text:  He whose ambition was to shine among writers who have given intellectual grace to their noble lineage--among whom assuredly he does and will shine--but whose acute consciousness of something meretricious in his metal made him doubt if the public would accept coinage from his mint; and so caused him to wear tentative disguises whether he elaborated a romance or a keen and playful witticism--and who really did injustice to his own powers --not from modesty but meanness --even he the son of a prime minister and heir to a peerage--a man who was himself always something of a trickster now mystifying a blind old woman at Paris; now sending open letters privately nullified recommending the bearers to his friend the envoy at Florence; now with the mechanic aid of village carpenters and bricklayers rearing a frail edifice bristling with false points and persuading the world that it was all pure Gothic perhaps chuckling at his assurance--even this shrewd mummer gravely shook his head at Chatterton and frowned on him as a cheat! True; they were both cheats; Horace Walpole from apprehensive vanity; Chatterton from proud oblique humility