mons to be printed in a type resembling manuscript, for the purpose of general circulation among clergymen.

Rollin, in his work on the Belles-Lettres, if we remember right, speaks of the practice prevalent in his time, of culling materials for sermons from the productions of the fathers, not only without censure, but with positive tokens of approbation.

It is beyond doubt that many works of the ancients have been lost to the world from the anxiety of those who had pilfered out of them that their thefts might be concealed. In the middle ages, when copies of ancient works were extremely rare, the temptation was great, to one who came by accident into possession of a MS. which was most probably the only one in existence, to despoil it of its contents, circulate them in his own name, and destroy the evidence of his plagiarism. Many of the fathers, it is pretty certain, now stalk majestically in borrowed robes; and many will probably retain their ill-gotten dignity down to the latest generations. Augustine is said to have been deeply indebted to Varro, a learned Roman writer, for the contents of his great work "The City of God ;" and to this circumstance we owe the loss of almost all Varro's numerous and very valuable writings, they having been burned by Pope Gregory VII. to screen Augustine from the charge of plagiarism.

In later times Leonard Aretino, a scholar of eminence, having found a Greek MS. of Procopius on the Gothic war, translated it into Latin and published it as his own production. It passed as such until the accidental discovery of another MS. of the same work revealed his fraud.

We know that Cicero wrote a work in two books on Glory; for he refers to it himself in his treatise De Officiis.* Petrarch was in possession of it. He sent it to his preceptor, who, under the pressure of extreme poverty, pawned it, and died soon after without disclosing where it was. It was never recovered. Years afterward, this treatise of Cicero was noticed in a catalogue of books bequeathed to a monastery. Search was made for it, but it could not be found. Peter Alcyonius, who was physician to the monastery, published a book De Exilio, which contained many splendid passages not at all of a piece with the rest of the production. It was therefore reasonably surmised that he had purloined the MS., applied to his own purpose such

* L. II. c. 9.

parts of it as were susceptible of such application, and then destroyed it.

In 1649 Barbosa, bishop of Ugento, obtained by accident an ancient work which he published in his own name under the title, De Officio Episcopi. The accident referred to was this. His attention was attracted to a leaf of MS. around a fish which was brought into his house by one of his servants. Being interested by the perusal of it, he searched for and procured the volume of which it formed a part, and published it as we have stated.

We will mention a few instances of bold plagiarism in later days. Richard Cumberland published some excellent versions of fragments of the Greek dramatists, and long enjoyed the reputation of Greek scholarship, while, in truth, the learning he exhibited was almost all derived from MS. notes of his grandfather, the celebrated Dr. Bentley, respecting which notes he at first maintained entire silence. Ultimately, however, he acknowledged his obligation, being driven by a direct charge to the alternative of acknowledgement or the dangerous as well as criminal commission of falsehood.

Dr. Middleton was very much indebted to a Scotch writer named Bellenden in many parts of his famous Life of Cicero. As he was cautiously silent in regard to his Scotch benefactor, and the work of the latter, " De tribus luminibus," was exceedingly rare, the plagiarism was not exposed to the public generally for a considerable time. It was, however, early whispered about among the learned, and at length Dr. Parr republished Bellenden's book, prefixing a preface partly occupied with remarks on Middleton's unfair procedure. When Parr's exposure appeared, it occurred to the recollection of a gentleman who had been acquainted with Dr. Middleton, that, just before the publication of the Life of Cicero, he happened to ask Middleton if he had seen Bellendenus, and that at the inquiry he faltered, grew pale, and acknowledged he had. Undoubtedly the rarity of Bellenden's work gave Middleton hopes of escaping detection. It is said that there were not then more than ten copies to be found in all the libraries of England. It was published on the continent, we believe at Paris, where Bellenden resided; and the whole impression, with the exception of a few copies, was lost in a storm on the English coast, which drove the vessel containing it to the bottom. Such was its rarity, that it is not mentioned by some of the most noted bib

liographical writers, Morhof, Schelhorn, etc. Middleton is charged by Dr. Parr and others, probably on just grounds, with the perpetration of numerous plagiarisms in other productions of his pen.

The secret history of the authorship of literary productions would strip many a name of the reputation it enjoys, and place laurels on the brow of many a man who

"In life's low vale remote has pined alone,

Then dropped into the grave, unpitied and unknown!"

Rank and wealth have obtained unmerited eminence in the literary world, at the expense of the time and abilities of gifted dependents. The famous book called Eikōn Basilikē, which passed as the production of Charles I., is now known not to have been written by that king. It is supposed, though perhaps not satisfactorily proved, to have been written by one Gauden. Cardinal Richelieu, the French minister, employed a poet of the name of Chapelain to compose productions for him, which he circulated as his own, and which served to procure him some little reputation as a fine writer. Of this reputation he is said to have been more jealous and more proud than of his statesmanship. Henry VIII. is supposed not to have been the author of the Latin work against Luther which passed under his name and procured him from Pope Leo X. the title of Defender of the Faith. Instances of this nature might be multiplied to a very great extent.

