No More Learning

"

Soon after this Mr. Catcott commenced his acquaintance with young
Chatterton[1], and, partly as presents partly as purchases, procured
from him copies of many of his MSS. in in prose and verse. Other
copies were disposed of, in the same way, to Mr. William Barrett, an
eminent surgeon at Bristol, who has long been engaged in writing
the history of that city. Mr. Barrett also procured from him several
fragments, some of a considerable length, written upon vellum[2],
which he asserted to be part of his original MSS. In short, in the
space of about eighteen months, from October 1768 to April 1770,
besides the Poems now published, he produced as many compositions,
in prose and verse, under the names of Rowley, Canynge, &c. as would
nearly fill such another volume.

In April 1770 Chatterton went to London, and died there in the August
following; so that the whole history of this very extraordinary
transaction cannot now probably be known with any certainty. Whatever
may have been his part in it; whether he was the author, or only
the copier (as he constantly asserted) of all these productions; he
appears to have kept the secret entirely to himself, and not to have
put it in the power of any other person, to bear certain testimony
either to his fraud or to his veracity.

The question therefore concerning the authenticity of these Poems must
now be decided by an examination of the fragments upon vellum, which
Mr. Barrett received from Chatterton as part of his original MSS. ,
and by the internal evidence which the several pieces afford. If the
Fragments shall be judged to be genuine, it will still remain to be
determined, how far their genuineness should serve to authenticate the
rest of the collection, of which no copies, older than those made by
Chatterton, have ever been produced.
On the other hand, if the writing
of the Fragments shall be judged to be counterfeit and forged by
Chatterton, it will not of necessity follow, that the matter of
them was also forged by him, and still less, that all the other
compositions, which he professed to have copied from antient MSS. ,
were merely inventions of his own. In either case, the decision must
finally depend upon the internal evidence.

It may be expected perhaps, that the Editor should give an opinion
upon this important question; but he rather chooses, for many reasons,
to leave it to the determination of the unprejudiced and intelligent
Reader. He had long been desirous that these Poems should be printed;
and therefore readily undertook the charge of superintending the
edition. This he has executed in the manner, which seemed to him best
suited to such a publication; and here he means that his task should
end. Whether the Poems be really antient, or modern; the compositions
of Rowley, or the forgeries of Chatterton; they must always be
considered as a most singular literary curiosity.

[Footnote 1: The history of this youth is so intimately connected with
that of the poems now published, that the Reader cannot be too early
apprized of the principal circumstances of his short life. He was born
on the 20th of November 1752, and educated at a charity-school on St.
Augustin's Back, where nothing more was taught than reading, writing,
and accounts. At the age of fourteen, he was articled clerk to an
attorney, with whom he continued till he left Bristol in April 1770.

Though his education was thus confined, he discovered an early turn
towards poetry and English antiquities, particularly heraldry. How
soon he began to be an author is not known. In the _Town and Country
Magazine_ for March 1769, are two letters, probably, from him, as they
are dated at Bristol, and subscribed with his usual signature, D. B.
The first contains short extracts from two MSS.