ts aloft into the realms of day,
Shall be the record of the builder's fame for aye.
Thou see'st this mastery of a human hand,
The pride of Bristol, and the western land.
Yet is the builder's virtue much more great;
Greater than can by Rowley's pen be scann'd.
Thou see'st _the saints and kings in stony state,
As if with breath and human soul expand_.
Well may'st thou be astounded--view it well;
Go not from hence before thou see thy fill,
And learn the builder's virtues and his name.
Of this tall spire in every country tell,
And with thy tale the lazy rich men shame;
Show how the glorious Canning did excel;
How he, good man, a friend for kings became,
And glorious paved at once the way to heaven and fame."

The "Battle of Hastings" is the longest of Chatterton's poems, and the
reader who arrives at its abrupt termination will probably not grieve
that it is left unfinished. The whole contains about 1300 lines in
stanzas of ten, describing archery fights and heroic duels that are
rather tedious by their similarity, and offensive from the smell of the
shambles; and which any quick-witted stripling with the knack of rhyming
might perhaps have done as well, and less coarsely, after reading
Chapman's or Ogilby's Homer, or the fighting scenes in Spenser, the
Border Ballads, &c. But even this composition is not unconscious of the
true afflatus, such as is incommunicable by learning, not to be inhaled
by mere imitative powers, and which might be vainly sought for in
hundreds of highly elaborated prize poems.

There is nothing more interesting in British history than the subject;
and it is one which Chatterton, with all his genius, was much too young
to treat in a manner at all approaching to epic completeness. Yet a few
specimens might show that he is not deficient in the energy of the
Homeric poetry of action. But here is metal more attractive, a young
Saxon wife:--

"White as the chalky cliffs of Britain's isle,
Red as the highest-coloured Gallic wine,
Gay as all nature at the morning smile,
Those hues with pleasance on her lips combine;
Her lips more red than summer evening's skies,
Or Phoebus rising in a frosty morn;
Her breast more white than snow in fields that lies,
Or lily lambs that never have been shorn,
Swelling like bubbles in a boiling well,
Or new-burst brooklets gentling whisp