OF HUMAN LI F E. 245 



tagern, to elude the fufpicion that he had got his money 

 by unjuftiflable means, and the difagreeable interroga- 

 tories and inquiries that might thence arife — that the 

 true fource of his opulence is probably to be fought for 

 in his fecret connexions with the jews, and in fome 

 fortunate occurrence he found means of turning to his 

 advantage, in which perhaps he had a plaufible opinion 

 that he was doing nothing wrong, or perhaps too by 

 virtue of a felf-given difpenfation from the laws of 

 Irricl: juftice and honefty, — and that therefore the 

 whole of his circumftantial narrative, that it was by a 

 miraculous interpoiition of God and the 'holy St. lago 

 di Compoftella that he unexpectedly came into pofTef- 

 lion of the thrice -bleffed ftone, — in fpite of its boafred 

 iimplicity, is to be held for a "barefaced rhodomontade 

 defignedly contrived by him. 



The reafons adduced in favour of the honefty of good 

 mafter Flamel are of no weight at all with me, He re- 

 lates it all, it is faid, with fo much openhearted Iimpli- 

 city. This was in general the cant of the times, and 

 indeed a good part of it lay in the language then fpolten* 

 The moll romantic mircuious flories, old-wives-tales> 

 and legends of chivalry, lay hold on our good-natured 

 indolence by this tone in that language. And does not 

 old father Homer make his Ulyffes tell his tales to the 

 hofpitable Phaeacians or Fajakians (as you pleafe to call 

 them) of his Leftrigons and Cyclops, his ftories of the 

 beautiful Circe, of the Syrens, of the cattle of the fun, 

 which came to life again in the kettle and on the fpit, 

 kc. with juft the fame air of Iimplicity, in the fame 

 plain rtyle of an artlefs eye-wit'nefs, whom none would 

 fufpect pf a lye ? Do not all the poets, from Homer, 



down 



