{Horace Walpole = Horace Walpole (1717-1797), a prolific writer,
connoisseur, and collector, best known for his extensive
correspondence; he established a taste for literary collecting by
would-be cultured gentlemen in England}
Some ten years later still--about the time, by the bye, when
Chatterton's career came to such a miserable close in London, and
when Gilbert was dying in a hospital at Paris--it happened that a
worthy physician, well known in the town of Southampton for his
benevolence and eccentricity, was on a professional visit to the child
of a poor journeyman trunk-maker, in the same place. A supply of old
paper had just been brought in for the purpose of lining trunks,
according to the practice of the day. A workman was busy sorting
these, rejecting some as refuse, and preserving others, when the
doctor stopped to answer an inquiry about the sick child.
{Chatterton = Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), British poet, who
created an imaginary Thomas Rowley, a supposed medieval monk, to
whom he ascribed some of his poems. Chatterton committed suicide
at the age of 18 when a poem of his, allegedly by Rowley, was
rejected; he was buried in a pauper's grave. Susan Fenimore Cooper
no doubt has this in mind in naming a character in this story
Theodosia Rowley.
{Gilbert = Nicolas Gilbert (1751-1780), French poet, who died in
Paris at the age of 29.
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