our own.

intelligent public. The only consolation of the man of science is
that in the end truth usually prevails.

Psalmanazar's interview with Halley affords a good example of
this. Halley, who was the greatest astronomer of his time, easily
exposed the imposture by a few questions about the familiar
meteorological phenomena of a tropical land. Psalmanazar's
answers showed that he had no conception that these differed from

In the British Museum copy of the second edition of Psalmanazar's 'Formosa,' there is the following manuscript note, which shows that the more intelligent were satisfied by Halley's account of his interview :

* This book contains in many particulars the most ingenious imposture on the Publick, but the whole was detected and the Author brought to Shame by a very few questions put to him by

the very ingenious late Dr. Halley, who inquired concerning the E duration of the Twilight, and how long the Sun shone down the

Chimneys every year in Formosa. His Philosophy here failing
him, he was detected never to have been in the Island.'

As Halley died in 1742, this must have been written at least
forty years after the event, which accounts for its author's error in
fact. Brought to Shame?' not a bit of it! Psalmanazar was

'
not abashed, nor was his natural force of deception abated.
the preface to the second edition aforesaid, he announced that the
booksellers wished him to answer the unmerciful Critics,' but for
his part he could say, 'I am so secure in my Integrity, that the
little Cavils of these disingenuous and unhospitable Men do not
move me.' One seems to have heard something like this even
more recently. Among the critics to be answered Halley was not
to be omitted; it is really delightful to observe how skilfully and
lightly Psalmanazar wriggles out of what he could not but feel to
be a damaging position. This is his version of the interview :-

" 'Tis about a year since I had the honour to meet Captain
Halley with some other gentlemen at a Tavern; they ask'd me
the usual questions about my Country, and I returned satisfactory

At last says the Captain, Doth not the Sun shine down the Chimnies in Formosa ? I answer'd negatively; at which they were surprised, for most Geographers place our Island under the Tropic of Cancer; but I went on, telling them that granting Formosa was directly under the Line, it was impossible the Sun should shine down the Chimnies, for they do not stand perpendicular, but the Smoak is carried through the walls of the House by VOL. V.-NO. 30, N.S.

33

answers,

he

the

crooked pipes, and their ends are turned directly upwards, the better to convey it into the air. Pray, Sir (says the Captain when you stand upright in the hottest weather, how is your shadow ? I reply'd very short, insomuch that it can scarce discerned. The last question was, How much twilight we hare in Formosa ? At first I did not understand his meaning; by: when he could explain himself, I reply'd that I had never made any observations about it. ... This is the whole of our Conferi ence, though some People are pleas'd to invent a great deal more

In his Memoirs Psalmanazar tells us, with some approach to 3 chuckle, that serious people thought all the better of him for the objections of Halley, Mead, and Woodward, because these three learned gentlemen “were known to be no great admirers of the Christian religion, to which my patrons thought I had given si ample a testimony.'

Psalmanazar's attitude towards other objections, and those who raised them, shows how little reliance can be placed upon most confident assertion when it is not backed by impartial cora roboration. Some of his argumenta ad homines are such as happily, the public taste of to-day would not encourage. By impudent raillery,' as Mr. Lee observes," he succeeded in turning the laugh against sceptics. Bishop Gilbert Burnet, who was '

in broad in the back as in his theology, had a painful experience this in the grave presence of the Royal Society. some definite proof that Psalmanazar, who looked so like a Europeas. had been born in Formosa; that astute young man retorted tha: if Burnet were in Formosa, he would find at least as much disk culty in proving himself an Englishman. You say you are : Englishman,' the Formosan would observe ; you look as like Dutchman as any that ever traded to Formosa.' On this the Bishop of Salisbury, who was somewhat sensitive on the score his personal appearance, subsided.

There is unfortunately do reference to the incident in Burnet's ‘History of His Own Time.'

Perhaps audacity could go no farther than in Psalmanazar's treatment of the real Simon Pure, one Father Fountenay. and happened to be in London at the time of Psalmanazar's Roman Catholic missionary who had spent many years in China,

' presence. The result reminds one of the well-known modern Society to hold a discussion with the pretended Formosan in their story of the two light-hearted young men who were invited to

of He asked kr

of

6

Het 22

to in many

ਤੱਕ ਸਹੀ ਕਸ

neet a traveller from China, also the lion of the season, and entirely disconcerted him and reduced him to silence by chatterng away to each other in a gibberish which they called Chinese, out which he was wholly unable to comprehend, so that he lost is credit with the whole company. In the same way PsalmanAzar out-faced and out-talked the poor missionary, who made no nanner of reply, only unreasonably and obstinately persisted in affirming what he before had said.' Psalmanazar declared that his intagonist endeavoured by impertinent Shifts to excuse himself,' which reminds one of Satan rebuking sin. A week later the two ravellers met again at a dinner-party at Sir Hans Sloane's, when Father Fountenay had not 'the Assurance to say anything more o me,' nor the Face to raise any objections.' The cream of the est is to be found in the seriousness with which Psalmanazar taments that a missionary should debase his sacred office with uch a pack of lies. In the preface to his work on Formosa he jays of Father Fountenay: This Man is now in London, and e can.. endeavours by all means imaginable to destroy my credit, bass I am daily inform'd by many Gentlemen; to whom I only deply'd,' Psalmanazar goes on, 'Let him alone, I am little

