ries to be converted into (I believe, no inconfiderable fums of) money? And is the mother and fifter's fhare to be five guineas? Either mean envy of C.'s extraordinary genius, or manly abhorrence of his deteftable death, leads almost every perfon, who talks or writes about this boy, to tell you of his fhocking profigacy and his total want of principle. One reverend antiquarian of Cambridge has gone fo far as to tell those of whom he has made enquiries concerning him, that his death was of little confequence, fince he could not long have escaped hanging. C. never did any thing which merited hanging, half fo much as is merited by that doctor of the charitable religion of Chrift, who can dare to advance fuch an uncharitable affertion without a shadow of probability. Who knows but this venerable feer, in his next vifion, may choose to discover that I fhall live to be hanged; may fee your H. gibbeted in perspective; because my indignation refcues fuch a villain as poor Chatterton from his monkish bigotry? When C. left this world in Auguft 1770, he wanted as many months as intervene between Auguft and November to compleat his 18th year. Ifinto fo fmall a fpace he had contrived to croud much profligacy and much want of principle, fome Tome perhaps may be afcribed to his youth, and fome to want of friends. Johnfon, I remember, defends even the life of Savage, which differed: from Chatterton's in more circumftances than its length, by fome fuch obfervation as this; that the fons of affluence are improper judges of his conduct, and that few wife men will venture to affirm they fhould have lived better than Savage in Savage's fituation. Do profligate and unprincipled, fome of the tendereft epithets vouchsafed poor Chatterton, mean difhoneft or undutiful, an unkind brother or an unfeeling child? The dulleft enemies of his genius can produce no proofs of any fuch crime. Some papers I fhall fend you will contain the fulleft proof of the negative. Do they mean that, being a young man, he was addicted to women; that, being a youth of fuch an imagination, he was addicted to wo men like all youths of ftrong imaginations? Do the epithets mean that he exhibited thofe damnable proofs of his crimes which Bougainville exported into the country of Omiah? The proofs (if there were any, which his bedfellow at his firft bodging in town denies) only how he was unlucky. The crimes must be admitted. Do they mean that, writing to procure bread for himfelf, his mother and his fifter, he wrote on any N 935 fide file and on any fubject which would afford bread? The crime must perhaps be admitted. Yet, let not older men, who may poffibly themselves, in this fenfe of the words, be a little unprincipled, a little profligate, head the advanced guard of weterans who are to attack this infant Hercules in his cradle. And let it be remembered that, in the "Memoirs of a Sad Dog," figned Harry Wildfire, inferted in the Town and Country Magazine, where Chatterton evidently fate to his own pencil for two or three features, there is this paffage--- As I know the art of Curlifm pretty well, I make a tolerable hand of it. But, Mr. Printer, the late profecution against the bookfellers having frightened them all out of their patriotifm, I am neceffitated either to write for the entertainment of the public, or in defence of the ministry. As I have fome little remains of confcience, the latter is not very agreeable. Political writing of either fide is of little fervice to the entertainment or instruction of the reader. Abuse and fcurrility are generally the chief figures in the language of party. I am not of the opinion of those authors who deem every man in place à rafcal, and every man out of place a patriot." In the preface to Chatterton's Mifcellanies, we are even affured that his profligacy was at leaftas confpicuous as his abilities." p. 18. Indeed! Then do I believe he was the most proAigate mortal of his age (I had almost faid, of any age) that ever exifted. The admirable Chrich ton ton (Adventurer, N. 81) bears no comparison with C. either as to the forwardnefs or the greatnefs of his abilities; ftill lefs in point of educa tion, for he ftudied at St. Andrew's in Scotland till he was above three years older than C. was at the time of his death. The infinuations, thrown out by the editor of Chatterton's Mifcellanies, and even by Mr. Warton against the elegant writer at Strawberryhill, are certainly not founded. To impute Chatterton's death, in 1770, to the perfon who in 1768 refused to believe that fome of his compofitions had been written 300 years before, were to treat others ftill more uncharitably, if it be poffible, than Chatterton has been treated. Mr. Walpole is by no means blameable for the life or the death of Chatterton*. * Yet even Mr. Walpole cannot help regretting that he was not better acquainted with Chatterton's " fierce and untameable "fpirit, his confcioufnefs of fuperior abilities, his inattention to "worldly difcretion, his fcorn of owing fubfiftence or reputation to any thing but the ebullitions of his own genius." ("a let"ter to the editor of Chatterton's Mifcellanies," printed at. Strawberry-hill, 1779) Even he cannot help lamenting that he did not "contribute to rescue such a spirit from itself, its worst "enemy." Still, this writer, no less humane than elegant, joins the general cry against the morals of Chatterton But were or were not all the crimes which can be proved against this poor boy any thing more than the univerfal foibles of youth? To perfift Has the reverend Mr. Thomas Warton any thing to urge against the vanity or the prefumption of this poor boy? He fhould furely have re : membered therefore to charge him with thofe crimes, is it any thing more, than to accuse him of his youth? And pure should be that mouth of age which ventures fuch an accufation; for it may be remeni bered (the editor protefts he means not the most distant application in the present day) that when, in the year 1740, on the feamen's bill, Mr.Horace Walpole reflected upon the youth of Pitt, that great man replied, he would not undertake to determine whether, youth might juftly be imputed as a reproach; but this he would affirm, that the wretch, whofe age has only added obftinacy to' Aupidity, is furely the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and deferves not that his grey hairs fhould protect him from infults that much more is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with lefs temptation. Still, this patron of Offian, and rejectori of Chatterton, does not hesitate to affirm, rather barshly, that all of the houfe of forgery are relations; and that, though it be just to Chatterton's memory to fay his poverty never made: him claim kindred with the richest or most enriching branches, "yet that his ingenuity in counterfeiting styles, and, he (W) be-" lieves, hands, might easily have led him to thofe more facile" ❝imitations of profe, promifory notes." But furely it should' have been remembered that, in the preface to the first edition of the Cafle of Otranto, not a boy's production, we are folemnly teld it was found in the "library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England, and was printed at Naples, in the black let❝ter, in the year 1529;" that we are told, in the preface to the fecond edition, "the honourable author flacters himself "he hall appear excufeable for having offered his work to the world "unders |