la manœuvre {du navire) : the handling of the ship

1. 30. // lit dans les astres . . . There is indeed some truth in this prophétie gift of some poets' intuitive minds. But how rare are such geniuses! and are we for the sake of those exceptional beings to encourage the unbearable and powerless pride of such poetasters as Chatterton himself? Modesty would be a better plea than such an overweening assumption of a mission divine. But De Vigny is hère once

more airing his pet idea about the social mission of the poet. With more modesty A. Barbier writes in his Lazare :

O grand Dieu! sois pour moi ce que sont les étoiles Pour le peuple des matelots.

1. 36. bille'vesées, a corrupted form of belles vessies, fine bladders, bubbles, idle talk, silly notions. ' Toutes les billevesées de la métaphysique ne valent pas un argument ad hominem ' (Diderot).

Page 67. 11. 5-10. Baie... Magisterial . . . We know nothing concerning either the * Magisterial ' or * Baie '. But are we then to believe with De Vigny that the greatest insuit to Chatterton was to take him at his word and thus deny him the authorship of the Rowleian poems? (See p. 69, 11. 5-10.)

1. 14. nious n'êtes bon à rien ... Of course such a blunt, contemptuous, and heartless patron as the Lord Mayor is represented hère, and also John Bell, the coarse utilitarian, as opposed to Chatterton, the poetical idealist, are fortunately rare exceptions among patrons of letters.

1. 29. // est à bon port, a phrase borrowed from nautical parlance, meaning 'he has safely reached the harbour,' and hence *he has safely come home,' and hère 'he is now eut of danger.'

Page 68. 1. 2 1 . Ils ont de'viné ce que je leur avouais moimême. As we hâve already said. Chatterton did not openly acknowledge the authorship of the Rowleian poems ; he only did so on two occasions when he was almost compelled to do so.

Page 69. 11. 20-35. Il boit Topium . . . It must be acknowledged that, in spite of De Vigny's assertion to the contrary in his Préface (p. 8), this lyrical address to beneficent Death implies a more unmitigated praise of, and even a more alluring inducement to, suicide than Hamlet's famous soliloquy. Hence the épidémie of ' Chattertonism ' which set in then, just as that of ' Wertherism ' formerly. See, again, p. 72, and Introd., p. lix.

Chatterton committed suicide, not by taking opium, but arsenic, which he had obtained from his neighbour and friend, the chemist Mr. Cross, on August 25, 1770. His corpse was found lying amidst the torn-up remuants of his latest work.

Page 70. 1. i-j. franchement, ils n'aiment rien. In common with Shelley, Leopardi, and many other poets. De Vigny has been charged with egotism in love ; most Imaginative lovers bestow on more or less imperfect women uncontroUable affections that are in reality meant for impossible ideals of Beauty ; hence so mijçh delusion,so many misfortunes! There-