with a prodigious vitality. You
say, _Magna est veritas et proevalebit_. 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 neighbour. 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 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 plainly as face could say, "Sir, do you know that up to this
moment I have had a certain opinion of you, and that