Matthews adds this note: '_Hoaxers, for you, this tale is written._ The word "hoax," though sufficiently expressive, and admitted into general use, has not, perhaps, found its way into the dictionaries. It is, however, of some importance, as it serves in some measure to characterize the times we live in. Former periods have been distinguished by the epithets golden, silver, brazen, iron. Notwithstanding the multiplicity of metals which chemistry has now discovered, none of them may be sufficiently descriptive of the manners of men in these days. Quitting, therefore, the ancient mode of classification, the present may not be unaptly designated the hoaxing age. The term deserves a definition. A hoax may be said to be _a practical joke, calculated more or less to injure its object, sometimes accompanied by a high degree of criminality_. This definition, which is much at the service of future English lexicographers, includes not only the minor essays of mischievous humour, which assembles all the schoolmasters of the Metropolis at one house; the medical professors and undertakers at another; the milliners, mantua-makers, and mercers at a third; whilst the street before the victim's door is blocked up by grand pianofortes, Grecian couches, caravans of wild beasts, and patent coffins; but also the more sublime strokes of genius, which would acquire sudden wealth by throwing Change Alley into an uproar--which would gain excessive popularity by gulling the English people with a show of mock patriotism--which can make bankrupts in fortune and reputation leaders of thousands and tens of thousands, so as to threaten destruction to the State. The performers of all these notable exploits may be denominated hoaxers, most of whom may, in the end, find themselves involved in the predicament expressed in the concluding couplet of the fable.' We are tempted to give another very fine example from Matthews, containing as it does an interesting reference to the two mighty men of letters of the first quarter of the present century--_The Viper and the File:_