From this brief notice of one extraordinary genius, who lived long to enjoy his fame, we must go back, nearly half a century, to make mention of another, who perished, unpraised and unfriended, before he reached the age of manhood. In the annals of literature there is no example recorded of precocious talent which can vie with that of Thomas Chatterton. He was born at Bristol, in St. Mary Redcliffe parish, on the 20th of November, 1752, and was the posthumous son of an individual who had been successively writing master to a classical school, singing man in Bristol Cathedral, and master of the Pyle Street Free-school. At the age of five years, he was apparently so stupid as to be deemed incapable of learning his letters. It was not till his latent powers were roused, by being shown the illuminated capitals of an old French manuscript, that he became anxious to acquire learning. Henceforth he needed no stimulant. Before he was eight years old, he was admitted into Colson’s school, the Christ’s Hospital of Bristol, where he read much in his intervals of leisure, and began to try his poetical skill. When he was somewhat under fifteen, he was apprenticed to Mr. Lambert, an attorney. It was while he was in this situation, and early in October, 1768, when the new bridge at Bristol was completed, that he gave to the world the first article of that series of literary forgeries which has immortalized him. It was sent to Farley’s Bristol Journal, and was called “a description of the Friars first passing over the old bridge: taken from an ancient manuscript.” He subsequently, from time to time, produced various poems of pre-eminent beauty, clothed in antique language. The language, however, was not that of any one period; nor was the style, nor in many instances the form of composition, that of the fifteenth century, the age to which he assigned them. He pretended that they were written by Thomas Rowley, a priest, and Thomas Canynge, and that they were copied from parchments, which his father had found in a large box, in a room over the chapel on the north side of Redcliffe church. While he was engaged in composing these poems, he was also a liberal contributor of prose and verse to the Magazines. Having, in his moody moments, avowed an intention of committing suicide, his master released him from his indentures, and Chatterton repaired to London, where he resolved to depend upon his pen for subsistence. At the outset, his hopes were raised to a high pitch; but they were soon blighted. In spite of his wonderful fertility, and his persevering exertions, he seems to have been unable to provide for the day that was passing over him. Privations and wounded pride drove him to despair, and, on the 25th of August, 1770, he put an end to his existence by poison. Editions of the pretended poems of Rowley were published by Mr. Tyrrwhit and Dean Milles; and a controversy was long and vehemently maintained on the question of their antiquity. There