No More Learning

We have two accounts; one of which represents the pseudo-Rowley
rubbing a parchment upon a dirty floor after smearing it with ochre
and saying 'that was the way to antiquate it'; the other, even more
explicit, is the testimony of a local chemist, one Rudhall, who was
for some time a close friend of Chatterton's. The incident in which
Rudhall appears is worth relating at length.

In the month of September 1768 an event of some importance occurred at
Bristol--a new bridge that had been built across the Avon to supersede
a structure dating from the reign of the second Henry being formally
thrown open for traffic. At the time when this was the general talk
of the city Chatterton had left with the editor of _Felix Farley's
Bristol Journal_ a description of the 'Fryars passing over the Old
Bridge taken from an ancient manuscript. ' This account was in the best
Rowleian manner, with strange spelling and uncouth words, but for
the most part quite intelligible to the ordinary reader. The editor
accordingly published it (no payment being asked) and great curiosity
was aroused in consequence. Where had this most interesting document
come from? Were there others like it? The Bristol antiquaries,
rather a large body, were all agog with excitement. Ultimately they
discovered that the unknown contributor, of whom the editor could
say nothing more than that his 'copy' was subscribed _Dunclinus
Bristoliensis_, was Thomas Chatterton the attorney's apprentice. Now
the amazing credulity of these learned people is one of the least
comprehensible circumstances of our poet's strange life. For on being
asked how he had come by his MSS. he refused at first to give any
answer. Then he said he was employed to transcribe some old writings
by 'a gentleman whom he had supplied with poetry to send to a lady the
gentleman was in love with'--the excuse being suggested no doubt by
the case of Miss Hoyland and his friend Baker. Finally when, as we
can only conclude, this explanation was disproved or disbelieved, he
announced that the account was copied from a manuscript his father
had taken from Rowley's chest.
And this explanation was considered
perfectly satisfactory.

Yet it seemed obvious that the antiquaries would demand to see the
manuscript, and Chatterton, contrary to his usual practice of secrecy,
called upon his friend Rudhall and, having made him promise to tell
nothing of what he should show him, took a piece of parchment
'about the size of a half sheet of foolscap paper,' wrote on it in
a character which the other did not understand, for it was 'totally
unlike English,' and finally held what he had written over a candle
to give it the 'appearance of antiquity,' which it did by changing the
colour of the ink and making the parchment appear 'black and a little
contracted. ' Rudhall, who kept his secret till 1779 (when he bartered
it for ? 10, to be given to the poet's mother, at that time in
great poverty), believed that no one was shown or asked to see this
document. Why, it is impossible to say.

The present volume contains a reproduction[2] in black and white of
the original MS. of Chatterton's '_Accounte of W. Canynges Feast_'.
This was written in red ink. The parchment is stained with brown,
except one corner, and the first line written in a legal texting hand.
The ageing of his manuscript of the _Vita Burtoni_, to take a further
instance, was effected by smearing the middle of it with glue or
varnish. This document was also written partly in an attorney's
regular engrossing[3] hand. During the next four years Chatterton
'transcribed' a great quantity of ancient documents, including
_AElla, a Tragycal Enterlude_--far the finest of the longer Rowleian
poems--the _Songe to AElla_ and _The Bristowe Tragedy_ (the authorship
of which last he appears in an unguarded moment to have acknowledged
to his mother). He told her also that he had himself written one of
the two poems _Onn oure Ladies Chyrche_--which one, Mrs. Chatterton
could not remember[4], but if it was the first of the two printed in
this edition (p. 275) it was a strange coincidence indeed that led
him to repudiate the antiquity of the only two Rowley poems which
are really at all like 'antiques'--Professor Skeat's convenient
expression.