Tacitus and Bracciolini Part 10

For such dishonesty in attempting to carry his point against another Eminence Cardinal Noris ought to have blushed as scarlet as his stockings.

Ernesti, quite puzzled at the singular statement that a Roman province had two governors, is of opinion that the error was occasioned by statements to be found in the New Testament: "There is," he says, "the additional testimony of St. Luke, or rather St. Paul, who says that Felix was many years set over the Jews, in the third or fourth year after c.u.ma.n.u.s had been condemned": "Accedit Lucae auctoritas, vel potius Pauli, qui Felicem multos annos Judaeis praefuisse dicit, anno, postquam c.u.ma.n.u.s d.a.m.natus est, tertio aut quarto." It is just possible that the pa.s.sage about Felix being "many years a judge unto that nation," which occurs in the Acts of the Apostles (c. XXIV. v. 10), was what actually misled Bracciolini; the more so, as when he was in this country, he discharged what Dean Hook called "the heavenly occupations of a parish priest" (Life of Becket, p. 359), and for the very reason that he was a consecrated man he must have taken a much greater interest and placed far more trust in St. Paul, than Tacitus or any other heathen among the ancient Romans was likely to have done; but an error so extraordinary about the contemporary government of his country could barely have been committed by such an eminent public man and politician as Tacitus: this is the reason why Cardinal Baronius convicted Josephus of "an evident mistake," for as he properly observed parenthetically in the pa.s.sage we have quoted, that "we ought to attach faith to Tacitus, whom, certainly, any learned man would clearly prefer to Josephus in matters especially which appertain to Roman magistracies": "si Tacito fidem praebemus, quem certe, in his praesertim quae ad Romanos pertinent magistratus, quivis eruditus Josepho facile anteferat" (l.c.). But as Tacitus did not write the Annals, Josephus is to be preferred to Bracciolini; when, too, it is just the kind of mistake which a writer of the XVth century, as Bracciolini, however learned and careful he might be, would be likely to fall into, from the testimony of St. Paul conflicting with that of Josephus.

III. Another blunder is made by Bracciolini with regard to the Italians and Romans, whom he looks upon as blood relations, fellow countrymen, and possessors of a common capital in the City of Rome. The Italians were not of the same descent as the Romans; and when they were all brought under subjection to Rome in the first half of the third century before the Christian aera, they beheld themselves inhabitants of towns, some of which were "municipia", (having their own laws and magistracy, enjoying the privilege of voting in the comitia and soliciting for public offices in Rome), others "coloni," (conquered places ruled over by poor Romans sent to keep the inhabitants in subjection, having the jus Romanum, Latinum or Italic.u.m, and ceasing to be citizens of Rome); but in either set of towns the freedom and the sacred rites, the laws of race and of government, the oaths and the guardians.h.i.+p of the Romans did not prevail; in fact, the Italians had not the private rights of the Romans, and, therefore, in the language of Livy, "they were not Roman citizens":--"non eos esse cives Romanos"

(x.x.xIV. 42). Even the privileges they enjoyed, such as immunity from the tribute raised in the Roman provinces, they partic.i.p.ated with other people, to whom the privilege had been accorded at various periods;--for example,--the inhabitants of Laodicaea in Syria and of Beyroot in Phoenicia in the time of Augustus;--of Tyre in the time of Severus;--of Antioch and the colony of Emissa in Upper Syria in the time of Antonine, and of the colonies in Mauritania in the time of t.i.tus. Tacitus, therefore, as a Roman citizen, could not, by any possibility, have spoken of Rome being the "capital" of Italy, and the Italians and Romans being people of the "same blood," as the author of the Annals does when he writes: "non adeo aegram Italiam ut senatum suppeditare _urbi suae_ nequiret; suffecisse olim indigenas _consanguineis populis_" (XI. 23).

n.o.body can understand those last five words; they have not been understood by the editors, from Justus Lipsius and John Frederic Gronovius to Ernesti and Heinsius: they are capable of more than one interpretation on account of the brevity and obscurity of the expression: I take it that Bracciolini meant to imply that "in the ancient days the natives of Italy were quite on a par with their 'brethren' in Rome," referring to the time when Romans, Latins, Etruscans and Sabines stood on the same level; and in order to make out that Italians are still in the same position, he adds: "there is no regretting what was anciently done in the State,"

"nec poenitere veteris reipublicae."

