and the height of the jest is only in the very point sweetness, that the confession which she uttered, that heads are broken. I am confident were there so as to be heard where I sat, appeared an act of & scene written, wherein Penkethman should break humiliation more than she had occasion for. The his leg by wrestling with Bullock, and Dicky come truth is, her beauty had something so innocent, in to set it, without one word said but what should and yet so sublime, that we all gazed upon her be according to the exact rules of surgery in mak- like a phantom. None of the pictures which we ing this extension, and binding up the leg, the behold of the best Italian painters have anything whole house should be in a roar of applause at the like the spirit which appeared in her countenance, dissembled anguish of the patient, the help given at the different sentiments expressed in the several by him who threw him down, and the handy ad- parts of Divine service. That gratitude and joy dress and arch looks of the surgeon. To enu- at a thanksgiving, that lowliness and sorrow at merate the entrance of ghosts, the embattling of the prayers for the sick and distressed, that triarmies, the noise of heroes in love, with a thou-umph at the passages which gave instances of the sand other enormities, would be to transgress the bounds of this paper, for which reason it is possible they may have hereafter distinct discourses: not forgetting any of the audience who shall set up for actors, and interrupt the play on the stage; and players who shall prefer the applause of fools, to that of the reasonable part of the company.-T. POSTSCRIPT TO SPECTATOR, NO. 502. N. B. There are in the play of the Self-Tormentor of Terence, which is allowed a most excellent comedy, several incidents which would draw tears from any man of sense, and not one which would move his laughter Spec. in folio, No. 521. This speculation, No. 502, is controverted in the Guard, No. 59, by a writer under the fictitious name of John Lizard; perhaps Dr. Edw. Young. T. No. 503.] TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1712. Delo omnes dehinc ex animo mulieres. TER. Eun. act. ii. sc. 3. Divine mercy, which appeared respectively in her aspect, will be in my memory to my last hour. I protest to you, Sir, she suspended the devotion of every one around her; and the ease she did everything with soon dispersed the churlish dislike and hesitation in approving what is excellent, too frequent among us, to a general attention and entertainment in observing her behavior. All the while that we were gazing at her, she took notice of no object about her, but had an art of seeming awkwardly attentive, whatever else her eyes were accidentally thrown upon. One thing, indeed, was particular, she stood the whole service, and never kneeled or sat: I do not question but that was to show herself with the greater advantage, and set forth to better grace her hands and arms, lifted up with the most ardent devotion; and her bosom, the fairest that ever was seen, bare to ob servation; while she, you must think, knew nothing of the concern she gave others, any other than as an example of devotion, that threw herself out, without regard to dress or garment, all contrition, and loose of all worldly regards, in ecstasy From henceforward I blot out of my thoughts all memory of devotion. Well; now the organ was to play of womankind. "MR. SPECTATOR, a voluntary, and she was so skillful in music, and so touched with it, that she kept time not only with some motion of her head, but also with a "You have often mentioned with great vehe- different air in her countenance. When the music mence and indignation the misbehavior of people was strong and bold, she looked exalted, but seriat church but I am at present to talk to you on ous; when lively and airy, she was smiling and that subject, and complain to you of one, whom at gracious; when the notes were more soft and lanthe same time I know not what to accuse of, ex-guishing, she was kind and full of pity. When cept it be looking too well there, and diverting the she had now made it visible to the whole congreeyes of the congregation to that one object. How-gation, by her motion and ear, that she could ever, I have this to say, that she might have dance, and she wanted now only to inform us that stayed at her own parish, and not come to perplex she could sing too; when the psalm was given those who are otherwise intent upon their duty. out, her voice was distinguished above all the rest, "Last Sunday was sevennight I went into a or rather people did not exert their own, in order church not far from London-bridge; but I wish I to hear her. Never was any heard so sweet and had been contented to go to my own parish, I am so strong. The organist observed it, and he sure it had been better for me; I say I went to thought fit to play to her only, and she swelled church thither, and got into a pew very near the every note, when she found she had thrown us all pulpit. I had hardly been accommodated with a out, and had the last verse to herself in such a seat, before there entered into the aisle a young manner as the whole congregation was intent lady in the very bloom of youth and beauty, and upon her, in the same manner as you see in the dressed in the most elegant manner imaginable. cathedrals they are on the person who sings alone Her form was such that it engaged the eyes of the the anthem. Well; it came at last to the sermon, whole congregation in an instant, and mine among and our young lady would not lose