you handed me on Bristol antiquities. Be of good courage, my boy; your
time will come, and your industry in adding to the history of past ages
will meet its reward.'

Chatterton pressed Mr Barrett's hand fervently.

'I thank you, sir,' he said; 'you are my good friend, and were there
others like you I might be delivered from the chains which gall me.'
Then Chatterton took a flying leap down the steps before Mr Barrett's
house and sped on his way to Dowry Square.

'Poor boy!' the kindly surgeon said, 'poor boy! he is not made to bear
the frowns of the rich and great, nor the buffets which all must meet in
life. Poor boy! I would fain be of some use to him, but it is a hard
matter to help such as he.'

In his better moments Chatterton had a longing to throw aside all shams,
and be true.

As he stood at the door of the house in Dowry Square, waiting the first
stroke of ten before he gave the single knock which should announce his
arrival, he, looking up at the starlit sky, felt there was something
greater and nobler to strive after than mere fame and recognition of his
powers by those around him.

The silent majesty of the heavens has often brought a message, as to the
psalmist of old, 'When I consider Thy heaven the work of Thy fingers,
the moon and the stars which Thou hast created, what is man that Thou
art mindful of Him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him.' That this
poor boy had moments when he felt after God as the supreme good is shown
by his poem which he calls 'The Resignation.'

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To Thee, my only Rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in Thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of Thy will,
The shadows of celestial light
Are past the power of human skill,
But what the Eternal does is right.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain,
Why drooping, seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain,
For God created all to bless.

We, who read these verses after the lapse of a hundred and twenty years,
may well feel as sorrowful as if it were but a story of yesterday, that
for Chatterton the last verse of this fine poem was, as far as our poor
human judgment can go, never fulfilled, when he says,--

The gloomy mantle of the night
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.

The next day Mr Lambert,