I shall, without any manner of preface or apology, acquaint you that I am, and ever have been from my youth upward, one of the greatest liars this island has produced. I have read all the moralists upon the subject, but could never find any effect their discourses had upon me but to add to my misfortune by new thoughts and ideas, and making me more ready in my language, and capable of sometimes mixing seeming truths with my improbabilities. With this strong passion towards falsehood in this kind there does not live an honester man or a sincerer friend; but my imagination runs away with me, and whatever is started, I have such a scene of adventures appear in an instant before me, that I cannot help uttering them, though, to my immediate confusion, I cannot but know I am liable to be detected by the first man I meet.
“MY IMAGINATION RUNS AWAY WITH ME.”
Upon occasion of the mention of the battle of Pultowa I could not forbear giving an account of a kinsman of mine, a young merchant, who was bred at Moscow, that had too much mettle to attend books of entries and accounts when there was so active a scene in the country where he resided, and followed the Czar as a volunteer. This warm youth, born at the instant the thing was spoken of, was the man who unhorsed the Swedish general; he was the occasion that the Muscovites kept their fire in so soldier-like a manner, and brought up those troops which were covered from the enemy at the beginning of the day; besides this, he had at last the good fortune to be the man who took Count Piper. With all this fire I knew my cousin to be the civilest man in the world. He never made any impertinent show of his valour, and then he had an excellent genius for the world in every other kind. I had letters from him—here I felt in my pockets—that exactly spoke the Czar’s character, which I knew perfectly well, and I could not forbear concluding that I lay with his imperial majesty twice or thrice a week all the while he lodged at Deptford. What is worse than all this, it is impossible to speak to me but you give me some occasion of coming out with one lie or other that has neither wit, humour, prospect of interest, nor any other motive that I can think of in nature. The other day, when one was commending an eminent and learned divine, what occasion had I to say, “Methinks he would look more venerable if he were not so fair a man”? I remember the company smiled. I have seen the gentleman since, and he is coal black. I have intimations every day in my life that nobody believes me, yet I am never the better. I was saying something the other day to an old friend at Will’s coffee-house, and he made me no manner of answer, but told me that an acquaintance of Tully the orator, having two or three times together said to him, without receiving an answer, “That upon his honour he was but that very month forty years of age,” Tully answered, “Surely you think me the most incredulous man in the world, if I don’t believe what you have told me every day these ten years.” The mischief of it is, I find myself wonderfully inclined to have been present at every encounter that is spoken of before me; this has led me into many inconveniences, but indeed they have been the fewer because I am no ill-natured man, and never speak things to any man’s disadvantage. I never directly defame, but I do what is as bad in the consequence, for I have often made a man say such and such a lively expression, who was born a mere elder brother. When one has said in my hearing, “Such a one is no wiser than he should be,” I immediately have replied, “Now, faith, I can’t see that; he said a very good thing to my lord such-a-one, upon such an occasion,” and the like. Such an honest dolt as this has been watched in every expression he uttered, upon my recommendation of him, and consequently been subject to the more ridicule. I once endeavoured to cure myself of this impertinent quality, and resolved to hold my tongue for seven days together; I did so, but then I had so many winks and contortions of my face upon what anybody else said that I found I only forbore the expression, and that I still lied in my heart to every man I met with. You are to know one thing, which I believe you will say is a pity, considering the use I should have made of it. I never travelled in my life; but I do not know whether I could have spoken of any foreign country with more familiarity than I do at present, in company who are strangers too ... though I was never out of this town, and fifty miles about it.
It were endless to give you particulars of this kind, but I can assure you, Mr. Spectator, there are about twenty or thirty of us in this town (I mean by this town the cities of London and Westminster); I say there are in town a sufficient number to make a society among ourselves; and since we cannot be believed any longer, I beg of you to print this letter that we may meet together, and be under such regulation as there may be no occasion for belief or confidence among us. If you think fit, we might be called The Historians, for liar is become a very harsh word.
But, alas! whither am I running! While I complain, while I remonstrate to you, even all this is a lie, for there is no such person of quality, lover, soldier, or merchant, as I have now described, in the whole world, that I know of. But I will catch myself once in my life, and in spite of nature speak one truth, to wit, that I am,—Your humble servant.
Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729).
“GOD BLESS YOU, SIR!”