Hearing of H. Walpole's collections for his
_Anecdotes of Painting in England_, he sent him an "ancient manuscript"
containing biographies of certain painters, not hitherto known, who had
flourished in England centuries before. W. fell into the trap, and wrote
asking for all the MS. he could furnish, and C. in response forwarded
accounts of more painters, adding some particulars as to himself on which
W., becoming suspicious, submitted the whole to T. Gray and Mason
(_q.v._), who pronounced the MS. to be forgeries. Some correspondence,
angry on C.'s part, ensued, and the whole budget of papers was returned.
C. thereafter, having been dismissed by Lambert, went to London, and for
a short time his prospects seemed to be bright. He worked with feverish
energy, threw off poems, satires, and political papers, and meditated a
history of England; but funds and spirits failed, he was starving, and
the failure to obtain an appointment as ship's surgeon, for which he had
applied, drove him to desperation, and on the morning of August 25, 1770,
he was found dead from a dose of arsenic, surrounded by his writings torn
into small pieces.
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