His master, Lambert, dismissed the youth from his service, because he had reason to suppose he meditated self-destruction; and then he proceeded to London. How buoyant and full of hope he was during his probationary days there, his letters to his mother and sister testify; his gifts, also, extracted from his necessities, are evidences of the bent of his mind--fans and china--luxuries rather than necessaries; but in this, it must be remembered, his judgment was in fault, not his affections. In all things he was swayed and guided by his pride,--his indomitable pride. The period, brief as it was, of his sojourn in the great metropolis proved that Walpole, while he neglected him so cruelly, understood him perfectly, when he said that "nothing in Chatterton could be separated from Chatterton--that all he did was the effervescence of ungovernable impulse, which, chameleon-like, imbibed the colours of all it looked on it was Ossian, or a Saxon monk, or Gray, or Smollett, or Junius." His first letter to his mother is dated, April the 26th, 1770. He terminated his own existence on the 24th of August in the same year. He battled with the crowded world of London, and, what was in his case a more dire enemy than the world, his overwhelming pride, for nearly four months. Alas! how terrible are the reflections which these few weeks suggest! Now borne aloft upon the billows of hope, sparkling in the fitful brightness of a feverish sun, and then plunged 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.!!