her part in Though we were all thus fixed upon that either; for she fixed her eye upon the preacher, her, she was not in the least out of countenance, and as he said anything she approved, with one or under the least disorder, though unattended by of Charles Mather's fine tablets she set down the any one, and not seeming to know particularly sentence, at once showing her fine hand, the gold where to place herself. However, she had not in pen, her readiness in writing, and her judgment the least a confident aspect, but moved on with in choosing what to write. To sum up what I the most graceful modesty, every one making way intend by this long and particular account, I mean until she came to a seat just over against that in to appeal to you, whether it is reasonable that which I was placed. The deputy of the ward sat such a creature as this shall come from a jaunty in that pew, and she stood opposite to him, and part of the town, and give herself such violent at a glance into the seat, though she did not ap- airs, to the disturbance of an innocent and inoffenpear the least acquainted with the gentleman, sive congregation, with her sublimities. The fact, was let in, with a confusion that spoke much I assure you, was as I have related: but I had admiration at the novelty of the thing. The like to have forgot another very considerable parservice immediately began, and she composed ticular. As soon as church was done, she immeherself for it with an air of so much goodness and diately stepped out of her pew, and fell into the the rest. finest pitty-patty air, forsooth, wonderfully out of countenance, tossing her head up and down, as she swam along the body of the church. I, with several others of the inhabitants, followed her out, and saw her hold up her fan to a hackney coach at a distance, who immediately came up to her, and she whipped into it with great nimbleness, pulled the door with a bowing mien, as if she had been used to a better glass. She said aloud, 'You know where to go,' and drove off. By this time the best of the congregation was at the church door, and I could hear some say, 'A very fine lady; others, I'll warrant you, she is no better than she should be' and one very wise old lady said, she ought to have been taken up.' Mr. Spectator, I think this matter lies wholly before you: for the offense does not come under any law, though it is apparent this creature came among us only to give herself airs, and enjoy her full swing in being admired. I desire you will print this, that she may be confined to her own parish; for I can assure you there is no attending anything else in a place where she is a novelty. She has been talked of among us ever since, under the name of the phantom :' but I would advise her to come no more; for there is so strong a party made by the women against her, that she must expect they will not be excelled a second time in so outrageous a manner, without doing her some insult. Young women, who assume after this rate, and affect exposing themselves to view in congregations at the other end of the town, are not so mischievous, because they are rivaled by more of the same ambition, who will not let the rest of the company be particular; but in the name of the whole congregation where I was, I desire you to keep these agreeable disturbances out of the city, where sobriety of manners is still preserved, and all glaring and ostentatious behavior, even in things laudable, discountenanced. I wish you may never see the phantom, and am, No. 504.] WEDNESDAY, OCT. 8, 1712. TER. Eun. act. iii. sc. 1. It is a great convenience to those who want wit to furnish out a conversation, that there is something or other in all companies where it is wanted substituted in its stead, which, according to their taste, does the business as well. Of this nature is the agreeable pastime in country halls of crosspurposes, questions and commands, and the like. A little superior to these are those who can play at crambo, or cap verses. Then above them are such as can make verses, that is, rhyme; and among those who have the Latin tongue, such as used to make what they call golden verses. Commend me also to those who have not brains enough for any of these exercises, and yet do not give up their pretensions to mirth. These can slap you on the back unawares, laugh loud, ask you how you do with a twang on your shoulders, say you are dull to-day, and laugh a voluntary to put you in humor; not to mention the laborious way among the minor poets, of making things come into such and such a shape, as that of an egg, a hand, an ax, or anything that nobody had ever thought on before, for that purpose, or which would have cost a great deal of pains to accomplish, if they did. But all these methods, though they are mechanical, and may be arrived at with the smallest capacity, do not serve an honest gentleman who wants wit for his ordinary occasions; therefore it is absolutely necessary that the poor in imagination should have something which may be serviceable to them at all hours upon all common occurrences. That which we call punning is therefore greatly affected by men of small intellects. These men need not be concerned with you for the whole sentence; but if they can say a quaint thing, or bring in a word which sounds like any one word you have spoken to them, they can turn the discourse, or distract you so that you cannot go on, and by consequence, if they cannot be as witty as you are, they can hinder your being any wittier than they are. Thus, if you talk of a candle, he “can deal" with