Cnyghte," purported to be the work of this hero of the tilt-yard, "who
spent his whole life in tilting," but notwithstanding found time to write
several books and translate "some part of the Iliad under the title
'Romance of Troy.'"

All this stuff was greedily swallowed by Burgum, and the marvelous boy
next proceeded to befool Mr. William Barrett, a surgeon and antiquary who
was engaged in writing a history of Bristol. To him he supplied copies
of supposed documents in the muniment room of Redcliffe Church: "Of the
Auntiaunte Forme of Monies," and the like: deeds, bills, letters,
inscriptions, proclamations, accounts of churches and other buildings,
collected by Rowley for his patron, Canynge: many of which this
singularly uncritical historian incorporated in his "History of Bristol,"
published some twenty years later. He also imparted to Barrett two
Rowleian poems, "The Parliament of Sprites," and "The Battle of Hastings"
(in two quite different versions). In September, 1768, a new bridge was
opened at Bristol over the Avon; and Chatterton, who had now been
apprenticed to an attorney, took advantage of the occasion to send
anonymously to the printer of _Farley's Bristol Journal_ a description of
the mayor's first passing over the old bridge in the reign of Henry II.
This was composed in obsolete language and alleged to have been copied
from a contemporary manuscript. It was the first published of
Chatterton's fabrications. In the years 1768-69 he produced and gave to
Mr. George Catcott the long tragical interude "Aella," "The Bristowe
Tragedie," and other shorter pieces, all of which he declared to be
transcripts from manuscripts in Canynge's chest, and the work of Thomas
Rowley, a secular priest of Bristol, who flourished about 1460. Catcott
was a local book-collector and the partner of Mr. Burgum. He was
subsequently nicknamed "Rowley's midwife."