The Rowley Poems | Page 3

former vulgar and uneducated but very ambitious to be
thought a man of good birth and education, the latter a credulous,
selfish and none too scrupulous fellow, a would-be antiquary, of whom
there is the most delightfully absurd description in Boswell's Johnson.
The biographer relates that in the year 1776 Johnson and he were on a
visit to Bristol and were induced by Catcott to climb the steep flight of
stairs which led to the muniment room in order to see the famous
'Rowley's Cofre'. Whereupon, when the ascent had been accomplished,
Catcott 'called out with a triumphant air of lively simplicity "I'll make
Dr. Johnson a convert" (to the view then still largely obtaining that
Rowley's poems were written in the fifteenth century) and he pointed to
the "Wondrous chest".' '"There" said he 'with a bouncing confident
credulity "_There is the very chest itself_"!' After which 'ocular
demonstration', Boswell remarks, 'there was no more to be said.' It was
to such men as these that Chatterton read his 'Rouleie's' poems. Another
of his audience was Mr. Barrett, a surgeon, who collected materials for
a history of Bristol, which, when published after the boy-poet's death,
was found to contain contributions (supplied by Chatterton) in the
unmistakable and unique 'Rowleian' language--valuable evidence about
old Bristol miraculously preserved in Rowley's chest.
We hear also of Michael Clayfield, a distiller, one of the very few men
in Bristol whom Chatterton admired and respected; of Baker, the poet's
bedfellow at Colston's, for whom Chatterton wrote love poems, as
Cyrano de Bergerac did for Christian de Neuvillette, to the address of a
certain Miss Hoyland--thin, conventional silly stuff, but Roxane was
probably not very critical; of Catcott's brother, the Rev. A. Catcott, who
had a fine library and was the author of a treatise on the Deluge; of
Smith, a schoolfellow; of Palmer an engraver, and a number of
others--mere names for the most part. Baker, Thistlethwaite and a few
more were contemporaries of the poet, but the rest of the circle
consisted mainly of men who had reached middle age--dullards,
perhaps, who condescended to clever adolescence, whom Chatterton
certainly mocked bitterly enough in satires which he wrote apparently
for his own private satisfaction, but whom he nevertheless took
considerable pains to conciliate as being men of substance who could
lend books and now and then reward the Muse with five shillings. For

Burgum the poet invented, and pretended to derive from numerous
authorities (some of which are wholly imaginary), a magnificent
pedigree showing him descended from a Simon de Seyncte Lyse alias
Senliz Earl of Northampton who had come over with the Conqueror.
To this he appended a portion of a poem not included in this edition,
entitled the 'Romaunte of the Cnyghte', composed by John de Bergham
about A.D. 1320. It was some years before Mr. Burgum applied to the
College of Heralds to have his pedigree ratified, but when he did so he
was informed that there had never been a de Bergham entitled to bear
arms.
With a second instalment of the genealogical table were copies of the
poems called The Tournament_ and _The Gouler's (i.e. Usurer's)
Requiem, which are printed in this volume. Mr. Burgum was
completely taken in, and, exulting in his new-found dignity,
acknowledged the announcement of his splendid birth with a present of
five shillings. It is worthy of notice that the pedigree made mention of a
certain Radcliffe Chatterton de Chatterton, but Burgum's suspicions
were not aroused by the circumstance.
In July 1765, that is to say when the boy was aged about 13, the
authorities of Colston's Hospital apprenticed him to John Lambert, a
Bristol attorney. He had chosen the calling himself, but it was not long
before the life became intolerable to him. It was arranged that he should
board with Lambert, and the attorney made him share a bedroom with
the foot-boy and eat his meals in the kitchen. Further, though his sister
has recorded that the work was light, the practice being inconsiderable,
Lambert always tore up any writing of Chatterton's that he could find if
it did not relate to his business. 'Your stuff!' he would say. Nevertheless
he admitted that his apprentice was always to be found at his desk, for
he often sent the footman in to see. And no doubt on some of these
occasions Chatterton was copying the legal precedents of which 370
folio pages, neatly written in a well-formed handwriting, remain to this
day as evidence of legitimate industry. At other times he was certainly
composing poems by Rowley.
Perhaps at this point it would be well to give some account of

Chatterton's method in the production of ancient writings. First it seems
he wrote the matter in the ordinary English of his day. Then he would
with