Chapter XV: Part 15

Such another Puck was Horace Walpole! The King of Prussia's "Letter" to Rousseau, and "The Memorial" pretended to have been signed by noblemen and gentlemen, were fabrications, as he confesses, only to make mischief. It well became him, whose happier invention, the Castle of Otranto, was brought forward in the guise of forgery, so unfeelingly to have reprobated the innocent inventions of a Chatterton.

We have Pucks busied among our contemporaries: whoever shall discover their history will find it copious though intricate; the malignity at least will exceed tenfold the merriment.

FOOTNOTES:

[208] A remarkable instance is afforded in the present work; see the
note to the article on _Newspapers_, in Vol. I., detailing one which
has spread falsity to an enormous extent throughout our general
literature.

[209] The pretended "antique manuscripts" preserved among the
Chatterton papers in the British Museum, as well as the fac-simile
of the "Yellow Roll," published in the Cambridge edition of
Chatterton's works, are, however, so totally unlike the writing of
the era to which they purport to belong, that no doubt need be
entertained as to their falsity.

[210] They are, however, so far determined by the fragments of
Gaelic originals, since published by Scottish antiquaries, that the
amplifications of Macpherson can be detected.

[211] Mr. Charles Knight, in his edition of Shakspeare, first
clearly pointed out the true nature of the bequest. The great poet's
estates, with the exception of a copyhold tenement, expressly
mentioned in the will, were freehold. _His wife was entitled to
dower_, or a life interest of one-third of the proceeds arising from
lands or tenements the property of Shakspeare, and which were of
considerable value, she was thus amply provided for by the clear and
undeniable operation of the law of England. Mr. Halliwell has
further proved that such bequests were the constant modes of showing
regard to such relatives as were well provided for by the usual
legal course of events; and he adds, "so far from this bequest being
one of slight importance, and exhibiting small esteem, it was the
usual mode of expressing a mark of great affection."

LITERARY FORGERIES.

The preceding article has reminded me of a subject by no means incurious to the lovers of literature. A large volume might be composed on literary impostors; their modes of deception, however, were frequently repetitions; particularly those at the restoration of letters, when there prevailed a _mania_ for burying spurious antiquities, that they might afterwards be brought to light to confound their contemporaries. They even perplex us at the present day. More sinister forgeries have been performed by Scotchmen, of whom Archibald Bower, Lauder, and Macpherson, are well known.

Even harmless impostures by some unexpected accident have driven an unwary inquirer out of the course. George Steevens must again make his appearance for a memorable trick played on the antiquary Gough. This was the famous tombstone on which was engraved the drinking-horn of Hardyknute, to indicate his last fatal carouse; for this royal Dane died drunk! To prevent any doubt, the name, in Saxon characters, was sufficiently legible. Steeped in pickle to hasten a precocious antiquity, it was then consigned to the corner of a broker's shop, where the antiquarian eye of Gough often pored on the venerable odds and ends; it perfectly succeeded on the "Director of the Antiquarian Society." He purchased the relic for a trifle, and dissertations of a due size were preparing for the Archaeologia![212] Gough never forgave himself nor Steevens for this flagrant act of ineptitude. On every occasion in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, when compelled to notice this illustrious imposition, he always struck out his own name, and muffled himself up under his titular office of "The Director!" Gough never knew that this "modern antique" was only a piece of retaliation. In reviewing Masters's Life of Baker he found two heads, one scratched down from painted glass by George Steevens, who would have passed it off for a portrait of one of our kings. Gough, on the watch to have a fling at George Steevens, attacked his graphic performance, and reprobated a portrait which had nothing human in it! Steevens vowed, that wretched as Gough deemed his pencil to be, it should make "The Director" ashamed of his own eyes, and be fairly taken in by something scratched much worse. Such was the origin of his adoption of this fragment of a chimney-slab, which I have seen, and with a better judge wondered at the injudicious antiquary, who could have been duped by the slight and ill-formed scratches, and even with a false spelling of the name, which, however, succeeded in being passed off as a genuine Saxon inscription: but he had counted on his man.[213] The trick is not so original as it seems. One De Grassis had engraved on marble the epitaph of a mule, which he buried in his vineyard: some time after, having ordered a new plantation on the spot, the diggers could not fail of disinterring what lay ready for them. The inscription imported that one Publius Grassus had raised this monument to his mule! De Grassis gave it out as an odd coincidence of names, and a prophecy about his own mule! It was a simple joke! The marble was thrown by, and no more thought of. Several years after it rose into celebrity, for with the erudite it then passed for an ancient inscription, and the antiquary Poracchi inserted the epitaph in his work on "Burials." Thus De Grassis and his mule, equally respectable, would have come down to posterity, had not the story by some means got wind! An incident of this nature is recorded in Portuguese history, contrived with the intention to keep up the national spirit, and diffuse hopes of the new enterprise of Vasco de Gama, who had just sailed on a voyage of discovery to the Indies. Three stones were discovered near Cintra, bearing in ancient characters a Latin inscription; a sibylline oracle addressed prophetically "To the Inhabitants of the West!" stating that when these three stones shall be found, the Ganges, the Indus, and the Tagus should exchange their commodities! This was the pious fraud of a Portuguese poet, sanctioned by the approbation of the king. When the stones had lain a sufficient time in the damp earth, so as to become apparently antique, our poet invited a numerous party to a dinner at his country-house; in the midst of the entertainment a peasant rushed in, announcing the sudden discovery of this treasure! The inscription was placed among the royal collections as a sacred curiosity! The prophecy was accomplished, and the oracle was long considered genuine!

