each successive age, were preserved, it might be more satisfactory. But this is far from being a point of such importance as it might at first sight appear. When we come to speak of ancient manuscripts, we shall find an opportunity to explain the several marks by which their antiquity may be judged of with tolerable accuracy; yet when we consider that from the decay of the materials, or any other cause, it might be necessary to substitute a copy, and that this might easily be done without its bearing on the face of it any intimation that it was a copy; and so in process of time the transcript might come to be regarded as an original, we may judge of the difficulty of being certain, in many cases, whether any given document be an original, or a copy: whereas the correctness of each is at once tested by the series itself: and thus it will appear, that, unless unusual precautions are taken to certify the identity of the original, it will be more difficult to prove that identity, than that the copy we possess is in the main, a true one. The signature of a pretended original may as easily be counterfeit, as a copy be false or incorrect; the former could not be identified; the want of fidelity in the latter might be readily detected by discrepancies with the remainder of the series.

Now such records as we are speaking of do exist, and are thus authenticated in private families, and among public bodies. It is thus the history of nations, as well as the rights of individuals, are substantiated, and made known. In some cases a series of documents can not be traced back more than one or two generations; in others the series is more extensive. Some times gaps, and periods of endless contradiction, and inextricable confusion are met with; yet these do not much, if at all, interfere with the more regular history of the preceding or following ages. In most instances, (except in very modern times,) we have neither originals, nor formally authenticated copies; and where these do exist, they can only be consult ed by a few. Yet men in general are fully satisfied, and the history of past ages is looked on, in its more general features, and in many cases to the minutest particulars, as no less certain than the transactions of the present day. The history of England, of Greece, of Rome, of India, uncertain as each may be in some of its darker periods, is so well ascertained that men no more question whether

William or Elizabeth reigned, than they do that Victoria now reigns; they are as fully persuaded that Alexander or Cæsar, or Shah Allum, or Tippoo Saib, performed, in the main, the actions ascribed to them, as they are of the march of the British army upon Guzni and Cabool in 1842. And let it be remembered that this certainty, in almost every case, depends far less upon the direct evidence we are able to produce as to the writings whence our information is gleaned, than on the many internal marks of veracity a discerning mind detects in the narratives they contain, and the moral evidence thus furnished of their truth. And if general history possess these to a degree to satisfy any reasonable mind; Christianity, as we hope to show, exceeds all in the strengths of her supports of either kind; and more especially stands pre-eminently alone in the unbroken chain of direct testimony she can marshal in her favour.

SECT. II.

Genuineness and authenticity defined.-Difficulty of suc• cessfully counterfeiting-Examples.-Examination of dubious facts in authors of good general credit.

The reasoning above advanced will be greatly strengthened by exhibiting further the extreme difficulty of successful forgery. But before entering upon the discussion, this may be a convenient place for defining the terms genuineness, and authenticity, of which I shall have to make a frequent use; and which I shall carefully restrict to the acceptation. here explained. The former is usually taken to denote that a book is written by the author whose name it bears; while the latter relates to the truth of the matter it contains. A book may thus be genuine, though not authentic; as is the case with most poems, plays, and other avowed works of fiction: : or authentic, but not genuine; as is the case with any real history, published under an assumed name. is the account of Lord Anson's voyage, published under the name of Walters, but really written by Robins, on information supplied by Lord Anson himself. But the poems of

Such

Rowley, and the Shakspearian papers, (to which allusion will presently be made,) are neither genuine nor authentic, being false, and falsely ascribed to their respective authors. The genuineness of a work is often a matter of some moment, and sometimes, as in a collection of letters, is every thing; but in historical compositions it is clearly of far inferior importance to their authenticity; and the latter is in most cases more easily made out. The first frequently depends solely on external testimony; the latter always admits, more or less, of the accession of internal evidence, confirming or correcting the other.

