58 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 



prowess. No one with the smallest discernment could have failed to 

 see at a glance that his book bore the stamp of scrupulous exactness, 

 and freedom from boasting. Sydney Smith was not deceived. He 

 was always on the look-out for foibles upon which to exercise his 

 satire and humour, and least of all spared false pretension. But in 

 his laudatory article upon the " Wanderings " in the Edinburgh 

 Review, there were none of the coarse imputations of obtuser critics. 

 He was far too acute to be unable to distinguish a high-spirited 

 English gentleman, enthusiastic in his pursuit of Natural Science, 

 from an ostentatious charlatan, who, by force of being a liar, hoped 

 to palm himself off for a hero. Waterton in his Autobiography 

 threw down the gauntlet to his accusers, and they did not care to 

 pick it up. 



" I am fully aware that certain statements in the * Wanderings ' 

 have procured me the honour of being thought nearly connected with 

 the Munchausen family. Unenviable is the lot of him whose narratives 

 are disbelieved merely for want of sufficient faith in him who reads 

 them. If those who have called my veracity in question would only 

 have the manliness to meet me, and point out any passage in the 

 book which they consider contradictory or false, I would no longer 

 complain of unfair treatment. If they can show that I have deviated 

 from the line of truth in one single solitary instance, I will consent to 

 be called an impostor ; and then may the ' Wanderings ' be trodden 

 under foot, and be forgotten for ever. Some people imagine that I 

 have been guilty of a deception in placing the nondescript as a frontis- 

 piece to the book. Let me assure these worthies that they labour 

 under a gross mistake. I never had the slightest intention to 

 act so dishonourable a part. I purposely involved the frontis- 

 piece in mystery, on account of the illiberality which I ex- 

 perienced from the Treasury * on my return from Guiana. I had 



* "TREASURY CHAMBERS, May \%th. 



" GENTLEMEN, 



" The Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, having had under their 

 consideration your report of the loth, on the application of Mr Charles Waterton, 

 for the delivery, duty free, of some birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and insects, col- 

 lected by him in Guiana, and recently imported from Demerara, I have it in com- 



