Part 19

While the Council of Constance was being held for the purpose of electing one pope, and one only, to sit in the chair of St. Peter, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, second son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, happened to pass through the town, and took advantage of the opportunity thus offered him to attend the sittings, where he made the acquaintance of many, among whom was Boggio Bracciolini, one of the Papal Secretaries. A friendship soon sprang up between the two, which resulted in Bracciolini returning to England with Bishop—afterwards Cardinal—Beaufort, in the autumn of 1418. After a year or two spent with Beaufort, the late Secretary became dissatisfied with his lot, complaining bitterly in his letters to his friend, Niccolo Niccoli, of the many unfulfilled promises of the Cardinal. At last he was offered, and duly accepted, a small living of 120 florins a year, which he soon afterwards exchanged for one worth £40 a year, and having fewer duties attached to it, which gave him more leisure time for study, and, consequently, made him considerably happier, for his passion for studying ancient authors was as intense as his knowledge of the classic languages was profound.

In a very short time, however, he became again dissatisfied with his lot, and begged the Cardinal to supply him with an honorary canonry, so that he might visit Italy and prosecute his studies, at the same time that he drew a snug little salary from England. He was not successful, for the Cardinal probably had many such applications, and found more suitable objects upon which to bestow his favours.

Just at this time the rage for finding old MSS. increased enormously, owing to the large sums of money given by the Vatican to the lucky finders, who, as a rule, were simply villains of the monk type and the most impudent forgers. Bracciolini, whose passion for money was even greater than his passion for knowledge, bitterly bewailed his fate, and longed for an opportunity to turn his wits to account, and thus secure some of the fine prizes which were being so lavishly bestowed by his Holiness upon indigent Italian and Hungarian monks. While he was despairing of any such good fortune turning up he unexpectedly received from Piero Lamberteschi of Florence, agent to Cosmo de Medici, an offer which greatly gratified him, and which he could plainly see emanated in the first instance from his old friend Niccoli. The nature of this offer was, for obvious reasons, kept strictly secret; but, from a perusal of some of the letters which passed between Bracciolini and Niccoli, no doubt now exists that it was really a proposal that Bracciolini should enter into retirement and forge an introduction to the “History” of Tacitus, for which work he would be paid 500 gold sequins, equivalent to upwards of £10,000. Niccoli strongly urged his friend to accept the offer, and Bracciolini, in reply, “thinks he will follow his advice;” but the venture was such a daring one that 500 sequins appeared to him insufficient; so he wrote again to Niccoli about this “suggestion” and “offer” made by Lamberteschi, who, he states, “will endeavour to procure for me in three years 500 gold sequins. If he will make it 600, I will at once close with his proposal. He holds forth sanguine hopes about several future profitable contingencies, which, I am inclined to believe, may probably be realised; yet it is more prudent to covenant for something certain than to depend on hope alone.... I like the occupation to which he has invited me, and hope I shall be able to produce something _worth reading_; but for this purpose, as I tell him in my letters, I require the retirement and leisure that are necessary for literary work.” An arrangement was eventually arrived at, and it was definitely settled that Bracciolini should leave England and go to Hungary, in which country it was popularly believed were to be found lost literary treasures. Still, Bracciolini had his doubts about the due payment of the money, and, as he was about to give up a living in England, he was anxious to have some security for the money promised by Lamberteschi, for we find him writing to Niccoli as follows: “You know well how I prefer liberty and literary leisure to the other things which the vast majority hold in the highest estimation and make the objects of their ambition.... If I were to see that I should get that which our friend Piero expects, I would go not only to the end of Europe, but as far as the wilds of Tartary, especially as I should have the opportunity of paying attention to Greek literature, which it is my desire to devour with avidity, were it but to avoid those wretched translations, which so torment me that there is more pain in reading than pleasure in acquiring knowledge.” He then wrote: “If I undertake a journey to Hungary, it will be unknown to everybody but a few, and down the throats of these I shall cram all sorts of speeches, since I will pretend I have come from here [England].”

