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The further we go back in the history of literary forgeries, themore (as is natural) do we find them to be of a pious or priestlycharacter. When the clergy alone can write, only the clergy canforge. In such ages people are interested chiefly in prophecies andwarnings, or, if they are careful about literature, it is only whenliterature contains some kind of title-deeds. Thus Solon is said tohave forged a line in the Homeric catalogue of the ships for thepurpose of proving that Salamis belonged to Athens. But the greatantique forger, the "Ionian father of the rest," is, doubtless,Onomacritus. There exists, to be sure, an Egyptian inscriptionprofessing to be of the fourth, but probably of the twenty-sixth,dynasty. The Germans hold the latter view; the French, frompatriotic motives, maintain the opposite opinion. But this forgeryis scarcely "literary."

I never can think of Onomacritus without a certain respect: hebegan the forging business so very early, and was (apart from thisfailing) such an imposing and magnificently respectable character.The scene of the error and the detection of Onomacritus presentsitself always to me in a kind of pictorial vision. It is night, theclear, windless night of Athens; not of the Athens whose ruinsremain, but of the ancient city that sank in ashes during theinvasion of Xerxes. The time is the time of Pisistratus thesuccessful tyrant; the scene is the ancient temple, the statelyhouse of Athene, the fane where the sacred serpent was fed on cakes,and the primeval olive-tree grew beside the well of Posidon. Thedarkness of the temple's inmost shrine is lit by the ray of oneearthen lamp. You dimly discern the majestic form of a venerableman stooping above a coffer of cedar and ivory, carved with theexploits of the goddess, and with boustrophedon inscriptions. Inhis hair this archaic Athenian wears the badge of the goldengrasshopper. He is Onomacritus, the famous poet, and the trustedguardian of the ancient oracles of Musaeus and Bacis.

What is he doing? Why, he takes from the fragrant cedar coffercertain thin stained sheets of lead, whereon are scratched the wordsof doom, the prophecies of the Greek Thomas the Rhymer. From hisbosom he draws another thin sheet of lead, also stained andcorroded. On this he scratches, in imitation of the old "Cadmeianletters," a prophecy that "the Isles near Lemnos shall disappearunder the sea." So busy is he in this task, that he does not hearthe rustle of a chiton behind, and suddenly a man's hand is on hisshoulder! Onomacritus turns in horror. Has the goddess punishedhim for tampering with the oracles? No; it is Lasus, the son ofHermiones, a rival poet, who has caught the keeper of the oracles inthe very act of a pious forgery. (Herodotus, vii. 6.)

Pisistratus expelled the learned Onomacritus from Athens, but hisconduct proved, in the long run, highly profitable to thereputations of Musaeus and Bacis. Whenever one of their oracles wasnot fulfilled, people said, "Oh, THAT is merely one of theinterpolations of Onomacritus!" and the matter was passed over.This Onomacritus is said to have been among the original editors ofHomer under Pisistratus. {13} He lived long, never repented, and,many years later, deceived Xerxes into attempting his disastrousexpedition. This he did by "keeping back the oracles unfavourableto the barbarians," and putting forward any that seemed favourable.The children of Pisistratus believed in him as spiritualists go ongiving credit to exposed and exploded "mediums."

Having once practised deceit, it is to be feared that Onomacritusacquired a liking for the art of literary forgery, which, as will beseen in the case of Ireland, grows on a man like dram-drinking.Onomacritus is generally charged with the authorship of the poemswhich the ancients usually attributed to Orpheus, the companion ofJason. Perhaps the most interesting of the poems of Orpheus to uswould have been his 'Inferno,' or [Greek text], in which the poetgave his own account of his descent to Hades in search of Eurydice.But only a dubious reference to one adventure in the journey isquoted by Plutarch. Whatever the exact truth about the Orphic poemsmay be (the reader may pursue the hard and fruitless quest inLobeck's 'Aglaophamus' {14}), it seems certain that the periodbetween Pisistratus and Pericles, like the Alexandrian time, was agreat age for literary forgeries. But of all these frauds thegreatest (according to the most "advanced" theory on the subject) isthe "Forgery of the Iliad and Odyssey!" The opinions of thescholars who hold that the Iliad and Odyssey, which we know andwhich Plato knew, are not the epics known to Herodotus, but latercompositions, are not very clear nor consistent. But it seems to bevaguely held that about the time of Pericles there arose a kind ofGreek Macpherson. This ingenious impostor worked on old epicmaterials, but added many new ideas of his own about the gods,converting the Iliad (the poem which we now possess) into a kind ofmocking romance, a Greek Don Quixote. He also forged a number ofpseudo-archaic words, tenses, and expressions, and added thenumerous references to iron, a metal practically unknown, it isasserted, to Greece before the sixth century. If we are to believe,with Professor Paley, that the chief incidents of the Iliad andOdyssey were unknown to Sophocles, AEschylus, and the contemporaryvase painters, we must also suppose that the Greek Macphersoninvented most of the situations in the Odyssey and Iliad. Accordingto this theory the 'cooker' of the extant epics was far the greatestand most successful of all literary impostors, for he deceived thewhole world, from Plato downwards, till he was exposed by Mr. Paley.There are times when one is inclined to believe that Plato must havebeen the forger himself, as Bacon (according to the otherhypothesis) was the author of Shakespeare's plays. Thus "Plato thewise, and large-browed Verulam," would be "the first of those who"forge! Next to this prodigious imposture, no doubt, the false'Letters of Phalaris' are the most important of classical forgeries.And these illustrate, like most literary forgeries, the extremeworthlessness of literary taste as a criterion of the authenticityof writings. For what man ever was more a man of taste than SirWilliam Temple, "the most accomplished writer of the age," whom Mr.Boyle never thought of without calling to mind those happy lines ofLucretius, -

