or his philanthropy; he had altered and
improved the church of St. Mary, and had built the muniment-room: the
reputed poems, some of which were said to have been written by himself,
and others by the monk Rowlie, Chatterton declared he had found in the
coffers. Thomas Rowlie, "the gode preeste," appears as a holy and learned
man, poet, artist, and architect. Canynge and Rowlie were strong friends,
and the latter was supposed to have addressed many of the poems to the
former, who was his good patron.

The principal of the Rowlie poems is the _Bristowe_ (Bristol) _Tragedy_,
or _Death of Sir Charles Bawdin_. This Bawdin, or Baldwin, a real
character, had been attainted by Edward IV. of high treason, and brought
to the block. The poem is in the finest style of the old English ballad,
and is wonderfully dramatic. King Edward sends to inform Bawdin of his
fate:

Then with a jug of nappy ale
His knights did on him waite;
"Go tell the traitor that to daie
He leaves this mortal state."

Sir Charles receives the tidings with bold defiance. Good Master Canynge
goes to the king to ask the prisoner's life as a boon.

"My noble liege," good Canynge saide,
"Leave justice to our God;
And lay the iron rule aside,
Be thine the olyve rodde."

The king is inexorable, and Sir Charles dies amid tears and loud weeping
around the scaffold.

Among the other Rowlie poems are the _Tragical Interlude of Ella_, "plaied
before Master Canynge, and also before Johan Howard, Duke of Norfolk;"
_Godwin_, a short drama; a long poem on _The Battle of Hastings_, and _The
Romaunt of the Knight_, modernized from the original of John de Bergham.

THE VERDICT.--These poems at once became famous, and the critics began to
investigate the question of their authenticity. From this investigation
Chatterton did not shrink. He sent some of them with letters to Horace
Walpole, and, as Walpole did not immediately answer, he wrote to him quite
impertinently. Then they were submitted to Mason and Gray. The opinion of
those who examined them was almost unanimous that they were forgeries: he
could produce no originals; the language is in many cases not that of the
period, and the spelling and idioms are evidently factitious. A few there
were who seemed to have committed themselves, at first, to their
authenticity; but Walpole, the Wartons, Dr. Johnson, Gibbon the historian,
Sheridan, and most other literary men, were clear as