N different late occafions the fubject of literary forgery hath been mentioned, without any enquiry ever being made into its propriety, or impropriety. Some wife writers have pronounced it, ridiculously enough, to partake of the crime of penal forgery; and have faid that he who will publish a new production as ancient would forge an obligation. Others with great justice affert, that nothing can be more innocent; that the fiction of afcribing a piece to antiquity, which in fact doth not belong to it, can in no fort be more improper than the fiction of a poem or novel; that in both the delight of the reader is the only intention. INDEED thofe innocents who call fuch forgery criminal forget that they are blafpheming their faviour and their religion; for the whole parables of Jefus Chrift, which are narrated with circumstances that most strongly imply them TOTTEY to to be true, yet are allowed fictitious, fall under this head, Nor is there more falfehood in Ma rivaux's telling us that one of his novels was found in pulling down an old partition; in Mr. Walpole's account of his Caftle of Otranto being a tranflation from an Italian romance; in Macpherson's Offian if you will; than in any of the facred fables, wherein strict truth is facrificed to the pleasure of the hearer. PERHAPS in fact nothing can be more heroic and generous in literary affairs than a writer's afcribing to antiquity his own production; and thus facrificing his own fame to give higher fatisfaction to the public. It certainly partakes of that nobility of foul, which is content with its own fuffrage; and ranks the author among those who Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. People of fhallow understandings are always the most fufpicious of being made dupes, and are the most clamorous when they find they are so thofe of deeper minds are not deceived by the fiction, as to their judgment; get their fancy admits the deceit, and receives higher pleasure from it, than it poffibly could, were no deceit ufed. Magnanima menzogna, or quando è il vero THERE are however certain kinds, and even certain modes, of literary forgery that may juftly be held improper; for that is the highest reproach that can be applied to the worst kinds of them, none being in the leaft injurious to fociety. Of the improper kind is forgery of hiftories; as thofe of Berofus, and Manetho, by Annius of Viterbo; or works of instruction, as the book of Dominico Flocci De Magiftratibus Romanis ascribed to Fenestella; and, infhort, of all the forts of writing in which truth is the object. Poetry and romance are facred to fiction, and it can never be pushed too far... Pictoribus atque Poetis QUIDLIBET AUDENDI femper fuit æqua poteftas. Yet with one exception as to the mode: for inftance, had Muret, when he forged the verfes afcribed to Afranius fo exquifitely, fent them to Jofeph Scaliger, not in common writer C c ing, ing, but transcribed on vellum, and fumigated with art, fo as to appear part of an ancient manufcript, I doubt of its propriety; tho it would have been even in that cafe an impofition only worthy of laughter to men of sense; but to weak minds every thing is a crime. 6 I fhall close my letter with an applicable quotation from Mr. Addison upon this subject, to be found in No. 542 of the Spectator. Some,' obferves he, fay an author is guilty • of falsehood, when he talks to the public of manufcripts which he never faw, or defcribes fcenes of action, or difcourfe, in which he was never engaged. But thefe gentlemen would do well to confider there is not a fable, or parable, which ever was made ufe of, that is not liable to this exception; fince nothing, according to this notion, can be related innocently, which was not once matter of fact.' 6 6 LETTER LETTER XLV. T would doubtlefs be going too far to fay It the Romans had no original writers, IT that no original and, if you look into my former letters, you will find that I made no fuch affertion. ; YET their original authors are very few; and, if you please, this letter fhall briefly recapitulate their eminent writers, and diftinguish thofe that may juftly receive the high diftinction of Original. An order nearly chronological fhall be followed, and they only mentioned whofe works have reached us. PLAUTUS, a poet too much neglected, his works having infinitely more merit than those. of Terence, is however not original, except perhaps in one or two plays, TERENCE need not be mentioned, his plays being mere translations. Had only one of those been preserved, his fame would have |