An Italian of the fifteenth century, and a Florentine like Bracciolini, was glad to think, and proud to say, nay, ready to believe, and to perpetuate the belief, that Italy and Rome were identical, and the people consanguineous. We see how that pleasing delusion is still cherished fondly by the living countrymen of Bracciolini: General Garibaldi, to wit, as well as the late Joseph Mazzini, always looked upon the City of Rome as the "natural"

capital of the Kingdom of Italy; and we can easily believe, with what joy, pride, and confidence in its veracity the gallant general or the devoted patriot, or any other Italian warrior or politician, would have written, as Bracciolini wrote, the pa.s.sage that we have quoted from the eleventh book of the Annals.

IV. Nor is this the only time when Bracciolini does not maintain the character he a.s.sumes of an ancient Roman. Narcissus, addressing Claudius in the eleventh book of the Annals says: "he did not _now_ mean to charge him"--that is, Silius, "with adulteries": "nec _nunc_ adulteria objecturum" (XI. 30). The language used seems to be very good language. A Roman historian, though, would have written, "nec _tunc_": he could not have fallen into the error of failing to define time in reference to himself when ascribing words to persons, any more than he could have failed to vary the grammar to the accusative and infinitive.

This elementary principle in Latin composition is known, (as Lord Macaulay would have said,) "to every schoolboy." It was, certainly, well known to such an accomplished "grammaticus" as Bracciolini; and for the very simple reason that he adheres to it on all other occasions. His neglect of it in this instance is as strong a proof as any that can be advanced, of his forgery: it makes that forgery the more obvious, his slip not being accidental, but intentional: it is a deliberate violation of a rule that must never be infringed; but as a countryman will sometimes run after a jack-a-lantern, till running after it he finds himself in a burying-ground, so Bracciolini suffered himself to be misled by his literary will-o'-the wisp,--alliteration: therefore he preferred writing "_n_ec _n_unc," instead of "nec tunc;" he therefore did that which was fatal to the work that he wanted to palm off upon the world as the composition of a Roman, because a Roman would not have done this, because he could not have done it. Definition of time in reference to himself was a necessity of expression; he could not have sacrificed it for alliteration or any other trick of composition, because he would not have dreamt of changing the time in ascribing words to persons. A modern, on the other hand, would think that a mere trifle; left to himself, he would prefer it; he would also know that his readers, being moderns like himself, would very much admire his composition for the alliteration, whilst finding definition of time in reference to the position of the speaker, much more agreeable to their ears, from their being accustomed to native historians who wrote in the vernacular so defining time in all pa.s.sages of the kind spontaneously, without art or affectation, and not, as the ancient Romans, stiffly adopting the harsh, unnatural fas.h.i.+on of defining it in reference to the position of the writer.

V. Our word "box" (apart from three technical meanings, one in botany, and two in mechanics), has six different significations for things that have nothing in common with each other;--"a slap on the chaps"; "a coffer or case for holding any materials"; "seats in a theatre"; "a Christmas present"; "the case for the mariner's compa.s.s," and "the seat on a coach for the driver." The Roman word, too, "locus," has just the same half-dozen meanings for things as unconnected;--"a pa.s.sage"; "a country"; "an argument"; "a place"; "a sentence," and "a seat." In five instances "box" is a primitive noun; when it means "a blow on the cheek with the palm of the hand," it is a verbal substantive. Exactly the same number of curiosities distinguished "locus." In five instances it was masculine; when it signified "a seat in a theatre" it was neuter; this was familiar to every Roman with a lettered education: unfortunately it slipped the memory of Bracciolini when he wrote: An. XV. 32: "equitum Romanorum _locos_ sedilibus plebis anteposuit apud Circ.u.m." Tacitus would have written "loca."

