OBSERVATIONS ON A LIBEL. 387 



sinuate their untruths and abuses to the world. 

 And indeed let a man look into them, and he shall 

 find them the only triumphant lies that ever were 

 confuted by circumstances of time and place ; con 

 futed by contrariety in themselves, confuted by the 

 witness of infinite persons that live yet, and have 

 had particular knowledge of the matters ; but yet 

 avouched with such asseveration, as if either they 

 were fallen into that strange disease of the mind, 

 which a wise writer describeth in these words, 

 &quot; fingunt simul creduntque ;&quot; or as if they had 

 received it as a principal precept and ordinance of 

 their seminaries, &quot; audacter calumniari, semper ali- 

 &quot; quid haeret ;&quot; or as if they were of the race which 

 in old time were wont to help themselves with 

 miraculous lies. But when the cause of this is 

 entered into, namely, that there passeth over out of 

 this realm a number of eager and unquiet scholars, 

 whom their own turbulent and humourous nature 

 presseth out to seek their adventures abroad ; and 

 that, on the other side, they are nourished rather 

 in listening after news and intelligences, and in 

 whisperings, than in any commendable learning ; 

 and after a time, when either their necessitous estate, 

 or their ambitious appetites importune them, they 

 fall on devising how to do some acceptable service to 

 that side which maintaineth them ; so as ever when 

 their credit waxeth cold with foreign princes, or 

 that their pensions are ill paid, or some preferment 

 is in sight at which they level, straightways out 

 eometh a libel, pretending thereby to keep in life 



