But though the Devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation, by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

Who first reduced lying into an art, and adapted it to politics, is not so clear from history, though I have made some diligent enquiries:  I shall therefore consider it only according to the modern system, as it has been cultivated these twenty years past in the southern part of our own island.

The poets tell us, that after the giants were overthrown by the gods, the earth in revenge produced her last offspring, which was Fame.[4] And the fable is thus interpreted; that when tumults and seditions are quieted, rumours and false reports are plentifully spread through a nation.  So that by this account, lying is the last relief of a routed, earth-born, rebellious party in a state.  But here, the moderns have made great additions, applying this art to the gaining of power, and preserving it, as well as revenging themselves after they have lost it:  as the same instruments are made use of by animals to feed themselves when they are hungry, and bite those that tread upon them.

But the same genealogy cannot always be admitted for political lying; I shall therefore desire to refine upon it, by adding some circumstances of its birth and parents.  A political lie is sometimes born out of a discarded statesman’s head, and thence delivered to be nursed and dandled by the mob.  Sometimes it is produced a monster, and licked into shape; at other times it comes into the world completely formed, and is spoiled in the licking.  It is often born an infant in the regular way, and requires time to mature it:  and often it sees the light in its full growth, but dwindles away by degrees.  Sometimes it is of noble birth; and sometimes the spawn of a stock-jobber. Here, it screams aloud at the opening of the womb; and there, it is delivered with a whisper.  I know a lie that now disturbs half the kingdom with its noise, which though too proud and great at present to own its parents, I can remember in its whisper-hood.  To conclude the nativity of this monster; when it comes into the world without a sting, it is still-born; and whenever it loses its sting, it dies.

No wonder, if an infant so miraculous in its birth, should be destined for great adventures:  and accordingly we see it has been the guardian spirit of a prevailing party for almost twenty years.  It can conquer kingdoms without fighting, and sometimes with the loss of a battle:  It gives and resumes employments; can sink a mountain to a mole-hill, and raise a mole-hill to a mountain; has presided for many years at committees of elections; can wash a blackamoor white; make a saint of an atheist, and a patriot of a profligate; can furnish foreign ministers with intelligence, and raise or let fall the credit of the nation.  This goddess flies with a huge looking-glass in her