In such cases no mischief resulted; the annals of mankind were not confused by spurious dynasties and fabulous chronologies; but when literary forgeries are published by those whose character hardly admits of a suspicion that they are themselves the impostors, the difficulty of assigning a motive only increases that of forming a decision; to adopt or reject them may be equally dangerous.

In this class we must place Annius of Viterbo,[214] who published a pretended collection of historians of the remotest antiquity, some of whose _names_ had descended to us in the works of ancient writers, while their works themselves had been lost. Afterwards he subjoined commentaries to confirm their authority by passages from known authors. These at first were eagerly accepted by the learned; the blunders of the presumed editor, one of which was his mistaking the right name of the historian he forged, were gradually detected, till at length the imposture was apparent! The pretended originals were more remarkable for their number than their volume; for the whole collection does not exceed 171 pages, which lessened the difficulty of the forgery; while the commentaries which were afterwards published must have been manufactured at the same time as the text. In favour of Annius, the high rank he occupied at the Roman Court, his irreproachable conduct, and his declaration that he had recovered some of these fragments at Mantua, and that others had come from Armenia, induced many to credit these pseudo-historians. A literary war soon kindled; Niceron has discriminated between four parties engaged in this conflict. One party decried the whole of the collection as gross forgeries; another obstinately supported their authenticity; a third decided that they were forgeries before Annius possessed them, who was only credulous; while a fourth party considered them as partly authentic, and ascribed their blunders to the interpolations of the editor, to increase their importance. Such as they were, they scattered confusion over the whole face of history. The false Berosus opens his history before the deluge, when, according to him, the Chaldeans through preceding ages had faithfully preserved their historical evidences! Annius hints, in his commentary, at the archives and public libraries of the Babylonians: the days of Noah comparatively seemed modern history with this dreaming editor. Some of the fanciful writers of Italy were duped: Sansovino, to delight the Florentine nobility, accommodated them with a new title of antiquity in their ancestor Noah, _Imperatore e monarcha delle genti, visse e mori in quelle parti._ The Spaniards complained that in forging these fabulous origins of different nations, a new series of kings from the ark of Noah had been introduced by some of their rhodomontade historians to pollute the sources of their history. Bodin's otherwise valuable works are considerably injured by Annius's supposititious discoveries. One historian died of grief, for having raised his elaborate speculations on these fabulous originals; and their credit was at length so much reduced, that Pignori and Maffei both announced to their readers that they had not referred in their works to the pretended writers of Annius! Yet, to the present hour, these presumed forgeries are not always given up. The problem remains unsolved--and the silence of the respectable Annius, in regard to the forgery, as well as what he affirmed when alive, leave us in doubt whether he really intended to laugh at the world by these fairy tales of the giants of antiquity. Sanchoniathon, as preserved by Eusebius, may be classed among these ancient writings or forgeries, and has been equally rejected and defended.

Another literary forgery, supposed to have been grafted on those of Annius, involved the Inghirami family. It was by digging in their grounds that they discovered a number of Etruscan antiquities, consisting of inscriptions, and also fragments of a chronicle, pretended to have been composed sixty years before the vulgar era. The characters on the marbles were the ancient Etruscan, and the historical work tended to confirm the pretended discoveries of Annius. They were collected and enshrined in a magnificent folio by Curtius Inghirami, who, a few years after, published a quarto volume exceeding one thousand pages to support their authenticity. Notwithstanding the erudition of the forger, these monuments of antiquity betrayed their modern condiment.[215] There were uncial letters which no one knew; but these were said to be undiscovered ancient Etruscan characters; it was more difficult to defend the small italic letters, for they were not used in the age assigned to them; besides that, there were dots on the letter _i_, a custom not practised till the eleventh century. The style was copied from the Latin of the Psalms and the Breviary; but Inghirami discovered that there had been an intercourse between the Etruscans and the Hebrews, and that David had imitated the writings of Noah and his descendants! Of Noah the chronicle details speeches and anecdotes!

The Romans, who have preserved so much of the Etruscans, had not, however, noticed a single fact recorded in these Etruscan antiquities. Inghirami replied that the manuscript was the work of the secretary of the college of the Etrurian augurs, who alone was permitted to draw his materials from the archives, and who, it would seem, was the only scribe who has favoured posterity with so much secret history. It was urged in favour of the authenticity of these Etruscan monuments, that Inghirami was so young an antiquary at the time of the discovery, that he could not even explain them; and that when fresh researches were made on the spot, other similar monuments were also disinterred, where evidently they had long lain; the whole affair, however contrived, was confined to the _Inghirami family_. One of them, half a century before, had been the librarian of the Vatican, and to him is ascribed the honour of the forgeries which he buried where he was sure they would be found. This, however, is a mere conjecture! Inghirami, who published and defended their authenticity, was not concerned in their fabrication; the design was probably merely to raise the antiquity of Volaterra, the family estate of the Inghirami; and for this purpose one of its learned branches had bequeathed his posterity a collection of spurious historical monuments, which tended to overturn all received ideas on the first ages of history.[216]

