Douglas's very valuable pamphlet with regard
to the entire falsity of the charges brought
against Milton, was speedily set at rest by
Mr. Lauder himself in An Apology which he
"most humbly addressed" to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, 1751, wherein he makes an abject
confession of his fraud.

In the year following the exposure of this
mean and mischievous impostor, there was
born at Bristol, of poor parents, a boy who
was destined, some sixteen years after, to
occasion a literary controversy which can scarcely
be considered settled, even in our own day.

In the year 1768, at the time of the opening
of the New Bridge, at Bristol, there appeared
in Farley's Weekly Journal (October 1),
an Account of the Ceremonies observed at
the Opening of the Old Bridge, taken, it was
said, from a very ancient manuscript. The
performance attracted attention; and, after
much inquiry, it was discovered that the
person who brought the copy to the office was
a youth between fifteen and sixteen years of
age, whose name was Thomas Chatterton.
He was at first very unwilling to discover
whence he had obtained the original MS., and
returned some evasive answers. Ultimately
he stated that he had received this, together
with many other MSS., in prose and verse,
from his father, who had found them in a
large chest, in an upper room over the chapel,
on the north side of Redcliffe Church.

The evidence of the boy's mother and sister
is corroborative of his statement. Mrs.
Chatterton tells us that her husband's uncle, John
Chatterton, being sexton of Redcliffe Church,
furnished her husband, the schoolmaster, with
many old parchments for covering the boys'
copy books—these parchments having been
found as described by her son. The best of
them were put to the use intended; the rest
remained in a cupboard. She thinks her
husband read some of them, but does not
know that he transcribed any, or was
acquainted with their value. It was not until
years afterwards—in another house, whither
the parchments were removed with the
family—that her son made the important
discovery. Having examined their contents,
he told his mother that he had "found a
treasure, and was so glad nothing could be
like it." He then took possession of all the
parchments, and was continually rummaging
for more. " One day," she says, " happening
to see Clarke's History of the Bible covered
with one of these parchments, he swore a
great oath, and, stripping the book, carried
away the cover in his pocket."

After the affair of the Bridge, Chatterton
imparted some of the MSS. to Mr. George
Calcott, pewterer, of Bristol; namely, the
"Bristow Tragedy," and some other pieces.
These Calcott communicated to Mr. Barrett,
a surgeon, who had been long engaged upon
a history of Bristol. Most of the pieces
purported to have been written by one Thomas
Rowley, a monk or secular priest of the
fifteenth century, and his friend, Mr. Cannynge,
an eminent Bristol merchant of the same
period. Notwithstanding some prevarications
in Chatterton's story, Mr. Barrett believed
the main portion of it, and even inserted some
specimens of Rowley in his history.

In March, 1769, Chatterton sent Horace
Walpole, who had not then long completed
his Anecdotes of Painters, an offer to
furnish him with accounts of a series of great
painters who had once flourished at Bristol—
sending him at the same time a specimen of
some poetry of the same remote period.
Receiving some encouragement on the score of
the verses, he again wrote to "Walpole, asking
for his influence and assistance in a project
which he had then formed of " seeking his
fortune " in the metropolis—not on the ground
that he himself was a man of genius, but
because he was acquainted with a person, as
he said, who was possessed of great
manuscript treasures, discovered at Bristol. It was
this person who had lent him the former
specimens, and also the " Elenoure and Inga,"
which he transmitted with his second letter.
Walpole was at first deceived by these alleged
antiquities; but Gray and Mason having
pronounced them to be forgeries, he returned them
to Chatterton with a cold reply. There are
various reports about Chatterton's personal
conduct at this period; he is said to have
become an infidel and a profligate—but neither
charge has been proved. All that we know
for certain is, that he contrived to get to
London without Walpole's assistance; that
he there subsisted by writing satires and
miscellaneous pieces —being employed, it is said,
in some cases, by the Government for party
purposes. He made the acquaintance of
Wilkes, Beckford, and others—but failed to
procure any substantial benefit from them.

Owing to some change in his affairs—the
nature of which is unknown—he seems, soon
after, to have abandoned all hope of gaining
the objects of his ambition—advancement
and distinction. He removed from Shoreditch
to a lodging in Brook Street, Holborn, and
here he fell into poverty and despondency.
"The short remainder of his days were spent
in a conflict between pride and poverty. On
the day preceding his death he refused with
indignation a kind offer from Mrs. Angel (his
landlady) to partake of her dinner, assuring
her that he was not hungry—though he had not
eaten anything for two or three days.
On the twenty-fifth of August, 1770, he was
found dead, in consequence, it is supposed, of
having swallowed arsenic in water, or some
preparation of opium. He was buried in a
shell, in the burying-ground belonging to
Shoe Lane workhouse." Thus was the seal
put upon Chatterton's secret.

Warton, one of the most distinguished
opponents of the genuineness of these poems,
makes a general onslaught against them, in
his History of Poetry. He does not even
consider them to be very skilful forgeries.