VI. This brings me again to consider the Latin of Tacitus; no reasonable objection can be found with it; severely captious critics who carp at trifles, and look at language microscopically, point out errors; but they are not so great as the mistakes sometimes made by Cicero and Caesar, Sall.u.s.t and Livy. As a specimen of the objections we may give the following: a critic has been bold enough to say that in the phrase "refractis palatiis foribus, ruere intus" (Hist. I. 35), Tacitus uses the adverb for _in_ a place instead of the adverb for _to_ a place. "Intus"

means "into" or "within," just as well as "in," as may be seen from numerous instances in Cicero, Caesar, Ovid, Plautus, and other writers of inferior reputation in prose and poetry. The phrase then is: "having broken open the palace doors, to rush _within_." Where is the mistake?

Another objection raised is that Tacitus wrongly writes "quantum"

as the corresponding adverb to "tanto," "_quantum_que hebes ad sustinendum laborem miles, _tanto_ ad discordias promptior"

(Hist. II. 99). It was a common custom among the Romans to use "quantum," if they preferred it, to "quanto," and to follow it with "tanto": at any rate it occurs in Livy twice, if not oftener: _quantum_ augebatur, _tanto_ majore (V. 10);--_quantum_ laxaverat, _tanto_ magis (x.x.xII. 5). The objections to the grammar of Tacitus are, as a rule, all on a par with these two; it is not, however, without some pleasurable feeling that one comes across charges made against him of using incorrect forms of speech, were it only from perceiving how extremely happy the fault-finders seem to be in having such an opportunity of gratifying their natural malice.

VII. Vossius, the Canon of Canterbury in the seventeenth century, adopts an entirely different tone in his agreeable treatise on the Roman historians--"De Historicis Latinis." Commenting on the statement made by Alciati and Emilio Ferretti that Tacitus wrote bad Latin, he bursts into an exclamation that may be considered rather uncourteous when applied to His Eminence a Cardinal and to an eminent Jurisconsult, that they were both silly and absurd: "they say," exclaims Gerardus Johannes, "that he did not write Latin properly: how silly is this! how absurd!"--"aiunt, eum non Latine satis scribere: quam, hoc insubidum! quam insulsum!" (I.

30). Perhaps Vossius was of opinion that if Tacitus wrote incorrectly, it must be upon the principle alleged by Quintilian that "one kind of expression is grammatical, another kind Latin,"

"aliud esse grammatice, aliud Latine loqui" (I. 16) after the accommodating fas.h.i.+on of that kind gentleman of etymology and syntax, Valerius Probus, who in Aulus Gellius (XIII. 20. 1), said "has urb_e_s" or "has urb_is_" was the more correct according to metrical convenience when writing verses, or sonorous utterance when delivering a set oration, which (without being Romans), we can easily understand, when some of our poets rhyme "clear" to "idea," and a Clerkenwell Green orator prefers "obstropalous" to "obstreperous." On some such grounds alone can excuse be found for some anomalous expressions in the Annals; they are irreconcilable to the common rules of grammar; and what may seem strange to the reader, though to me it is quite natural, the very same improprieties that occur in the Annals of words and phrases not according with the established principles of writing occur also in the acknowledged works of Bracciolini.

VIII. (_a_). When the Romans used the disjunctive particle, "nec," in the first branch of a negative sentence, the same word (or its equivalent "neque,") was used in the subsequent branch of the proposition. To couple "aut" with "nec" was a wrong correlative.

The rule was so absolute that I know but of one Roman writer who infringed it; and that was because he was a poet,--Ovid:

"_Nec_ piget, _aut_ unquam stulte elegisse videbor."

Her. XVI. 167.

"_Nec_ plus Atrides animi Menelaus habebit Quam Paris; _aut_ armis anteferendus erit."

Ib. 355-6.