Apparently matters were soon satisfactorily arranged; for, from this time, Bracciolini commenced to prepare for his forgery. He made good use of the library of Cardinal Beaufort, and searched everywhere for old writers from whom he could gather information respecting the old Roman empire; and, finally, made arrangements for quitting England. In a letter to Niccoli, dated London, July 17th, 1420, he says that he has “skimmed over Aristotle during the spring of the year, not for the purpose of studying him then, but reading and seeing what there was in each of his works.” He had found that sort of “perusal not wholly unprofitable, as he had learnt something every day, superficially though it might be, from understanding Aristotle in his own language, where he found him in the words of translators either incomprehensible or nonsensical.” It was arranged between the three friends that Bracciolini should repair at once to Italy, where consultations could be held frequently, “to deliberate fully what was best to be done;” so, after vainly attempting to dispose of his living, Bracciolini finally departed for France, _en route_ for Italy. Before doing so, however, he wrote to Niccoli, expressing his fear that the forgery he had undertaken was too great a toil for him, but declaring his intention to proceed at all hazards. He says: “I want you to have no distrust; give me the leisure and the time for _writing that history_, and I will do something you will approve. My heart is in the work, though I question my powers ... I have not for four years devoted any attention to literature, nor read a single book that can be considered well written—as you may judge from these letters of mine, which are not what they used to be; but I shall soon get back into my old manner. When I reflect on the merits of the ancient writers of history, I recoil with fear from the undertaking, though, when I consider what are writers of the present day, I recover some confidence in the hope that, if I strive with all my might, I shall be inferior to few of them.” A few days afterwards he wrote his last letter from England to Niccoli on June 25th, 1422, still expressing fear about the ultimate result, and especially the payment: “If Lamberteschi would only place something certain before us, which we could adopt or approve,” he wrote; and “How heartily I hope that Lamberteschi will do what would be agreeable to us both.”

Arrived in Rome, Bracciolini was offered and accepted the post of Principal Secretary to the Pope, and, consequently, did not go, as previously arranged, to Hungary, but set himself to work instead, examining the old MSS. in the Vatican Library, for which he had ample time, as his new post was almost a sinecure. He also wrote to his friend Niccoli on May 15th, 1423, asking him to forward to him without the least delay all his notes and extracts from the various books which he had read; after receiving which he commenced in earnest his labour. He had not worked long, however, before he discovered what an arduous task he had undertaken, and again fear overcame him lest he should find himself unequal to the effort; but, pulling himself together again, he determined once more to keep up his courage and persevere to the end, the gold sequins probably acting as a stimulus to him.

Writing to his friend Niccoli on October 8th, 1423, he says that “ beginnings of any kind are arduous and difficult;” and continues: “What the ancients did pleasantly, quickly, and easily, is to me troublesome, tedious, and burdensome.” In another letter to Niccoli, dated Rome, November 6th, 1423, he begs his friend to make every effort to procure for him some map of Ptolemy’s “Geography,” and not to forget Suetonius and the other historians, above all Plutarch’s “Lives of Illustrious Men.”

For upwards of three years after this period Bracciolini shut himself up with his papers, extracts, maps, etc., and worked steadily and laboriously at his task, and, at the end of that time, had completed the first instalment of his forgery. The next part of the process was to find a suitable place in which the forged MS. could be _discovered_; consequently, Bracciolini and Niccoli put their heads together in consultation, finally settling upon Hirschfeldt, a small Saxon town on the borders of Bohemia, which was celebrated for an old abbey of the Benedictine monks. Bracciolini had accidentally met with one of the monks from this place in Rome, and had managed to place this man under an obligation to him; so, finding that he was needy, ignorant, and stupid, he determined to make use of him for producing his MS. to the public. Speaking of this monk in one of his letters to Niccoli, he says: “The good fellow, who has not our attainments, thought that we were equally ignorant of what he found he did not know himself.” To this ignorant fellow he gave a long list of books that he wished him to hunt up in the Abbey library, including a copy of Tacitus, telling him to send a full description of each as soon as found. The object of this was to find out whether the Abbey possessed a copy of Tacitus in the oldest writing possible, which could be used as a guide to the transcriber of the forgery; and the reason of giving such a long list was to throw the monk off the scent.

