134 AMERICAN LITERARY FORGERIES. 



Veterana before it left Britain, and thus that the date of this slab must 

 be placed between 104 and 167. This first cavalry regiment of Thracia n 

 had also the title Augusta, which was probably given to it by Nerva. 

 See Henzen's n. 5439. There is no memorial of it, however, in Britain, 

 in which this title was used. At the time the Ala Petriana was called 

 Augusta (see 79, d), the Ala I Thracum, so far as is known, was not 

 in the island, nor is there any evidence that it was ever sent back there, 

 unless, indeed, we identify the Ala J Thracum with the Ala Thracum 

 Serculania, and that with the Ala 1 Herculia of the Notitia. 



AMEKICAN LITERARY FORGERIES. 



BY DANIEL WILSON, LL.D., 



PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, TORONTO. 



Amid the varied literature of England's eighteenth century, two 

 noticeable but very diverse features attract the attention of the curious 

 student. First in time, as in real worth, is the rise of a spirit of sound 

 literary criticism, beginning with Nicholas Rowe's "Shakespeare" in 

 1709, and expanding with ever increasing power and acuteness until 

 a juster estimate of the great Elizabethan poets was followed by the 

 revival of a taste for simple natural poetry. Pope's school ended with 

 the first generation of feeble imitators of that great master of poetic art ; 

 and a growing conviction developed itself that the so-called " Augustan 

 Age" of Queen Anne might be fitly matched with that which Virgil 

 and Horace adorned, and yet be inferior to more than one elder age of 

 English literature. It was while canons of taste and principles of literary 

 criticism were thus being reduced to form, that a series of literary 

 maskings, or forgeries, appeared, which could only have been per- 

 petrated in an age of recently revived taste for antique literature. 



Elizabeth, Lady Wardlaw, of Pitreavie, began the ingenious literary 

 masquerade by her " Hardyknute," a heroic ballad, professedly derived 

 from an ancient parchment found in a vault of Dunfermline Abbey. 

 By and bye Macpherson followed with his "Fingal," "Temora," and 

 other Graelic epics ; Percy, with his half spurious "Reliques of Ancient 



