"HORACE WALPOLE." This was before Gray and Mason, who had seen the MS. sent, had declared it to be a forgery; and before poor Horace had discovered that he had been thus complimenting a poor lawyer's clerk, and his own poems! The man thought that he was addressing some gentleman of fortune, pursuing antiquarian lore in his own noble library, no doubt; but he was stung by two serpents at once--the writer was a poor lad, and the verses were his own! There has been a great war of words regarding the conduct of Walpole to Chatterton. Almost every writer of the end of the last century, and the beginning of this, has written more or less respecting Chatterton and the Rowley poems; and all have gone largely into the merits or demerits of Walpole in the case. Some have declared him guilty of the fate of the poor youth; others have gone as far the other way, and exempted him from all blame. In my opinion, nothing can ever excuse the conduct of Walpole. If not to prevent the fate of Chatterton was, in his case, to accelerate it, then indeed Walpole must be pronounced guilty of the catastrophe which ensued; and what greatly aggravates the offense is, that he made that a crime in Chatterton of which he himself set the example. Chatterton gave out that his poems were written by Rowley, and Walpole had given out that his Castle of Otranto was the work of an old Italian, and that it had been found, not in Canynge's chest, but "in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England." Nothing is more certain, then, that, brought into close communication with this extraordinary youth and his brilliant productions, he either did not or would not see, that if Rowley was nobody, Chatterton was a great poet, and as a boy, and a poor boy, was an extraordinary phenomenon; and that both patriotism and humanity demanded that he should be at once brought under the notice of the good and wise, and every thing possible done to develop his rare powers, and secure them to his country. Walpole coolly advised him to stick to his desk, and walked off! Sir Walter Scott has said that Walpole is not alone to blame; the whole country partakes the censure with him; and that he gave the boy good advice. This is not quite true. The whole country did not know of Chatterton, of his wonderful talents, and his peculiar situation; but all these were thrust upon the attention of Walpole, and he gave him advice. True, the advice in itself was good, but, unluckily, it was given when Walpole, by his conduct, had destroyed all its value with Chatterton; when the proud boy, on seeing the contemptible way in which the selfish aristocrat, wounded in his vanity, had turned round upon him, had torn his letters to atoms, and stamped them under his feet.