the circle. Madame du Deffand who had constantly corresponded with him in a style that showed it was the greatest gratification left to her, wrote to him on the 22nd of August, expressing her apprehensions of her approaching dissolution. She was now nearly eighty-four, and the infirmities natural to so advanced a period of human life were rapidly accumulating upon her. On the 8th of September, Walpole wrote the deep anxiety he felt, and was urgent to know her exact state, but his affectionate old friend was con fined to her bed without the power of speech-to her a terrible deprivation.

She

As was usual in France, the friends who had thronged round her supper tables, thronged with equal eagerness round her bedside, or crowded her ante-rooms. Scandal and bon mots-card playing and gossip were as liberally circulated as ever. was sinking rapidly, but her mind was always stronger than her body, and still maintained its superiority. A lethargy at last seized her and she sank without a struggle on the 24th of the same month. Her funeral obsequies were, at her own request, conducted in the most unassuming manner, and her remains were consigned to her parish church, St. Sulpice.

The Baron de Grimm, who knew Madame du Deffand intimately, does not draw quite so charming a portrait of the old lady, though he acknowledges that she was beyond dispute, for her wit and talents, one of the most celebrated women of the age; and

had been for a long time no less so for her beauty. He condemns her for exercising her wit at the expense of her friends; and states that Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, her companion, on hastily withdrawing from her house, carried away with her a considerable portion of its attractions, in the shape of many of the most eminent of its literati This is no doubt an exaggeration. He adds

"Her best friends, Madame de Luxembourg, Madame de Choiseul, and Madame de Cambise, scarcely ever quitted her during her last illness in the excess of their attachment they never ceased playing at loto every evening in her chamber till she had breathed her last sigh. She never would hear either of confession or of receiving the Sacrament. All that the minister of the parish, who visited her in virtue of his office, could obtain, after the most earnest exhortations, was, that she would confess herself to her friend the Duc de Choiseul. It cannot be doubted,' concludes the Baron, in the sarcastic tone he so much condemns, that a confessor so judiciously chosen, granted her, with the best grace possible, absolution for all her sins, without excepting even an epigram she once made upon himself."

Walpole considered that by the demise of his affectionate correspondent, he must reckon himself dead in France: for he had no feelings in common with any one elsein that country :-the Philosophersthe Beauties the Wits-had long in his estimation become "flat, stale, and unprofitable." Notwithstanding the fine compliments he had so recently exchanged with Voltaire, the latter had written. to the Duchesse de Choiseul that the Englishman had declared war against him in defence, " de ce bouffon de Shakspeare," which coming to the know

ledge of Walpole, shocked at such insincerity, he had dropped all communication with him. Rousseau had disgusted him with his ingratitude; and for D'Alembert and his scientific associates he entertained the most sovereign contempt. As for the ladies, he had had time to form an opinion upon their infidelities, moral and religious and had grown so much out of taste with bon mots that he could no longer appreciate the peculiar esprit of the Parisian wits. The fact was, his mind was full of forebodings. He knew the true state of things in France, and could not but entertain a contemptible opinion of the delirious folly of that class, who obstinately shut their ears and their eyes to the dangers by which they were surrounded, while they continued their idle pleasures or more idle cabals.

CHAPTER VII.

CHATTERTON, MACPHERSON, AND WALPOLE.

THE attention given by many learned men during the latter half of the last century, to the study of English antiquities, particularly to the antiquities of English literature, led, in more than one instance, to open or concealed imitation. It has been well said, that there is nothing so new as that which is forgotten; and the novelty of lyrical fragments that had been unheard of for several centuries, was so refreshing to the literary public, that every one surrendered himself unhesitatingly to its enjoyment. The more barbarous the orthography, the more obscure the ideas, and the more puerile the subject, the better pleased appeared to be the readers.

Sometimes the rescued fragments assumed a sublimity too elevated for ordinary intellects-more frequently they affected a simplicity only to be appreciated by the plainest understanding. The wild and mystic-the fabulous and romantic-and the common-place and childish, had everywhere their coteries of admirers. Old poetry became more sought after than old wine; and a Georgian Homer would

have been elbowed out of the way with the slightest possible ceremony, had the discriminating crowd been in pursuit of a Plantagenet Rowley.

persons

This rage for antiquated rhymes had spread through the length and breadth of the land. It had found a favorable soil for its culture in the old city of Bristol, where there are preserved so many vestiges of remote times, that an inclination for whatever could in any way illustrate their glories, seemed the most natural thing on earth. Very few had any real knowledge of archæology-but numbers owned to a taste for it. All at once it began to be rumoured amongst the more erudite Bristolians, that a literary discovery of vast importance had been made in their time-honoured city. A chest of extremely curious manuscripts had been found in one of the old churches. The sages hurried to the residence of the much-to-beenvied discoverer, and soon learned something of him as well as of his treasures. He proved to be a boy named Thomas Chatterton, who had only left Colston's school in July, 1767, when he had been apprenticed to Mr. John Lambert, an attorney. It was ascertained that he had shown some poetical talent, as well as a remarkable taste for literature. An article he had sent to a Bristol newspaper, in October, 1768, had been traced to him, which assumed to be a transcript from an ancient manuscript, entitled "A Description of the Fryars first passing over the Old Bridge." He was questioned by several eager scholars as to whence it came, and, after some contradictions and equivocations, he avowed that he had