355 



connected with them, have been adopted from the pages of the author 

 of the spurious Eerosus ; so that the ascertainment of the data of any 

 important event, such as the great drought and dearth in Spain, and 

 subsequent migrations into Ireland, has been rendered extremely diffi- 

 cult. 



This difficulty, in reference to affairs connected with Ireland, has 

 induced me to devote some attention to the subject of the fabrications of 

 fabulous history of Annius de Yiterbo, and some other writers of a later 

 period. 



Annius must have spent a large portion of his life in the con- 

 coction of his gigantic literary forgeries. He was not impelled by 

 poverty to perpetrate them ; nor was he induced by the obscurity of a 

 low condition to seek literary notoriety by means that were unworthy 

 of a man of letters. The perversion of mind which leads to a total ob- 

 livion or unconsciousness of the difference between truth and falsehood 

 is a form of monomania, with which persons who have to do with the 

 care and supervision of lunatics are conversant. 



It is true, we do not find the ruling passion of a perverted mind en- 

 tirely devoted to one exclusive object, — the delight and labour, perhaps, 

 of a whole lifetime,— the concoction of forged documents, and the reduc- 

 tion of the fabulous materials into the order, method, form, and appear- 

 ance of genuine history, described in medical books as one of the many 

 existing kinds of partial insanity that physicians have to deal with. 



Eut this form of monomania, nevertheless, does exist. On what other 

 grounds but those which partial insanity furnish, would it be possible 

 to account for men of great erudition, — ecclesiastics of a high position, 

 and of good repute ; persons well considered in society, in easy circum- 

 stances; men like the author of the fabulous historical fragments of 

 Eerosus, and of the equally fabulous Annals of Flavins Lucias Dexter, 

 devoting a large portion of their lives to the perpetration of great lite- 

 rary frauds, requiring long- continued intellectual labours, by means of 

 which no pecuniary advantage was to be gained, nor personal interest to 

 be promoted. 



There is one thing very evident in the insanity of literary forgers 

 and fabricators of '^fabulous histories:" that the predominant idea in 

 the minds of all these impostors is the assertion of the antiquity of the 

 origin of their nation, or the glorification of the character and achieve- 

 ments of the inhabitants of the city or town to which they belonged, or 

 of the Church most immediately connected with it. 



LITEEAEY FEAUDS OF JOAirNES ANNIUS DE VITEEBO. 



'No fabricator of documents purporting to be ancient historical re- 

 cords ever attained the same unenviable notoriety as this member of the 

 Dominican order. He was born, some say, in 1432, others, in 1437, in 

 Yiterbo — became a person of considerable eminence and erudition — was 

 held in high estimation in his order — was made a doctor of theology — ob- 

 tained a high official position in the court of Pope Alexander YI. He 



