Thomas Chatterton

I think it was in one of those magazines (the Town and Country, if I recollect rightly) that Chatterton, afterwards so well known in the literary world, then a mere boy, published his imitations of Ossian, given, however, not as imitations, but rather as antient poems newly discovered. So early did a species of literary forgery enter his mind. I was struck with the genius of those imitations, tho' not a dupe to their pretensions of originality, and wrote to London to learn who was the writer of them, when I discovered them to be Chatterton's.