which is thrown over
them. If we look to the ballad of Sir Charles Bawdin, and translate it
into modern English, we shall find its strength and interest to have no
dependence on obsolete words. The inequality of his various productions
may be compared to the disproportions of the ungrown giant. His works
had nothing of the definite neatness of that precocious talent which
stops short in early maturity. His thirst for knowledge was that of a
being taught by instinct to lay up materials for the exercise of great
and undeveloped powers. Even in his favorite maxim, that a man by
abstinence and perseverance might accomplish whatever he pleased, may be
traced the indications of a genius which nature had meant to achieve
immortality. Tasso alone can be compared to him as a juvenile prodigy."

Mrs. S. C. HALL gives us, in her "Pilgrimages to English Shrines," in
the _Art Journal_, the following interesting sketches of scenes
connected with his history:--

THOMAS CHATTERTON.

CHATTERTON--poor Chatterton! We had been brooding sadly over his
fragment of a life, ending at seventeen--when ordinary lives begin--and
turning page after page of Horace Walpole's literary fooleries, to find
his explanations and apologies for want of feeling and sympathy, which
his flippant style, and heartless commentaries, illustrate to
perfection; and we closed, with an aching heart, the volumes of both the
parasite of genius, and him who was its mightiest creation and most
miserable victim:--

"The marvellous boy who perished in his pride."

It was only natural for us to recall the many instances we have
ourselves known, during the past twenty years, or more, of sorrow and
distress among those who sought distinction in the thorny labyrinths of
literature;--those who

----"waged with Fortune an eternal war,
Checked by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar;"

and those who, after a brief struggle with untoward fate, left the
battle-field, to die, "unpitied and unknown!"

We have seen the career of a young literary man commenced with the first
grand requisite of all excellence worth achieving--ENTHUSIASM; high
notions of moral honor, and a warm devotedness to that "calling" which
lifts units to a pinnacle formed by the dry bones of hundreds slain. We
have seen that enthusiasm frozen by disappointment--that honor corrupted
by the contamination of dissipated men--that devotedness to THE CAUSE
fade