PSALMANAZAR, George, the fictitious name of a pretended Formosan, a person of learning and ingenuity. Born in France, he was educated in a free school, and afterwards in a college of Jesuits, in an archiepiscopal city, the name of which, as likewise those of his birth-place and his parents, are unknown. Upon leaving the college he was recommended as a tutor to a young gentleman, but soon fell into a mean and rambling life, which involved him in disappointments and misfortunes. His first pretence was that of being a sufferer for religion. He procured a certificate that he was of Irish extraction, that he had left that country for the sake of the Catholic faith, and was going on a pilgrimage to Rome. But being unable to purchase a pilgrim’s garb, and observing one in a chapel, dedicated to a miraculous saint, which had been set up as a monument of [7:18:702]gratitude by some wandering pilgrims, he contrived to take away both the staff and the cloak; and, thus accoutred, he begged his way in fluent Latin, accosting only clergymen or persons of figure, whom he found so generous and credulous that, before he had gone twenty miles, he might easily have saved money, and put himself in a much better dress. As soon as he had got what he thought sufficient, however, he begged no more, but viewed everything worth seeing, and then retired to some inn, where he spent his money as freely as he had obtained it. Having heard the Jesuits speak much of China and Japan, he started the wild scheme, when he was in Germany, of passing for a native of the island of Formosa; and what he wanted in knowledge he supplied by a pregnant invention. He formed a new character and language on grammatical principles, which, like other oriental languages, he wrote from right to left with great readiness; and he planned a new religion, and a division of the year into twenty months, with other novelties, in order to give credit to his pretensions. He now assumed the character of a Japanese convert to Christianity, travelling for instruction, with an appearance of greater wretchedness than even that of common beggars. He then entered as a soldier in the Dutch service; but, being still desirous of passing for a Japanese, he altered his plan to that of being an unconverted heathen; and at Sluys, Brigadier Lauder, a Scotch colonel, introduced him to the chaplain, who, with the view of recommending himself to the bishop of London, resolved to carry him over to England. At Rotterdam, some persons having put shrewd questions to him, that carried an air of scepticism, he took one more whimsical step, which was to live upon raw flesh, roots, and herbs, thinking that such strange food would remove all scruples. The bishop of London patronized him with credulous humanity; and Psalmanazar found a large circle of friends, who extolled him as a prodigy. Yet there were some who entertained a just opinion of him, particularly Dr Halley, Dr Mead, and Dr Woodward; but their endeavours to expose him as a cheat only made others think the better of him, especially as these gentlemen were supposed to be unfriendly to revelation. In this instance at least, easiness of belief was no great evidence of penetration. He was employed to translate the church catechism into the Formosan language, which was examined, approved, and laid up as a valuable manuscript; and the author, after writing his well-known History of Formosa, was rewarded and sent to Oxford to study what he liked, whilst his patrons and opponents were learnedly disputing at London on the merits of his work. The learned members of the university were no better agreed in their opinions than the savans of London; but at length the sceptics triumphed. Some absurdities were discovered in his history, of such a nature as to discredit the whole narration, and saved him the trouble of an open declaration of his imposture, which, however, he owned at length to his private friends. For the remainder of his life, his learning and ingenuity enabled him to procure a comfortable support by his pen; and he was concerned in several works of credit, particularly The Universal History. He lived irreproachably for many years, and died some time in 1763.