Ernest Lacy

The Bard of Mary Redcliffe

Sherman & Co., 1910.

Act IV. Scene: Marylebone Gardens, London. In the centre is a pavilion with a curtained stage, on either side of which is an orange tree with a small lamp in each orange...The trees and the pavilion, decorated with festoons and flowers and brilliantly lighted with lamps of various colours, give the place the appearance of a gala night. On the rise of the curtain, ladies and gentlemen are strolling through the grounds, and two macaronis [fops] with two girls are seated at the table drinking wine

The year is 1770, the Bard is the poet Thomas Chatterton, and it was the ancient manuscripts taken from the muniment room of the church of St.Mary Redcliffe, Bristol that 'gave both the inspiration and an indisputable provenance for any medieval texts Chatterton himself might compose' (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).

Enter Chatterton, Barthelemon, and Phillips.
Chatterton: Walpole is here tonight; and, as I said, I have a weighty secret to unfold through this Burletta

Enter Walpole, Bertha, and Burgum.
Walpole: How scrub these gardens are. But for the lamps, 'twould be a common sight

In the burletta (a musical farce) Chatterton reveals, through the figure of Cupid, that he is 'old Rowley, and his works are mine'. Rowley was the persona he invented as author of the fake medieval works he himself had written. He is distraught because the others do not believe him, and ridicule his own claims as a poet.

An explosion of fireworks and the shouts of people are heard; the gardens are lighted by the glow; and Chatterton, mastering his emotion, rises quickly.
Chatterton: Come, Phillips, let us see the fireworks play.
Curtain

The Rowley manuscripts had in fact been denounced as forgeries a year earlier, after Walpole had shown them to two experts. Chatterton did write a burletta, The Revenge, in 1770 but it was not performed at Marylebone Gardens until seven years later.