d to her at his death not _merely an old piece
of furniture, but_, PERHAPS, _as a mark of peculiar tenderness_,

The very bed that on his bridal night
Received him to the arms of Belvidera!

Steevens' severity of satire marked the deep malevolence of his heart;
and Murphy has strongly pourtrayed him in his address to the _Malevoli_.

Such another Puck was Horace Walpole! The King of Prussia's "Letter" to
Rousseau, and "The Memorial" pretended to have been signed by noblemen
and gentlemen, were fabrications, as he confesses, only to make
mischief. It well became him, whose happier invention, the Castle of
Otranto, was brought forward in the guise of forgery, so unfeelingly to
have reprobated the innocent inventions of a Chatterton.

We have Pucks busied among our contemporaries: whoever shall discover
their history will find it copious though intricate; the malignity at
least will exceed tenfold the merriment.

FOOTNOTES:

[208] A remarkable instance is afforded in the present work; see the
note to the article on _Newspapers_, in Vol. I., detailing one which
has spread falsity to an enormous extent throughout our general
literature.

[209] The pretended "antique manuscripts" preserved among the
Chatterton papers in the British Museum, as well as the fac-simile
of the "Yellow Roll," published in the Cambridge edition of
Chatterton's works, are, however, so totally unlike the writing of
the era to which they purport to belong, that no doubt need be
entertained as to their falsity.

[210] They are, however, so far determined by the fragments of
Gaelic originals, since published by Scottish antiquaries, that the
amplifications of Macpherson can be detected.

[211] Mr. Charles Knight, in his edition of Shakspeare, first
clearly pointed out the true nature of the bequest. The great poet's
estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly
mentioned in the will, were freehold. _His wife was entitled to
dower_, or a life interest of one-third of the proceeds arising from
lands or tenements the property of Shakspeare, and which were of
considerable value, she was thus amply provided for by the clear and
undeniable operation of the law of England. Mr. Halliwell has
further proved that such bequests were the constant modes of showing
regard to such relatives as were well provided for by the usual
legal course of event