announced that the account was copied from a manuscript his father
had taken from Rowley's chest. And this explanation was considered
perfectly satisfactory.

Yet it seemed obvious that the antiquaries would demand to see the
manuscript, and Chatterton, contrary to his usual practice of secrecy,
called upon his friend Rudhall and, having made him promise to tell
nothing of what he should show him, took a piece of parchment
'about the size of a half sheet of foolscap paper,' wrote on it in
a character which the other did not understand, for it was 'totally
unlike English,' and finally held what he had written over a candle
to give it the 'appearance of antiquity,' which it did by changing the
colour of the ink and making the parchment appear 'black and a little
contracted.' Rudhall, who kept his secret till 1779 (when he bartered
it for L10, to be given to the poet's mother, at that time in
great poverty), believed that no one was shown or asked to see this
document. Why, it is impossible to say.

The present volume contains a reproduction[2] in black and white of
the original MS. of Chatterton's '_Accounte of W. Canynges Feast_'.
This was written in red ink. The parchment is stained with brown,
except one corner, and the first line written in a legal texting hand.
The ageing of his manuscript of the _Vita Burtoni_, to take a further
instance, was effected by smearing the middle of it with glue or
varnish. This document was also written partly in an attorney's
regular engrossing[3] hand. During the next four years Chatterton
'transcribed' a great quantity of ancient documents, including
_AElla, a Tragycal Enterlude_--far the finest of the longer Rowleian
poems--the _Songe to AElla_ and _The Bristowe Tragedy_ (the authorship
of which last he appears in an unguarded moment to have acknowledged
to his mother). He told her also that he had himself written one of
the two poems _Onn oure Ladies Chyrche_--which one, Mrs. Chatterton
could not remember[4], but if it was the first of the two printed in
this edition (p. 275) it was a strange coincidence indeed that led
him to repudiate the antiquity of the only two Rowley poems which
are really at all like 'antiques'--Professor Skeat's convenient
expression. The two Battles of Hastings were written during this
period, and it appears that Barrett the surgeon, on being shown the
first poem, was for once very insistent in asking for the original,
whereupon Chatterton in a momentary