The fifth book of wonders

"me. So I gave them up to their own hearts' lusts; and they walked in their own counsels."

As it was in those days, so it is now, based on the mockery I have heard about from various places. People invent lies and believe them; but the truth they will not believe, even if it is told to them. The first invention I shall address is their claim that I will manage to have a child brought in a warming pan A reference to the "Warming-pan scandal" of 1688, where it was falsely rumored that James II's son was smuggled into the birth chamber in a warming pan.. Others say that there are young women in the house who are pregnant, and their child will be imposed on the public as mine. Another said that I could easily buy a child from the workhouse, and that Townley and Underwood would assist in the deception.

In these inventions, they have shown their own folly by supposing that we have so little respect for our reputations that we would resort to such foolish deceptive tricks. These would necessarily be exposed if the child I announced were not born as promised to bring blessings to mankind. Practicing such inventions as they have imagined would not only bring a curse upon ourselves, but an everlasting disgrace that could never be forgotten. The world does not know me, nor Townley, nor Underwood.

Here I think it necessary to address what men have reported about the wealth I am worth, and to reason with them on their own terms. My sister Carter told me in Bristol in 1809 that the rumor in Ottery was that I was worth ten thousand pounds. Another told me he had heard the same report in another place; and, after the death of Mr. Cosins, I have been informed that the world has magnified it to fifteen thousand. To show the folly of these inventions, I shall explain how I made my