d into the slough of
despair, his proud, dark soul disclaiming all human participation in a
misery exaggerated by his own unbending pride. Let us not talk of
denying sympathy to persons who create their own miseries; they endure
agonies thrice told. The paltry remuneration he received for his
productions is recorded by himself. Among the items is one as
extraordinary as the indignant emotion it excites:--

Received from Mr. Hamilton, for 16 songs, 10s. 6d.
Of Mr. Hamilton, for "Candidus" and Foreign Journal 2s.!!

We are wearied for him of the world's dark sight: yet in the same book
is recorded that the same publisher owed him L10 19s. 6d.! This sum
might have saved him, but he was too proud to ask for money; too proud
to complain; too proud to accept the invitation of his acquaintances, or
his landlady, to dine or sup with them; and all too proud to hint, even
to his mother and sister, that he was any thing but prosperous. Ardent
as if he had been a son of the hot south, he had learned nothing of
patience or expediency. His first residence was at Mrs. Walmsley's, in
Shoreditch, but, doubtless, finding the lodging too expensive, he
removed to a Mr. Angell's, sac (or dress) maker, 4, Brook Street,
Holborn. This woman, who seems to have been of a gentle nature, finding
that for two days he had confined himself to his room, and gone without
sustenance, invited him to dine with her; but he was offended, and
assured her he was not hungry. It is quite impossible to account for
this uncalled for pride. It was his nature. Lord Byron said he was mad:
according to _his_ view of the case, all eccentricity is madness; but in
the case of unhappy Chatterton, that madness which arises from "hope
deferred," was unquestionably endured. Three days before his death,
pursuing, with a friend, the melancholy and speculative employment of
reading epitaphs in the churchyard of St. Pancras, absorbed by his own
reflections, he fell into a new-made grave. There was something akin to
the raven's croak, the death-fetch, the fading spectre, in this
foreboding accident: he smiled at it, and told his friend he felt the
sting of speedy dissolution:--

"Then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the earth on which he moved alone."

At the age of seventeen years and nine months, his career ended; it was
shown that he had swallowed arsenic in water, and so--

"perished in h