was ever made before, but Persons who lived in different Ages, engaged as the Friends or Rivals of each other. You will perceive that your Authors have parcelled out the World at Discretion, erected Palaces, and established Monarchies wherever the Conveniency of their Narrative required them, and set Kings and Queens over imaginary Nations. Nor have they considered themselves as invested with less Authority over the Works of Nature, than the Institutions of Men; for they have distributed Mountains and Desarts, Gulphs and Rocks, wherever they wanted them, and whenever the Course of their Story required an Expedient,

raised a gloomy Forest, or overflowed the Regions with a rapid Stream.
I suppose, said Arabella, you have no Intention to deceive me, and since, if what you have asserted be true, the Cause is undefensible, I shall trouble you no longer to argue on this Topic, but desire now to hear why, supposing them Fictions, and intended to be received as Fictions, you censure them as absurd?
The only Excellence of Falshood, answered he, is its Resemblance to Truth; as therefore any Narrative is more liable to be confuted by its Inconsistency with known Facts, it is at a greater Distance from the Perfection of Fiction; for there can be no Difficulty in framing a Tale, if we are left at Liberty to invert all History and Nature for our own Conveniency. When a Crime is to be concealed, it is easy to cover it with an imaginary Word. When Virtue is to be rewarded, a Nation with a new Name may, without any Expence of Invention, raise her to the Throne. When Ariosto was told of the Magnificence of his Palaces, he answered, that the Cost of poetical Architecture was very little; and still less is the Cost of Building without Art, than without Materials. But their historical Failures may be easily passed over, when we consider their physical or philosophical Absurdities; to bring Men together from different Countries does not shock with every inherent or demonstrable Absurdity, and therefore when we read only for Amusement, such Improprieries may be born: But who can forbear to

throw away the Story that gives to one Man the Strength of Thousands; that puts Life or Death in a Smile or a Frown; that recounts Labours and Sufferings to which the Powers of Humanity are utterly unequal; that disfigures the whole Appearance of the World, and represents every Thing in a Form different from that which Experience has shewn. It is the Fault of the best Fictions, that they teach young Minds to expect strange Adventures and sudden Vicissitudes, and therefore encourage them often to trust to