sphere of life, that we would have it considered well--as a beacon to warn from ruin. "Oh! what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" Despite his marvellous talents, his industry, his knowledge, his magnitude of mind, his glorious imagination, his bold satire, his independence, his devotional love of his mother and sister--if he had lived through a long age of prosperity, Chatterton could never have been trusted, nor esteemed, _from his total want of truth_. His is the most striking example upon record of the necessity for uprightness in word and deed. Where a great end is to be achieved--there must be consistency, a union between noble daring and noble deeds--there must be Truth! No man has ever deviated from it without losing not only the respect of the thinking, but even the confidence of the unwise. Chatterton's earliest idea seems to have been how to deceive; and, were it possible to laugh at youthful fraud, there would be something irresistibly ludicrous in the lad bewildering the old pewterer, Burgum. Imagine the fair-haired rosy boy, the brightness of his extraordinary eyes increased by the covert mischief which urged him forward--fancy his presenting himself to Master Burgum, who, dull as his own pewter, had the ambition, which the cunning youth fostered, of being thought of an "ancient family"--fancy Chatterton in his poor-school dress presenting himself to this man, whose business, Chatterton's biographer, Mr. Dix, tells us, was carried on in the house now occupied by Messrs. Sander, Bristol Bridge,[2] and informing him that he had made a discovery--presenting to him various documents, with a parchment painting of the De Burgham arms, in proof of his royal descent from the Conqueror. [Illustration: BRISTOL BRIDGE.] Mr. Dix assures us, "that never once doubting the validity of the record, in which his own honors were so deeply implicated, he presented the poor bluecoat-boy, who had been so fortunate in _finding_ so much, and so assiduous in his endeavors to collect the remainder, with _five shillings_!" Blush, Bristol, blush at this record of a citizen's meanness; the paltry remuneration could have hardly tempted even so poor a lad as Thomas Chatterton to continue his labors for the love of gain; yet he furnished Burgum with further information, loving the indulgence of his mystifying powers, and secretly satirizing the folly he duped.