eath of
life breathed into it by the father of lying, and ordered to run its
diabolical little course, lives with a prodigious vitality. You say,
"Magna est veritas et praevalebit." Psha! Great lies are as great
as great truths, and prevail constantly, and day after day. Take an
instance or two out of my own little budget. I sit near a gentleman at
dinner, and the conversation turns upon a certain anonymous literary
performance which at the time is amusing the town. "Oh," says the
gentleman, "everybody knows who wrote that paper: it is Momus's." I was
a young author at the time, perhaps proud of my bantling: "I beg your
pardon," I say, "it was written by your humble servant." "Indeed!" was
all that the man replied, and he shrugged his shoulders, turned
his back, and talked to his other neighbor. I never heard sarcastic
incredulity more finely conveyed than by that "indeed." "Impudent liar,"
the gentleman's face said, as clear as face could speak. Where was Magna
Veritas, and how did she prevail then? She lifted up her voice, she
made her appeal, and she was kicked out of court. In New York I read a
newspaper criticism one day (by an exile from our shores who has taken
up his abode in the Western Republic), commenting upon a letter of mine
which had appeared in a contemporary volume, and wherein it was stated
that the writer was a lad in such and such a year, and, in point of
fact, I was, at the period spoken of, nineteen years of age. "Falsehood,
Mr. Roundabout," says the noble critic: "You were then not a lad; you
were then six-and-twenty years of age." You see he knew better than papa
and mamma and parish register. It was easier for him to think and say
I lied, on a twopenny matter connected with my own affairs, than to
imagine he was mistaken. Years ago, in a time when we were very mad
wags, Arcturus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the
language. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said we were born
in China. We were two to one. We spoke the mandarin dialect with perfect
fluency. We had the company with us; as in the old, old days, the squeak
of the real pig was voted not to be so natural as the squeak of the sham
pig. O Arcturus, the sham pig squeaks in our streets now to the applause
of multitudes, and the real porker grunts unheeded in his sty!

I once talked for some little time with an amiable lady: it was for the
first time; and I saw an expression of surprise on her kind face, which
said as