It was probably such impostures, and those of _false decretals of_ Isidore, which were forged for the maintenance of the papal supremacy, and for eight hundred years formed the fundamental basis of the canon law, the discipline of the church, and even the faith of Christianity, which led to the monstrous pyrrhonism of father Hardouin, who, with immense erudition, had persuaded himself that, excepting the Bible and Homer, Herodotus, Plautus, Pliny the elder, with fragments of Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, all the remains of classical literature were forgeries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries! In two dissertations he imagined that he had proved that the AEneid was not written by Virgil, nor the Odes of Horace by that poet. Hardouin was one of those wrong-headed men who, once having fallen into a delusion, whatever afterwards occurs to them on their favourite subject only tends to strengthen it. He died in his own faith! He seems not to have been aware that by ascribing such prodigal inventions as Plutarch, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and other historians, to the men he did, he was raising up an unparalleled age of learning and genius when monks could only write meagre chronicles, while learning and genius themselves lay in an enchanted slumber with a suspension of all their vital powers.

There are numerous instances of the forgeries of smaller documents. The Prayer-book of Columbus, presented to him by the Pope, which the great discoverer of a new world bequeathed to the Genoese republic, has a codicil in his own writing, as one of the leaves testifies, but as volumes composed against its authenticity deny. The famous description in Petrarch's Virgil, so often quoted, of his first _rencontre_ with Laura in the church of St. Clair on a Good Friday, 6th April, 1327, it has been recently attempted to be shown is a forgery. By calculation, it appears that the 6th April, 1327, fell on a Monday! The Good Friday seems to have been a blunder of the manufacturer of the note. He was entrapped by reading the second sonnet, as it appears in the _printed_ editions!

Era il giorno ch' al sol _si scolorana_
_Per la_ pieta del suo fattore i rai.

"It was on the day when the rays of the sun were obscured by compassion for his Maker." The forger imagined this description alluded to Good Friday and the eclipse at the Crucifixion. But how stands the passage in the MS. in the Imperial Library of Vienna, which Abbe Costaing has found?

Era il giorno ch' al sol _di color raro_
_Parve_ la pieta da suo fattore, _ai rai_
Quand Io fu preso; e non mi guardai
Che ben vostri occhi dentro mi legaro.

"It was on the day that I was captivated, devotion for its Maker appeared in the rays of a brilliant sun, and I did not well consider that it was your eyes that enchained me!"

The first meeting, according to the Abbe Costaing, was not in a _church_, but in a _meadow_--as appears by the ninety-first sonnet. The Laura of Sade was _not_ the Laura of Petrarch, but Laura de Baux, unmarried, and who died young, residing in the vicinity of Vaucluse. Petrarch had often viewed her from his own window, and often enjoyed her society amidst her family.[217] If the Abbe Costaing's discovery be confirmed, the good name of Petrarch is freed from the idle romantic passion for a married woman. It would be curious if the famous story of the first meeting with Laura in the church of St. Clair originated in the blunder of the forger's misconception of a passage which was incorrectly printed, as appears by existing manuscripts!

Literary forgeries have been introduced into bibliography; dates have been altered; fictitious titles affixed; and books have been reprinted, either to leave out or to interpolate whole passages! I forbear entering minutely into this part of the history of literary forgery, for this article has already grown voluminous. When we discover, however, that one of the most magnificent of _amateurs_, and one of the most critical of bibliographers, were concerned in a forgery of this nature, it may be useful to spread an alarm among collectors. The Duke de la Valliere, and the Abbe de St. Leger once concerted together to supply the eager purchaser of literary rarities with a copy of _De Tribus Impostoribus_, a book, by the date, pretended to have been printed in 1598, though probably a modern forgery of 1698. The title of such a work had long existed by rumour, but never was a copy seen by man! Works printed with this title have all been proved to be modern fabrications. A copy, however, of the _introuvable_ original was sold at the Duke de la Valliere's sale! The history of this volume is curious. The Duke and the Abbe having manufactured a text, had it printed in the old Gothic character, under the title, _De Tribus Impostoribus_. They proposed to put the great bibliopolist, De Bure, in good humour, whose agency would sanction the imposture. They were afterwards to dole out copies at twenty-five louis each, which would have been a reasonable price for a book which no one ever saw! They invited De Bure to dinner, flattered and cajoled him, and, as they imagined, at a moment they had wound him up to their pitch, they exhibited their manufacture; the keen-eyed glance of the renowned cataloguer of the "Bibliographie Instructive" instantly shot like lightning over it, and, like lightning, destroyed the whole edition. He not only discovered the forgery, but reprobated it! He refused his sanction; and the forging Duke and Abbe, in confusion, suppressed the _livre introuvable_; but they owed a grudge to the honest bibliographer, and attempted to write down the work whence the De Bures derive their fame.

Among the extraordinary literary impostors of our age--if we except Lauder, who, detected by the Ithuriel pen of Bishop Douglas, lived to make his public recantation of his audacious forgeries, and Chatterton, who has buried his inexplicable story in his own grave, a tale, which seems but half told--we must place a man well known in the literary world under the assumed name of George Psalmanazar. He composed his autobiography as the penance of contrition, not to be published till he was no more, when all human motives have ceased which might cause his veracity to be suspected. The life is tedious; but I have curiously traced the progress of the mind in an ingenious imposture, which is worth preservation. The present literary forgery consisted of personating a converted islander of Formosa: a place then little known but by the reports of the Jesuits, and constructing a language and a history of a new people and a new religion, entirely of his own invention! This man was evidently a native of the south of France; educated in some provincial college of the Jesuits, where he had heard much of their discoveries of Japan; he had looked over their maps, and listened to their comments. He forgot the manner in which the Japanese wrote; but supposed, like orientalists, they wrote from the right to the left, which he found difficult to manage. He set about excogitating an alphabet; but actually forgot to give names to his letters, which afterwards baffled him before literary men.

