To-day, as yesterday, our hermit spirits dwell apart, and even those with whom we live in daily intercourse but dimly guess what reason we have to smile or sigh.
Perhaps there never has been anyone, dwelling apart in the dreams of romance, and the world of the past peopled by his own fervid imagination, whose short, sad story can be compared with that of Mr Lambert's apprentice.
At this time of which I write—when Bryda Palmer was full of her own troubles, and with many misgivings tried to persuade herself she had given Mr Bayfield no promise, yet dreading lest he should interpret her acquiescence in the delay as a promise—Chatterton was brooding over his wrongs, and in August was in a frenzy of indignation when he received his cherished manuscripts back from Mr Walpole in a blank cover. This was the unkindest cut of all, for we all know that the wound to pride is, to a sensitive nature, the sorest and the slowest to heal.
But Bristol took but little heed of the slender figure of Mr Lambert's apprentice as he paced the street, with hands clenched and brows knit, nursing his wrath against the great man who had once raised his hopes, and by his moody and fitful temper turning even his friends against him, or at any rate tending to make them indifferent to his woes. For Bristol citizens had many more important subjects claiming their attention at this particular time than the angry disappointment of a self-conscious and irritable boy.
Mr Wilkes was with some the hero of the hour, and the rebellious feeling in America, of which Bristol had perhaps the earliest intelligence, excited the popular feeling, and roused the sympathy of many for those who resisted the enforcement of the Stamp Act, and the indignation of others who were of the old Tory faction and thought that submission was the duty of their brethren on the further side of the great dividing ocean.
Chatterton was too much occupied with his own grievances to be keenly interested in what he heard discussed at Mr Barrett's supper-table or Mr Catcott's tavern. This good, simple-hearted man was faithful in his allegiance to the boy, and never doubted but the great work Chatterton had done in unearthing the poems of Rowley the priest would in time meet its reward.
'A fig for Mr Walpole!' he said. 'Never you fear, my lad, you'll find your level, and it will be a good deal above the level of Mr Walpole, with all his grand relations and riches. Go on, go on, and write for the Town and Country Magazine. Why, what a feather that is in your cap. There's not another fellow in Bristol to match you. Bless you, my brother Alexander's history of the Deluge is mighty dry reading though a watery subject,' and Mr Catcott sipped the large tankard before him, and setting it down with a loud thud on the tavern table, he laughed at his own wit. 'And then there's Barrett, his history is learned and all the rest of it, but I'd sooner read one of your own poems, my lad, let alone hear you recite from Rowley's 'Tragedy of Ælla,' than I would read twenty pages of history. It suits my tastes,' the worthy man said, 'and I have some taste and discernment, though my brother won't allow it. If I had none I should never have valued you as I do, my boy,' and then Mr Catcott flung down his money for his pot of beer, and clapping Chatterton on the back, went out with him into the streets of the city again, his arm linked in his, and his portly figure contrasting with the slight boyish form at his side.