It will be seen that the error, which is committed twice, occurs in the same poem, the XVIth Heroic, or The Epistle of Helen to Paris, and under the same circ.u.mstance of pressure,--the want of a word that began with a vowel,--because a word beginning with a consonant could not, of course, follow the last foot of a dactyle ending with a consonant;--therefore Ovid took refuge in what is called "poetical license," which is a gentle term for expressing departure from syntax. Ovid never again committed the offence, quite sufficient to convince us that it went against his grain to have so written in his XVIth Heroic; he knew that it was not elegant; it was not, in fact, correct, nor in his style; and he would not have done it but that he was cramped by verse. But why, uncramped by verse, the author of the Annals should have written: "hortatur miles, ut hostem vagum, _neque_ paci _aut_ proelio paratum,"

instead of "_neque_ proelia," is difficult to determine, except that he was desirous of imitating Bracciolini, who writes in the letter to his friend Niccoli from which we have already quoted (Ep. II. 7): "muta igitur propositum, et huc veni, _neque_ te terreat longitudo itineris, _aut_ hiemis asperitas." The imitation is, besides, so very close that we find in both cases "neque" is preferred in the first clause to the more usual form of "nec."

VIII. (_b_.) In order to show how closely the expressions peculiar to Bracciolini and his artifices of composition resemble, (as he did not mean them to do, though they did), the style of writing and the language in the Annals, I need, without wandering over the whole work, simply confine myself to the remainder of the sentence from which this fragment is taken; and beg the reader to mark carefully the italicized syllables and words "hortatur miles, ut hostem vagum, _neque_ paci _aut_ proelio paratum, sed perfidiam et ignaviam fuga confitentem exu_erent_ sedibus, gloriaeque _pariter_ et praedae consul_erent_" (An. XIII. 39).

First, there is the correspondence of the two last syllables of the words at the end of two almost equally balanced clauses, with more syllables in the first than the second clause: "sed perfidiam, et ignaviam fuga confitentem exu_erent_ // sedibus, gloriaeque pariter et praedae consul_erent_ //. It will be seen, (without multiplying examples), that the very same thing occurs in the pa.s.sage quoted in the preceding chapter from Bracciolini's letter about the Baths of Baden: "et simul quandoque c.u.m mulieribus lav_antes_, // et sertis quoque comas orn_antes_" // (Ep. I. 1).

There is the altogether peculiar use of "pariter" in the sense of equality of a.s.sociation or time--"gloriaeque _pariter_ et praedae consulerent," just as in Bracciolini's Treatise "De Miseria Humanae Conditionis" (Pog. Op. p. 121): "Victis postmodum _pariter_ victoribus imperarunt." Three things ought to be noticed: first, "pariter" is the equivalent of "simul"; secondly, it is placed between the connected words; and, thirdly, the phrase ends with a four-syllabled verb--"imperarunt,"--"consulerent."

That this is not only Bracciolini's individual phraseology, but his stereotyped cast of expression, is at once seen in the extraordinary sameness of the three things occurring when he again uses it in the Annals: "vox _pariter_ et spiritus _raperentur_" (An. XIII. 16).

IX. The composition of any writer can be easily detected from examining his affinities of language as displayed not only in his use of words, but in his construction of sentences and combination of words.

n.o.body can read Tacitus, and not come to the conclusion that if any man ever wrote harmoniously, it is he; but any one reading the Annals must come to the very opposite conclusion, that Bracciolini is the very prince of rugged writers. By varying the accents, Tacitus manages to please the ear even when ending sentences with ugly polysyllabic words, as (taking the instances from the opening of his work): "suspectis sollicitis, adoptanti placebat" (I. 14); "deterius interpretantibus tristior, habebatur" (ib.); "Lusitaniam, specie legationis, seposuit" (I. 13). This is the unmusical way in which Bracciolini ends sentences with long words (taking the instances, also, from the commencement of the forgery): "victores longinquam militiam aspernabantur" (An. XI. 10):--"potissimum exaequaebantur officia ceremoniarum" (An. XI. 11):--"Claudio dolore, injuriae credebatur" (An. XII. 11). Almost the same ring and ruggedness are to be found in:--"marmorea tabula epigramma referente" (Ruin. Urb. Rom. Descript. Op. Pog. p. 136); --"magistratus, officia, imperia deferuntur" (Mis. Hum. Cond. I.

