cellany, he was a frequent
contributor of essays and poems to several of the other literary
journals. As a political writer, he had resolved to employ his pen on
both sides. "Essays," he tells his sister, "on the patriotic side, fetch
no more than what the copy is sold for. As the patriots themselves are
searching for a place, they have no gratuities to spare. On the other
hand, unpopular essays will not be accepted, and you must pay to have
them printed; but then you seldom lose by it. Courtiers are so sensible
of their deficiency in merit, that they generally reward all who know
how to daub them with an appearance." But all his visions of emolument
and greatness were now beginning to melt away. He was so tired of his
literary drudgery, or found the returns it made him so inadequate to his
support, that he condescended to solicit the appointment of a
chirurgeon's mate to Africa, and applied to Mr. Barrett for a
recommendation, which was refused him, probably on account of his
incapacity. It is difficult to trace the particulars of that sudden
transition from good to bad fortune which seems to have befallen him.
That his poverty was extreme cannot be doubted. The younger Warton was
informed by Mr. Cross, an apothecary in Brook Street, that while
Chatterton lived in the neighbourhood, he often called at his shop; but
though pressed by Cross to dine or sup with him, constantly declined the
invitation, except one evening, when he was prevailed on to partake of a
barrel of oysters, and ate most voraciously. A barber's wife who lived
within a few doors of Mrs. Angel's, gave testimony, that after his death
Mrs. Angel told her, that "on the 24th of August, as she knew he had not
eaten anything for two or three days, she begged he would take some
dinner with her; but he was offended at her expressions, which seemed to
hint that he was in want, and assured her he was not hungry." The
stripling whose pride would not let him go behind a compter, had now
drunk the cup of bitterness to the dregs. On that day he swallowed
arsenic in water, and on the following expired. His room was broken
into, and found strewn over with fragments of papers which he had
destroyed. He was interred in the burying-ground of Shoe Lane
work-house. Such was the end of one who had given greater proofs of
poetical genius than perhaps had ever been shown in one of his years.
By Johnson he was pronounced "the most extraordinary young man that had
ever encounter