It turned out, of course, that the villain was not Milton but Lauder himself, and Johnson was publicly embarrassed for his involvement. When he discovered that Lauder had cooked the books, he composed a sincere confession, which Lauder marred by appending a self-righteous justification. George Psalmanazar's piety, penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in the lives of saints. This rule is violated in every act of fraud. The vehemence of this spirited blast is perhaps unmatched in Johnson's works.
Chicanery is of course both universal and perennial.
Anthony Grafton begins his survey with some of the oldest surviving fragments from Egypt's Middle Kingdom, and every few years we're treated to new cases ranging from the Hitler diaries through the lip-synching antics of Milli Vanilli. And I think the most productive of the many possible contexts may be Lockean epistemology. For if all knowledge is a posteriori , our ability to know anything at all depends on the truth of our experience. Locke's famous metaphor of a blank slate, however appropriate for perception, is less fitting for the other Lockean faculty, reflection. Reflection allows us to reorganize our perceptions, to connect them to one another, and to build them into structures.