all the berr bad bas

DHL

er

oncern'd at what such a suspicious Person says against hene.' Then he takes a higher ground, and adds, I am well Filbert Bnform'd he takes a great deal of freedom in aspersing me; but I hadap shall return him no other answer than . . . Mentitur impudenral Saissime. But sure 'tis much more becoming a Man of Probity to olonies speak openly and Face to Face than thus clandestinely to backFobite and calumniate.'

F ind at least a

It is safe to say that the modern reader will take more spleasure in Psalmanazar's prefaces and answers to objections than

re; in his baseless and rather dull tissue of stories about Formosa.

The permanent interest of an imposture is rather in the mental

Format

ser operations of its framer than in their result. The further study
bere of Psalmanazar's defence of himself is certainly calculated tc

encourage judicious scepticism with regard to travellers' tales that

story of ES r a

the are suddenly sprung upon an unprepared world. One finds an eFri ingenuity in the appeal to the average man, an audacity in the

!

at marr
time
invred
ended F

calm assumption of sole trust worthiness among a set of experts
and liars, that quite explain the ease and completeness with
which Psalmanazar's absurd story imposed itself for years on
almost the whole reading world. He struck the key-note of
mobilier success when he put forward the two arguments dear to all

impostors, that if the tale were manufactured it would be mor
credible, truth being proverbially stranger than fiction; and thu
it was easier to believe that the story was true than that so you
and unlettered a person had invented it.

'I disagree,' said Psalmanazar in effect, with the ear
writers who have described Formosa. But if I were an imposte
it is obvious that I should have been careful to agree with ther
and only to invent where they were silent. Why should I risk
case by such disagreement if I were not relating the truth?'

"

This is a beautiful argument, which it is really not very e to meet, especially when it is accompanied by an air of ca superiority to earlier travellers. But whether these ridicul Story Tellers above mentioned vend their Legends out of a desig or for want of a true knowledge of Matter of Fact, is not: Business now to inquire.'

"

1

Either Psalmanazar or the Booksellers,' however, saw t
something a little more categorical was needed to satisfy th
large class of readers who are perturbed by any objection wh
the reigning sensational favourite does not answer, but for b
one kind of answer is as good as another, and often a deal better
It would pay any one who had a similar undertaking in hand
study the elegant and light-hearted way in which Psalma
deals with his critics in his second edition. He clears the gro
for his explanations in the text of many things that had stagge
his admirers by allowing that his first edition had wanted
curious and valuable things which long thinking, and the vare
of questions since asked me, have at last brought fresh inte
memory. . . . I acknowledge,' he airily added, that I have
treacherous memory, and should have forgotten many things
I not been daily question'd about them, but now these freq
interrogations have so deeply imprinted them upon my
they can never be blotted out. One instance of these additi
will be enough. He had committed himself to the statement
the Formosans annually sacrificed 18,000 male infants, and it
at once shown that this was as incredible a figure as the 11
virgins of St. Ursula. There was one maxim I could never

mind:

persuaded to depart from,' Psalmanazar tells us in his confessi? |

"

viz., that whatever I had once affirmed in conversation, tho

econd edition, and it was highly ingenious. Eighteen thousand, ne said, was the legal number of the annual sacrifice: as a matter of fact, the priests winked at omissions, and a very moderate bribe would always save a baby from the sacrificial fires.

Other objections were disposed of in the most off-hand manner. -[f gold were so plentiful in Formosa as the story alleged, the critics asked, why had this young Formosan nobleman arrived penniless and ragged in Europe? He answered that he was ignorant of the value gold had in Europe. He was told that the ships he described were not seaworthy, and that his account of Formosan navigation was absurd : he left it to the mathematicians to settle, and remarked that he was no sailor himself, and his countrymen 'may guide themselves by other observations that I am ignorant of? When geographical questions are hard to answer,

. our friend skips lightly away with the remark that he is not skilled in Longitudes and Latitudes. What could be more in

' keeping with the character of the artless Formosan ? Finally, he rises to a pitch of moral indignation, and asks any candid man to tell him whether these objectors are not Egyptian Task-masters ?'

' And the conclusion, which no doubt struck his admirers as masterly piece of satire, is, “If any one will absolutely deny it, the best advice I can give him is to go to Formosa and, if he can, confute me.' Who deniges of it, Betsey Prig ?' the Mrs. Gamps of the time might well ask. And that, perhaps, is the most satisfactory way in which to answer a Psalmanazar.

a