you; and if you ask him to help you to some bread, punster should think himself very "ill-bred” if he did not; and if he is not as "well-bred" as your self, he hopes for "grains" of allowance. If you do not understand that last faney, you must recol lect that bread is made of grain; and so they go on forever, without possibility of being exhausted. There are another kind of people of small faculties, who supply want of wit with want of breeding; and because women are both by nature and education more offended at anything which is immodest than we men are, these are ever harping upon things they ought not to allude to, and deal mightily in double meanings. Every one's own observation will suggest instances enough of this kind without my mentioning any; for your double meaners are dispersed up and down through all parts of the town or city where there are any to offend, in order to set off themselves. These men are mighty loud laughers, and held very pretty gentlemen with the sillier and unbred part of wo mankind. But above all already mentioned, or any who ever were, or ever can be in the world, the happiest and surest to be pleasant, are a sort of people whom we have not indeed lately heard much of, and those are your "biters." A biter is one who tells you a thing you have no reason to disbelieve in itself, and perhaps has given you, before he bit you, no reason to disbe lieve it for his saying it; and if you give him credit, laughs in your face, and triumphs that he has deceived you. In a word, a biter is one who thinks you a fool, because you do not think him a knave. This description of him one may insist upon to be a just one; for what else but à degree of knavery is it, to depend upon deceit for what you gain of another, be it in point of wit, er interest, or anything else? This way of wit is called "biting," by a metaphor taken from beasts of prey, which devour harmless and unarmed animals, and look upon them as their food wherever they meet them. The sharpers about town very ingeniously understood themselves to be to the undesigning part of mankind what foxes are to lambs, and therefore used the word biting, to express any exploit wherein they had overreached any innocent and inadver tent man of his purse. These rascals, of late years, have been the gallants of the town, and carried it with a fashionable haughty air, to the discour agement of modesty, and all honest arts. Shallow fops, who are governed by the eye, and admire everything that struts in vogue, took up from the sharpers the phrase of biting, and used it upea all occasions, either to disown any nonsensical stuff they should talk themselves, or evade the force of what was reasonably said by others. Thus, when one of these cunning creatures was entered into a debate with you, whether it was practicable in the present state of affairs to a complish ach a proposition, and you thought he had' Destroyed his side of the question, as soon as you looked with an earnestness ready to lay hold of it, he immediately cried, "Bite," and you were immediately to acknowledge all that part was in jest. They carry this to all the extravagance imaginable; and if one of these witlings knows any particulars which may give authority to what he says, he is still the more ingenious if he imposes upon your credulity. I remember a remarkable instance of this kind. There came up a shrewd young fellow to a plain young man, his countryman, and taking him aside with a grave concerned countenance, goes on at this rate: "I see you here, and have you heard nothing out of Yorkshire? You look so surprised you could not have heard of it—and yet the particulars are such that it cannot be false: I am sorry I am got into it so far that I now must tell you; but I know not but it may be for your service to know. On Tuesday last, just after dinner-you know his manner is to smoke-opening his box, your father fell down dead in an apoplexy." The youth showed the filial sorrow which he ought-upon which the witty man cried, "Bite; there was nothing in all this." To put an end to this silly, pernicious, frivolous way at once, I will give the reader one late instance of a bite, which no biter for the future will ever be able to equal, though I heartily wish him the same occasion. It is a superstition with some surgeons who beg the bodies of condemned malefactors, to go to the jail, and bargain for the carcass with the criminal himself. A good honest fellow did so last sessions, and was admitted to the condemned meu on the morning wherein they died. The surgeon communicated his business, and fell into discourse with a little fellow, who refused twelve shillings, and insisted upon fifteen for his body. The fellow who killed the officer of Newgate, very forwardly, and like a man who was willing to deal, told him, "Look you, Mr. Surgeon, that little dry fellow, who has been half starved all his life, and is now half dead with fear, cannot answer your purpose. I have ever lived high and freely, my veins are full, I have not pined in imprisonment; you see my crest swells to your knife; and after Jack Catch has done, upon my honor you will find me as sound as ever a bullock in any of the markets. Come, for twenty shillings I am your man." Says the surgeon, "Done, there is a guinea." This witty rogue took the money, and as soon as he had it in his fist, cries, "Bite; I am to be hanged in chains.”