sat down to his
task with a mind full of matter. He had at first intended to give only
a paragraph to every minor poet, and only four or five pages to the
greatest name. But the flood of anecdote and criticism overflowed the
narrow channel. The work, which was originally meant to consist only
of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes--small volumes, it is true,
and not closely printed. The first four appeared in 1779, the
remaining six in 1781.

When at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close,
the dark cloud passed away from Johnson's mind. His temper became
unusually patient and gentle; he ceased to think with terror of
death, and of that which lies beyond death; and he spoke much of the
mercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ. In this serene frame
of mind he died, on December 13, 1784. He was laid, a week later, in
Westminster Abbey, among the eminent men of whom he had been the
historian--Cowley and Denham, Dryden and Congreve, Gay, Prior, and
Addison.

THOMAS CHATTERTON[7]

[Footnote 7: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

By COLONEL RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON

(1752-1770)

[Illustration: Thomas Chatterton.]

Thomas Chatterton, whose career among all those of English men of
letters was the most eccentric, was a posthumous son of a poor man
who, besides being a choir-singer, kept the Pyle Street School in the
city of Bristol, England. In a small tenement-house near by he was
born, November 20, 1752. The mother maintained her two children,
Thomas and a daughter two years older, by keeping a small school for
girls. At the age of five years the boy was sent to the Pyle Street
School, where the master, unable to teach him anything and deciding
that he was an idiot, dismissed him. For a year and a half afterward
he was so regarded. During this time he was often subjected to
paroxysms of grief which were expressed generally in silent tears, but
sometimes in cries continued for many hours. By many an expedient of a
parent who understood him not, from frequent serious affectionate
remonstrance to an occasional blow upon his face, he was led or forced
along. One day this parent, while about to destroy an old manuscript
in French, noticed the child looking with intense interest at the
illuminated letters upon its pages. Withholding the paper from its
threatened destruction she briefly succeeded in teaching him therefrom
the alphabet, and in time from a black-letter Bible he l