He fell into gross blunders; having inadvertently affirmed that the Formosans sacrificed eighteen thousand male infants annually, he persisted in not lessening the number. It was proved to be an impossibility in so small an island, without occasioning a depopulation. He had made it a principle in this imposture never to vary when he had once said a thing. All this was projected in haste, fearful of detection by those about him.

He was himself surprised at his facility of invention, and the progress of his forgery. He had formed an alphabet, a considerable portion of a new language, a grammar, a new division of the year into twenty months, and a new religion! He had accustomed himself to write his language; but being an inexpert writer with the unusual way of writing backwards, he found this so difficult, that he was compelled to change the complicated forms of some of his letters. He now finally quitted his home, assuming the character of a Formosan convert, who had been educated by the Jesuits. He was then in his fifteenth or sixteenth year. To support his new character, he practised some religious mummeries; he was seen worshipping the rising and setting sun. He made a prayer-book with rude drawings of the sun, moon, and stars, to which he added some gibberish prose and verse, written in his invented character, muttering or chanting it, as the humour took him. His custom of eating raw flesh seemed to assist his deception more than the sun and moon.[218]

In a garrison at Sluys he found a Scotch regiment in the Dutch pay; the commander had the curiosity to invite our Formosan to confer with Innes, the chaplain to his regiment. This Innes was probably the chief cause of the imposture being carried to the extent it afterwards reached. Innes was a clergyman, but a disgrace to his cloth. As soon as he fixed his eye on our Formosan, he hit on a project; it was nothing less than to make Psalmanazar the ladder of his own ambition, and the stepping-place for him to climb up to a good living! Innes was a worthless character; as afterwards appeared, when by an audacious imposition Innes practised on the Bishop of London, he avowed himself to be the author of an anonymous work, entitled "A Modest Inquiry after Moral Virtue;" for this he obtained a good living in Essex: the real author, a poor Scotch clergyman, obliged him afterwards to disclaim the work in print, and to pay him the profit of the edition which Innes had made! He lost his character, and retired to the solitude of his living; if not penitent, at least mortified.

Such a character was exactly adapted to become the foster-father of imposture. Innes courted the Formosan, and easily won on the adventurer, who had hitherto in vain sought for a patron. Meanwhile no time was lost by Innes to inform the unsuspicious and generous Bishop of London of the prize he possessed--to convert the Formosan was his ostensible pretext; to procure preferment his concealed motive. It is curious enough to observe, that the ardour of conversion died away in Innes, and the most marked neglect of his convert prevailed, while the answer of the bishop was protracted or doubtful. He had at first proposed to our Formosan impostor to procure his discharge, and convey him to England; this was eagerly consented to by our pliant adventurer. A few Dutch schellings, and fair words, kept him in good humour; but no letter coming from the bishop, there were fewer words, and not a stiver! This threw a new light over the character of Innes to the inexperienced youth. Psalmanazar sagaciously now turned all his attention to some Dutch ministers; Innes grew jealous lest they should pluck the bird which he had already in his net. He resolved to baptize the impostor--which only the more convinced Psalmanazar that Innes was one himself; for before this time Innes had practised a stratagem on him which had clearly shown what sort of a man his Formosan was.

