'Within a day or two after this,' (Thistlethwaite wrote to Dean
Milles,) 'I saw Phillips ... who produced a MS. on parchment or vellum
which I am confident was "Elenoure and Juga"[1] a kind of pastoral
eclogue afterwards published in the _Town and Country Magazine_ for
May 1769. The parchment or vellum appeared to have been closely pared
round the margin for what purpose or by what accident I know not ...
The writing was yellow and pale manifestly as I conceive occasioned by
age.'
This was the beginning of the Rowley fiction--which might be
metaphorically described as a motley edifice, half castle and half
cathedral, to which Chatterton all his life was continually adding
columns and buttresses, domes and spires, pediments and minarets,
in the shape of more poems by Thomas Rowley (a secular priest of St.
John's, Bristol); or by his patron the munificent William Canynge
(many times Mayor of the same city); or by Sir Thibbot Gorges, a
knight of ancient family with literary tastes; or by good Bishop
Carpenter (of Worcester) or John a Iscam (a Canon of St.
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