Are these works,
then, to be held cheap, because their truths to their falsehoods are in
the ratio of one to five hundred? On the contrary, they are better, and
more to be esteemed on that account; because, _now_ they are
admirable reading on a winter's night; whereas, written on the
principle of sticking to the truth, they would have been as dull as
ditch water. Generally, therefore, the dealers in anecdotage are to be
viewed with admiration, as patriotic citizens, willing to sacrifice
their own characters, lest their countrymen should find themselves
short of amusement. I esteem them as equal to Codrus, Timoleon, William
Tell, or to Milton, as regards the liberty of unlicensed printing. And
I object to them only in the exceptional case of their being cited as
authorities for an inference, or as vouchers for a fact. Universally,
it may be received as a rule of unlimited application,--that when an
anecdote involves a stinging repartee, or collision of ideas,
fancifully and brilliantly related to each other by resemblance or
contrast, then you may challenge it as false to a certainty. One
illustration of which is--that pretty nearly every memorable
_propos_, or pointed repartee, or striking _mot_, circulating
at this moment in Paris or London, as the undoubted property of
Talleyrand, (that eminent knave,) was ascribed at Vienna, ninety years
ago, to the Prince de Ligne, and thirty years previously, to Voltaire,
and so on, regressively, to many other wits (knaves or not); until, at
length, if you persist in backing far enough, you find yourself amongst
Pagans, with the very same repartee, &c.
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