1752-1770. English poet whose medieval-style
poems and brief life were to inspire English
Romanticism. Born in Bristol, he studied
ancient documents he found in the Church of
St Mary Redcliffe and composed poems he
ascribed to a 15th-century monk, `Thomas
Rowley', which were accepted as genuine. He
committed suicide in London, after becoming
destitute. He sent examples to Horace Walpole
who was advised that they were forgeries. He
then began contributing to periodicals in
many styles, including Junius.