The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-21 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPT. 21, 1869.

Literary Forgeries are among not the least remark-
able of the " Curiosities of Literature." Already
they are sufficiently abundant. There is—consider-
ing the mythical character of OSSIAN —the instance of
JAMES MACPHERSON. There is the renowned instance
of the boy creator of the Monk ROWLEY, THOMAS
CHATTERTON. There is the extraordinary case of that
some time reputed Japanese who not only fabri-
cated an imaginary History of the Island of Formosa,
but actually constructed the grammar of a wholly
supposititious language—GEOßGE PSALMANAZAR.
There is the more recent and more auda-
cious incident, still, of the shallow- pated
writer of the drama of " Vortizern," who abso-
lutely deceived a scholar like Dr. PARR, into an
acceptance of the rhodomontade penned by WILLIAM
HENRY IRELAND, for another of the all-but-in-
spired productions of WILLIAM SIIAKSPERE
There are Literary Forgeries and Literary
Forgeries. Even HORACE WALPOLE, Earl of ORFORD,
Master of Strawberry Hill, cold-shoulderer of " the
marvellous boy who perished in his pride" might
be regarded as taking his place by right of " The
Castle of Otranto" with literary masqueraders like
those we have, just now, been enumerating—falling,
as he really does, in that one particular, into the same
category with CHATTERTON, IRELAND, MACPIIERSON,
and PSALMANAZAR. It has been reserved for our own
day, however, to witners the production, en masse, of a
whole series of literary forgeries of the most daring cha-
racter imaginable, all laid before the world together,
with pretensions the most magnificent. The find of this
astounding collection came rather suspiciously from
America—suspiciously, because of the significance
attached to what we are in the habit of designating
Americanisms ! Meaning by that phrase—Cram-
mers I Canards as portentous in magnitude as the
imaginary roc of the " Arabian Nights' Entertain-
ments ! " It was another suspicious circum-
stance in connection with this find, that shortly
after it had been first of all announced in
the July of 1867, in the Academie des
Sciences at Paris by M. CIIASLES, when M. CHASLES
was asked, on the 29th of the following August, by no
less a personage than M. LEVRRIER, the great astro-
nomer, to explain the source from which thedocuments
had been derived, the answer given by M. CHASLES
to that most natural inquiry, was a point-blank
refusal to supply anything whatever in the way of
explanation. Remembering the fact that the docu-
ments referred to purported to be the production of
the hands of a wonderful variety of the most
illustrious people who have ever breathed the
Dii Majores of Science, of Art, and of Literature,
M. CIIASLES' point-blank refusal to explain
from whom he had received these pre-
ckus manuscripts, we must insist upon it
could not possibly be regarded otherwise than
..q in tiro vary 1 .at. .In,, who
were these intelleztual giants whose MSS. were
suddenly and astoundingly brought thus oddly
to light, brought from no one knew where,
produced by no one knew whom—except M.
CHASLES? Listen !—they were BLAIS PASCAL, ISAAC
NEWTON, GAL I LEO G ALI LEI, FRANcots IiABELAIS,
C lIRISTOPHER COLU3IBUS, NICHOLAS COP ERNICUS,
RAPHAEL D' UP.BINO, and MICHELANGELO BUONA-
ROTTI—they were MIGUEL CERVANTES, BER-
NARDO TASSO, MICHAEL MONTAIGNE, FRANCIS
PETRARCH, and JOHN BOCCACCIO—they were
ST. JEROME and ST. AUGUSTINE, JULIUS
CESAR and CII ARLEMAGNE, JOAN of ARC and MARY
Queen of Scots, FRANCIS I. and MARGARET
D'AUGOULf:ME—several of the Apostles and the
Rosicrucian Wizard NOSTRADAMUS I The force
of daring, of effrontery, of audacity,
surely, could no further go ! And yet, mildly, says
M. CIIASLES, now, in conclusion, on his making a clean
breast of it all before the Academie des Sciences,
on the 13th instant, " I do not assume
the responsibility of the genuineness of the whole of
these papers ; but, whatever they may be, it is indis-
putable that their composition, if they are not origi-
nal, must have required prolonged labour and nume-
rous materials, and if it bo borne in mind how
they dove-tail into each other, from the earliest
times to the beginning of the last century, and
the great variety of subjects of which they treat,
it seems impossible to believe that they can be the
work of one person, of a single fabricator, who,
moreover, knew nothing whatever of the Latin and
Italian languages, and was just as ignorant as re-
garded mathematics and the other sciences treated of
in a considerable number of them. There is, there-
fore, a mystery to be penetrated, and until that is
done nothing can be concluded with certainty." The
gravity with which all this is said is certainly entitled
to our admiration.