fe, at Bristol; and the parchment was the fruit of theft.
Chatterton's father had carried off, from a room in the church, certain
ancient manuscripts, which had been left about; being originally
abstracted from what was called Mr. Canynge's coffin. Mr. Canynge, an
eminent merchant, had rebuilt St. Mary Redcliffe in the reign of Edward
IV.: and the parchments, therefore, were of some antiquity. The
antiquary groans over their loss in vain: Chatterton's father had
covered his books with them; his mother had used up the strips for
thread-papers; and Thomas Chatterton himself contrived to abstract a
considerable portion also, for his own purposes.

He was ingenious, industrious, a poet by nature, and, wonderful to say,
withal a herald by taste. Upon his nefarious possessions, he founded a
scheme of literary forgeries; purporting to be ancient pieces of poetry
found in Canynge's chest; and described as being the production of
Thomas Canynge and of his friend, one Thomas Rowley, a priest. Money and
books were sent to Chatterton in return for little strips of vellum,
which he passed off as the original itself; and the successful forger
might now be seen in deep thought, walking in the meadows near
Redcliffe; a marked, admired, poetic youth.

In 1769, Chatterton wrote to Horace Walpole, offering to send him some
accounts of eminent painters who had flourished at Bristol, and at the
same time mentioning the discovery of the poems, and enclosing some
specimens. In a subsequent letter he begged Walpole to aid him in his
wish to be freed from his then servile condition, and to be placed in
one more congenial to his pursuits.

In his choice of a patron poor Chatterton made a fatal mistake. The
benevolence of Horace was of a general kind, and never descended to
anything obscure or unappreciated. There was a certain hardness in that
nature of his which had so pleasant an aspect. 'An artist,' he once
said, 'has his pencils--an author his pens--and the public must reward
them as it pleases.' Alas! he forgot how long it is before penury, even
ennobled by genius, can make itself seen, heard, approved, repaid: how
vast is the influence of _prestige!_ how generous the hand which is
extended to those in want, even if in error! All that Horace did,
however, was strictly correct: he showed the poems to Gray and Mason,
who pronounced them forgeries; and he wrote a cold and reproving letter
to the starving author: and no one could blame him: C