^3 



diaborate an agreement, in fwearing with minute precifion and exaftnefs- 

 to all the trifling and immaterial circumftances of the cafe, and perhaps 

 in nearly the fame terms, have impeached their own credit, and excited 

 fufpicions of their rehearling a falfe and fabricated tale, diftated to them 

 by one and the fame mailer. 



Capricious, indeed, is the nature of popular credulity ; it fets all 

 the rules of common fenfe and common probability at defiance. So that 

 the fiiccefs and propagation of a rumour do not always correfpond to^ 

 the fkill and care, which the authors and contrivers have employed to 

 drefs it up, and render it credible ; they depend more on the previous 

 preparation and predifpofition of the public mind. It is obferved by the 

 philofophical hiftorian,* in fpeaking of the Popifli plot produced by 

 Titus Oates, " that it feemed at the the time, that the very improba- 

 " bility of the tale, and the wild circumftances of horror and atrocity 

 " with which it was filled, by applying themfelves to the imagination 

 " of the hearer, and arrefting the love of the marvellous, proved its 

 " chief recommendation ; and that a plot, invented by impoftors of 

 *' more knowledge, art and ingenuity, would not have been fo fuccefs- 

 " ful in exciting popular attention, and diffiifing parties among the vul- 

 *' gar. This eifeft, (continues he,) we may fafely fay, no one could 

 " before have expefted, and a fool was, in this cafe, more likely to 

 " fiicceed, than a wife man. Had Shaftpury laid the plan of a Popifh 

 *' confpiracy, he had probably rendered it moderate, confiftent, credible ; 

 " and on that very account, had never met with the prodigious fuc- 

 " cefs, with which Oates's tremendous fiftions were attended." We 

 have had in later thnes, and among an enlightened people, a flrange 

 and horrible illuftration of the power of credulity, afting under the 

 impulfe of popular prejudice, defpifing all the rules of probability, all 

 the laws of evidence, and receiving implicitly the mod wild and revolt- 

 ing tales, in the tragical fate of the Galas family at Touloufe. Inftan- 

 ces occur of a more light and ludicrous nature, which ferve to fhew, that 



the 



Hume's Hift. England, Vol, 8th. 



