Genre:

Short Fiction, Reminiscences, Anecdote, Drollery

Subjects:

Authorship, Cosmology, Phrenology, Controversy

    Relates of the fictional Scriblerus Sacrophagus that his 'work on Cosmogony was published when his intellect was most vigorous, yet it was little read, less understood'. Describes his 'long argument with a profound friend on phrenological science', which included the 'convincing' argument that since 'veracity and mendacity are incompatible' it follows that phrenology 'must be veracious if it be not mendacious'. (125)