Literary forgeries recently have been frequently indulged in, and it is
urged that they are of an innocent nature; but impostures more easily
practised than detected leave their mischief behind, to take effect at a
distant period; and as I shall show, may entrap even the judicious! It
may require no high exertion of genius to draw up a grave account of an
ancient play-wright whose name has never reached us, or to give an
extract from a volume inaccessible to our inquiries and, as dulness is
no proof of spuriousness, forgeries, in time, mix with authentic
documents.[208]
We have ourselves witnessed versions of Spanish and Portuguese poets,
which are passed on their unsuspicious readers without difficulty, but
in which no parts of the pretended originals can be traced; and to the
present hour, whatever antiquaries may affirm, the poems of
Chatterton[209] and Ossian[210] are veiled in mystery!
If we possessed the secret history of the literary life of George
Steevens, it would display an unparalleled series of arch deception and
malicious ingenuity. He has been happily characterised by Gifford as
"the Puck of Commentators!" Steevens is a creature so spotted over with
literary forgeries and adulterations, that any remarkable one about the
time he flourished may be attributed to him. They were the habits of a
depraved mind, and there was a darkness in his character many shades
deeper than belonged to Puck; even in the playfulness of his invention
there was usually a turn of personal malignity, and the real object was
not so much to raise a laugh, as to "grin horribly a ghastly smile," on
the individual. It is more than rumoured that he carried his ingenious
malignity into the privacies of domestic life; and it is to be regretted
that Mr. Nichols, who might have furnished much secret history of this
extraordinary literary forger, has, from delicacy, mutilated his
collective vigour.
George Steevens usually commenced his operations by opening some
pretended discovery in the evening papers, which were then of a more
literary cast than they are at present; the _St. James's Chronicle_, the
_General Evening Post_, or the _Whitehall_, were they not dead in body
and in spirit, would now bear witness to his successful efforts. The
late Mr. Boswell told me, that Steevens frequently wrote notes on
Shakspeare, purposely to mislead or entrap Malone, and obtain for
himself an easy triumph in the next edition! Steevens loved to assist
the credulous in getting up for them some strange new thing, dancing
them about with a Will-o'-the-wisp--now alarming them by a shriek of
laughter! and now like a grinning Pigwigging sinking them chin-deep into
a quagmire! Once he presented them with a fictitious portrait of
Shakspeare, and when the brotherhood were sufficiently divided in their
opinions, he pounced upon them with a demonstration, that every portrait
of Shakspeare partook of the same doubtful authority! Steevens usually
assumed a _nom de guerre_ of Collins, a pseudo-commentator, and
sometimes of Amner, who was discovered to be an obscure puritanic
minister who never read text or notes of a play-wright, whenever he
explored into a "thousand notable secrets" with which he has polluted
the pages of Shakspeare! The marvellous narrative of the upas-tree of
Java, which Darwin adopted in his plan of "enlisting imagination under
the banner of science," appears to have been another forgery which
amused our "Puck." It was first given in the _London Magazine_, as an
extract from a Dutch traveller, but the extract was never discovered in
the original author, and "the effluvia of this noxious tree, which
through a district of twelve or fourteen miles had killed all
vegetation, and had spread the skeletons of men and animals, affording a
scene of melancholy beyond what poets have described, or painters
delineated," is perfectly chimerical. A splendid flim-flam! When Dr.
Berkenhout was busied in writing, without much knowledge or skill, a
history of our English authors, Steevens allowed the good man to insert
a choice letter by George Peele, giving an account of a "merry meeting
at the Globe," wherein Shakspeare said Ben Jonson and Ned Alleyne are
admirably made to perform their respective parts. As the nature of the
"Biographia Literaria" required authorities, Steevens ingeniously added,
"Whence I copied this letter I do not recollect." However, he well knew
it came from the "Theatrical Mirror," where he had first deposited the
precious original, to which he had unguardedly ventured to affix the
date of 1600; unluckily, Peele was discovered to have died two years
before he wrote his own letter! The _date_ is adroitly dropped in
Berkenhout! Steevens did not wish to refer to his original, which I have
often seen quoted as authority. One of these numerous forgeries of our
Puck appears in an article in Isaac Reed's catalogue, art. 8708. "The
Boke of the Soldan, conteyninge strange matters touchynge his lyfe and
deathe, and the ways of his course, in two partes, 12mo," with this
marginal note by Reed--"The foregoing was written by George Steevens,
Esq., from whom I received it. It was composed merely to impose on 'a
literary friend,' and had its effect; for he was so far deceived as to
its authenticity, that he gave implicit credit to it, and put down the
person's name in whose possession the original books were supposed to
be."
