an irony, could have cried without falsehood
'I am a lyric poet and I live by my profession.' One who has not passed
through that mad, ardent, over-excited but generous epoch, cannot imagine
to what a forgetfulness of material existence the intoxication, or, if
you prefer, infatuation of art pushed the obscure and fragile victims who
would rather have died than renounce their dream. One actually heard in
the night the crack of solitary pistols. Judge of the effect produced in
such an environment by M. Afred Vigney's 'Chatterton'; to which, if you
would comprehend it, you must restore the contemporary atmosphere."[31]


[1] Wordsworth, "Resolution and Independence."

[2] January 1, 1753.

[3] "The Poetical Works of Thos. Chatterton. With an Essay on the Rowley
Poems by the Rev. Walter W. Skeat and a Memoir by Edward Bell"; in two
volumes. London, 1871, Vol. I. p. xv.

[4] Willcox's edition of "Chatterton's Poetical Works," Cambridge, 1842,
Vol. I. p. xxi.

[5] "Memoir by Edward Bell," p. xxiv.

[6] _Cf._ ("Battle of Hastings," i. xx)

"The grey-goose pinion, that theron was set,
Eftsoons with smoking crimson blood was wet"