Duke of Marlborough, for what the
Tories thought an unnecessarily harsh insistence on the inclusion of a
clause in the preliminaries of the Gertruydenberg Treaty, which it was
thought he must have known would be rejected by Louis. They suspected
Marlborough did this in order to keep the war going, and so permit
himself further opportunities for enriching himself. The treaty for
peace, carried on at Gertruydenberg in 1710, was discussed by Marlborough
and Townshend acting for England, the Marquis de Torcy acting for France,
and Buys and Vanderdussen for the States. Several conferences took place,
and preliminary articles were even signed, but the Allies demanded a
security for the delivering of Spain. This Louis XIV. refused to do, and
the conference broke up in July, 1710. See Swift's "Conduct of the Allies"
(vol. v., pp. 55-123). [T.S.]]

[Footnote 13: Horace, "Odes," I. ii. 23, 24.
"Our youth will hear, astonished at our crimes,
That Roman armies Romans slew;
Our youth, alas! will then be few."--A. MAYNWARING.
[T.S.]]

NUMB. 15.[1]

FROM THURSDAY NOVEMBER 2, TO THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9, 1710.

_E quibis hi vacuas implent sermonibus aures,
Hi narrata ferunt alio: mensuraque ficti
Crescit, et auditis aliquid novus adjicit autor,
Illic Credulitas, illic temerarius Error,
Vanaque Laetitia est, consternatique Timores,
Seditioque recens, dubioque autore susurri._[2]

I am prevailed on, through the importunity of friends, to interrupt the
scheme I had begun in my last paper, by an Essay upon the Art of
Political Lying. We are told, "the Devil is the father of lies, and was a
liar from the beginning"; so that beyond contradiction, the invention is
old: And which is more, his first essay of it was purely political,
employed in undermining the authority of his Prince, and seducing a third
part of the subjects from their obedience. For which he was driven down
from Heaven, where (as Milton expresseth it) he had been viceroy of a
great western province;[3] and forced to exercise his talent in inferior
regions among other fallen spirits, or poor deluded men, whom he still
daily tempts to his own sin, and will ever do so till he is chained in
the bottomless pit.

But though the Devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great
inventors, to have lost much of his reputation, by the continual
improvements that have been made upon him.

Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is n