FONDNESS FOR OLD ARMOUR.

As knights were always clad in steel, I did not merely confine myself to that simple knowledge; but, having perused Grose's volume on Ancient Armoury, I became a collector of helmets, breastplates, gorgets, cuisses, &c.; and any part of the suit which was deficient, I, like a second Quixote, made up for with pasteboard. Thus was my bedchamber a regular armoury; and on many occasions, when the moon has shone upon a full suit, I have sat upright in my bed, and pictured scenes from my lord Orford's Castle of Otranto, &c.

PERCY'S BALLADS.

Although not partial to modern printed books, the subject matter of Dr. Percy's Relics of Ancient Poetry was a sufficient inducement for my becoming its possessor: nor has the infinite gratification I experienced on its first perusal diminished even to the present moment. I need scarcely add, that the poems contained in the vo

lumes here alluded to gave additional zest to those pursuits whereto my mind was so entirely riveted.

LOVE AND MADNESS.

I cannot call to mind on what occasion Mr. Samuel Ireland read aloud some of the letters in Mr. Herbert Croft's very entertaining work under the above title; but I perfectly well remember that the conversation turned upon Chatterton; and, from the circumstances then cursorily mentioned, I was prompted to peruse the above work; when the fate of Chatterton so strongly interested me, that I used frequently to envy his fate, and desire nothing so ardently as the termination of my existence in a similar cause. Little did I then imagine that the lapse of a few months was to hold me forth to public view as the supposed discoverer of the Shaksperian manuscripts.

ACROSTIC ON CHATTERTON.

The following acrostic was penned shortly after my perusal of Mr. Herbert Croft's production.

Comfort and joy's for ever fled:
He ne'er will warble more!
Ah me! the sweetest youth is dead
That e'er tun'd reed before.
The hand of Mis'ry bow'd him low
E'en Hope forsook his brain:
Relentless man contemn'd his woe:
To you he sigh'd in vain.

;

Oppress'd with want, in wild despair he cried 'No more I'll live!' swallow'd the draught, and died.

CHATTERTON AND THE BLACK-LETTER BIBLE.

Some time after my discovery of the whole Shaksperian imposition, I quitted London, and remained for some weeks in the vicinity of Bristol. Curiosity naturally prompted me to visit the chamber in the turret of St. Mary Redcliff church wherein were deposited the papers to which Chatterton must have had access, and from which he pretended to have drawn his Rowley's poems. It contained the old

chests, which were empty; being in every other respect a cheerless stone room.--After inspecting this chamber, I waited upon Mrs. Newton, Chatterton's sister; who, as usual, produced the letters received from her brother, which she styled the only remaining relics of her dear Thomas. After having given them a very careful perusal (from which many proofs of fraternal affection were apparent), I proceeded to make more minute inquiries respecting Chatterton than were usually made by the few strangers that were prompted from curiosity to visit her. My questions and her answers, as nearly as I can recollect, were to the following effect.

"Do you call to mind any circumstance of a particular nature respecting your brother when a child?"

"He was always very reserved, and fond of seclusion: we often missed him for half a day together; and once I well remember his being most severely chastised for a long absence: at which he did not, however, shed one tear, but merely

"Did he ever betray any extraordinary symptoms when young?'

"No others, sir, than what I have stated; except, indeed, that he was taught his letters from an old black-letter Bible, and would not take his lesson from any book of modern type."

This circumstance very forcibly struck me, and I endeavoured to acquire more knowledge on this head, but she recollected nothing at all interesting.

At the period when the Rowley papers had first come to light (as he averred), she informed me as follows:-" My brother, sir, had frequently brought home old parchments, deeds and other things, which were accounted of no value: and one day, having a use for them, I during his absence cut up several of them for thread papers, and others to cover the schoolbooks of children and while thus occupied, Thomas Chatterton came home. On perceiving what I had done, he threw himself