Note 3 — THOMAS CHATTERTON.

The place of Chatterton's birth has been variously stated: Mr. Dix, in his "Life of Chatterton," has mentioned three. His first being that "he was born on the 29th of November, in the year 1752, in a house situated on Redcliff Hill, behind the shop now (1837) occupied by Mr. Hasell, grocer," and which has since been destroyed. But in the appendix to his volume is a communication stating that Mrs. Newton (Chatterton's married sister) left a daughter who "died in 1807, in the house where Chatterton was born; I believe in the arch at Cathay," a street leading from the church-yard to the river-side. But the most certain account seems to be that of Mrs. Edkins (also printed by Dix) who "went to school to Chatterton's father, and was present when the son was born, at the Pyle School." Now, as Chatterton was born about three months after his father's death, and he had been for some years master of the school, it is unlikely that his wife would be removed from the house she inhabited until after her confinement, "when," says Mrs. Edkins, "she went to a house opposite the upper gate on Redcliff Hill." The house appropriated to the master of Pyle Street School is shown in our engraving, it is at the back of the school, which faces the street, and is approached by an open passage on one side of it leading into a small court-yard, beyond which is a little garden. Over the door is inserted a stone, inscribed, "This house was erected by Giles Malpas, of St. Thomas Parish, Gent., for the use of the master of this School, A. D. 1749." The house has but two sitting rooms, one on each side of the door, that to the right being the kitchen; and in one of them the dissolute father of the Poet is said by Dix to have "often passed the whole night roaring out catches, with some of the lowest rabble of the parish." He was succeeded in the office of Schoolmaster by Edmond Chard, who held it for five years; and he was followed in 1757 by Stephen Love, who was master twenty-one years, and to whom Mrs. Chatterton first sent her son for education; and who, "after exhausting the patience of his schoolmaster, was sent back to his mother with the character of a stupid boy, and one who was absolutely incapable of receiving instruction."