Op. Pog. p. 102); "homines amplissimam materiam suppeditarunt"

(De n.o.bil. Op. Pogg. p. 77).

X. Tacitus avoids, as much as the genius of his native tongue will permit, two words following each other with the same terminations; Bracciolini is not only much given to this, but very partial to a reduplication of sounds, as if the jingle, instead of being most disagreeable, was excessively pleasant to the ear, as in his Letter describing the trial and death of Jerome of Prague (Ep. I. 2): --"_rerum_ plurim_arum_ sci_entiam_, eloq_uentiam_"; and in the Annals (XI. 38) "od_ii_, gau_dii_, ir_ae_, trist.i.ti_ae_."

Bracciolini is fond of using prefixes that have no meaning, as in his Funeral Oration on the death of his friend Niccoli: "moneta _ob_signari est coepta concipiebant" (Op. Pog. p. 278), where he uses "_ob_signari" for "signari," "ob" being without meaning: so in the Annals: "testamentum Acerroniae requiri, bonaque _ob_signari jubet" (XIV. 6).

Another peculiarity of Bracciolini's is (for alliterative purposes) the playing upon a single letter that is repeated again and again at the beginning, in the middle, and, if the letter will allow it, at the end of words. "P" will not permit of being used in Latin at the end of words; but we find Bracciolini thus playing with it in the very first of his letters:--"_p_rojicit eam _p_ersonam sibi acce_p_tiorem, c.u.m illam multi _p_etant _p_orrectis manibus, atque i_p_se," &c. (Ep. I. 1). But "m" does admit of being used at the end of words, and thus we find him, with a friskiness that the staid Tacitus would have in vain essayed to imitate, frolicking with it as a juggler with b.a.l.l.s; for the rapidity of the repet.i.tion can be compared only to the rapidity of conveyance displayed by a conjuror when he receives into and pa.s.ses out of his hands a number of b.a.l.l.s with which he is playing: "_m_ox, ut o_m_itteret _m_aritum, e_m_ercatur, suu_m m_atri_m_oniu_m_ pro_m_ittens" (An. XIII. 44).

CHAPTER IV.

THE TERMINATION OF THE FORGERY.

I.--The literary merit and avaricious humour of Bracciolini.

--II. He is aided in his scheme by a monk of the Abbey of Fulda.

--III. Expressions indicating forgery.--IV. Efforts to obtain a very old copy of Tacitus.--V. The forgery transcribed in the Abbey of Fulda.--VI. First saw the light in the spring of 1429.

I. We have pointed out in the preceding chapter some of the more glaring errors committed by Bracciolini in style and syntax, customs and history, not with the view of showing that Niccoli made any mistake when he recommended him to take the task in hand of forging the Annals; for in no way did Niccoli overrate the merit of his friend. The Latin of Bracciolini, though not equal in its elegance to that of his splendid successor, Poliziano, was, nevertheless, superior to the Latin of any of his great contemporaries, none of whom, besides, had his versatility and varied attainments nor his wisdom and philosophy. The world now knows, as his Florentine friend then knew, that he had the requisite splendour of genius to undertake the daring task of writing history as eminently as Tacitus, that is, with as powerful a conception, and as superior an expression: he had already written n.o.bly, sensibly, purely and simply; he had acquired in the Court of Rome, and, what we may call, the Court of the Royal Prelate, Beaufort, the necessary experience of public affairs and leading individuals, which fitted him to pa.s.s sovereign judgment on great men and public events, and he was gifted with the acuteness, the understanding and the prudence to lay down lessons of instruction for mankind.

We have seen with what modesty he approached the immortal production that was fated to lift the name of Tacitus, where it was not before, above even those of Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, Caesar, Sall.u.s.t and Livy: yet he hesitated, questioning much whether he could clothe himself in the garb of an authoritative ancient speaking in lofty tones to the whole world and to all mankind. He had, too, to take as his model a writer who had not his fluency, and who is never great but when concise. This is the case with himself in the Annals, from his striving to do what his prototype did; with this exception, that when he is great he is never natural. In imitating this conciseness, he is the happiest instance of a writer ill.u.s.trating the Horatian adage of "striving to be brief, and becoming obscure":

"Brevis esse laboro, Obscurus fio."

