The letters of our author were thought by himself his best writings. Those to his friend Mr. Whistler, which he wrote with most care, were (to the poet's bitter regret) destroyed by Whistler's brother, "a Goth of a fellow." William Shenstone died in February, 1763. He is said to have been a man above the middle stature; somewhat clumsy in his appearance; careless in his dress, "as in every thing else but his grounds and his hair," which latter he adjusted in a particular {104} manner in defiance of fashion; kind to his domestics; generous to strangers; slow to take offence, and slow to forgive it. His tomb is in the churchyard of Hales Owen. IV. "Thomas Gray, eminent for a few poems that he has left, was born in London in 1716, and died in 1771. He was perhaps the most learned man in Europe, equally acquainted with the elegant and profound parts of science. A new arrangement of his poems, with notes and additions, was made and printed in 8vo. in 1799." V. I pass over several great names, and come to one whose life was too short for the attainment of the fame to which nature gave him a title. Thomas Chatterton, "the marvellous boy," realized the fable of the nightingale, and sang with his breast against a thorn; but he grew weary of the world at eighteen, and removed himself from it. And we can hardly wonder that he should have done so, when we remember the sad end to which his boyish dreamings came among the garrets and filthy alleys of London. To fall at once from the high atmosphere, whither a poet's early longings draw him as with a golden chain--to find one's castles in air tumbling about one's ears--to feel the veins ache for want of a little bread--to be driven by that ache to the very cellars and stews of literature--to rake from some foul corner wherewithal to support life--are enough to break a spirit stouter even than that of Chatterton. It did break his spirit, and subvert the pure principles with which he began life. What stronger proof do we need of this, than that most amusing yet villainous instance of his calculating powers, in which he feels "thirteen shillings and sixpence worth of joy at the Lord Mayor's death?" A charity student in Bristol; an apprentice sleeping up in an attic with a foot-boy--"the marvellous youth" had dreams, and adventured to London in search of their fulfilment. Here he published a volume of poems purporting to be the remains of "one Rowley." These were full of crabbed spelling and black-letter phrases, and had so much the appearance of genuine antiquity, that the world was long divided upon the question of their origin. These poems are certainly known at the present day to have been forgeries by Chatterton. He wrote many other poems, chiefly characterized by a reckless and fiery tone of feeling--by a restless yearning after "a something to fill the void of a hurt spirit withal"--and by a dark melancholy, only at rare times lighted up by a