Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity

by R. A. Davenport

The problem is well solved by Mr. Mitford. “Why then, it will of course occur to ask,” says he, “did Xenophon, in his Grecian Annals, refer to the work of Themistogenes? Plutarch, in his treatise on the Glory of the Athenians, has accounted for it thus: ‘Xenophon,’ he says, ‘was a subject of history for himself. But when he published his narrative of his own achievements in military command, he ascribed it to Themistogenes of Syracuse; giving away thus the literary reputation to arise from the work, that he might the better establish the credit of the facts related.’”

“This explanation, though I give it credit as far as it goes, is, however, not by itself completely satisfactory. Nevertheless, I think every reader of the Anabasis, attending, at the same time, to the general history of the age, may draw, from the two, what is wanting to complete it. He cannot fail to observe, that it has been a principal purpose of the author of the Anabasis to apologize for the conduct of Xenophon. In the latter part of the work, the narrative is constantly accompanied with a studied defence of his conduct; in which, both the circumstances that produced his banishment from Athens, and whatever might give umbrage or excite jealousy against him at Lacedæmon, have been carefully considered. But there are passages in the work, speeches of Xenophon himself on delicate occasions, particularly his communication with Cleander, the Lacedæmonian general, related in the sixth book, which could be known only from himself or from Cleander. That these have not been forgeries of Themistogenes, is evident from the testimony of Xenophon himself, who refers to the work, which he ascribes to Themistogenes, with entire satisfaction.

“One, then, of these three conclusions must follow: either, first, the narrative of Themistogenes, if such ever existed, had not in it that apology for Xenophon which we find interwoven in the Anabasis transmitted to us as Xenophon’s, and consequently was a different work; or, secondly, Themistogenes wrote under the direction of Xenophon; or, thirdly, Xenophon wrote the extant Anabasis, and, for reasons which those acquainted with the circumstances of his life, and the history of the times, will have no difficulty to conceive may have been powerful, chose that, on its first publication, it should pass by another’s name. The latter has been the belief of all antiquity; and indeed, if it had not been fully known that the ascription of the Anabasis to Themistogenes was a fiction, the concurrence of all antiquity, in stripping that author of his just fame, so completely that, from Xenophon himself to Suidas, he is never once named as an author of merit, in any work remaining to us, while, in so many, the Anabasis is mentioned as the work of Xenophon, would be, if at all credible, certainly the most extraordinary circumstance in the history of letters.”

A fraud, which perhaps occasioned the greatest regret that ever was felt in the literary world, has been attributed to Peter Alcyonius, one of the learned Italians who cultivated literature in the sixteenth century. He had considerable knowledge of the Greek and Latin tongues, and wrote rhetorical treatises. He was a long time corrector of the press at Venice, in the house of Aldus Manutius, and ought to participate in the praises given to that eminent printer and classical scholar. He translated some treatises of Aristotle into Latin; but the execution of them was so severely criticised by Sepulveda, that Alcyonius, at a great expense, bought up the criticisms of his Spanish enemy to burn them. Paul Jovius says of him, in his quaint language, that he was a man of downright plebeian and sordid manners, and such a slave to his appetite, that in one and the same day he would dine three or four times, but always at the expense of another; nor was he altogether so bad a physician in this beastly practice, since, before he went to bed, he discharged the intemperate load from his stomach.

Alcyonius published a treatise, “De Exilio,” containing many fine passages; so elegant in fact was it, that he was accused of having tacked several parts of Cicero “De Gloria” to his own composition, and then to prevent being convicted of the theft, thrown the manuscript of Cicero, which was the only one in the world, into the fire. Cicero, in his twenty-seventh epistle, fifteenth book, writing to Atticus, says, “I will speedily send you my book, ‘De Gloria.’” That the manuscript was extant till nearly the period in question would seem to be indubitable, as it was enumerated by Bernard Giustiniani, the learned governor of Padua, among the works which he possessed. Along with the rest of his library, it is said to have been bequeathed to a convent of nuns, but from that time it could never be found. It was believed by many, that Peter Alcyonius, who was physician to the monastery, and to whom the nuns entrusted the management of the library, having copied into his own treatise all that suited his purpose, from that of Cicero, had secretly made away with it. This charge was first brought against Alcyonius by Paul Manutius, and was repeated by Paul Jovius, and subsequently by other writers; but Tiraboschi seems to have demonstrated that it is a calumny. It is probable that it was provoked by the excessive vanity and propensity to sarcasm and satire which distinguished Alcyonius.

When the Utopia of Sir Thomas More was first published, it occasioned a pleasant mistake. This political romance represents a perfect but visionary republic, in an island supposed to have been recently discovered in America. “As this was the age of discovery (says Granger), the learned Budæus, and others, took it for a genuine history, and consider it highly expedient that missionaries should be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to Christianity.”

No literary performance has ever been the occasion of more discussion or dispute, as to its authenticity, than one which was published by the royalist party to excite the public pity for Charles I. On the day after that monarch’s execution appeared a volume called Icon Basilike, or the Portraiture of his Sacred Majesty, in his Solitude and Sufferings. It professed to be from the pen of Charles himself, and a faithful exposition of his own thoughts on the principal events of his reign, accompanied with such pious effusions as the recollection suggested to his mind.

It was calculated to create a strong sensation in favour of the royal sufferer, and is said to have passed through fifty editions in the course of the first year.

During the Commonwealth, Milton made an attempt to disprove the king’s claim to the composition of the book, but his arguments were by no means conclusive, as the subsequent publications on the same subject proved. After the restoration, Dr. Gauden, a clergyman of Bocking in Essex, came forward, and declared himself the real author; but he advanced his pretensions with secresy, and received as the price of his silence, first, the bishopric of Exeter, and subsequently, when he complained of the poverty of that see, the richer one of Worcester.