he
spot--the ardent boy, flushed and fed by hope, musing on the brilliant
deception he had conceived--whose daring attempt has left his name unto
the intellectual world as a marvel and a mystery.

That a boy under twelve years of age should write a series of poems,
imitating the style of the fifteenth century, and palm these poems off
upon the world as the work of a monk, is indeed strange; and that these
should become the object of interesting contemplation to the literary
world, and should awaken inquiries, and exercise the talents of a
Southey, a Bryant, a Miller, a Mathias, and others, savours more of
romance than reality. I had visited the room in a garret in High
Holborn, where this poor boy died. I had stood over a grave in the
burial-ground of the Lane Workhouse, which was pointed out to me as the
last resting-place of Chatterton; and now I was in the room where it was
alleged he obtained the manuscripts that gave him such notoriety. We
descended and viewed other portions of the church. The effect of the
chancel, as seen behind the pictures, is very singular, and suggestive
of many swelling thoughts. We look at the great east window, it is
unadorned with its wonted painted glass; we look at the altar-screen
beneath, on which the light of day again falls, and behold the injuries
it has received at the hands of time. There is a dreary mournfulness in
the scene which fastens on the mind, and is in unison with the time-worn
mouldering fragments that are seen all around us. And this dreariness is
not removed by our tracing the destiny of man on the storied pavements
or on the graven brass, that still bears upon its surface the names of
those who obtained the world's regard years back. This old pile is not
only an ornament to the city, but it stands a living monument to the
genius of its founder. Bristol has long sustained a high position as a
place from which the American Abolitionists have received substantial
encouragement in their arduous labours for the emancipation of the
slaves of that land; and the writer of this received the best evidence
that in this respect the character of the people had not been
exaggerated, especially as regards the "Clifton Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society."

LETTER XXIII.[A]

[A] This letter is rather out of its proper place here. I had mislaid
the MS., and my distance from the printer prevented the matter being
rectified. In another edition, the transposition can be effected.