correspondent, who had frankly confessed himself an attorney's
apprentice. Chatterton then wrote twice to have his MS. returned,
asserting at the same time his confidence in the authenticity of the
Rowley documents. Walpole for some reason returned no answer to either
application, but left for Paris, where he stayed six weeks, returning
to find another letter from Chatterton written with considerable
dignity and restraint--a last formal demand to have his manuscript
returned. Whereupon, amazed at the boy's 'singular impertinence,' the
great man snapped up both letters and poems and returned them in a
blank cover--that is to say without a word of apology or explanation.
He might have acted otherwise if he had been a more generous spirit,
but an attempt had been made to impose upon him which had in part
succeeded, and he can hardly be blamed for showing his resentment by
neglecting to return the forgeries. One may notice in passing that
when Chatterton, more than a year later, committed suicide there were
not wanting a great many persons absurd enough to accuse Walpole of
having driven him to his death--a contemptible suggestion. Yet the
connoisseur's credit certainly suffers from the fact that he gave
currency to a false account of the transaction in the hope of
concealing his first credulity.[8]

We now come to the circumstance which procured Chatterton's release
from his irksome apprenticeship--his threat of suicide. He had often
been heard to speak approvingly of suicide, and there is a story,
which has, however, little authority, that once in a company of
friends he drew a pistol from his pocket, put it to his head, and
exclaimed 'Now if one had but the courage to pull the trigger!'
This anecdote--if not in fact true--illustrates very well the gloomy
depression of spirit which alternated with those outbursts of feverish
energy in which his poems were composed. And he had much to make