resolved to hold my Tongue for seven Days together; I did so, but then I had so many Winks and unnecessary Distortions of my Face upon what any body 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’ll 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 to me.  I have cursed the Inns in Germany; commended the Brothels at Venice; the Freedom of Conversation in France; and tho’ I never was out of this dear Town, and fifty Miles about it, have been three Nights together dogged by Bravoes for an Intreague with a Cardinal’s Mistress at Rome.

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 of us to make a Society among our selves; and since we cannot be believed any longer, I beg of you to print this my 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.  And that a Member of the Society may not hereafter be ill received by the rest of the World, I desire you would explain a little this sort of Men, and not let us Historians be ranked, as we are in the Imaginations of ordinary People, among common Liars, Makebates, Impostors, and Incendiaries.  For your Instruction herein, you are to know that an Historian in Conversation is only a Person of so pregnant a Fancy, that he cannot be contented with ordinary Occurrences.  I know a Man of Quality of our Order, who is of the wrong Side of Forty-three, and has been of that Age, according to Tully’s Jest, for some Years since, whose Vein is upon the Romantick.  Give him the least Occasion, and he will tell you something so very particular that happen’d in such a Year, and in such Company, where by the by was present such a one, who was afterwards made such a thing.  Out of all these Circumstances, in the best Language in the World, he will join together with such probable Incidents an Account that shews a Person of the deepest Penetration, the honestest Mind, and withal something so Humble when he speaks of himself, that you would Admire.  Dear Sir, why should this be Lying!  There is nothing so instructive.  He has withal the gravest Aspect; something so very venerable and great!  Another of these Historians is a Young Man whom we would take in, tho’ he extreamly wants Parts, as People send Children (before they can learn any thing) to School, to keep them out of Harm’s way.  He tells things which have nothing at all