Thomas
Chatterton was born in Bristol, November 20, 1752. His father, a teacher
in the free-school there, had died before his birth, and he was sent to
be educated at a charity-school. He first learned to read from a black-
letter Bible. At the age of fourteen, he was put apprentice to an
attorney; a situation which, however uncongenial, left him ample leisure
for pursuing his private studies. In an unlucky hour, some evil genius
seemed to have whispered to this extra-ordinary youth,--'Do not find or
force, but forge thy way to renown; the other paths to the summit of the
hill are worn and common-place; try a new and dangerous course, the
rather as I forewarn thee that thy time is short.' When, accordingly,
the new bridge at Bristol was finished in October 1768, Chatterton sent
to a newspaper a fictitious account of the opening of the old bridge,
alleging in a note that he had found the principal part of the
description in an ancient MS. And having thus fairly begun to work the
mint of forgery, it was amazing what a number of false coins he threw
off, and with what perfect ease and mastery! Ancient poems, pretending
to have been written four hundred and fifty years before; fragments of
sermons on the Holy Spirit, dated from the fifteenth century; accounts
of all the churches of Bristol as they had appeared three hundred years
before; with drawings and descriptions of the castle--most of them
professing to be drawn from the writings of 'ane gode prieste, Thomas
Rowley'--issued in thick succession from this wonderful, and, to use
the Shakspearean word in a twofold sense, 'forgetive' brain.
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