often the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers his
impostures, dictates to his hearers with uncontrolled 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 patronized the author, and seen his work in manuscript; 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 scene of action, will dare to contradict a man, who reports from his
own eyes and ears, and to whom all persons and affairs are thus
intimately known?

45. This kind of falsehood is generally successful for a time, because
it is practised at first with timidity and caution; but the prosperity
of the lyar is of short duration; the reception of one story is always
an incitement to the forgery of another less probable; and he goes on
to triumph over tacit credulity, till pride or reason rises up against
him, and his companions will no longer endure to see him wiser than
themselves.

44. It is apparent, that the inventors of all these fictions intend some
exaltation of themselves, and are led off by the pursuit of honour from
their attendance upon truth: their narratives always imply some
consequence in favor of their courage, their sagacity, or their
activity, their familiarity with the learned, or their reception among
the great; they are always bribed by the present pleasure of seeing
themselves superior to those that surround them, and receiving the
homage of silent attention and envious admiration.

45. But vanity is sometimes excited to fiction by less visible