hardly worth the carriage: Methodistical, and unmeaning. With the ufual ceremonies to my mother, and grandmother; and fincerely, without ceremony, wishing them both happy ; when it is in my power to make them fo, they shall be so; and with my kind remembrance to Mifs Webb, and Mifs Thorne, I remain, as I ever was, Yours, &c. to the end of the chapter, Thomas Chatterton. P. S. I am this minute pierced through the heart, by the black eye of a young lady, driving along in a Hackney coach. —I am quite in love: if my love lafts till that time, you shall hear of it in my next. Letter 5. June 19, 1770. Dear Sifter, I have an horrid cold-The relation of the manner of my catching it may give you more pleasure than the circumftance itself. As I wrote very late Sunday night (or rather very early Monday morning), I thought to have gone to bed pretty foon last night: when being half undreffed, I heard a very doleful voice, finging Mifs Hill's favorite bedlamite fong: the hum-drum of the voice fo ftruck me, that tho' I was obliged to liften a long while, before I could hear the words, I found the fimilitude in the found. After hearing her with pleasure drawl for above half an hour, fhe jumped into a brifker tune, and hobbled out the ever-famous fong, in which poor Jack Fowler was to have been fatyrized. ." I "put my hand into a bush: prick'd my finger to the bone: I faw a fhip failing along: I thought the sweetest "flowers flowers to find:" and other pretty flowery expreffions, were twanged with no inharmonious bray. -I now ran to the window, and threw up the fafh; refolved to be fatisfied, whether or no it was the identical Miss Hill, in propria perfona.-But, alas! it was a person whose twang is very well known, when fhe is awake, but who had drank fo much royal bob (the gingerbread baker for that, you know) that she was now linging herself asleep; this fomnifying liquor had made her voice fo like the fweet echo of Mifs Hill's, that if I had not confidered that she could not fee her way up to London, I should abfolutely have imagined it her's There was a fellow and a girl in one corner, more bufy in attending to their own affairs, than the melody. This part of the letter, for fome lines, is not legible. the morning) from Marybone gardens I faw the fellow in the cage at the watch-house, in the parish of St. Giles's; and the nymph is an inhabitant of one of Cupid's inns of Court.There was one fimilitude it would be injuftice to let flip. A drunken fishman, who fells foufe mackarel, and other delicious dainties, to the eternal detriment of all twopenny ordinaries; as his best commodity, his falmon, goes off at three half-pence the piece: this itinerant merchant, this moveable fish-ftall, having likewife had his dofe of bob-royal, ftood ftill for a while; and then joined chorus in a tone, which would have laid half a dozen lawyers, pleading for their fees, fast asleep: this naturally re minded me of Mr. Haythorne's fong of "Says Plato, who oy oy oy should man be vain ?” However, my entertainment, though sweet enough in itself, has a difh of four fauce ferved up in it, for I have a moft horrible weezing in the throat; but I don't repent that I have this this cold; for there are fo many noftrums here, that 'tis worth a man's while to get a diftemper; he can be cured fo cheap. June 29th, 1770. My cold is over and gone. If the above did not recall to your mind fome fcenes of laughter, you have loft your ideas of rifibility. Letter 6. Dear Mother I fend you in the box Six cups and faucers, with two bafons, for my fifter. If a China tea-pot and cream-pot is, in your opinion, neçesfary, I will fend them; but I am informed they are unfathionable, and that the red China, which you are provided with, is more in ufe. A cargo of patterns for yourself, with a fnuff-box, right French, and very curious in my opinion. Two fans the filver one is more grave than the other, which would fuit my fifter beft. But that I leave to you both. Some British-herb fnuff in the box: be careful how you open it. (This I omit, left it injure the other matters.) Some British-herb tobacco for my grandmother, with a pipe. Some trifles for Thorne. Be affured whenever I have the power, my will won't be wanting to testify, that I remember you. Yours, T. Chatterton. July 8, 1770. N. B. I fhall foreftall your intended journey, and pop down upon you at Christmas, I could I could have wished you had sent my red pocket-book, as 'tis very material. I bought two very curious twisted pipes, * for my grandmother; but, both breaking, I was afraid to buy others, left they should break in the box, and, being loofe, injure the China. Have you heard any thing further of the clearance? Direct for me, at Mrs. Angel's, fack-maker, Brook-street, Holborn, Letter * It has been the frequent complaint of poets, that their eyes," in a fine frenzy rolling, glancing from heaven to earth, "from earth to heaven," muft be fometimes fixed on worldly matters; muft now and then fubmit to fettle an account, or to caft up a washerwoman's bill. What fhall we say of this unprincipled, profligate boy, who could pass fo regularly from the beauties of the head, to the beauties of the heart; from the mufe of fire, to the domestic deity; from the chorus to Godwin or Ælla, to a tea-pot for his mother and a tobacco-pipe for his grandmother? Pfalmanazar, with all his methodism, does not even pretend to have ever enquired after his parents; though he might, without danger of difcovery, have relieved their neceffities. C.'s affection more than kept pace with his vi lainy (that's the charitable word, I think). Nor does he ever mention a new prospect, without accompanying it with a new promife of what his mother and fifter might expect from it. Who can read these letters without reflecting that this profligate and unprincipled villain might have wrestled a little longer with, might, perhaps, have conquered, want and hunger, had he fent fewer unneceffary presents to his mother, fifter, and grandmother! Letter. 7. Dear Sifter, I have fent you fome china, and a fan. You have your choice of two. I am furprized that you chofe purple and gold; I went into the shop to buy it; but it is the most disagreeable colour I ever faw; dead, lifeless, and inelegant. Purple and pink, or lemon and pink, are more genteel and lively. Your answer in this affair will oblige me. Be affured, that I fhall ever make your wants, my wants: and stretch to the utmost to ferve you. Remember me to Mifs Sanford, Mifs Rumfey, Mifs Singer, &c. &c. &c. As to the fongs, I have waited this week for them, and have not had time to copy one perfectly; when the season's over, you will have 'em all in print. I had pieces lat month in the following Magazines: Gospel Magazine, Town and Country, viz. Maria Friendlefs. False Step. Hunter of Oddities. To Mifs Bufh, &c. Court and City. London. Political Register, &c. &c. The Christian Magazine, as they are not to be had per |