reared in the middle of it; how the rest gathered round him, "the preestes and freers, all in white albs, making a most goodlie shewe", and singing "the song of Saincte Baldwyn"; how, when this was done, "the manne on the top threwe with greet myght his anlace into the see, and the claryons sounded an auntiant charge and forloyn"; how then there was more singing, and, at the town-cross, a Latin sermon "preeched by Ralph de Blundeville"; and how the day was ended by festivities, the performance of the play of "The Knyghtes of Bristowe" by the friars of St. Augustine, and the lighting of a great bonfire on Kynwulph Hill.

The antiquaries of the town were eager to know the anonymous "Dunhelmus Bristoliensis" who had contributed this perfectly novel document to the archives of Bristol; and they succeeded in identifying him with Mr. Lambert's singular apprentice, the discoverer, as they would now learn, of a similar piece of antiquity in the shape of a pedigree for Mr. Burgum, the pewterer. Examined, coaxed, and threatened, on the subject of his authority, Chatterton prevaricated, but at last adhered to the assertion that the manuscript in question was one of a collection which had belonged to his father, who had obtained them from the large chest or coffer in the muniment-room of the church of St. Mary Redcliffe. And here, whether owing to his

obstinacy or the stupidity of the inquisitors, the matter was allowed to rest.

The general impression that followed the discovery of the author of the communication relative to the opening of the old bridge was that Mr. Lambert's apprentice was really a very extraordinary lad, who, besides being a poet in a small way, was also a dabbler in antiquities, and had somehow or other become possessed, as he said himself, of valuable materials respecting the history of Bristol. Accordingly he became, in some sense, a local celebrity. Among the persons who now took him by the hand, if they had not been already acquainted with him, at least three were of some name and importance in BristolMr. George Catcott, the partner of Mr. Burgum; his brother, the Rev. Alexander Catcott, vicar of one of the Bristol parish-churches; and Mr. Barrett, a surgeon in good practice. Two of these had a reputation as literary men. Mr. William Barrett, the surgeon, was not only a sedate and prosperous professional man, but of repute as an antiquarian, and was known to be engaged in writing a History of Bristol. The Rev. Mr. Catcott had written a book in support of the Noachian view of the Deluge, and was, besides, according to Chatterton's delineations of him, a kind of oracle on scientific points at Bristol tea-parties, where, "shewing wondering cits his fossil store," he would expound his

orthodox theory of springs, rocks, mountains, and strata. What the clerical Catcott was at refined teaparties his coarser brother, the pewterer, was at taverns. Chatterton thus hits him off:

"So at Llewellyn's your great brother sits,
The laughter of his tributary wits,
Ruling the noisy multitude with ease,-
Empties his pint, and sputters his decrees."

Besides the two Catcotts, Barrett, and Burgum (with whom may be associated, in a vague way, the Rev. Mr. Broughton, vicar of St. Mary Redcliffe), the following are more or less heard of as among the acquaintances of Chatterton in Bristol during his apprenticeship in Mr. Lambert's office-Mr. Thomas Phillips, the usher or under-master of Colston's School, already mentioned; Mr. Matthew Mease, a vintner; Messrs. Allen and Broderip, two musicians and church-organists of the town; Mr. Clayfield, a distiller, "a worthy, generous man;" Mr. Alcock, a miniature-painter; T. Cary, a pipe-maker; H. Kator, a sugar-baker; William Smith, a player; J. Rudhall, an apothecary's apprentice; and James Thistlethwaite, who had been a Colston's charityboy with Chatterton, and had been apprenticed to a Bristol stationer. There are references also to some acquaintances of the other sex: Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Carty, Miss Webb, Miss Sandford, Miss Bush, Miss Thatcher, Miss Hill, and others; the most conspicuous of all, and

the only one between whom and Chatterton one is able to surmise a sentimental relation, being that "female Machiavel, Miss Rumsey," so spitefully described in the letter to the transatlantic Mr. Baker. On the whole, however, the Catcotts, Barrett, and Burgum, come most into notice. On the Rev. Mr. Catcott, Chatterton, we are to suppose, drops in occasionally, to listen to a prelection on fossils and the Deluge; Burgum and the other Catcott he may sometimes meet at Matthew Mease's, where Catcott acts the chairman; and from Barrett, on whom he calls at his surgery once a week or so, he receives sensible advices as to the propriety of making poetry subordinate to his profession, as well as (what he greatly prefers) the loan of medical and uncommon books.

It was amid this little public of heterogeneous individuals-clergymen, surgeons, tradesmen, vintners, and young apprentices like himself that Chatterton produced his Rowley Poems and other antique writings. As early as the date of the Burgum pedigree, we have seen, he had ventured to bring out one antique piece, the Romaunte of the Cnychte by the so-called John de Bergham. To this had been added, as early as the commencement of 1768, the "Tournament," mentioned in the letter to Baker, and perhaps other pieces. Farther, in the account of the opening of the old bridge (September, 1768), references are introduced

to the "Songe of Saincte Warburgh," and the "Songe of Saincte Baldwyn," showing that those antiques must have been then extant. In short, there is evidence that, before the conclusion of his sixteenth year, Chatterton had produced at least a portion of his alleged antiques. But the year that followed, or from the close of 1768 to the close of 1769, seems to have been his most prolific period in this respect. In or about the winter of 1768-9—that is, when he had just completed his sixteenth year- he produced, in the circle of his friends above mentioned, his ballad of The Bristowe Tragedie; his "tragical interlude" of Ella, in itself a large poem; his Elinoure and Juga, a fine pastoral poem of the Wars of the Roses; and numerous other pieces of all forms and lengths, in the same antique spelling. Then, also, did he first distinctly give the account of those pieces to which he ever afterwards adhered to wit, that they were, for the greater part, the compositions of Thomas Rowley, a priest of Bristol of the fifteenth century, many of whose manuscripts, preserved in the muniment-room of the church of St. Mary, had come into his hands.

The Catcotts were the persons most interested in the recovered manuscripts; and, whenever Chatterton had a new poem of Rowley's on his hands, it was usually to Mr. George Catcott that he first gave a copy of it. To Mr. Barrett, on the other hand, he usually imparted