XI. Father Menochio, tom. 3. cent. 11. cap. 4. proves, by many authorities, the antiquity of saluting and praying a blessing on those who sneeze, to have been ages prior to the days of St. Gregory; and we have already observed, that in the New World, and among many of the barbarous nations who inhabit it, we have found this custom to have been established. We shall add at present, a pleasant tale upon this occasion, which some authors tell us of the king of Monomotapa. Whenever this king sneezes, all those who are in his presence salute him; but they do it in so high a voice, that they are heard by those in the antichamber and the adjacent apartments, upon which they do the same; and the salutation is repeated in this manner till it gets into the street, and runs all over the city; so that every sneeze of the king, is attended by horrid outcry of many thousands of his subjects. XII. Dr. Prideaux, who wrote the life of the false prophet Mahomet, quoted in the Critical Dictionary of Bayle, says, that his ancestors, for four generations prior to him, who were named Cæsar, held the government of the city of Mecca, and the custody of the idolatrous temple that was in it; which was not less venerated by the Arabs, than that at Delphos was by the Greeks; but what certainty have we that this illustrious geneaology, is not one of the many fictions, with which the Arabs endeavour to honour that famous impostor? XIII. The essay or discourse of the Marquis of St. Aubin, on the Uncertainty of History, in the first book, chap. 6. of his Treatise on Opinions, is so pleasing and curious, on account of the variety of the informations, and the opportuneness of the remarks contained in it, that I thought I should make a very acceptable present to many of my readers by translating it; and especially to those who don’t understand French, or who have not the book: but I must premise before I give the translation, that I shall divest it of the quotations, and omit such passages, as are nearly the same with those we have given in the original discourse, or the additions we have already made to it; and also, that I shall give here and there a critical note upon such passages as seem to require it. A Translation of the Sixth Chapter of the First Book of the TREATISE ON OPINION. _The little Faith that is to be placed in History._ XIV. It is a very judicious reflexion made by Plutarch in his life of Pericles, that it was very difficult, or nearly impossible, to discern the true from the false by the help of history; because, if it is written many ages after the events it treats of, the antiquity of the transactions is an obstacle to coming at the knowledge of them; and if it is written during the lives of the persons of whom it speaks, hatred, envy, or motives of adulation, excite the author to corrupt and disfigure the truth.