One of the sort of inventions which I attribute to Steevens has been got
up with a deal of romantic effect, to embellish the poetical life of
Milton; and unquestionably must have sadly perplexed his last
matter-of-fact editor, who is not a man to comprehend a flim-flam!--for
he has sanctioned the whole fiction, by preserving it in his
biographical narrative! The first impulse of Milton to travel in Italy
is ascribed to the circumstance of his having been found asleep at the
foot of a tree in the vicinity of Cambridge, when two foreign ladies,
attracted by the loveliness of the youthful poet, alighted from their
carriage, and having admired him for some time as they imagined
unperceived, the youngest, who was very beautiful, drew a pencil from
her pocket, and having written some lines, put the paper with her
trembling hand into his own! But it seems,--for something was to account
how the sleeping youth could have been aware of these minute
particulars, unless he had been dreaming them,--that the ladies had been
observed at a distance by some friends of Milton, and they explained to
him the whole silent adventure. Milton on opening the paper read _four
verses_ from Guarini, addressed to those "human stars," his own eyes! On
this romantic adventure, Milton set off for Italy, to discover the fair
"incognita," to which undiscovered lady we are told we stand indebted
for the most impassioned touches in the Paradise Lost! We know how
Milton passed his time in Italy, with Dati, and Gaddi, and Frescobaldi,
and other literary friends, amidst its academies, and often busied in
book-collecting. Had Milton's tour in Italy been an adventure of
knight-errantry, to discover a lady whom he had never seen, at least he
had not the merit of going out of the direct road to Florence and Rome,
nor of having once alluded to this _Dame de ses pensees_, in his letters
or inquiries among his friends, who would have thought themselves
fortunate to have introduced so poetical an adventure in the numerous
_canzoni_ they showered on our youthful poet.
This _historiette_, scarcely fitted for a novel, first appeared where
generally Steevens's literary amusements were carried on, in the
_General Evening Post_, or the _St. James's Chronicle_: and Mr. Todd, in
the improved edition of Milton's Life, obtained this spurious original,
where the reader may find it; but the more curious part of the story
remains to be told. Mr. Todd proceeds, "The preceding highly-coloured
relation, however, is _not singular_; my friend, Mr. Walker, points out
to me a counterpart in the extract from the preface to _Poesies de
Marguerite-Eleanore Clotilde, depuis Madame de Surville, Poete Francois
du XV. Siecle. Paris, 1803_."
And true enough we find among "the family traditions" of the same
Clotilde, that Justine de Levis, great-grandmother of this unknown
poetess of the fifteenth century, walking in a forest, witnessed the
same beautiful _spectacle_ which the Italian Unknown had at Cambridge;
never was such an impression to be effaced, and she could not avoid
leaving her tablets by the side of the beautiful sleeper, declaring her
passion in her tablets by _four Italian verses_! The very number our
Milton had meted to him! Oh! these _four_ verses! they are as fatal in
their _number_ as the _date_ of Peele's letter proved to George
Steevens! Something still escapes in the most ingenious fabrication
which serves to decompose the materials. It is well our veracious
historian dropped all mention of Guarini--else that would have given
that _coup de grace_--a fatal anachronism! However, his invention
supplied him with more originality than the adoption of this story and
the _four_ verses would lead us to infer. He tells us how Petrarch was
jealous of the genius of his Clotilde's grandmother, and has even
pointed out a sonnet which, "among the traditions of the family," was
addressed to her! He narrates, that the gentleman, when he fairly awoke,
and had read the "four verses," set off for Italy, which he run over
till he found Justine, and Justine found him, at a tournament at Modena!
This parallel adventure disconcerted our two grave English critics--they
find a tale which they wisely judge improbable, and because they
discover the tale copied, they conclude that "it is not singular!" This
knot of perplexity is, however, easily cut through, if we substitute,
which we are fully justified in, for "Poete du XV. Siecle"--"du XIX.