Quem tu, dea, tempore in omniOmnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.

Well, the ornate and excellent Temple held that "the Epistles ofPhalaris have more race, more spirit, more force of wit and genius,than any others he had ever seen, either ancient or modern." Somuch for what Bentley calls Temple's "Nicety of Tast." The greatestof English scholars readily proved that Phalaris used (in the spiritof prophecy) an idiom which did not exist to write about matters inhis time not invented, but "many centuries younger than he." So letthe Nicety of Temple's Tast and its absolute failure be a warning tous when we read (if read we must) German critics who deny Homer'sclaim to this or that passage, and Plato's right to half hisaccepted dialogues, on grounds of literary taste. And farewell, asHerodotus would have said, to the Letters of Phalaris, of Socrates,of Plato; to the Lives of Pythagoras and of Homer, and to all theother uncounted literary forgeries of the classical world, from theSibylline prophecies to the battle of the frogs and mice.

Early Christian frauds were, naturally, pious. We have theapocryphal Gospels, and the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, whichwere not exposed till Erasmus's time. Perhaps the most important ofpious forgeries (if forgery be exactly the right word in this case)was that of 'The False Decretals.' "Of a sudden," says Milman,speaking of the pontificate of Nicholas I. (ob. 867 A.D.), "Of asudden was promulgated, unannounced, without preparation, notabsolutely unquestioned, but apparently over-awing at once alldoubt, a new Code, which to the former authentic documents addedfifty-nine letters and decrees of the twenty oldest Popes fromClement to Melchiades, and the donation of Constantine, and in thethird part, among the decrees of the Popes and of the Councils fromSylvester to Gregory II., thirty-nine false decrees, and the acts ofseveral unauthentic Councils." "The whole is composed," Milmanadds, "with an air of profound piety and reverence." The FalseDecretals naturally assert the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome."They are full and minute on Church Property" (they were sure to bethat); in fact, they remind one of another forgery, pious and Aryan,'The Institutes of Vishnu.' "Let him not levy any tax uponBrahmans," says the Brahman forger of the Institutes, which "camefrom the mouths of Vishnu," as he sat "clad in a yellow robe,imperturbable, decorated with all kinds of gems, while Lakshmi wasstroking his feet with her soft palms." The Institutes tookexcellent care of Brahmans and cows, as the Decretals did of thePope and the clergy, and the earliest Popes had about as much handin the Decretals as Vishnu had in his Institutes. Hommenay, in'Pantagruel,' did well to have the praise of the Decretals sung byfilles belles, blondelettes, doulcettes, et de bonne grace. Andthen Hommenay drank to the Decretals and their very good health. "Odives Decretales, tant par vous est le vin bon bon trouve"--"Odivine Decretals, how good you make good wine taste!" "The miraclewould be greater," said Pantagruel, "if they made bad wine tastegood." The most that can now be done by the devout for theDecretals is "to palliate the guilt of their forger," whose name,like that of the Greek Macpherson, is unknown.

If the early Christian centuries, and the Middle Ages, were chieflyoccupied with pious frauds, with forgeries of gospels, epistles, andDecretals, the impostors of the Renaissance were busy, as an Oxfordscholar said, when he heard of a new MS. of the Greek Testament,"with something really important," that is with classicalimitations. After the Turks took Constantinople, when the learnedGreeks were scattered all over Southern Europe, when many genuineclassical manuscripts were recovered by the zeal of scholars, whenthe plays of Menander were seen once, and then lost for ever, it wasnatural that literary forgery should thrive. As yet scholars wereeager rather than critical; they were collecting and unearthing,rather than minutely examining the remains of classic literature.They had found so much, and every year were finding so much more,that no discovery seemed impossible. The lost books of Livy andCicero, the songs of Sappho, the perished plays of Sophocles andAEschylus might any day be brought to light. This was the verymoment for the literary forger; but it is improbable that anyforgery of the period has escaped detection. Three or four yearsago some one published a book to show that the 'Annals of Tacitus'were written by Poggio Bracciolini. This paradox gained no moreconverts than the bolder hypothesis of Hardouin. The theory ofHardouin was all that the ancient classics were productions of alearned company which worked, in the thirteenth century, underSeverus Archontius. Hardouin made some exceptions to his sweepinggeneral theory. Cicero's writings were genuine, he admitted, sowere Pliny's, of Virgil the Georgics; the satires and epistles ofHorace; Herodotus, and Homer. All the rest of the classics were amagnificent forgery of the illiterate thirteenth century, which hadscarce any Greek, and whose Latin, abundant in quantity, in qualityleft much to be desired.

