424 
THOMAS CHATTERTON. 
he employed a large portion of it in literary pursuits. It was iti the 
year 1678 that he first began to attract notice from the fruits of his 
studies ; but on this subject it is necessary to enter into some preli- 
minary explanations. 
In the church of St. Mary RadclifFe, Bristol, which was founded or 
rebuilt by W. Canynge, an eminent merchant of Bristol, in the reign 
of Edward IV. in the fifteenth century, there is a room in which were 
deposited six or seven chests, one of which was called Mr. Canynge’s 
coffer. This chest had formerly been secured by six keys, entrusted 
to different persons ; but in process of time the keys were lost ; and 
when, about 1727, in consequence of a notion that the chest contained 
some title-deeds, an order was made for its examination by an attorney, 
the locks were broken open. The deeds found in it were taken away ; 
but a number of other manuscripts were left exposed to casual depre- 
dation. Many of them were carried olf ; but the father of Chatterton, 
whose uncle was sexton to the church, was insatiable in his plunder, 
and removed baskets full of parchment, of which, however, he made 
no better use than as covers to books. Young Chatterton is said, 
soon after the commencement of his clerkship, to have been acciden- 
tally struck with one of these parchments, converted into his mother’s 
thread-paper, and, on inquiry, to have obtained a remaining hoard of 
them yet unused. Whatever was the fact of his first knowledge of 
them, he appears early to have formed the design of converting the 
circumstance into a system of literary forgery. In the variety of his 
studies, antiquities had occupied a favourite place. He dabbled in 
heraldry, and made collections of old English words from glossaries. 
Upon the opening of the new bridge at Bristol, in October, 1768, 
a paper appeared in Farley’s Bristol Journal, intitled, A Description 
of the Fryars first passing over the Old Bridge, taken from an Old 
Manuscript. This was traced to Chatterton ; and on being interro- 
gated about its origin, after some variation of account, he at length 
asserted that it came from the chest above mentioned in RadclifFe 
church. He next propagated a rumour, that certain ancient pieces 
of poetry had been found in the same place, the authors of which were 
Thomas Canynge, and an intimate friend of his, one Thomas Rowley, 
a priest. Mr. Catcott, an inhabitant of Bristol, of an inquiring turn, 
hearing of this report, was directed to Chatterton, from whom he 
readily obtained, without reward, various poetical pieces, under the 
name of Rowley. These were communicated to Mr. Barret, surgeon, 
who was writing a history of Bristol. They met with credit, and 
acquired for Chatterton the patronage of Barret and Catcott. These 
pieces were all written upon small pieces of vellum, and passed for 
the original mss. Chatterton was occasionally gratified with money 
for his presents, and books were lent him for the prosecution of his 
studies, which began to be very multifarious. About this time his 
intimate companions observed in him extraordinary fits of poetic en- 
thu siasm, particularly when walking in the meadows near RadclifFe, 
and talking about, or reading, the pretended productions of Rowley. 
No doubt, he was then labouring with that inspiration of the muse, 
which is scarcely a fiction in the breast of real genius. 
In 1769 he made a still bolder effort to raise himself to public 