This stratagem was this: he made him translate a passage in Cicero, of some length, into his pretended language, and give it him in writing; this was easily done, by Psalmanazar's facility of inventing characters. After Innes had made him construe it, he desired to have another version of it on another paper. The proposal, and the arch manner of making it, threw our impostor into the most visible confusion. He had had but a short time to invent the first paper, less to recollect it; so that in the second transcript not above half the words were to be found which existed in the first. Innes assumed a solemn air, and Psalmanazar was on the point of throwing himself on his mercy, but Innes did not wish to unmask the impostor; he was rather desirous of fitting the mask closer to his face. Psalmanazar, in this hard trial, had given evidence of uncommon facility, combined with a singular memory. Innes cleared his brow, smiled with a friendly look, and only hinted in a distant manner that he ought to be careful to be better provided for the future! An advice which Psalmanazar afterwards bore in mind, and at length produced the forgery of an entire new language; and which, he remarkably observes, "by what I have tried since I came into England, I cannot say but I could have compassed it with less difficulty than can be conceived had I applied closely to it." When a version of the catechism was made into the pretended Formosan language, which was submitted to the judgment of the first scholars, it appeared to them grammatical, and was pronounced to be a real language, from the circumstance that it resembled no other! and they could not conceive that a stripling could be the inventor of a language. If the reader is curious to examine this extraordinary imposture, I refer him to that literary curiosity, "An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, with Accounts of the Religion, Customs and Manners of the Inhabitants, by George Psalmanazar, a Native of the said Isle," 1704; with numerous plates, wretched inventions! of their dress! religious ceremonies! their tabernacle and altars to the sun, the moon, and the ten stars! their architecture! the viceroy's castle! a temple! a city house! a countryman's house! and the Formosan alphabet! In his conferences before the Royal Society with a Jesuit just returned from China, the Jesuit had certain strong suspicions that our hero was an impostor. The good father remained obstinate in his own conviction, but could not satisfactorily communicate it to others; and Psalmanazar, after politely asking pardon for the expression, complains of the Jesuit that "HE _lied most impudently," mentitur impudentissime!_ Dr. Mead absurdly insisted Psalmanazar was a Dutchman or a German; some thought him a Jesuit in disguise, a tool of the non-jurors; the Catholics thought him bribed by the Protestants to expose their church; the Presbyterians that he was paid to explode their doctrine, and cry up episcopacy! This fabulous history of Formosa seems to have been projected by his artful prompter Innes, who put Varenius into Psalmanazar's hands to assist him; trumpeted forth in the domestic and foreign papers an account of this converted Formosan; maddened the booksellers to hurry the author, who was scarcely allowed two months to produce this extraordinary volume; and as the former accounts which the public possessed of this island were full of monstrous absurdities and contradictions, these assisted the present imposture. Our forger resolved not to describe new and surprising things as they had done, but rather studied to clash with them, probably that he might have an opportunity of pretending to correct them. The first edition was immediately sold; the world was more divided than ever in opinion; in a second edition he prefixed a vindication!--the unhappy forger got about twenty guineas for an imposture, whose delusion spread far and wide! Some years afterwards Psalmanazar was engaged in a minor imposture; one man had persuaded him to father a white composition called the _Formosan japan!_ which was to be sold at a high price! It was curious for its whiteness, but it had its faults. The project failed, and Psalmanazar considered the miscarriage of the _white Formosan japan_ as a providential warning to repent of all his impostures of Formosa!

Among these literary forgeries may be classed several ingenious ones fabricated for a _political_ purpose. We had certainly numerous ones during our civil wars in the reign of Charles the First. This is not the place to continue the controversy respecting the mysterious _Eikon Basilike_, which has been ranked among them, from the ambiguous claim of Gauden.[219] A recent writer who would probably incline not to leave the monarch, were he living, not only his head but the little fame he might obtain by the "Verses" said to be written by him at Carisbrook Castle, would deprive him also of these. Henderson's death-bed recantation is also reckoned among them; and we have a large collection of "Letters of Sir Henry Martin to his Lady of Delight," which were the satirical effusions of a wit of that day, but by the price they have obtained, are probably considered as genuine ones, and exhibit an amusing picture of his loose rambling life.[220] There is a ludicrous speech of the strange Earl of Pembroke, which was forged by the inimitable Butler. Sir John Birkenhead, a great humourist and wit, had a busy pen in these spurious letters and speeches.[221]

FOOTNOTES:

[212] I have since been informed that this famous invention was
originally a flim-flam of a Mr. Thomas White, a noted collector and
dealer in antiquities. But it was Steevens who placed it in the
broker's shop, where he was certain of _catching_ the antiquary.
When the late Mr. Pegge, a profound brother, was preparing to write
a dissertation on it, the first inventor of the flam stepped forward
to save any further tragical termination; the wicked wit had already
succeeded too well.

[213] The stone may be found in the British Museum. HARDCNVT is the
reading on the _Harthacnut_ stone; but the true orthography of the
name is HAREthACNVT. It was reported to have been discovered in
Kennington-lane, where the palace of the monarch was said to have
been located, and the inscription carefully made in Anglo-Saxon
characters, was to the effect that "Here Hardcnut drank a wine horn
dry, stared about him, and died."

Sylvanus Urban, my once excellent and old friend, seems a trifle
uncourteous on this grave occasion.--He tells us, however, that "The
history of this wanton trick, with a _fac-simile_ of Schnebbelie's
drawing, may be seen in his volume lx. p. 217." He says that this
wicked contrivance of George Steevens was to entrap this famous
draughtsman! Does Sylvanus then deny that "the Director" was not
also "entrapped?" and that he always struck out his own _name_ in
the proof-sheets of the Magazine, substituting his official
designation, by which the whole society itself seemed to screen "the
Director!"

[214] He was a Dominican monk, his real name being Giovanni Nanni,
which he Latinized in conformity with the custom of his era. He was
born 1432, and died 1502. His great work, _Antiquitatem Rariorum_,
professes to contain the works of Manetho, Berosus, and other
authors of equal antiquity.

[215] A forgery of a similar character has been recently effected in
the _debris_ of the Chapelle St. Eloi (Departement de L'Eure,
France), where many inscriptions connected with the early history of
France were exhumed, which a deputation of antiquaries, convened to
examine their authenticity, have since pronounced to be forgeries!

[216] The volume of these pretended Antiquities is entitled
_Etruscarum Antiquitatum Fragmenta, fo. Franc._ 1637. That which
Inghirami published to defend their authenticity is in Italian,
_Discorso sopra l'Opposizioni fatte all' Antichita Toscane_, 4to,
_Firenze_, 1645.

[217] I draw this information from a little "new year's gift," which
my learned friend, the Rev. S. Weston, presented to his friends in
1822, entitled "A Visit to Vaucluse," accompanied by a Supplement.
He derives his account apparently from a curious publication of
L'Abbe Costaing de Pusigner d'Avignon, which I with other inquirers
have not been able to procure, but which it is absolutely necessary
to examine, before we can decide on the very curious but
unsatisfactory accounts we have hitherto possessed of the Laura of
Petrarch.

