Juniata sentinel. [volume] (Mifflintown, Pa.) 1846-1873, 1873-10-08

There has at all times been Q prone
ness, more or less developed, for indul
gence in practical jokes or deceptions
called hoares !, sometimes through self
interested motives, but more usually
springing from love of fun, with BIT
OF malice in it. Antiquaries have fre
quently been victimized in this way, by
the fabrication of articles purporting to
be interesting as relics of past times.
The readers Of Sir Walter Scott's can.
tiquary" will remember the metal vessel
inscribed with the letters "A-D-L-L, y
which Monkbarns interpreted to near
Akricola dicarit Hbens iu6ens;;" but
which Edie Ochiltree boldly pronounced
to be "Aikin Drum, lang ladle." This
was a supposed instance of honest mis-
construction by learned man whose
zeal travelled little too fast, due to
Scott's Imagination but there was O
real instance in the case of Vallancey,
an Irish antiauary. who found q sculp-
tured stone on the hill of Tara, and en-
graved the six letters of inscription in a
costly work which he published /; he
made out these to mean, '"To Belus,
God of Fire e;" but they proved to be
simply some of the letters in the name
of an Irishman, who, lying down lazily
ON the stone, incised them with knife
or chisel. In 1756, wit, aided by an
engraver, cut on fiat stone several
words which were really an epitaph :
"Beneath this stone reposeth Claud
Coster, tripe. seller of Impington, as
doth his consort Jane - but the seventy
seven letters were so skillfully divided
into apparent words, syllables, and alb
brevistions. as to look exactly like a
Latin inscription relating to the EN-
peror Clsudius. For long time, this
stone deceived antiquaries.
Cough, the celebrated arch@ologist,
saw at curiosity-shop slab of stone,
inscribed in curious way, bought it
had it described before the Society of
Antiquaries, and engraved for the Gen.
Hemdn's Magazine. It purported to
dry, stared about him, and died" The
shopkeeper stated that the stone had
been discovered in Remington Lane,
where the palace of Hardcnut, or Har-
dicanute is supposed to have been sit
uated. The whole affair proved to be a
hoax. George Stevens, having grudge
against Cough, procured fragment of
a chimney-slab, scratched an inscrip-
tion ON it in rudely-formed letters, and
got curiosity-dealer so to manage that
Cough should see and buy the stone.
Italy is wonderfully fertile IN modern
antiquities, articles made to initiate an
cient productions, and sold at high
price to unwary art-connoisseurs.
Inghirami, in his costly work on vases
("Vasi Fittilli''), has most absurd en-
craving Of vase. on which is depicted
an arch@olOgist running after fame:
the lady has her thumb to her nose, ex-
actly in the way known to boys as
"taking a sight," while three engraved
Greek words represent her as saying,
"Be of, my fine fellow! I" No such
vase existed hoax had been perpe-
trated by a rival connoisseur, which
Inghirami did not discover soon enough
to cancel his engraving.
There is no scarcity of instances at
the present day, and in cur own country,
of the manufacture of antiques-more
for profitable deception than mere wag-
gerry. Roman vessels and coins are
every year coming to light which the
Romans never saw, and flint implements
which certainly were not fabricated in
the stone period. Numismatists and
coin collectors know, to their cost some
times, what rogues can do in one par
ticular department of fraudulent hoax
ing. A very old silver coin is worth, in
the antiquarian market, many times its
weight in pure silver, or even pure gold,
and hence there is strong temptation
to manufacture modern antique coins,
producing, at the cost of few shillings,
that which will bring many pounds.
There is reason to suspect that even in
old times such sophistications were
practised !; for Roman coins have been
occasionally dug up, in which the good
specimens are found to be mixed with
others evidently plated, and others,
again, as evidently washed over with
silver. The Greek islands are known
at the present day to shelter men who
make false dies of ancient coins, as a
preliminary to the manufacture of new
specimens 30 doctored up as to pass for
old. The trade is lucrative one. A
certain engraver Of these surreptitious
oies is said to have netted two or three
thousand pounds from the pockets of
English tourists alone, who bought the
counrerfeits at high prices, under the
belief in their genuine antique charac-
ter, The dies were really we'll en-
graved, and the coins put out of hand
in clever style.-ChQm6ers Journal.