Preliminary page v misnumbered 'vi'.

Author supplied by H&L and ESTC; an inquiry as to the authorship of this work was answered in 'Notes and Queries' (2nd ser. xi, 30) as follows: 'This is one of the burlesque performances of George Hardinge, the Welsh judge ... In 1800, Mr Hardinge had made consideerable progress in a Letter to Mr. Walpole on the subject of Chatterton and Rowley, which is now lost'; the DNB cites this reference, claiming Hardinge as the author; the NUC catalogue refers to him as the 'supposed author'.

Brewer, calling the Rowley poems 'perhaps impostures rather then forgeries', describes them as: 'Certain poems written by Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), and said by him to have been the work of a 15th-century priest of Bristol called Thomas Rowley (a fictitious character). Chatterton began to write them before he was 15 and, after having been refused by Dodsley, they were published in 1769. Many prominent connoisseurs and litterateurs, including Horace Walpole (until he consulted friends), were hoaxed'.

ESTC728H6 [under Hardinge]; ESTC1736C22] under Chatterton.