Siecle." The "Poesies" of Clotilde are as genuine a fabrication as
Chatterton's; subject to the same objections, having many ideas and
expressions which were unknown in the language at the time they are
pretended to have been composed, and exhibiting many imitations of
Voltaire and other poets. The present story of the FOUR _Italian
verses_, and the beautiful _Sleeper_, would be quite sufficient
evidence of the authenticity of "the family traditions" of _Clotilde,
depuis Madame de Surville_, and also of Monsieur De Surville himself; a
pretended editor, who is said to have found by mere accident the
precious manuscript, and while he was copying from the press, in 1793,
these pretty poems, for such they are, of his _grande tante_, was shot
in the Reign of Terror, and so completely expired, that no one could
ever trace his existence! The real editor, who we must presume to be the
poet, published them in 1803.
Such, then, is the history of a literary forgery! A Puck composes a
short romantic adventure, which is quietly thrown out to the world in a
newspaper or a magazine; some collector, such as the late Mr. Bindley,
who procured for Mr. Todd his original, as idle at least as he is
curious, houses the forlorn fiction--and it enters into literary
history! A French Chatterton picks up the obscure tale, and behold,
astonishes the literary inquirers of the very country whence the
imposture sprung! But the FOUR _Italian verses_, and the _Sleeping
Youth_! Oh! Monsieur Vanderbourg! for that gentleman is the ostensible
editor of Clotilde's poesies of the fifteenth century, some ingenious
persons are unlucky in this world! Perhaps one day we may yet discover
that this "romantic adventure" of _Milton_ and _Justine de Levis_ is not
so original as it seems--it may lie hid in the _Astree_ of D'Urfe, or
some of the long romances of the Scuderies, whence the English and the
French Chattertons may have drawn it. To such literary inventors we say
with Swift:--
----Such are your tricks;
But since you hatch, pray own your chicks!
Will it be credited that for the enjoyment of a temporary piece of
malice, Steevens would even risk his own reputation as a poetical
critic? Yet this he ventured, by throwing out of his edition the poems
of Shakspeare, with a remarkable hyper-criticism, that "the strongest
act of parliament that could be framed would fail to compel readers into
their service." Not only he denounced the sonnets of Shakspeare, but the
sonnet itself, with an absurd question, "What has truth or nature to do
with sonnets?" The secret history of this unwarrantable mutilation of a
great author by his editor was, as I was informed by the late Mr.
Boswell, merely done to spite his rival commentator Malone, who had
taken extraordinary pains in their elucidation. Steevens himself had
formerly reprinted them, but when Malone from these sonnets claimed for
himself one ivy leaf of a commentator's pride, behold, Steevens in a
rage would annihilate even Shakspeare himself, that he might gain a
triumph over Malone! In the same spirit, but with more caustic
pleasantry, he opened a controversy with Malone respecting Shakspeare's
wife! It seems that the poet had forgotten to mention his wife in his
copious will; and his recollection of Mrs. Shakspeare seems to mark the
slightness of his regard, for he only introduced by an interlineation, a
legacy to her of his "second best bed with the furniture"--and nothing
more! Malone naturally inferred that the poet had forgot her, and so
recollected her as more strongly to mark how little he esteemed her. He
had already, as it is vulgarly expressed, "cut her off, not indeed with
a shilling, but with an old bed!"[211] All this seems judicious, till
Steevens asserts the conjugal affection of the bard, tells us, that the
poet having, when in health, provided for her by settlement, or knowing
that her father had already done so (circumstances entirely
conjectural), he bequeathed to her at his death not _merely an old piece
of furniture, but_, PERHAPS, _as a mark of peculiar tenderness_,
The very bed that on his bridal night
Received him to the arms of Belvidera!
Steevens' severity of satire marked the deep malevolence of his heart;
and Murphy has strongly pourtrayed him in his address to the _Malevoli_.
Such another Puck was Horace Walpole! The King of Prussia's "Letter" to
Rousseau, and "The Memorial" pretended to have been signed by noblemen
and gentlemen, were fabrications, as he confesses, only to make
mischief. It well became him, whose happier invention, the Castle of
Otranto, was brought forward in the guise of forgery, so unfeelingly to
have reprobated the innocent inventions of a Chatterton.
We have Pucks busied among our contemporaries: whoever shall discover
their history will find it copious though intricate; the malignity at
least will exceed tenfold the merriment.