[218] For some further notices of Psalmanazar and his literary
labours, we may refer the reader to vol. i. p. 137, note.

[219] The question has been discussed with great critical acumen by
Dr. Wordsworth.

[220] Since this was published I have discovered that Harry Martin's
Letters are not forgeries, but I cannot immediately recover my
authority.

[221] One of the most amusing of these tricks was perpetrated on
William Prynne, the well-known puritanic hater of the stage, by some
witty cavalier. Prynne's great work, "Histriomastix, the Player's
Scourge; or, Actor's Tragedy," an immense quarto, of 1100 pages, was
a complete condemnation of all theatrical amusements; but in 1649
appeared a tract of four leaves, entitled "Mr. William Prynne, his
Defence of Stage Playes; or, a Retractation of a former Book of his
called Histriomastix." It must have astonished many readers in his
own day, and would have passed for his work in more modern times,
but for the accidental preservation of a single copy of a handbill
Prynne published disclaiming the whole thing. His style is most
amusingly imitated throughout, and his great love for quoting
authorities in his margin. He is made to complain that "this wicked
and tyrannical army did lately in a most inhumane, cruell, rough,
and barbarous manner, take away the poor players from their houses,
being met there to discharge the duty of their callings: as if this
army were fully bent, and most trayterously and maliciously set, to
put down and depresse all the King's friends, not only in the
parliament but in the very theatres; they have no care of covenant
or any thing else." And he is further made to declare, in spite of
"what the malicious, clamorous, and obstreperous people" may object,
that he once wrote against stage-plays,--that it was "when I had not
so clear a light as now I have." We can fancy the amusement this
pamphlet must have been to many readers during the great Civil War.

OF LITERARY FILCHERS.

An honest historian at times will have to inflict severe stroke on his favourites. This has fallen to my lot, for in the course of my researches, I have to record that we have both forgers and purloiners, as well as other more obvious impostors, in the republic of letters! The present article descends to relate anecdotes of some contrivances to possess our literary curiosities by other means than by purchase; and the only apology which can be alleged for the _splendida peccata_, as St. Austin calls the virtues of the heathen, of the present innocent criminals, is their excessive passion for literature, and otherwise the respectability of their names. According to Grose's "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," we have had celebrated _collectors_, both in the learned and vulgar idioms. But one of them, who had some reasons too to be tender on this point, distinguished this mode of completing his collections, not by _book-stealing_, but by _book-coveting_. On some occasions, in mercy, we must allow of softening names. Were not the Spartans allowed to steal from one another, and the bunglers only punished?

It is said that Pinelli made occasional additions to his literary treasures sometimes by his skill in an art which lay much more in the hand than in the head: however, as Pinelli never stirred out of his native city but once in his lifetime, when the plague drove him from home, his field of action was so restricted, that we can hardly conclude that he could have been so great an enterpriser in this way. No one can have lost their character by this sort of exercise in a confined circle, and be allowed to prosper! A light-fingered Mercury would hardly haunt the same spot: however, this is as it may be! It is probable that we owe to this species of accumulation many precious manuscripts in the Cottonian collection. It appears by the manuscript note-book of Sir Nicholas Hyde, chief justice of the King's Bench from the second to the seventh year of Charles the First, that Sir Robert Cotton had in his library, records, evidences, ledger-books, original letters, and other state papers, belonging to the king; for the attorney-general of that time, to prove this, showed a copy of the _pardon_ which Sir Robert had obtained from King James for _embezzling records_, &c.[222]

Gough has more than insinuated that Rawlinson and his friend Umfreville "lie under very strong suspicions;" and he asserts that the collector of the Wilton treasures made as free as Dr. Willis with his friend's coins.[223] But he has also put forth a declaration relating to Bishop More, the famous collector, that "the bishop collected his library by _plundering_ those of the clergy in his diocese; some he paid with sermons or more modern books; others, less civilly, only with a _quid illiterati cum libris?_" This _plundering_ then consisted rather of _cajoling_ others out of what they knew not how to value; and this is an advantage which every skilful lover of books must enjoy over those whose apprenticeship has not expired. I have myself been plundered by a very dear friend of some such literary curiosities, in the days of my innocence and of his precocity of knowledge. However, it does appear that Bishop More did actually lay violent hands in a snug corner on some irresistible little charmer; which we gather from a precaution adopted by a friend of the bishop, who one day was found busy in _hiding his rarest books_, and locking up as many as he could. On being asked the reason of this odd occupation, the bibliopolist ingenuously replied, "The Bishop of Ely dines with me to-day." This fact is quite clear, and here is another as indisputable. Sir Robert Saville writing to Sir Robert Cotton, appointing an interview with the founder of the Bodleian Library, cautions Sir Robert, that "If he held any book so dear as that he would be loath to lose it, he should _not let Sir Thomas out of his sight_, but set 'the boke' aside beforehand." A surprise and detection of this nature has been revealed in a piece of secret history by Amelot de la Houssaie, which terminated in very important political consequences. He assures us that the personal dislike which Pope Innocent X. bore to the French had originated in his youth, when cardinal, from having been detected in the library of an eminent French collector, of having purloined a most rare volume. The delirium of a collector's rage overcame even French politesse; the Frenchman not only openly accused his illustrious culprit, but was resolved that he should not quit the library without replacing the precious volume--from accusation and denial both resolved to try their strength: but in this literary wrestling-match the book dropped out of the cardinal's robes!--and from that day he hated the French--at least their more curious collectors!

