subject of the Borgias. A salted, piquant tale of vice, a ghastly story
of moral turpitude and physical corruption, a hair-raising narrative of
horrors and abominations--these are the stock-in-trade of the sensation-
monger. With the authenticity of the matters he retails such a one has
no concern. "Se non é vero é ben trovato," is his motto, and in his
heart the sensation-monger--of whatsoever age--rather hopes the thing be
true. He will certainly make his public so believe it; for to discredit
it would be to lose nine-tenths of its sensational value. So he trims
and adjusts his wares, adds a touch or two of colour and what else he
accounts necessary to heighten their air of authenticity, to dissemble
any peeping spuriousness.

A form of hypnosis accompanies your study of the subject--a suggestion
that what is so positively and repeatedly stated must of necessity be
true, must of necessity have been proved by irrefutable evidence at some
time or other. So much you take for granted--for matters which began
their existence perhaps as tentative hypotheses have imperceptibly
developed into established facts.

Occasionally it happens that we find some such sentence as the following
summing up this deed or that one in the Borgia histories: "A deal of
mystery remains to be cleared up, but the Verdict of History assigns the
guilt to Cesare Borgia."

Behold how easy it is to dispense with evidence. So that your tale be
well-salted and well-spiced, a fico for evidence! If it hangs not
overwell together in places, if there be contradictions, lacunae, or
openings for doubt, fling the Verdict of History into the gap, and so
strike any questioner into silence.