Of all the _anas_, that which deserves to stand foremost in the ranks of printed falsehood is the _Segraisiana_: It was compiled by the amanuensis of Segrais, one of his domestics, and was printed long after the master's death. The _Menagiana_, revised by La Monnoye, is the only one that contains anything instructive. Nothing is more common than to find in our new miscellanies old _bons mots_ attributed to our contemporaries, or inscriptions and epigrams written on certain princes, applied to others. We are told in the _"Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce dans les deux Indes"_ (the Philosophical and Political History of the Commerce of the two Indies), that the Dutch, having driven the Portuguese from Malacca, the Dutch captain asked the Portuguese commander when he should return; to which he replied: _"When your sins are greater than ours."_ This answer had before been attributed to an Englishman in the time of Charles VII. of France, and before them to a Saracen emir in Sicily; after all, it is the answer rather of a Capuchin than of a politician; it was not because the French were greater sinners than the English that the latter deprived them of Canada. The author of this same history relates, in a serious manner, a little story invented by Steele, and inserted in the _Spectator_; and would make it pass for one of the real causes of war between the English and the savages. The tale which Steele opposes to the much pleasanter story of the widow of Ephesus, is as follows and is designed to prove that men are not more constant than women; but in Petronius the Ephesian matron exhibits only an amusing and pardonable weakness; while the merchant Inkle, in the _Spectator_, is guilty of the most frightful ingratitude: "This young traveller Inkle is on the point of being taken by the Caribbees on the continent of America, without it being said at what place or on what occasion. Yarico, a pretty Caribbee, saves his life, and at length flies with him to Barbadoes. As soon as they arrive, Inkle goes and sells his benefactress in the slave market. 'Ungrateful and barbarous man!' says Yarico, 'wilt thou sell me, when I am with child by thee?' 'With child!' replied the English merchant, 'so much the better; I shall get more for thee!'" And this is given us as a true story and as the origin of a long war. The speech of a woman of Boston to her judges, who condemned her to the house of correction for the fifth time for having brought to bed a fifth child, was a pleasantry of the illustrious Franklin; yet it is related in the same work as an authentic occurrence. How many tales have embellished and disfigured every history? An author, who has thought more correctly than he has quoted, asserts that the following epitaph was made for Cromwell: _Ci-gît le destructeur d'un pouvoir légitime,_ _Jusqu' à son dernier jour favorisé des cieux,_ _Dont les vertus méritaient mieux_ _Que le sceptre acquis par un crime._