Besides the influence exerted by station and riches over obscurity and poverty, other circumstances have often led to incorrect ascriptions of the authorship of books. The work which passes under the name of Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty was written for Hogarth by Dr. Morrell, as some say, or according to others by Dr. Hoadly. Of the noted Bampton Lectures, those delivered in 1784 by Dr. White, and published as his in one of the volumes of the series, were almost wholly the work of Dr. Parr and a clergyman named Badcock. Dr. White made use of the good offices of both his friends, without informing either of the assistance given him by the other. Accident led Dr. Parr to the discovery of this course of double-dealing, and he immediately published a merciless disclosure of the facts. Raleigh's History of the World (so called) was in great part the production of a Dr. Robert Burrel, who was confined with Sir Walter in the Tower during its composition. To him

Raleigh owed most of the recondite learning displayed in his History. There were likewise other contributors; among them Ben Jonson.

The following curious account respecting a literary debtor to others is given by D'Israeli. "Sir John Hill owned to a friend once when he fell sick, that he had over-fatigued himself with writing seven works at once, one of which was on architecture and another on cookery! This hero once contracted to translate Swammerdam's work on insects for fifty guineas. After the agreement with the bookseller he perfectly recollected that he did not understand a single word of the Dutch language; nor did there exist a French translation. The work, however, was not the less done for this small obstacle. Sir John bargained with another translator for twenty-five guineas. The second translator was precisely in the same situation as the first; as ignorant, though not so well paid, as the knight. He bargained with a third, who perfectly understood his original, for twelve guineas! So that the translators who could not translate," says D'Israeli, "feasted on venison, and turtle, while the modest drudge, whose name never appeared to the world, broke in patience his daily bread? The craft of authorship," he adds, "has many mysteries."

The second class of literary impostors consists of forgers. To this class belong the authors of those impostures which may be denominated religio-literary forgeries. Such are the religious books of all pagan nations; the Sibylline books of the Romans, the Koran of the Mohammedans, the Vedas of India, the ZendAvesta, or living word, of the Persians and Medians, our own apocryphal books, etc. Each of these religio-literary impostures would singly afford ample materials for an entire article. We shall content ourselves with this cursory mention of them and sweep them aside en masse.

Turn we now to forgeries unconnected thus with religion. The number, unblushing impudence, and intricate ingenuity of such frauds task the power of belief. They are to be found in every department of literature.

It was strenuously maintained by Father Hardouin, a French Jesuit of great learning, that nearly all the works ascribed to ancient authors in Greece and Rome were forged in the thirteenth century. He excepted from this singular imputation only the works of Cicero and Pliny the Elder, together with some of those which bear the repute of having been written

by Horace and Virgil. The idea was an extravagant one, and cannot for a moment be regarded with favor by any reflecting and well-regulated mind. It is not to be denied, however, that very many of the works which have come down to us as genuine productions of the ancient authors whose names they bear are most probably altogether spurious; and that a far larger number of them have undergone interpolation to a greater or less extent. There is little reason to suppose that, of the deceptions practised by the monks of the middle ages in relation to the works of the ancients, those which have as yet eluded the sagacity and research of the learned will ever be detected. The probability of exposure is at least as much diminished by the lapse of time since the perpetration of the frauds and by the influence of prescription, as increased by the additional number of minds engaged in the examination of the Greek and Roman writers (so called) or by the new facilities offered to investigation. Considering the character of the middle ages in regard to literature, we can hardly hope for any means of detecting frauds of this nature except internal evidence in the productions themselves; and, in most cases, this has long been estimated as correctly as possible, and a verdict given accordingly. The dim light with which the doings of those days are and ever must be wrapt, revealing to view scarce anything but the more prominent political convulsions, though affording some casual glimpses of literary and social phenomena, will scarce suffice to direct our scrutiny into the lurking-places of those facts with which we might oppose and defeat the influence of prescription as to the genuineness of many works which are referred to the classic periods of Greek or Roman literature.

Of the known forgeries since the Christian era and before the dawn of letters, we will make special mention of two or three. Philostratus, the philosopher, who flourished in the third century, composed a life of the celebrated impostor Apollonius Tyaneus from records purporting to have been made by Damis, who was not only a contemporary of Apollonius, but his friend and constant companion in travelling. That these records were spurious there is clear internal evidence. Among other things, the hero Apollonius appears in Babylon, and thereupon a description is given of that celebrated city, not a word of which is applicable to the period, as at that time Babylon was almost utterly desolate, its splendor having been long since absorbed by Seleucia.