out some foundation. Such is the strength of the
association between words and things in the mind--so much oftener must
our credulity have been justified by the event than imposed upon.
If every second story we heard was an invention, we should lose our
mechanical disposition to trust to the meaning of sounds, just as when
we have met with a number of counterfeit pieces of coin, we suspect good
ones; but our implicit assent to what we hear is a proof how much more
sincerity and good faith there is in the sum total of our dealings with
one another than artifice and imposture.

'To elevate and surprise' is the great art of quackery and puffing;
to raise a lively and exaggerated image in the mind, and take it by
surprise before it can recover breath, as it were; so that by having
been caught in the trap, it is unwilling to retract entirely--has a
secret desire to find itself in the right, and a determination to see
whether it is or not. Describe a picture as _lofty,_ _imposing,_ and
_grand,_ these words excite certain ideas in the mind like the sound
of a trumpet, which are not to be quelled, except by seeing the picture
itself, nor even then, if it is viewed by the help of a catalogue,
written expressly for the occasion by the artist himself. It is not to
be supposed that _he_ would say such things of his picture unless they
were allowed by all the world; and he repeats them, on this gentle
understanding, till all the world allows them.(1) So Reputation runs in
a vicious circle, and Merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed
at its own insignificance. It has been said that the test of fame or
popularity is to consider the number of times your name is repeated by
others, or is brought to their recollection in the course of a year. At
this rate, a man has his reputation in his own hands, and, by the help
of puffing and the press, may forestall the voice of posterity, and
stun the 'groundling' ear of his contemporaries. A name let off in your
hearing continually, with some bouncing epithet affixed to it, startles
you like the report of a pistol close at your car: you cannot help
the effect upon the imagination, though you know it is perfectly
harmless--_vox et praeterea nihil._ So, if you see the same name staring
you in the face in great letters at the corner of every street, you
involuntarily think the owner of it must be a great man to occupy so
large a space in the eye of the town. The appeal is made, in the first
inst