d manuscripts back from Mr Walpole in a blank cover. This
was the unkindest cut of all, for we all know that the wound to pride
is, to a sensitive nature, the sorest and the slowest to heal.

But Bristol took but little heed of the slender figure of Mr Lambert's
apprentice as he paced the street, with hands clenched and brows knit,
nursing his wrath against the great man who had once raised his hopes,
and by his moody and fitful temper turning even his friends against him,
or at any rate tending to make them indifferent to his woes. For Bristol
citizens had many more important subjects claiming their attention at
this particular time than the angry disappointment of a self-conscious
and irritable boy.

Mr Wilkes was with some the hero of the hour, and the rebellious feeling
in America, of which Bristol had perhaps the earliest intelligence,
excited the popular feeling, and roused the sympathy of many for those
who resisted the enforcement of the Stamp Act, and the indignation of
others who were of the old Tory faction and thought that submission was
the duty of their brethren on the further side of the great dividing
ocean.

Chatterton was too much occupied with his own grievances to be keenly
interested in what he heard discussed at Mr Barrett's supper-table or Mr
Catcott's tavern. This good, simple-hearted man was faithful in his
allegiance to the boy, and never doubted but the great work Chatterton
had done in unearthing the poems of Rowley the priest would in time meet
its reward.

'A fig for Mr Walpole!' he said. 'Never you fear, my lad, you'll find
your level, and it will be a good deal above the level of Mr Walpole,
with all his grand relations and riches. Go on, go on, and write for
the _Town and Country Magazine_. Why, what a feather that is in your
cap. There's not another fellow in Bristol to match you. Bless you, my
brother Alexander's history of the Deluge is mighty dry reading though a
watery subject,' and Mr Catcott sipped the large tankard before him, and
setting it down with a loud thud on the tavern table, he laughed at his
own wit. 'And then there's Barrett, his history is learned and all the
rest of it, but I'd sooner read one of your own poems, my lad, let alone
hear you recite from Rowley's 'Tragedy of AElla,' than I would read
twenty pages of history. It suits my tastes,' the worthy man said, 'and
I have some taste and discernment, though my brother won't allow it. If
I had none I should never