ze the impostor--which only the more convinced
Psalmanazar that Innes was one himself; for before this time Innes had
practised a stratagem on him which had clearly shown what sort of a man
his Formosan was.

This stratagem was this: he made him translate a passage in Cicero, of
some length, into his pretended language, and give it him in writing;
this was easily done, by Psalmanazar's facility of inventing characters.
After Innes had made him construe it, he desired to have another version
of it on another paper. The proposal, and the arch manner of making it,
threw our impostor into the most visible confusion. He had had but a
short time to invent the first paper, less to recollect it; so that in
the second transcript not above half the words were to be found which
existed in the first. Innes assumed a solemn air, and Psalmanazar was on
the point of throwing himself on his mercy, but Innes did not wish to
unmask the impostor; he was rather desirous of fitting the mask closer
to his face. Psalmanazar, in this hard trial, had given evidence of
uncommon facility, combined with a singular memory. Innes cleared his
brow, smiled with a friendly look, and only hinted in a distant manner
that he ought to be careful to be better provided for the future! An
advice which Psalmanazar afterwards bore in mind, and at length produced
the forgery of an entire new language; and which, he remarkably
observes, "by what I have tried since I came into England, I cannot say
but I could have compassed it with less difficulty than can be conceived
had I applied closely to it." When a version of the catechism was made
into the pretended Formosan language, which was submitted to the
judgment of the first scholars, it appeared to them grammatical, and was
pronounced to be a real language, from the circumstance that it
resembled no other! and they could not conceive that a stripling could
be the inventor of a language. If the reader is curious to examine this
extraordinary imposture, I refer him to that literary curiosity, "An
Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, with Accounts of the
Religion, Customs and Manners of the Inhabitants, by George Psalmanazar,
a Native of the said Isle," 1704; with numerous plates, wretched
inventions! of their dress! religious ceremonies! their tabernacle and
altars to the sun, the moon, and the ten stars! their architecture! the
viceroy's castle! a temple! a city house! a countryman's house! and the