(Vol. vii., p. 206.)
Your correspondent inquires as to the real name of this most penitent of
impostors. I fear that {436} there is now no likelihood of its being
discovered. His most intimate friends appear to have been kept in the dark
on this subject. With respect to his country, the most probable conclusion
seems to be, that he was born in the south of Europe, in a city of
Languedoc. A very near approximation seems to be made to the exact locality
by a careful collation of the circumstances mentioned in his autobiography,
in the excellent summary of his life in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, vols.
xxxiv. and xxxv., which is much better worth consulting than the articles
in Aikin or Chalmers; which are poor and superficial, and neither of which
gives any list of his works, or notices the _Essay on Miracles, by a
Layman_ (London, 1753, 8vo.), which is one of them, though published
anonymously. There is a very amusing account of conversations with him at
Oxford, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, vol. xxxv. p. 78., in which, before
a large company of ladies and gentlemen who were curious as to the customs
of Formosa, he gravely defended the practice which he said existed in that
country, of cutting off the heads of their wives and eating them, in case
of misconduct. "I think it is no sin," continued he, "to eat human flesh,
but I must own it is a little unmannerly." He admitted that he once ate
part of a black; but they being always kept to hard work, their flesh was
tough and unsavoury. His grandfather, he said, lived to 117, and was as
vigorous as a young man, in consequence of sucking the blood of a viper
warm every morning; but they had been forced to kill him, he being attacked
with a violent fit of the colic, and desiring them to stab him, which, in
obedience to another "custom of the country," they had done. _Splendidè
mendax!_ was certainly, in his younger days, this much venerated friend of
our great moralist. I should, however, feel inclined to forgive much of his
extraordinary romancing for the admirable manner in which he settled that
chattering twaddler, Bishop Burnet:
"He was one day with Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Sarum, who, after his warm
manner, cried, 'Ay, you say so; but what proof can you give that you
are not of China, Japan, or any other country?' 'The manner of my
flight,' replied he, 'did not allow me to bring credentials: but
suppose your lordship were in Formosa, and should say you are an
Englishman, might not the Formosan as justly reply, You say you are an
Englishman; but what proof can you give that you are not of any other
country? for you look as like a Dutchman as any that ever traded to
Formosa.' This silenced his lordship."