Chatterton's Profit And Loss Reckoning
Chatterton, the marvellous boy, wrote a political essay for the North
Briton, Wilkes's journal; but, though accepted, the essay was not
printed, in consequence of the death of the Lord Mayor, Chatterton's
patron. The youthful patriot thus calculated the results of the
suppression of his essay, which had begun by a splendid flourish about
"a spirited people freeing themselves from insupportable slavery:"
"Lost, by the Lord Mayor's death, in this essay, L 1 11 6
Gained in elegies, L 2 2 0
Do. in essays, 3 3 0
--------
5 5 0
----------
Am glad he is dead by L 3 13 6"
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