ratives, all equally false; but more or less credible in proportion to the skill or confidence of their relater. How many may a man of diffufive converfation count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been fignalized by numberless escapes; who never cross the river but in a ftorm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knight-errants of ancient times in pathlefs forests or enchanted caftles! How many muft he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invifible to every other eye, only to fupply them with fubjects of converfation.

Others there are that amuse themselves with the diffemination of falfehood, at greater hazard of detection and disgrace; men marked out by fome lucky planet for univerfal confidence and friendship, who have been confulted in every difficulty, entrusted with every fecret, and fummoned to every tranfaction: it is the fupreme felicity of these men, to ftun all companies with noify information; to ftill doubt, and overbear oppofition, with certain knowledge or authentic intelligence. A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers his impoftures, dictates to his hearers with uncontrouled authority; for if a public question be started, he was present at the debate; if a new . fashion be mentioned, he was at court the first day of its appearance; if a new performance of literature draws the attention of the public, he has patronised the author, and feen his work in manufrcipt; if a criminal of eminence be condemned to die, he often predicted his fate, and endeavoured his reformation: and who that lives at a distance from the fcene of action, will

dare to contradict a man, who reports from his own eyes and ears, and to whom all perfons and affairs are thus intimately unknown?

This kind of falfehood is generally fuccessful for a time, because it is practifed at firft with timidity and caution: but the profperity of the liar is of fhort duration; the reception of one story is always an incitement to the forgery of another lefs probable: and he goes on to triumph over tacit credulity, till pride or reafon rises up against him, and his companions will no longer endure to see him wiser than themselves.

:

It is apparent, that the inventors of all these factions intend fome exaltation of themselves, and are led off by the pursuit of honour from their attendance upon truth their narratives always imply fome confequence in favour of their courage, their fagacity, or their activity, their familiarity with the learned, or their reception among the great; they are always bribed by the prefent pleafure of feeing themfelves fuperior to thofe that furround them, and receiving the homage of filent attention and envious admiration.

But vanity is fometimes excited to fiction by less vifible gratifications: the prefent age abounds with a race of liars who are content with the confcioufnefs of falfehood, and whofe pride is to deceive others without any gain or glory to themselves. Of this tribe it is the fupreme pleasure to remark a lady in the playhouse or the park, and to publish, under the character of a man fuddenly enamoured, an advertisement in the news of the next day, containing a minute defcription of her person and her dress. From this artifice, however, no other effect can be expected, than perturbations which the writer can never fee, and conjectures of which he

never can be informed: fome mifchief, however, he hopes he has done; and to have done mischief, is of fome importance. He fets his invention to work again, and produces a narrative of a robbery or a murder, with all the circumstances of time and place accurately adjufted. This is a jeft of greater effect and longer duration: if he fixes his fcene at a proper distance, he may for feveral days keep a wife in terror for her hufband, or a mother for her fon; and please himself with reflecting, that by his abilities and addrefs fome addition is made to the miseries of life.

There is, I think, an ancient law in Scotland, by which leafing-making was capitally punished. I am, indeed, far from defiring to increase in this kingdom the number of executions: yet I cannot but think, that they who destroy the confidence of fociety, weaken the credit of intelligence, and interrupt the fecurity of life; harrafs the delicate with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-poft or pillory: fince many are fo infenfible of right and wrong, that they have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, but as they dread punish

ment.

Nc.

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No. LI. Tuesday, May 1. 1753.

Si quid ex Pindari Flaccive diftis fuerit interje&tum, Splendet oratio fordefcit, fi quid e facris Pfalmis aptè fuerit attextum? An Libri Spiritus cæleftis afflatú proditi. fordent nobis præfcriptis Homeri, Euripidis, aut Ennii. ERASMUS.

Is a discourse beautified by a quotation from Pindar and Horace ? and shall we think it blemished by a paffage from the facred Pfalms aptly interwoven? Do we despise the books which were dictated by the Spirit of God, in comparison of Homer, Euripides, and Ennius?

N

SIR,

To the Adventurer..

In the library of the Benedictine Monks at Lyons, has lately been discovered a moft curious manufcript of the celebrated Longinus. As I know you will eagerly embrace every opportunity of contributing to promote, or rather revive, a reverence and love for the facred writings, I fend you the following extract tranflated fromthis extraordinary work.

My

My dear Terentianus,

You may remember that in my treatife on the Sublime, I quoted a striking example of it from Mofes the Jewish lawgiver; "Let there be light, and there was

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light." I have fince met with a large volume tranflated into Greek by the order of Ptolemy, containing all the religious opinions, the civil laws and cuftoms, of that fingular and unaccountable people. And to confefs the truth, I am greatly aftonished at the incomparable elevation of its ftile, and the fupreme grandeur of its images; many of which excel the utmost efforts of the most exalted genius of Greece.

At the appearance of God, the mountains and the forefts do not only tremble as in Homer, but “ are "melted down like wax at his prefence." He rides not on a swift chariot over the level waves like Neptune, but comes flying upon the wings of the wind: "while the floods clap their hands, and the hills and "forefts, and earth and heaven, all exult together, be"fore their Lord." And how doft thou conceive, my friend, the exalted idea of the universal presence of the infinite mind can be expreffed, adequately to the dignity of the subject, but in the following manner? "Whither fhall I go from thy prefence? If I climb up "into heaven, thou art there! If I go down to hell, "lo, thou art there alfo! If I take wings and fly to"ward the morning, or remain in the uttermoft parts "of the western ocean; even there alfo"-the poet

does not say "I fhall find thee," but, far more forcibly and emphatically-" thy right hand fhall hold me." With what majefty and magnificence is the CREATOR of the world, before whom the whole universe is reprefented as nothing, nay, less than nothing, and vanity

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