Curiosities of Literature (Vol. 1-3). Disraeli Isaac
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Innocentes. The connoisseurs, however, are strangely divided in their opinion of the merit of this collection. Gilpin classes these "Innocent Impostors" among the most entertaining of his works, and is delighted by the happiness with which he has outdone in their own excellences the artists whom he copied; but Strutt, too grave to admit of jokes that twitch the connoisseurs, declares that they could never have deceived an experienced judge, and reprobates such kinds of ingenuity, played off at the cost of the venerable brotherhood of the cognoscenti.
The same thing was, however, done by Goltzius, who being disgusted at the preference given to the works of Albert Durer, Lucas of Leyden, and others of that school, and having attempted to introduce a better taste, which was not immediately relished, he published what were afterwards called his masterpieces. These are six prints in the style of these masters, merely to prove that Goltzius could imitate their works, if he thought proper. One of these, the Circumcision, he had printed on soiled paper; and to give it the brown tint of antiquity had carefully smoked it, by which means it was sold as a curious performance, and deceived some of the most capital connoisseurs of the day, one of whom bought it as one of the finest engravings of Albert Durer: even Strutt acknowledges the merit of Goltzius's masterpieces!
To these instances of artists I will add others of celebrated authors. Muretus rendered Joseph Scaliger, a great stickler for the ancients, highly ridiculous by an artifice which he practised. He sent some verses which he pretended were copied from an old manuscript. The verses were excellent, and Scaliger was credulous. After having read them, he exclaimed they were admirable, and affirmed that they were written by an old comic poet, Trabeus. He quoted them, in his commentary on Varro De Re Rusticâ, as one of the most precious fragments of antiquity. It was then, when he had fixed his foot firmly in the trap, that Muretus informed the world of the little dependence to be placed on the critical sagacity of one so prejudiced in favour of the ancients, and who considered his judgment as infallible.
The Abbé Regnier Desmarais, having written an ode or, as the Italians call it, canzone, sent it to the Abbé Strozzi at Florence, who used it to impose on three or four academicians of Della Crusca. He gave out that Leo Allatius, librarian of the Vatican, in examining carefully the MSS. of Petrarch preserved there, had found two pages slightly glued, which having separated, he had discovered this ode. The fact was not at first easily credited; but afterwards the similarity of style and manner rendered it highly probable. When Strozzi undeceived the public, it procured the Abbé Regnier a place in the academy, as an honourable testimony of his ingenuity.
Père Commire, when Louis XIV. resolved on the conquest of Holland, composed a Latin fable, entitled "The Sun and the Frogs," in which he assumed with such felicity the style and character of Phædrus, that the learned Wolfius was deceived, and innocently inserted it in his edition of that fabulist.
Flaminius Strada would have deceived most of the critics of his age, if he had given as the remains of antiquity the different pieces of history and poetry which he composed on the model of the ancients, in his Prolusiones Academicæ. To preserve probability he might have given out that he had drawn them, from some old and neglected library; he had then only to have added a good commentary, tending to display the conformity of the style and manner of these fragments with the works of those authors to whom he ascribed them.
Sigonius was a great master of the style of Cicero, and ventured to publish a treatise De Consolatione, as a composition of Cicero recently discovered; many were deceived by the counterfeit, which was performed with great dexterity, and was long received as genuine; but he could not deceive Lipsius, who, after reading only ten lines, threw it away, exclaiming, "Vah! non est Ciceronis." The late Mr. Burke succeeded more skilfully in his "Vindication of Natural Society," which for a long time passed as the composition of Lord Bolingbroke; so perfect is this ingenious imposture of the spirit, manner, and course of thinking of the noble author. I believe it was written for a wager, and fairly won.
EDWARD THE FOURTH.
Our Edward the Fourth was dissipated and voluptuous; and probably owed his crown to his handsomeness, his enormous debts, and passion for the fair sex. He had many Jane Shores. Honest Philip de Comines, his contemporary, says, "That what greatly contributed to his entering London as soon as he appeared at its gates was the great debts this prince had contracted, which made his creditors gladly assist him; and the high favour in which he was held by the bourgeoises, into whose good graces he had frequently glided, and who gained over to him their husbands, who, for the tranquillity of their lives, were glad to depose or to raise monarchs. Many ladies and rich citizens' wives, of whom formerly he had great privacies and familiar acquaintance, gained over to him their husbands and relations."
This is the description of his voluptuous life; we must recollect that the writer had been an eye-witness, and was an honest man.
"He had been during the last twelve years more accustomed to his ease and pleasure than any other prince who lived in his time. He had nothing in his thoughts but les dames, and of them more than was reasonable; and hunting-matches, good eating, and great care of his person. When he went in their seasons to these hunting-matches, he always had carried with him great pavilions for les dames, and at the same time gave splendid entertainments; so that it is not surprising that his person was as jolly as any one I ever saw. He was then young, and as handsome as any man of his age; but he has since become enormously fat."
Since I have got old Philip in my hand, the reader will not, perhaps, be displeased, if he attends to a little more of his naïveté, which will appear in the form of a conversazione of the times. He relates what passed between the English and the French Monarch.
"When the ceremony of the oath was concluded, our king, who was desirous of being friendly, began to say to the king of England, in a laughing way, that he must come to Paris, and be jovial amongst our ladies; and that he would give him the Cardinal de Bourbon for his confessor, who would very willingly absolve him of any sin which perchance he might commit. The king of England seemed well pleased at the invitation, and laughed heartily; for he knew that the said cardinal was un fort bon compagnon. When the king was returning, he spoke on the road to me; and said that he did not like to find the king of England so much inclined to come to Paris. 'He is,' said he, 'a very handsome king; he likes the women too much. He may probably find one at Paris that may make him like to come too often, or stay too long. His predecessors have already been too much at Paris and in Normandy;' and that 'his company was not agreeable this side of the sea; but that, beyond the sea, he wished to be bon frère et amy.'"
I have called Philip de Comines honest. The old writers, from the simplicity of their style, usually receive this honourable epithet; but sometimes they deserve it as little as most modern memoir writers. No enemy is indeed so terrible as a man of genius. Comines's violent enmity to the Duke of Burgundy, which appears in these memoirs, has been traced by the minute researchers of anecdotes; and the cause is not honourable to the memoir-writer, whose resentment was implacable. De Comines was born a subject of the Duke of Burgundy, and for seven years had been a favourite; but one day returning from hunting with the Duke, then Count de Charolois, in familiar jocularity he sat himself down before the prince, ordering the prince to pull off his boots. The count laughed, and did this; but in return for Comines's princely amusement, dashed the boot in his face, and gave Comines a bloody nose, From that time he was mortified in the court of Burgundy by the nickname of the booted head. Comines long felt a rankling wound in his mind; and after this domestic quarrel, for it was nothing more, he went over to the king of France, and wrote off his bile against the Duke of Burgundy in these "Memoirs," which give posterity a caricature likeness of that prince, whom he is ever censuring for presumption, obstinacy, pride, and cruelty. This Duke of Burgundy, however, it is said, with many virtues, had but one great vice, the vice of sovereigns, that of ambition!
The impertinence of Comines had not been chastised with great severity; but the nickname was never forgiven: unfortunately for the duke, Comines was a man of genius. When we are versed in the history of the times, we often