—T. the anguish of the present evil, whereas the former are very often pained by the reflection on what is passed, and the fear of what is to come. This fear of any future difficulties or misfortunes is so natural to the mind, that were a man's sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him, than from those evils which had already befallen him. To this we may add, that among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect, than by their actual pressure. This natural impatience to look into futurity, and to know what accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous arts and inventions. Some found their prescience on the lines of a man's hand, others on the features of his face; some on the signatures which nature has impressed on his body, and others on his own hand-writing: some read men's fortunes in the stars, as others have searched after them in the entrails of beasts, or the flights of birds. Men of the best sense have been touched more or less with these groundless horrors and presages of futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent works of nature. Can anything be more surprising than to consider Cicero, who made the greatest figure at the bar and in the senate of the Roman commonwealth, and at the same time outshined all the philosophers of antiquity in his library and in his retirements, as busying himself in the college of augurs, and observing with a religious attention after what manner the chickens pecked the several grains of corn which were thrown to them? Notwithstanding these follies are pretty well worn out of the minds of the wise and learned in the present age, multitudes of weak and ignorant persons are still slaves to them. There are numberless arts of prediction among the vulgar, which are too trifling to enumerate; and infinite observations of days, numbers, voices, and figures, which are regarded by them as portents and prodigies. In short, everything prophesies to the superstitious man; there is scarce a straw, or a rusty piece of iron, that lies in his way by accident. It is not to be conceived how many wizards, gipseys, and cunning men, are dispersed through all the counties and market-towns of Great Britain, not to mention the fortune-tellers and astrologers, who live very comfortably upon the curiosity of several well-disposed persons in the cities of Lon don and Westminster. Among the many pretended arts of divination, there is none which so universally amuses as that by dreams. I have indeed observed in a late speculation, that there have been sometimes, upon very extraordinary occasions, supernatural revelations made to certain persons by this means; but as it is the chief business of this paper to root out popular errors, I must endeavor to expose the folly and superstition of those persons, who, in the common and ordinary course of life, lay any stress upon things of so uncertain, shadowy, and chimerical a nature. This I cannot do more effectually than by the following letter, which is dated from a quarter of the town that has always been the habitation of some prophetic Philomath: it having been usual, time out of mind, for all such people as have lost their wits, to resort to that place either for their cure or for their instruction: "MR. SPECTATOR, Moorfields, Oct 4, 1712. "Having long considered whether there be any said of him that he wondered how one augur could meet another without laughing in his face. This censure of Cicero seems to be unfounded; for it is I have somewhere met with a fable that made Wealth the father of Love. It is certain a mind ought at least to be free from the apprehensions of want and poverty, before it can fully attend to all the softnesses and endearments of this passion; notwithstanding we see multitudes of married people, who are utter strangers to this delightful passion, amidst all the affluence of the most plentiful fortunes. It is not sufficient, to make a marriage happy, that the humors of two people should be alike. I could instance a hundred pair, who have not the least sentiment of love remaining for one another, yet are so alike in their humors, that if they were not already married, the whole world would design them for man and wife. The spirit of love has something so extremely fine in it, that it is very often disturbed and lost, by some little accidents, which the careless and unpolite never attend to, until it is gone past recovery. trade wanting in this great city, after having sur-cellent discourses which have been marked with veyed very attentively all kinds of ranks and pro- the letter X :fessions, I do not find in any quarter of the town an oneiro-critic, or, in plain English, an interpreter of dreams. For want of so useful a person, there are several good people who are very much puzzled in this particular, and dream a whole year together without being ever the wiser for it. I hope I am pretty well qualified for this office, having studied by candlelight all the rules of art which have been laid down upon this subject. My great uncle by my wife's side was a Scotch highlander, and second-sighted. I have four fingers and two thumbs upon one hand, and was born on the longest night of the year. My Christian and surname begin and end with the same letters. I am lodged in Moorfields, in a house that for these fifty years has been always tenanted by a conjurer. "If you had been in company, so much as myself, with ordinary women of the town, you must know that there are many of them who every day in their lives, upon seeing or hearing of anything that is unexpected, cry, My dream is out;' and cannot go to sleep in quiet the next night, until something or other has happened which has expounded the visions of