are no bare Repetitions, and that all of it is
true; and those Truths, let them be never so Am-
ple, and never so little adorned, provided they
can please by their Novelty, and be choice Sub-
jects, are in my opinion preferable to the finest
Villons in a Romance ; I mean a declared Ro-
mance ; For, Travels writ in the Chimney-Cor-
ner, and published under the name of true Re-
lations, ssiould deserve nothing but the scorn due
to Lyes, the most Villanous of all things. I was
reading some days ago the Book of a new Sings,
who Romances almost from one end to the other ;
among other things he (peaks of Rome with
an extraordinary boldness; He tells us that he
had glutted himself with all the delights of that
celebrated City ; he commends and very much
applauds the Magnificence his own Eyes had ad-
mired there : he even pretends to give a particular
account of them, and notwithstanding all that,
1 could convince him by very powerful presump-
tions, joyned with proofs of a perfect evidence
drawn from his own Book, that he has never seen
Rome. Judge, from thence, what credit we ought
to give to what those sort of Travellers tell us of
remote Countries. The Fables or Fictions which
those People relate, particularly when they coi^e
from asar off, have sometimes given me opportu-
nity to make my friends observe, that it is much
more disficult to write of a Neighbouring and
known Country, than of some New-found Issand,
or of some very remote Countries. Those Gen- '
tiemen who bring us Memoires from the Anti-
podes, have with a great variety of new Subjects
and rare Objects, the conveniency of embelli sil-
ing their Works as they themselves think fit,
without fear almost of being contradicted. And
such an one also, who believes he had done won-
ders in giving a Relation of what he had confu-
H h 4 sedly