"Another minstrel" was Coleridge. Chatterton was the mysterious youth of line 16. Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770) was baptised at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; he was the nephew of the sexton; he brooded for many hours a day in the church; he copied his antique writing from the parchment in its muniment room; one of his later dreams was to be able to build a new spire; and a cenotaph to his memory was erected by public subscription in 1840 near the north-east angle of the churchyard. Chatterton went to London on April 24, 1770, aged seventeen and a half, and died there by his own hand on August 25 of the same year. The poem originated in an invitation to Lamb from the Coleridges at Bristol, which he hoped to be able to accept; but to his request for the necessary holiday from the India House came refusal. Lamb went to Nether Stowey, however, in the following summer and met Wordsworth there. Lamb at one time wished these lines to be included among his poems in the second edition of Coleridge's _Poems_, 1797. Writing on January 18, 1797, Lamb says: "I shall be sorry if that volume comes out, as it necessarily must do, unless you print those very school boyish verses I sent you on not getting leave to come down to Bristol last summer." At the end of the letter he adds: "Yet I should feel ashamed that to you I wrote nothing better. But they are too personal, almost trifling and obscure withal." * * * * * Page 18. _Sonnet to a Friend._ The _Monthly Magazine,_ October, 1797. Signed Charles Lamb. Lamb sent this sonnet to Coleridge on January 2, 1797, remarking: "If the fraternal sentiment conveyed in the following lines will atone for the total want of any thing like merit or genius in it, I desire you will print it next after my other Sonnet to my Sister." The other sonnet was, "If from my lips some peevish accents fall," printed with Coleridge's _Poems_ in 1797 (see page 9), concerning which book Lamb was writing in the above letter. Coleridge apparently decided against the present sonnet, for it was not printed in that book. Writing to Coleridge again a week later concerning the present poem, Lamb said:-- "I am aware of the unpoetical caste of the 6 last lines of my last sonnet, and think myself unwarranted in smuggling so tame a thing into the book; only the sentiments of those 6 lines are thoroughly congenial to me in my state of mind, and I wish to accumulate perpetuating tokens of my affection to poor Mary." It has to be borne in mind that only three months had elapsed since the death of Mrs. Lamb, and Mary was still in confinement. Page 18. _To a Young Lady_. Signed C.L. _Monthly Magazine_, March, 1797, afterwards copied into the _Poetical Register_ for 1803, signed C.L. in both cases. We know these to be Lamb's from a letter to Coleridge of December 5, 1796. The identity of the young lady is not now known. * * * * * Page 19. _Living without God in the World._