Editorial note — P O E M S

H* The following notices, which Mr. Walpole has preserved, are too curious to be omitted. They will give the reader a full idea of the professed authorship of Chatterton. In a list of pieces written by him, but never published, are the following:

5. “To Lord North. A Letter signed the Moderator, and dated May 26, 1770, beginning thus: “My Lord—It gives me a painful pleasure, &c.—This (says Mr. W.) is an encomium on administration for rejecting the Lord Mayor Beckford’s Remonstrance.

6. A Letter to Lord Mayor Beckford, signed Probus, dated May 26, 1770.—This is a violent abuse of Government for rejecting the Remonstrance, and begins thus: “When the endeavours of a spirited people to free themselves from an insupportable slavery”——. On the back of this essay, which is directed to Chatterton’s friend, Cary, is this indorsement:

“Accepted by Bingley—set for and thrown out of The North Briton, 21 June, on account of the Lord Mayor’s death.

Lost by his death on this Essay 1 11 6

Gained in Elegies 2 2 0

———–in Essays 3 3 0

Am glad he is dead by 3 13 6”

I† Chatterton wrote also “a Monks Tragedy,” which, if his forgeries had met with a more favourable reception than they did, he would doubtless have produced as an ancient composition. With the ardour of true genius, he wandered to the untrodden paths of the little Isle of Man for a subject, and aspired