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as a didactic writer, and a teacher of truths, which I ought to believe that every one knows already, and better than I do.

But I beg permission to deprecate the charge of presumption and self-conceit, by declaring that I pretend not to lay before my readers any new knowledge; my only aim is to bring to their recollection knowledge which they already possess, but do not constantly recall and act upon.

I am to them, and to my subject, what the picture-cleaner is to the picture; the restorer to observation of what is valuable, and not the artist who created it.

In the next place, I wish to remind them that a weak hand is as able as a powerful one to hold a mirror, in which we may see any defects in our dress or person.

In the last place, I venture to assert that there is not in my whole book a more com

mon-place truth, than that kings are but men, and that monarchs, as well as their subjects, must surely die.

Notwithstanding, Philip of Macedon was so conscious of his liability to forget this awful truth, that he employed a monitor to follow him every day, repeating in his ear, "Remember thou art but a man." And he who gave this salutary admonition neither possessed superiority of wisdom, nor pretended to possess it.

All, therefore, that I require of my readers is to do me the justice to believe that, in the following work, my pretensions have been as humble, and as confined, as those of the REMEMBRANCER of PHILIP OF MACEDON.

AMELIA OPIE.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF LYING,

IN

ALL ITS BRANCHES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

WHAT constitutes lying?

I answer the intention to deceive. If this be a correct definition, there must be passive as well as active lying; and those who withhold the truth, or do not tell the whole truth, with an intention to deceive, are guilty of lying, as well as those who tell a direct or positive falsehood.

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