_De Arte Poet._ 25-6:

ever and anon he falls into a graceless obscurity from compressing into a few words what he ought to have said in a more expanded form: his great fault is that he outdoes Tacitus in conciseness: hence he keeps his reader in ignorance of things which would have been known if he had only more fully disclosed them.

His avarice swayed his will stronger than his compunctions. The five hundred gold sequins, which were to be counted out to him on the completion of the work, which it was calculated would occupy three years, was too tempting an offer; and yet the offer was not sufficiently liberal in his opinion: as we have seen, he suggested that it should be increased one-fifth; he was right; for in those days as much, and even twice as much, was sometimes given for a mere translation: Lorenzo Valla got five hundred gold sequins for his Latin translation of Thucydides; Filelfo would have received twice as much, and, in addition to the thousand gold pieces, a handsome town house in Rome and a good landed estate if he would have translated the Iliad and the Odyssey into Latin verse.

Bracciolini may, therefore, have succeeded in obtaining the increased price of six hundred sequins. Still he was not the kind of man to have been satisfied with this only: when he translated Diodorus Siculus, he required to be supported while engaged in its execution; and supported he was by the liberality of the Popes.

The proposal of Lamberteschi included board and lodging, and in the house of the Florentine; Bracciolini expressed his willingness to accept that; but on the condition that Lamberteschi did not move about, for he wanted, as a prime necessity, to remain quite quiet, as the great literary undertaking in which he was about to be engaged would call for a more than usual amount of patient attention and labour: "libenter vivam c.u.m Piero, nisi Scythae simus, libenter enim quiesco" (Ep. I. 17). We have seen that Bracciolini did not avail himself of what was proffered to him in this matter on account of his re-appointment to the Papal Secretariate: had it not been so he would have unquestionably called upon his friend Lamberteschi to fulfil this part of the contract; as before his appointment to an ecclesiastical living in England, he had been boarded and lodged by Cardinal Beaufort, and that too, on a scale of regal magnificence. He tells us himself in one of his Letters (Ep. I. 6), that, while the Cardinal, as vagrant as a Scythian, was continually absent from home, (it must have been on his episcopal visitations or in the discharge of his State duties), he staid behind in the Palace in London, pa.s.sing his time peacefully and pleasantly in a splendid library, and vying at the expense of his princely patron with the magnificence of the king himself in the sumptuousness of his fare and the costliness of his apparel: "Dominus meus, quasi continuo abest, vagus ut Scytha, ego autem hic dego, in quiete libris involvor.

Providetur mihi pro victu et vest.i.tu, idque est satis, neque enim amplius vel Rex ex hoc tanto apparatu rerum capit." [Endnote 297]

When we bear in mind his strong desire for gain, we may consider it not unlikely that, adhering to his bargain, he exacted from Lamberteschi some equivalent in lieu of the board and lodging: be that as it may, after the lapse of three years, (as may be seen from letters that pa.s.sed between himself and Niccoli), he had then completed, as had been rightly calculated, the first instalment of his forgery.