the preceding one. There are others who are in very great pain for not being able to recover the circumstances of a dream, that made strong impressions upon them while it lasted. In short, Sir, there are many whose waking thoughts are wholly employed on their sleeping ones. For the benefit, therefore, of this curious and inquisitive part of my fellow-subjects, I shall in the first place tell those persons what they dreamed of, who fancy they never dream at all. In the next place I shall make out any dream, upon hearing a single circumstance of it; and, in the last place, I shall expound to them the good or bad fortune which such dreams portend. If they do not presage good luck, I shall desire nothing for my pains; not questioning at the same time, that those who consult me will be so reasonable as to afford me a moderate share out of any considerable estate, profit, or emolument, which I shall thus discover to them. I interpret to the poor for nothing, on condition that their names may be inserted in public advertisements, to attest the truth of such my interpretations. As for people of quality, or others who are indisposed, and do care to come in person, I can interpret their dreams by seeing their water. I set aside one day in the week for lovers; and interpret by the great for any gentlewoman who is turned of sixty, after the rate of half-a-crown per week, with the usual allowances for good luck. I have several rooms and apartments fitted up at reasonable rates, for such as have not conveniences for dreaming at their own houses. "TITUS TROPHONIUS. "N. B. I am not dumb." No. 506.] FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1712. Candida perpetuo reside, Concordia. lecto, Perpetual harmony their bed attend, Nothing has more contributed to banish it from a married state, than too great a familiarity, and laying aside the common rules of decency. Though I could give instances of this in several particu lars, I shall only mention that of dress. The beaux and belles about town, who dress purely to catch one another, think there is no further occa sion for the bait, when their first design has sueceeded. But beside the too common fault in point of neatness, there are several others which I do not remember to have seen touched upon, but in one of our modern comedies, where a French woman offering to undress and dress herself be fore the lover of the play, and assuring his [her] mistress that it was very usual in France, the lady tells her that it is a secret in dress she never knew before, and that she was so unpolished an English woman, as to resolve never to learn even to dress before her husband. There is something so gross in the carriage of some wives, that they lose their husbands' hearts for faults which, if a man has either good nature or good breeding, he knows not how to tell them of. I am afraid, indeed, the ladies are generally most faulty in this particular, who, at their first giving in to love, find the way so smooth and pleasant, that they fancy it is scarce possible to be tired in it. There is so much nicety and discretion required to keep love alive after marriage, and make conversation still new and agreeable after twenty of thirty years, that I know nothing which seems readily to promise it, but an earnest endeavor to please on both sides, and superior good sense on the part of the man. By a man of sense, I mean one acquainted with business and letters. A woman very much settles her esteem for a man, according to the figure he makes in the world, and the character he bears among his own sex. As learning is the chief advantage we have over them, it is, methinks, as scandalous and inexcu sable for a man of fortune to be illiterate, as for a woman not to know how to behave herself on the most ordinary occasions. It is this which sets the two sexes at the greatest distance: a woman is vexed and surprised, to find nothing more in the conversation of a man than in the common tattle of her own sex. Some small engagement at least in business, not only sets a man's talents in the fairest light, and allots him a part to act in which a wife cannot well intermeddle, but gives frequent occasions for those little absences, which, whatever seeming uneasiness they may give, are some of the best preservatives of love and desire. The fair sex are so conscious to themselves, that they have nothing in them which can deserve entirely to engross the whole man, that they heartily despise one, who, to use their own expressions, is always hanging at their apron strings. No. 507.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1712. Preserv'd from shame by numbers on our side. THERE is something very sublime, though very fanciful, in Plato's description of the Supreme Being; that "truth is his body, and light his shadow." According to this definition, there is Lætitia is pretty, modest, tender, and has sense nothing so contradictory to his nature as error and enough; she married Erastus, who is in a post of falsehood. The Platonists had so just a notion some business, and has a general taste in most parts of the Almighty's aversion to everything which of polite learning. Lætitia, wherever she visits, has is false and erroneous, that they looked upon truth the pleasure to hear of something which was hand- as no less necessary than virtue to qualify a husomely said or done by Erastus. Erastus since man soul for the enjoyment of a separate state. his marriage, is more gay in his dress than ever, For this reason, as they recommended moral duties and in all companies is