[39] See the article on "Literary Blunders," in this volume, for the history of similar inventions, particularly the legend of St. Ursuala and the eleven thousand virgins, and the discovery of a certain St. Viar
[40] The early history of the house is not given quite clearly and correctly in the text. The old foundation of Cistercians, named Port-Royal des Champs, was situated in the valley of Chevreuse, near Versailles, and founded in 1204 by Bishop Eudes, of Paris. It was in the reign of Louis XIII. that Madame Arnauld, the mother of the then Abbess, hearing that the sisterhood suffered from the damp situation of their convent and its confined space, purchased a house as an infirmary for its sick members in the Fauxbourg St. Jacques, and called it the Port-Royal de Paris, to distinguish it from the older foundation.
[41] The same is reported of Butler; and it is said that Charles II. declared he could not believe him to be the author of Hudibras; that witty poem being such a contradiction to his heavy manners.
[42] Xenophon having addressed a speech to his soldiers, in which he declared he felt many reasons for a dependence on the favour of the gods, had scarcely concluded his words when one of them emitted a loud sneeze. Xenophon at once declared this a spontaneous omen sent by Jupiter as a sign that his protection was awarded them.
"O, happy Bridegroom! thee a lucky sneeze
To Sparta welcom'd."—Theocritus, Idyll xviii.
"Prometheus was the first that wished well to the sneezer, when the man which he had made of clay fell into a fit of sternutation upon the approach of that celestial fire which he stole from the sun."—Ross's Arcana Microcosmi.
[43] Burnet's little 12mo volume was printed at Amsterdam, "in the Warmoes-straet near the Dam," 1686, and compiled by him when living for safety in Holland during the reign of James II. He particularly attacks Varillas' ninth book, which relates to England, and its false history of the Reformation, or rather "his own imagination for true history." On the authority of Catholic students, he says "the greatest number of the pieces he cited were to be found nowhere but in his own fancy." Burnet allows full latitude to an author for giving the best colouring to his own views and that of his party—a latitude he certainly always allowed to himself; but he justly censures the falsifying, or rather inventing, of history; after Varillas' fashion. "History," says Burnet, "is a sort of trade, in which false coyn and false weights are more criminal than in other matters; because the errour may go further and run longer, though their authors colour their copper too slightly to make it keep its credit long."
[44] The volume was published in 8vo in 1704, as "An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa, an Island subject to the Emperor of Japan." It is dedicated to the Bishop of London, who is told that "the Europeans have such obscure and various notions of Japan, and especially of our island Formosa, that they believe nothing for truth that has been said of it." He accordingly narrates the political history of the place; the manners and customs of its inhabitants; their religion, language, &c. A number of engravings illustrate the whole, and depict the dresses of the people, their houses, temples, and ceremonies. A "Formosan Alphabet" is also given, and the Lord's Prayer, Apostles' Creed, and Ten Commandments, are "translated" into this imaginary language. To keep up the imposition, he ate raw meat when dining with the Secretary to the Royal Society, and Formosa appeared in the maps as a real island, in the spot he had described as its locality.
[45] Psalmanazar would never reveal the true history of his early life, but acknowledged one of the southern provinces of France as the place of his birth, about 1679. He received a fair education, became lecturer in a Jesuit college, then a tutor at Avignon; he afterwards led a wandering life, subsisting on charity, and pretending to be an Irish student travelling to Rome for conscience sake. He soon found he would be more successful if he personated a Pagan stranger, and hence he gradually concocted his tale of Formosa; inventing an alphabet, and perfecting his story, which was not fully matured before he had had a few years' hard labour as a soldier in the Low Countries; where a Scotch gentleman introduced him to the notice of Dr. Compton, Bishop of London; who patronised him, and invited him to England. He came, and to oblige the booksellers compiled his History of Formosa, by the two editions of which he realized the noble sum of 22l. He ended in becoming a regular bookseller's hack, and so highly moral a character, that Dr. Johnson, who knew him well, declared he was "the best man he had ever known."
[46] William Lauder first began his literary impostures in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1747, where he accused Milton of gross plagiarisms in his Paradise Lost, pretending that he had discovered the prototypes of his best thoughts in other authors. This he did by absolute invention, in one instance interpolating twenty verses of a Latin translation of Milton into the works of another author, and then producing them with great virulence as a proof that Milton was a plagiarist. The falsehood of his pretended quotations was demonstrated by Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, in 1751, but he returned to the charge in 1754. His character and conduct became too bad to allow of his continued residence in England, and he died in Barbadoes, "in universal contempt," about 1771.