while one need not doubt that the distress was perfectly genuine, it
is tolerably certain that Chatterton intended his master to find what
he had written and draw his own conclusions as to the desirability of
dismissing his apprentice. The attorney (who is represented as timid,
irritable and narrow-minded)[9] did in fact find the document, was
thoroughly frightened, and gave the boy his release. He was now free
to starve or earn a living by his pen--so no doubt he represented
the alternative to his mother. He must go to London, where he would
certainly make his fortune. He had been supplying four or five London
journals of good standing with free contributions for some time past,
and had received it appears great encouragement from their editors. He
gained his point and started out for the great city.

His letters show that he called upon four editors the very day he
arrived. These were Edmunds of the _Middlesex Journal_; Fell of the
_Freeholders Magazine_; Hamilton of the _Town and Country Magazine_;
and Dodsley--the same to whom he had sent a portion of _Ælla_--of the
_Annual Register_. He had received, he wrote, 'great encouragement
from them all'; 'all approved of his design; he should soon be
settled.' Fell told him later that the great and notorious Wilkes
'affirmed that his writings could not be the work of a youth and
expressed a desire to know the author.' This may or may not have
been true, but it is certain that Fell was not the only newspaper
proprietor who was ready to exchange a little cheap flattery for
articles by Chatterton that would never be paid for.[10]

We know very little about Chatterton's life in London--but that little
presents some extraordinarily vivid pictures. He lodged at first with
an aunt, Mrs. Ballance, in Shoreditch, where he refused to allow his
room to be swept, as he said 'poets hated brooms.' He objected to