Even an author on his dying bed, at those awful moments, should a collector be by his side, may not be considered secure from his too curious hands. Sir William Dugdale possessed the minutes of King James's life, written by Camden, till within a fortnight of his death; as also Camden's own life, which he had from Hacket, the author of the folio life of Bishop Williams: who, adds Aubrey, "did _filch_ it from Mr. Camden, as he lay a dying!" He afterwards corrects his information, by the name of Dr. Thorndyke, which, however, equally answers our purpose, to prove that even dying authors may dread such collectors!

The medalists have, I suspect, been more predatory than these subtractors of our literary treasures; not only from the facility of their conveyance, but from a peculiar contrivance which of all those things which admit of being secretly purloined, can only be practised in this department--for they can steal and no human hand can search them with any possibility of detection; they can pick a cabinet and swallow the curious things, and transport them with perfect safety, to be digested at their leisure. An adventure of this kind happened to Baron Stosch, the famous antiquary. It was in looking over the gems of the royal cabinet of medals, that the keeper perceived the loss of one; his place, his pension, and his reputation were at stake: and he insisted that Baron Stosch should be most minutely examined; in this dilemma, forced to confession, this erudite collector assured the keeper of the royal cabinet, that the strictest search would not avail: "Alas, sir! I have it here within," he said, pointing to his breast--an emetic was suggested by the learned practitioner himself, probably from some former experiment. This was not the first time that such a natural cabinet had been invented; the antiquary Vaillant, when attacked at sea by an Algerine, zealously swallowed a whole series of Syrian kings; when he landed at Lyons, groaning with his concealed treasure, he hastened to his friend, his physician, and his brother antiquary Dufour,--who at first was only anxious to inquire of his patient, whether the medals were of the higher empire? Vaillant showed two or three, of which nature had kindly relieved him. A collection of medals was left to the city of Exeter, and the donor accompanied the bequest by a clause in his will, that should a certain antiquary, his old friend and rival, be desirous of examining the coins, he should be watched by two persons, one on each side. La Croze informs us in his life, that the learned Charles Patin, who has written a work on medals, was one of the present race of collectors: Patin offered the curators of the public library at Basle to draw up a catalogue of the cabinet of Amberback there preserved, containing a good number of medals; but they would have been more numerous, had the catalogue-writer not diminished both them and his labour, by sequestrating some of the most rare, which was not discovered till this plunderer of antiquity was far out of their reach.

When Gough touched on this odd subject in the first edition of his "British Topography," "An Academic" in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for August 1772, insinuated that this charge of literary pilfering was only a jocular one; on which Gough, in his second edition, observed that this was not the case, and that "one might point out enough _light-fingered antiquaries_ in the present age, to render such a charge extremely probable against earlier ones." The most extraordinary part of this slight history is, that our public denouncer some time after proved himself to be one of these "light-fingered antiquaries:" the deed itself, however, was more singular than disgraceful. At the disinterment of the remains of Edward the First, around which thirty years ago assembled our most erudite antiquaries, Gough was observed, as Steevens used to relate, in a wrapping great-coat of unusual dimensions; that witty and malicious "Puck," so capable himself of inventing mischief, easily suspected others, and divided his glance as much on the living piece of antiquity as on the elder. In the act of closing up the relics of royalty, there was found wanting an entire fore-finger of Edward the First; and as the body was perfect when opened, a murmur of dissatisfaction was spreading, when "Puck" directed their attention to the great antiquary in the watchman's great-coat--from whence--too surely was extracted Edward the First's great fore-finger!--so that "the light-fingered antiquary" was recognised ten years after he denounced the race, when he came to "try his hand."[224]

FOOTNOTES:

[222] Lansdowne MSS. 888, in the former printed catalogue, art. 79.

[223] Coins are the most dangerous things which can be exhibited to
a professed _collector_. One of the fraternity, who died but a few
years since, absolutely kept a record of his pilferings; he
succeeded in improving his collection by attending sales also, and
changing his own coins for others in better preservation.

[224] It is probable that this story of Gough's pocketing the
fore-finger of Edward the First, was one of the malicious inventions
of George Steevens, after he discovered that the antiquary was among
the few admitted to the untombing of the royal corpse; Steevens
himself was not there! Sylvanus Urban (the late respected John
Nichols), who must know much more than he cares to record of
"Puck,"--has, however, given the following "secret history" of what
he calls "ungentlemanly and unwarrantable attacks" on Gough by
Steevens. It seems that Steevens was a collector of the works of
Hogarth, and while engaged in forming his collection, wrote an
abrupt letter to Gough to obtain from him some early impressions, by
purchase or exchange. Gough resented the manner of his address by a
rough refusal, for it is admitted to have been "a peremptory one."
Thus arose the implacable vengeance of Steevens, who used to boast
that all the mischievous tricks he played on the grave antiquary,
who was rarely over-kind to any one, was but a pleasant kind of
revenge.

OF LORD BACON AT HOME.