II. In those days when so many valuable works ascribed to the ancients were being constantly recovered, there was a very general (though as I have shown, very silly) belief abroad, that any ancient work, consequently, the lost History of Tacitus, might yet be found in some dark corner of Europe,--some barbarous country such as Germany, Hungary, or Bohemia. Accident decided that Bracciolini chose a place for the a.s.serted recovery of what he had forged different from what had been arranged between himself and his friends in 1422, while they were devising the fabrication, namely, Hungary: when Bracciolini said that, "if he did go to Hungary he would pretend that he had come from England," the object must have been that no one should know the country where the MS. had been recovered; any busybody would be thus effectively foiled in visiting the right spot, and there prying about, making inquiries and ascertaining all the particulars with respect to the alleged discovery of some recent rare ma.n.u.script. The place thus decided on by accident was a town in Saxony at the farthest eastern extremity of that country on the borders of Bohemia, named Hirschfeldt, formerly the capital of Hesse Ca.s.sel, but which, after the peace of Westphalia, when it was secularized, became only a part of that princ.i.p.ality. In the far-away times, it was famous for an Abbey of the Benedictine monks, which had been founded on the banks of the Fulda in the first half of the eighth century, in the year 737, in the reign of King Pepin, by a disciple of St. Boniface, St. Lul, who became Boniface's successor in the Bishopric of Mayence. The accident which caused Bracciolini to choose this convent, the most famous in Germany, as the place whence his forgery was to emanate, was his forming the acquaintance of a member of the abbey, who attended in the name of his brother Benedictines to watch a case that was being litigated for the monastery in the ecclesiastical courts of Rome. From some reason unexplained this monk was under obligation to Bracciolini, who determined that this holy man should be the medium of his forgery being placed before the world. The monk had the necessary qualifications for the tool that was wanted; he was needy and ignorant; above all things, he was stupid. "The good fellow," says Bracciolini in his scornful way to Niccoli, "who has not our attainments, thought that we were equally ignorant of what he found he did not know himself"--"Vir ille bonus, expers studiorum nostrorum, quicquid reperit ignotum sibi, id et apud nos incognitum putavit" (Ep. III 12).

He gave this b.o.o.by monk a long list of books that he was to hunt out for him on the library shelves of the Abbey of Fulda, including in the catalogue the works of Tacitus; and as he wanted a copy of the latter in the very oldest writing that could be procured, he enjoined the monk to give him a full description of certain books that were carefully put down in a list; these being very numerous, the monk could not possibly divine that the book particularly wanted was a Tacitus in the oldest characters that could be found.

III. These instructions were given in May, 1427; and, notwithstanding the care and wisdom shown in the matter, something before the close of the summer that year oozed out which seemed to menace a disclosure of the imposture: rumours had got abroad evidently about what was transpiring between Niccoli and Bracciolini, which greatly alarmed the former; but he was quieted by his bolder friend a.s.suring him that "when Tacitus came, he would keep it a secresy; that he knew all the t.i.ttle- tattle that was going on,--whence it came,--through whom, and how it was got up; but that he need have no fear, for that not a syllable should escape him."--"Cornelium Tacitum, c.u.m venerit, observabo penes me occulte. Scio enim omnem illam cantilenam, et unde exierit, et per quem, et quis eum vendicet. Sed nil dubites, non exibit a me ne verbo quidem."

These words occur in a letter that bears date Rome, the 25th of September, 1427; and whatever interpretation the reader may feel disposed to put upon them, he must admit, after considering all that has been said, that they seem to confirm wonderfully the truth of our theory, pointing, as they unquestionably do, to some mysterious and deep secret about Tacitus that existed only between Niccoli and Bracciolini; and what could that secret be? It could not be about the recovery of a rare and valuable copy of the works of Tacitus. There would be no necessity of keeping that by one secretly; on the contrary, the proper thing to do was to noise it abroad immediately, and as publicly as could be, so that it might be known to a wide circle of book-collectors, and as large a sum got for it as could be obtained; but if it were a Tacitus in the oldest characters that were to be found in order that it should be made use of as a copy for the letters in a figment, one can then easily understand the cause for all this secresy. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." In fact, forgery, and nothing else than forgery, seems to be the easiest as well as the most feasible explanation of these remarks, which, were it not for this theory, would, instead of being very clear, be quite nebulous.

IV. The Tacitus that was to have come from Germany did not, however, arrive. "I hear nothing of the Tacitus that is in Germany," he observes towards the close of the letter. "I am expecting an answer from the monk."--"De Cornelio Tacito qui est in Germania nil sentio; expecto responsum ab illo monacho."

(Ep. III. 14.)

Towards the close of September, then, 1427, what Bracciolini had written had not yet been given to the transcriber: time was pa.s.sing; and Niccoli sent him in the following month what must have been the oldest copy of Tacitus he had in his collection.