ntend for. Neither again would I imply that
_all_ newspaper editors are utterers of forged stories, "knowing them
to be forged;" most likely the great majority of them publish what
they find in other papers with the same simplicity that their readers
peruse it; and therefore, it must be observed, are not at all more
proper than their readers to be cited as authorities.

Still it will be said, that unless we suppose a regularly preconcerted
plan, we must at least expect to find great discrepancies in the
accounts published. Though they might adopt the general outline of
facts from one another, they would have to fill up the detail for
themselves; and in this, therefore, we should meet with infinite and
irreconcilable variety.

Now this is precisely the point I am tending to; for the fact exactly
accords with the above supposition; the discordance and mutual
contradictions of these witnesses being such as would alone throw a
considerable shade of doubt over their testimony. It is not in minute
circumstances alone that the discrepancy appears, such as might be
expected to appear in a narrative substantially true; but in very
great and leading transactions, and such as are very intimately
connected with the supposed hero. For instance, it is by no means
agreed whether Buonaparte led in person the celebrated charge over the
bridge of Lodi, (for _celebrated_ it certainly is, as well as the
siege of Troy, whether either event ever really took place or no,) or
was safe in the rear, while Augereau performed the exploit. The same
doubt hangs over the charge of the French cavalry at Waterloo. The
peasant Lacoste, who professed to have been Buonaparte's guide on the
day of battle, and who earned a fortune by detailing over and over
again to visitors all the particulars of what the great man said and
did up to the moment of flight,--this same Lacoste has been suspected
by others, besides me, of having never even been near the great man,
and having fabricated the whole story for the sake of making a gain of
the credulity of travellers. In the accounts that are the extant of
the battle itself, published by persons professing to have been
present, the reader will find that there is a discrepancy of _three
or four hours_ as to the time when the battle began!--a battle, be it
remembered, not fought with javelins and arrows, like those of the
ancients, in which one part of a large army might be engaged, whilst a
distant portion of the s