Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/153

 Farley's Bristol Journal’ on 8 Jan. 1763. Soon afterwards he paraphrased the ninth chapter of Job and several chapters of Isaiah. He became more cheerful after he began to write poetry. As a new year's gift Chatterton's sister gave him at this time a pocket-book, which at the close of 1763 he returned to her filled with writings of his own, chiefly poetical. Two of them, ‘A Hymn for Christmas Day’ and ‘Sly Dick,’ both written when he was eleven, have been preserved. He had begun to devote a good part of the few pence given him weekly for pocket-money to borrowing books from the circulating libraries. He hired among others a black-letter copy of Speght's ‘Chaucer.’ Between his eleventh and twelfth year he drew out a list of over seventy works read by him, chiefly in history and divinity. Meanwhile he had become interested in the Canynges and other Bristol celebrities associated with St. Mary Redcliffe.

His attention was one day awakened by coming upon one of his father's old fragments of parchment then in use by his mother as a silk winder. He exclaimed that he had found a treasure. He then collected all the remaining morsels of parchment anywhere discoverable in the house, and took them to his attic. On 7 Jan. 1764, in ‘Felix Farley's Bristol Journal,’ appeared his satiric poem, a fable, entitled ‘The Churchwarden and the Apparition.’ It referred to the vandalism of one Joseph Thomas, then churchwarden of St. Mary Redcliffe. In another part of the same number appeared a letter signed ‘Fulford, the gravedigger,’ which has been suspected to have been Chatterton's first literary disguise. On 14 April 1764 he wrote another satiric poem on a religious dissembler, called ‘Apostate Will.’ In the summer of 1764 Chatterton first spoke about certain old manuscripts which he said had come into his possession through his father from Canynge's coffer in the muniment room of St. Mary Redcliffe. He told a schoolfellow, James Thistlethwaite, that he had lent one of these old manuscripts to the junior usher, Phillips, who a few days later showed a discoloured piece of parchment on which was ‘Elinoure and Juga,’ the earliest produced of the so-called ancient poems, though the latest printed of them all during Chatterton's lifetime. It was first published five years afterwards in the May number for 1769 of Hamilton's ‘Town and Country Magazine.’ Chatterton had therefore written it when he was no more than in the middle of his twelfth year. Phillips was at once convinced of its antiquity. Chatterton had already adopted an obsolete method of spelling, and adapted to his use a mass of words from the old English dictionary of Nathan Bailey, and from that of John Kersey. With the help mainly of the latter he compiled a glossary for his own purpose in two parts: 1. Old words and modern English; 2. Modern English and old words. From the outset he never had any confidant as to his methods. His success with Phillips encouraged a new experiment. Henry Burgum was then carrying on business as a pewterer, in partnership with George Catcott, at a house now known as 2 Bridge Parade. There Chatterton one day, early in 1767, looked in upon him with the announcement that, among some old parchments from Redcliffe Church, he had just discovered an emblazonment of the De Bergham arms with a pedigree, showing Burgum's relationship with some of the noblest houses in England, and his direct descent from one of the Norman knights who came over with the Conqueror. A few days afterwards Chatterton placed in his hands, neatly written out in an ordinary boy's copybook, ‘An Account of the Family of the De Bergham, from the Norman Conquest to this time, collected, from original Records, Tournament Rolls, and the Heralds of March and Garter's Records, by Thomas Chatterton.’ Elaborate references were made in it all down the margin to various authorities. Burgum accepted this account of his high lineage as a thing proven, and with it a parchment eight inches square, on which Chatterton had painted an heraldic blazon of the De Bergham coat of arms, and gave five shillings to the discoverer. For a second instalment of the pedigree, brought to him a few days later, continuing it to the reign of James II, he gave another five shillings. On some of the leaves of the first instalment were written two of Chatterton's spurious antiques, ‘The Tournament’ and ‘The Gouler's Requiem.’ In the second instalment Chatterton introduced ‘The Romaunte of the Cnyghte,’ purporting it to have been written in 1320 by John de Bergham, one of the pewterer's ancestors. Burgum went to London, a little while afterwards, to have his pedigree duly authenticated at the Heralds' College, and learned that there was no record of a De Bergham ever having borne arms. The whole affair may be regarded as a schoolboy's practical joke. Chatterton's first conception of the ‘Rowley Romance’ dated from 1765. Its central figure was an imaginary monk of the fifteenth century, Thomas Rowley, afterwards spoken of as a secular priest at St. John's Church, the friend and confessor of the great merchant and mayor of Bristol, William Canynge the younger. It has been ingeniously suggested (Gent. Mag. new ser. August 1838) that a clue is readily