as complaisant to Lætitia to qualify and season the will for a future life, so as to any other lady. I have seen him give her they prescribed several contemplations and sciher fan, when it has dropped, with all the gallantry ences to rectify the understanding. Thus, Plato of a lover. When they take the air together, has called mathematical demonstrations the catharErastus is continually improving her thoughts, tics or purgatives of the soul, as being the most and with a turn of wit and spirit which is peculiar proper means to cleanse it from error, and to give to him, giving her an insight into things she had no it a relish of truth; which is the natural food and notions of before. Lætitia is transported at having nourishment of the understanding, as virtue is the a new world thus opening to her, and hangs upon perfection and happiness of the will. the man that gives her such agreeable informations. Erastus has carried this point still further, as he makes her daily not only fond of him, but infinitely more satisfied with herself. Erastus finds a justness or beauty in whatever she says or observes that Lætitia herself was not aware of; and by his assistance she has discovered a hundred good qualities and accomplishments in herself, which she never before once dreamed of. Erastus, with the most artful complaisance in the world, by several remote hints, finds the means to make her say or propose almost whatever he has a mind to, which he always receives as her own discovery and gives her all the reputation of it. Erastus has a perfect taste in painting, and carried Lætitia with him the other day to see a collection of pictures. I sometimes visit this happy couple. As we were last week walking in the long gallery before dinner, "I have lately laid out some money in paintings," says Erastus; "I bought that Venus and Adonis purely upon Lætitia's judgment; it cost me threescore guineas, and I was this morning offered a hundred for it." I turned to ward Laetitia, and saw her cheeks glow with pleasure, while at the same time she cast a look upon Erastus, the most tender and affectionate I ever beheld. Flavilla married Tom Tawdry; she was taken with his laced coat and rich sword-knot; she has the mortification to see Tom despised by all the worthy part of his own sex. Tom has nothing to do after dinner, but to determine whether he will pare his nails at St. James', White's, or his own house. He has said nothing to Flavilla since they were married which she might not have heard as well from her own woman. He however takes great care to keep up the saucy ill-natured authority of a husband. Whatever Flavilla happens to assert, Tom immediately contradicts with an oath by way of preface, and, "My dear, I must tell you you talk most confoundedly silly." Flavilla had a heart naturally as well disposed for all the tenderness of love as that of Lætitia; but as love seldom continues long after esteem, it is difficult to determine, at present, whether the unhappy Flavilla hates or despises the person most whom she is obliged to lead her whole life with.-X. There are many authors who have shown wherein the malignity of a lie consists, and set forth in proper colors the heinousness of the offense. I shall here consider one particular kind of this crime, which has not been so much spoken to; I mean the abominable practice of party-lying. This vice is so very predominant among us at present, that a man is thought of no principles who does not propagate a certain system of lies. The coffee-houses are supported by them, the press is choked with them, eminent authors live upon them. Our bottle conversation is so infected with them, that a party-lie is grown as fashionable an entertainment as a lively catch or merry story. The truth of it is, half the great talkers in the nation would be struck dumb were this fountain of discourse dried up. There is, however, one advantage resulting from this detestable practice; the very appearances of truth are so little regarded, that lies are at present discharged in the air, and begin to hurt nobody. When we hear a party story from a stranger, we consider whether he is a whig or a tory that relates it, and immediately conclude they are words of course, in which the honest gentleman designs to recommed his zeal, without any concern for his veracity. A man is looked upon as bereft of common sense, that gives credit to the relations of party-writers; nay, his own friends shake their heads at him, and consider him in no other light than as an officious tool, or a well meaning idiot. When it was formerly the fashion to husband a lie, and trump it up in some extraordinary emergency, it generally did execution, and was not a little serviceable to the faction that made use of it; but at present every man is upon his guard; the artifice has been too often repeated to take effect. I have frequently wondered to see men of probity, who would scorn to utter a falsehood for their own particular advantage, give so readily into a lie when it is become the voice of their faction, notwithstanding they are thoroughly sensible of it as such. How is possible for those who are men of honor in their persons, thus to become notorious liars in their party? If we look into the bottom of this matter, we may find, I think, three reasons for it, and at the same time discover the insufficiency of these reasons to justify so criminal a practice. In the first place, men are apt to think that the guilt of a lie, and consequently the punishment, may be very much diminished, if not wholly worn |
