A FEW REASONS FOR BELIEVING THE ANNALS TO BE A FORGERY.
I. The fifteenth century an age of imposture, shown
in the invention of printing.—II.
The curious discovery of the first six books of the
Annals.—III. The blunders it has in
common with all forged documents.—IV.
The Twelve Tables.—V. The Speech of
Claudius in the Eleventh Book of the Annals.—VI.
Brutus creating the second class of nobility.—VII.
Camillus and his grandson.— VIII.
The Marching of Germanicus.—IX. Description
of London in the time of Nero.—X.
Labeo Antistius and Capito Ateius; the number of people
executed for their attachment to Sejanus; and the
marriage of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, to the
Elder Antonia.
I. I have now so far cleared the way as to be in a
fair position to enter with feasibleness into an investigation
of the Annals, with the view of proving that it was
not written by Tacitus.
In beginning the investigation, I shall proceed on
the assumption that it is a modern forgery of the
fifteenth century, having as grounds for this assumption
that it was the age when the original MSS. containing
the work were discovered; that the existence of those
MSS. cannot be traced farther than that century; that
(which is of vast consequence in an inquiry of this
description) it was an age of imposture; of credulity
so immoderate that people were easily imposed upon,
believing, as they did, without sufficient evidence,
or on slight evidence, or no evidence at all, whatever
was foisted upon them; when, too, the love of lucre
was such that for money men willingly forewent the
reputation that is the accompaniment of the grandest
achievements of the intellect. Take, for example,
the noble art of printing; for inventing it any man
of genius might reasonably be proud. His name,
if known, would be emblazoned on the scroll of imperishable
fame; be displayed for ever on the highest pyramid
of mind; and his country would receive an additional
beam of splendor to its previous blaze of renown.
But who, for a certainty, knows the inventor of printing?
or the country of its origin? Was it Holland
in the person of Coster of Haarlem? Or Germany
in the person of Mentel, the nobleman, of Strasburg?
Or Guttenberg, the goldsmith, of Mayence? Was
it neither of these countries? or none of these men?
And why this uncertainty? Because a few men possessing
the secret, which they kept cautiously to themselves,
of printing by means of movable blocks of wood, preferred
accumulating enormous sums, equivalent to fair fortunes,
by receiving five, six and even between seven and
eight hundred gold sequins from a King of France or
a Pope of Rome, a Cardinal or an Archbishop, for a
bible, which, printed, was passed off as written.
We all know how the whole imposture exploded, by the
King of France and the Archbishop of Paris comparing
the bibles which they had bought of Faust during his
