olio book of 344 pages
closely written.

At the beginning of October, 1768, the new bridge at Bristol was
completed; and about the same time there appeared in the Bristol Journal
a paper, purporting to be a description of the Fryar's first passing
over the old bridge, taken from an ancient manuscript, and signed
Dunhelmus Bristoliensis. By this the public curiosity was excited; and
the printer not being able to satisfy the inquiries that were made
concerning the quarter from whence he had received the communication, it
was with some difficulty traced to Chatterton. To the menaces of those,
who first roughly demanded from him an account of the means by which the
paper had come into his hands, he refused to give any reply; but on
being more mildly questioned, after some prevaricating, said, that he
had got it, together with several other manuscripts, that had been in
the possession of his father, by whom they were found in a large box, in
an upper room, over the chapel, on the north side of Redcliffe church.
That some old parchments had been seen by him in his mother's house is
nearly certain; nor is it at all improbable that they might have been
discovered in a neglected coffer in the church, according to the account
he gave of them. But that either the description of the Fryar's passage
over the bridge, or the most considerable of the poems attributed to
Rowley were among them, can scarcely be credited. The delusion supposed
to have been practised on the public by Macpherson, and that
acknowledged to have been so by Walpole, in passing off the Castle of
Otranto for a translation from the Italian, were then recent; and these
examples might have easily engaged Chatterton to attempt a fraud, which
did not seem likely to be more injurious in its consequences than either
of them.

About the same time he became known to a Mr. Catrott, and to a Mr.
Barrett, a chirurgeon at Bristol, who intended to publish a history of
that city, and was then collecting materials for the purpose. To the
former he showed the Bristowe Tragedy, the Epitaph on Robert Canynge,
and some other short pieces; to the latter several fragments, some of
considerable length, affirming them to be portions of the original
manuscripts which had fallen into his hands. From both he received at
different times some pecuniary reward for these communications, and was
favoured by the loan of some books. Among those which he borrowed of Mr.
Barrett, there were sever