Among literary forgers, or passers of false literary coin, at thetime of the Renaissance, Annius is the most notorious. Annius (hisreal vernacular name was Nanni) was born at Viterbo, in 1432. Hebecame a Dominican, and (after publishing his forged classics) roseto the position of Maitre du Palais to the Pope, Alexander Borgia.With Caesar Borgia it is said that Annius was never on good terms.He persisted in preaching "the sacred truth" to his highness andthis (according to the detractors of Annius) was the only use hemade of the sacred truth. There is a legend that Caesar Borgiapoisoned the preacher (1502), but people usually brought that chargeagainst Caesar when any one in any way connected with him happenedto die. Annius wrote on the History and Empire of the Turks, whotook Constantinople in his time; but he is better remembered by his'Antiquitatum Variarum Volumina XVII. cum comment. Fr. Jo. Annii.'These fragments of antiquity included, among many other desirablethings, the historical writings of Fabius Pictor, the predecessor ofLivy. One is surprised that Annius, when he had his hand in, didnot publish choice extracts from the 'Libri Lintei,' the ancientRoman annals, written on linen and preserved in the temple of JunoMoneta. Among the other discoveries of Annius were treatises byBerosus, Manetho, Cato, and poems by Archilochus. Opinion has beendivided as to whether Annius was wholly a knave, or whether he washimself imposed upon. Or, again, whether he had some genuinefragments, and eked them out with his own inventions. It isobserved that he did not dovetail the really genuine relics ofBerosus and Manetho into the works attributed to them. This may beexplained as the result of ignorance or of cunning; there can be nocertain inference. "Even the Dominicans," as Bayle says, admit thatAnnius's discoveries are false, though they excuse them by averringthat the pious man was the dupe of others. But a learned Lutheranhas been found to defend the 'Antiquitates' of the Dominican.

It is amusing to remember that the great and erudite Rabelais wastaken in by some pseudo-classical fragments. The joker of jokes washoaxed. He published, says Mr. Besant, "a couple of Latinforgeries, which he proudly called 'Ex reliquiis venerandaeantiquitatis,' consisting of a pretended will and a contract." Thename of the book is 'Ex reliquiis venerandae antiquitatis. LuciiCuspidii Testamentum. Item contractus venditionis antiquisRomanorum temporibus initus. Lugduni apud Gryphium (1532).'Pomponius Laetus and Jovianus Pontanus were apparently authors ofthe hoax.

Socrates said that he "would never lift up his hand against hisfather Parmenides." The fathers of the Church have not been sorespectfully treated by literary forgers during the Renaissance.The 'Flowers of Theology' of St. Bernard, which were to be aprimrose path ad gaudia Paradisi (Strasburg, 1478), were really, itseems, the production of Jean de Garlande. Athanasius, his 'ElevenBooks concerning the Trinity,' are attributed to Vigilius, acolonial Bishop in Northern Africa. Among false classics were twocomic Latin fragments with which Muretus beguiled Scaliger.Meursius has suffered, posthumously, from the attribution to him ofa very disreputable volume indeed. In 1583, a book on'Consolations,' by Cicero, was published at Venice, containing thereflections with which Cicero consoled himself for the death ofTullia. It might as well have been attributed to Mrs. Blimber, anddescribed as replete with the thoughts by which that lady supportedherself under the affliction of never having seen Cicero or hisTusculan villa. The real author was Charles Sigonius, of Modena.Sigonius actually did discover some Ciceronian fragments, and, if hewas not the builder, at least he was the restorer of Tully's loftytheme. In 1693, Francois Nodot, conceiving the world had notalready enough of Petronius Arbiter, published an edition, in whichhe added to the works of that lax though accomplished author.Nodot's story was that he had found a whole MS. of Petronius atBelgrade, and he published it with a translation of his own Latininto French. Still dissatisfied with the existing supply ofPetronius' humour was Marchena, a writer of Spanish books, whoprinted at Bale a translation and edition of a new fragment. Thisfragment was very cleverly inserted in a presumed lacuna. In spiteof the ironical style of the preface many scholars were taken in bythis fragment, and their credulity led Marchena to find a new morsel(of Catullus this time) at Herculaneum. Eichstadt, a Jenaprofessor, gravely announced that the same fragment existed in a MS.in the university library, and, under pretence of giving variousreadings, corrected Marchena's faults in prosody. Another shamCatullus, by Corradino, a Venetian, was published in 1738.