First it
seems he wrote the matter in the ordinary English of his day. Then he
would with the help of an English-Rowley and Rowley-English Dictionary
(which he had laboriously compiled for himself out of the vocabulary
to Speght's _Chaucer_, Bailey's _Universal Etymological Dictionary_,
and Kersey's _Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum_) translate the work
into what he probably thought was a very fair imitation of fifteenth
century language. His spelling Professor Skeat characterizes as
'that debased kind which prevails in Chevy Chase and the Battle of
Otterbourn in Percy's _Reliques_, only a little more disguised.'
Percy's _Reliques_ were not published till 1765, but it is natural to
suppose that Chatterton when he was 'wildly squandering all he got
On books and learning and the Lord knows what,' and thereby involving
himself in some little debt, would have bought the volume very soon
after its publication. Finally as to the production of 'an original'.
We have two accounts; one of which represents the pseudo-Rowley
rubbing a parchment upon a dirty floor after smearing it with ochre
and saying 'that was the way to antiquate it'; the other, even more
explicit, is the testimony of a local chemist, one Rudhall, who was
for some time a close friend of Chatterton's.
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