The manuscript is well written, and apparently by two different hands, which would be probable from the facts set forth in the “Dissertation.” A copy of the translation from the Latin is probably deposited in the library of Duke Eugene de Subaudio as set forth in the colophon at end of the manuscript.
The manuscript is written in the French of the period, and is dated in the colophon as 1716. The discovery of the original Latin document is mentioned in the “Dissertation” as about 1706. It has been annotated by another hand, as shown by foot notes, and several inserted sheets containing notes in still another hand, were written evidently about 1746, as one of the sheets is a portion of a letter postmarked 4e Aout in latter year.
I append a bibliography from Weller’s Latin reprint of 1598 which will show that the pamphlet has “been done before”; but it will be noted that English versions are not so plenty as those in other tongues, and but one is known to have been printed in the United States.
I must acknowledge my indebtedness to Doctissimus vir Harpocrates, Col. F. Montrose, and Maj. Otto Kay for valued assistance in languages with which I am not thoroughly familiar, and also to Mr. David Hutcheson, of the Library of Congress, for favors granted.
Ample apologies will be found for the treatise in the several introductions quoted from various editions, and those fond of literary curiosities will certainly be gratified by its appearance in the twentieth century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
In 1846, Emil Weller published “De Tribus Impostoribus,” and also a later edition in 1876, at Heilbronn, from a Latin copy of one of the only four known to be in existence and printed in 1598. The copy from which it was taken, consisting of title and forty-six leaves, quarto, is at the Royal Library at Dresden, and was purchased for one hundred gulden.
The other three, according to Ebert in his “Bibliographical Lexicon,” are as follows: one in the Royal Library at Paris, one in the Crevanna Library and the other in the library of Renouard.