the "Annals" other MSS. were produced by pioiis 

 monks and passed off as ancient writings, until at length 

 the Vatican and other papal libraries were literally swarm- 

 ing with them ; but all these writings paled into insignifi- 

 cance before such a record as the " Annals," which was 

 destined henceforth to be the chief evidence in support 

 of Christianity. Together with the passages in the 

 writings of Josephus, which were forged beyond doubt 

 by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, and the doubtful letter 

 of the younger Pliny to the Emperor Trajan, which 

 time most assuredly will prove to be as great a forgery as 

 the other two, the Church had now heathen testimony 

 in abundance to prove that religion was divinely instituted 

 and that many suffered death in defence of it. Neither 

 Averroism nor Arianism could shake this testimony, 

 which would be a powerful prop to the religion for cen- 

 turies to come. It remained for Dr. Lardner and others, 

 in the commencement of last century, to expose the 

 forgery in Josephus ; to the present century has been 

 reserved the honour of unveiling the real authorship of 

 the forged "Annals " of Tacitus; and to future searchers 

 after truth is left the duty of discovering the real perpe- 

 trator of the forged letter which has hitherto been known 

 as from Pliny to Trajan. 



If any one should still doubt that Bracciolini forged 

 the "Annals," let me recommend him to carefully read 

 a work entitled " Tacitus and Bracciolini," and published 

 by Messrs. Diprose & Bateman, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, 

 London, in which will be found the most convincing 

 proofs that Bracciolini, and no other than he, was the 

 real author of the work. In that able indictment, from 

 which I have drawn extensively for this essay, the 

 writings and peculiarities of both Tacitus and Braccio- 

 lini have been most carefully detailed, with the result 

 that no one can help arriving at the conclusion that one 

 person could not have written both the "History" and 

 the "Annals;" that Tacitus could not possibly have written 

 the "Annals," owing to chronological difficulties ; and 

 that suspicion points so forcibly to Bracciolini as the 

 author that it almost amounts to positive proof. 



What I have endeavoured to show is (i) that, owing 

 to the teachings of Abelard, Arnold, Wicliffe, Jerome } 