The history of Lord Bacon would be that of the intellectual faculties, and a theme so worthy of the philosophical biographer remains yet to be written. The personal narrative of this master-genius or inventor must for ever be separated from the _scala intellectus_ he was perpetually ascending: and the domestic history of this creative mind must be consigned to the most humiliating chapter in the volume of human life; a chapter already sufficiently enlarged, and which has irrefutably proved how the greatest minds are not freed from the infirmities of the most vulgar.

The parent of our philosophy is now to be considered in a new light, one which others do not appear to have observed. My researches into contemporary notices of Bacon have often convinced me that his philosophical works, in his own days and among his own countrymen, were not only not comprehended, but often ridiculed, and sometimes reprobated; that they were the occasion of many slights and mortifications which this depreciated man endured; but that from a very early period in his life, to that last record of his feelings which appears in his will, this "servant of posterity," as he prophetically called himself, sustained his mighty spirit with the confidence of his own posthumous greatness. Bacon cast his views through the maturity of ages, and perhaps amidst the sceptics and the rejectors of his plans, may have felt at times all that idolatry of fame, which has now consecrated his philosophical works.

At college, Bacon discovered how "that scrap of Grecian knowledge, the peripatetic philosophy," and the scholastic babble, could not serve the ends and purposes of knowledge; that syllogisms were not things, and that a new logic might teach us to invent and judge by induction. He found that theories were to be built upon experiments. When a young man, abroad, he began to make those observations on nature, which afterwards led on to the foundations of the new philosophy. At sixteen, he philosophised; at twenty-six, he had framed his system into some form; and after forty years of continued labours, unfinished to his last hour, he left behind him sufficient to found the great philosophical reformation.

On his entrance into active life, study was not however his prime object. With his fortune to make, his court connexions and his father's example opened a path for ambition. He chose the practice of common law as his means, while his inclinations were looking upwards to political affairs as his end. A passion for study, however, had strongly marked him; he had read much more than was required in his professional character, and this circumstance excited the mean jealousies of the minister Cecil, and the Attorney-General Coke. Both were mere practical men of business, whose narrow conceptions and whose stubborn habits assume that whenever a man acquires much knowledge foreign to his profession, he will know less of professional knowledge than he ought. These men of strong minds, yet limited capacities, hold in contempt all studies alien to their habits.

Bacon early aspired to the situation of Solicitor-General; the court of Elizabeth was divided into factions; Bacon adopted the interests of the generous Essex, which were inimical to the party of Cecil. The queen, from his boyhood, was delighted by conversing with her "young lord-keeper," as she early distinguished the precocious gravity and the ingenious turn of mind of the future philosopher. It was unquestionably to attract her favour, that Bacon presented to the queen his "Maxims and Elements of the Common Law," not published till after his death. Elizabeth suffered her minister to form her opinions on the legal character of Bacon. It was alleged that Bacon was addicted to more general pursuits than law, and the miscellaneous books which he was known to have read confirmed the accusation. This was urged as a reason why the post of Solicitor-General should not be conferred on a man of speculation, more likely to distract than to direct her affairs. Elizabeth, in the height of that political prudence which marked her character, was swayed by the vulgar notion of Cecil, and believed that Bacon, who afterwards filled the situation both of Solicitor-General and Lord Chancellor, was "a man rather of show than of depth." We have recently been told by a great lawyer that "Bacon was a master."

On the accession of James the First, when Bacon still found the same party obstructing his political advancement, he appears, in some momentary fit of disgust, to have meditated on a retreat into a foreign country; a circumstance which has happened to several of our men of genius, during a fever of solitary indignation. He was for some time thrown out of the sunshine of life, but he found its shade more fitted for contemplation; and, unquestionably, philosophy was benefited by his solitude at Gray's Inn. His hand was always on his work, and better thoughts will find an easy entrance into the mind of those who feed on their thoughts, and live amidst their reveries. In a letter on this occasion, he writes, "My ambition now I shall only put upon my PEN, whereby I shall be able to maintain memory and merit, of THE TIMES SUCCEEDING." And many years after, when he had finally quitted public life, he told the king, "I would live to study, and not study to live: yet I am prepared for _date obolum Belisario_; and, I that have borne a bag, can bear a wallet."

Ever were THE TIMES SUCCEEDING in his mind. In that delightful Latin letter to Father Fulgentio, where, with the simplicity of true grandeur, he takes a view of all his works, and in which he describes himself as "one who served posterity," in communicating his past and his future designs, he adds that "they require some ages for the ripening of them." There, while he despairs of finishing what was intended for the sixth part of his Instauration, how nobly he despairs! "Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes; but in future ages, perhaps, the design may bud again." And he concludes by avowing, that the zeal and constancy of his mind in the great design, after so many years, had never become cold and indifferent. He remembers how, forty years ago, he had composed a juvenile work about those things, which with confidence, but with too pompous a title, he had called _Temporis Partus Maximus_; the great birth of time! Besides the public dedication of his _Novum Organum_ to James the First, he accompanied it with a private letter. He wishes the king's favour to the work, which he accounts as much as a hundred years' time; for he adds, "I am persuaded _the work will gain upon men's minds in_ AGES."

In his last will appears his remarkable legacy of fame. "My name and memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen, AFTER SOME TIME BE PAST OVER." Time seemed always personated in the imagination of our philosopher, and with time he wrestled with a consciousness of triumph.

I shall now bring forward sufficient evidence to prove how little Bacon was understood, and how much he was even despised, in his philosophical character.