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to certain persons, the charge of forgery has been insinuated 

 against the letter of Pliny, and Tacitus has been charged with 

 having ignorantly applied to the Christians what was true only 

 of the Jews. A similar process has been applied to several other 

 important documents connected with early Christian history. 



It is unquestionable that the practice of forging writings in 

 the names of men of high reputation was very common in an- 

 cient times, and opinion seems to have attached but little crimi- 

 nality to the act. Of this the vast number of forged works 

 known to have been once in existence is sufficient evidence. 

 Whether our morality in connection with this subject be im- 

 proved in modern times may be difficult to determine, because 

 the probability of detection, which in the ancient world was 

 small, in the modern world is great. I have often been disposed 

 to question whether all these forgeries were put forth with the 

 express purposes of deception. Perhaps some of them might 

 have resembled many classes of modern fictitious writings, and 

 the knowledge that the writer composed it as a fiction has 

 perished. Still, however, many of these writings must have 

 been composed with th^ direct purpose of deception. We may 

 judge of the hardihood with which it was practised from the 

 fact that St. Paul thought it necessary to take precautions 

 against letters being forged in his name in his lifetime. Let it 

 be observed that this habit was far from being confined to 

 matters connected with religion. 



Happily, however, the forgers of the ancient world were great 

 bunglers in their art. They set all matters of history and pro- 

 bability at defiance. They freely put opinions into the mouths 

 of authors which were only broached long after they were dead. 

 Their powers of throwing themselves into the feelings and ideas 

 of past times were of the meanest possible kind. They had not 

 among them a single Daniel Defoe. Not one of them has suc- 

 ceeded in efi'ectually personating a character. To speak gene- 

 rally, a small amount of critical acnmen is all that is necessary 

 to detect a large number of the forgeries of the ancient world. 

 This consideration is sufficient to prove that the ofi'-hand 

 manner of pronouncing this or that work spurious because 

 forgeries were common, is one which is entirely unwarrant- 

 able. It is hardly possible to find a forged work attributed 

 to a known author which contains a successful imitation of his 

 style. I need hardly say that there are certain indications of 

 truthfulness derived from minute acquaintance with facts, cus- 

 toms, localities, and opinions which the most successful writer 

 of modern fiction would be unable successfully to imitate. 



It is an important question how far from difi'erences of style 

 we are entitled to infer difi'erences of authorship. The style of 



