Poems Supposed to Have Been Written at Bristol by Thomas Rowley and Others in the Fifteenth Century

vi
PREFACE.
This cannot be done so satisfactorily as in the
words of Mr. George Catcott of Bristol, to whose
very laudable zeal the Publick is indebted for
the most considerable part of the following col
lection. His account of the matter is this :
44 The first discovery of certain MSS having been
" deposited in Redclift church, above three cen-
" turies ago, was made in the year 1 768, at the
** time of opening the new bridge at Bristol, and
*4 was owing to a publication in Farley's Weekly
44 "journal, 1 October 1768, containing an Ac-
44 count of the ceremonies observed at the opening of
44 the old bridge, taken, as it was said, from a
44 very antient MS. This excited the curiosity
u of some persons to enquire after the original.
" The printer, Mr. Farley, could give no ac-
44 count of it, or of the person who brought th«
44 copy ; but after much enquiry it was disco-
44 vered, that the person who brought the copy
44 was a youth, between 15 and 16 years of age,-
44 whose name' was Thomas Chatterton, andr
** whose