Let us now illustrate the use of internal marks in detecting what is spurious. We will suppose that a person who has never set foot in India, undertakes to write an account of a journey through the southern parts of the Carnatic, and to pass it off as the genuine narrative of an eye-witness. We may allow him the benefit of maps and books, and such general information as will secure him from any gross mistakes of geography, or description. But when he comes to the detail of his several stages; the particularities of each locality; the more minute delineations of the several towns and villages his route takes him through; he must of necessity incur the risk of inevitable blunders; for no man can ever describe with unerring accuracy a place he has never seen. These errors might for a time escape the notice of readers, themselves unacquainted with the country traversed; but could not for an instant elude those dwelling on the spot; or those who had previously or subsequently visited it; and thus the fabrication could not fail eventually to be laid bare. But could he not avoid such particularities and thus escape detection? He might make the attempt, but beside that his work would then fail to sustain its character of a personal narrative, and thus lose all its interest, the very want of these particularities would cast a suspicion over it, which no general correctness could There are two other methods of which to avail himself: he might borrow from the publications of other writers; or derive his materials from the unpublished notes of some actual traveller. In either case his book would not be genuine. In the former it would be a mere compilation, and his pretentions to originality would at once be set aside; in the other case the cheat might extend no further

remove.

than the name; the authenticity of the book would be made out on its own merits; and the detection of the want of genuineness might be more difficult, but at the same time less important.

Again should a book, in any of the languages of India professing to be written five hundred years since, contain an allusion by name to Madras, as a European settlement, which it did not become till the year 1639; or should another, said to be written twelve hundred years before the present time, make mention of Quilon, which was founded in 825; or should either of these contain allusions to the English or Portuguese, or furnish examples of terms or idioms introduced by Europeans; these indications of forgery could not be mistaken. A single oversight, an isolated word, might be ascribed to the carelessness of an ignorant, or slovenly copyist; but did such form an essential part of the context, or repeatedly occur, this plea would not be admitted, nor could the character of the work be maintained. In the Calcutta Review for May 1844, we find a reference made to a work of fiction, in which an individual is said to have proceeded to Madras up the river Hoogly! The book makes no pretensions to authenticity; but if it did, such blunders must at once invalidate its claims. The same Article of the Review mentions a picture, in the Pictorial History of England, purporting to be a view of Calcutta in 1756, and which contains the Government House, and the new Fort; whereas the earliest work of the latter was not built till 1770, and the former not till 1804; the one fourteen, the other forty-eight years after the period assigned for the picture. No one aware of these dates can hesitate to pronounce with certainty that the view cannot have been taken at the time assigned to it, however accurate a representation it may be of the city at any subsequent period.

But it may be well to give an example or two of the way in which literary forgeries have actually been exposed; for experience shows that such rarely escape the piercing scrutiny of the well informed. More than two thousand years ago, a noted tyrant, Phalaris, flourished at Agrigentum in Sicily; and at some uncertain time, perhaps a thousand years after his death, an unknown sophist forged a collection of letters, purporting to be the production of his pen.

At the close of the seventeenth century, (A. D. 1694,) these were edited at Oxford, and gave rise to a stirring controversy between the Hon. Mr. Boyle, their Editor, and the learned Dr. Bentley; and although at such a distance of time from the period when the real Phalaris lived, and the pretender wrote, this latter critic was able to show, beyond a doubt, that the letters were mere counterfeits. The argument was conducted by pointing out various anachronisms in names, places, and facts; by producing passages clearly borrowed from later writers; and by showing that the style and language were such as could not have been used at that early period, or in the country that gave birth to Phalaris. Thus the city of Phintia is said to have promised a loan of money, on interest, to the writer; whereas there is undoubted testimony that Phintia was not built till the time of Phintias, a successor of Phalaris at Agrigentum, from whom it took its name, at a period which, from a careful comparison of dates, must have been at least two hundred and seventy years later than the death of Phalaris. In another place the city of Naxos is spoken of under the name of Tauromenium; whereas Herodotus and Thucydides, two of the best historians Greece produced, and who came much later than Phalaris, mention it only by the former name: and a full account of the time, the reason, and manner of the change of name, is given by another trustworthy historian, Diodorus, from whom it appears that the change took place above one hundred and fifty years after the latest period that can be allowed for the death of Phalaris. The writer has again fallen into the error of speaking of Zancle and Messena as of different cities, whereas they were but one, under different names, and Phalaris must have been dead sixty years when the name Messena was first applied. These are a few of the many discrepancies brought to light, not by a simple and easy process, (for the forgery was so far skilfully conducted as not to be obvious at first sight;) but by the diligent comparison of a vast mass of authorities, supplied by an extent of erudition, and handled with an acuteness of criticism, rarely, if ever exceeded.

Many other literary impostures have been detected by similar arguments. Such were the poems which Chatterton gave to the world in 1768, as the work of Rowley, a supposed author of the fifteenth century; but which were in re