amped by finding that, to quench
his thirst for knowledge, "there were not books enough." When he took in
rotation the post of doorkeeper at the school, he used to indulge
himself in making verses,[5] and his sister, who loved him tenderly,
presented him with a pocket-book, in which he wrote verses, and gave it
back to her the following year. There was nothing in this species of
tuition or companionship to create or foster either the imitations or
the satire he indulged in, he had neither correction nor assistance from
any one. Even before his apprenticeship to Mr. John Lambert, he felt he
was not appreciated or understood; perhaps no one ever _acted_ a greater
satire upon his own profession than this harsh attorney, who deemed his
apprentice on a level with his footboy. He must have been a man utterly
devoid of perception and feeling; his insulting contempt of what he
could not understand added considerably to the sarcastic bitterness of
Chatterton's nature, and it is easy to picture the boy's feelings when
his productions were torn by this tyrant and scattered on the office
floor! He has his reward. John Lambert, the scrivener, is only
remembered as the insulter of Thomas Chatterton![6]

[Illustration: TOMB OF CANYNGE.]

It is impossible not to pause at every page of this boy's brief but
eventful life, and lament that he had no friend; reading, as we do, by
the light of other days, we can see so many passages where judicious
counsel, given with the intelligent affection that would at once have
opened his heart, _must_ have saved him; his heart, once laid bare to
friendship, would have been purified by the air of truth; it was its
_closeness_ which infected his nature. And yet the scrivener considered
him a good apprentice. His industry was amazing; his frequent employment
was to copy precedents, and one volume, in his handwriting, which is
still extant, consists of three hundred and forty-four closely-written
folio pages. There was in that gloomy office an edition of Camden's
"Britannia," and, having borrowed from Mr. Green, a bookseller,
Speight's "Chaucer," he compiled therefrom an ingenious glossary, for
his own use, in two parts. "The first," Mr. Dix says, "contained old
words, with the modern English--the second, the modern English, with the
old words; this enabled him to turn modern English into old, as an
English and Latin dictionary enables the student to turn English into
Latin." How miserable it is, amongst