With all their precautions, however, their scheme was all but discovered in the summer of 1427, for we find Bracciolini, on September 25th of that year, writing to Niccoli that, “when Tacitus came, he would keep it a secret; that he knew all the tittle-tattle that was going on—whence it came, through whom, and how it was got up; but that he need have no fear, for that not a syllable should escape him.... I hear nothing of the Tacitus that is in Germany. I am expecting an answer from the monk.” From this it would appear that the monk had not yet supplied the information about the books; but, in the following October, Niccoli had forwarded to Bracciolini an old copy of Tacitus that he had become possessed of. Bracciolini, however, returned it at once, saying that it was so badly damaged as to be illegible to an ordinary transcriber, and continuing: “Take care, therefore, that I have another, if it can be done; but you can do it, if you will strive your utmost.... You have sent me the book without the parchment. I know not the state of mind you were in when you did this, except that you were as mad as a March hare. For what book can be transcribed if there be not the parchment? Have a care to it, then, and also to a second manuscript; but, above all, keep in mind the vellum.” After a while the parchment arrived, together with an old copy of Tacitus that could be easily read by a transcriber; and then all was silence again for about a year. During this period the old monk was busily engaged transcribing the forged writings into very ancient characters, using the old copy of Tacitus supplied by Niccoli as an example of style, the forgery being intended as an introduction to the “History.”

On September 11th, 1428, Bracciolini was evidently becoming impatient with the work, for he wrote to Niccoli as follows: “Not a word of Cornelius Tacitus from Germany; nor have I heard thence any further news of his work.” Then, again, he writes February 26th, 1429: “The Hirschfeldt monk has come without the book, and I gave him a sound rating for it. He has given me his assurance that he will be back again soon, for he is carrying on a suit about his abbey in the law courts, and will bring the book. He made heavy demands upon me; but I told him I would do nothing for him until I have the book; I am, therefore, in hopes that I shall have it, as he is in need of my good offices.” The book at length arrived, and Bracciolini wrote to Niccoli that, so far as he was himself concerned, everything was “now complete with respect to the _Little Work_, concerning which he would, on some future opportunity, write to him; and, at the same time, send it to him to read, in order to get his opinion of it.”

So the forgery was complete, and there can be no doubt that Bracciolini from this date was a rich man, living in his own villa at Valdarno in Tuscany. The forged writings were handed over to Cosmo de Medici in return for 500 gold sequins, according to arrangement, and remained in the Library at Florence ever after. It was not, however, published before 1468, when Johannes de Spire produced what are now known as the last six books of the “Annals” of Tacitus, which he declared had been copied from an (imaginary) original in St. Mark’s, Venice, but which we now know were really copied from the forgery of Bracciolini, in possession of the Medicis at Florence.

What are now known as the first six books of the “Annals” did not make their appearance until 1514, and most probably had also been forged by Bracciolini immediately after he had finished the last six books. The delight of the clergy at the sudden and unexpected discovery of these hitherto altogether unknown writings knew no bounds; for they now possessed the most precious heathen testimony to the sufferings of the early Christians on account of their religion, which would form a valuable addition to the evidence in course of collection by pious monks intended to show forth clearly and indisputably the divine origin of Christianity. The wily Pope knew well enough the enormous value of such a record as this; for it was quite evident that a vein of scepticism was permeating every class of society, in spite of the vigilance of the Inquisitioners.

The reformers who succeeded Wicliffe, Jerome, and Huss had been waxing bolder day by day, and had even repulsed a large army sent against them by his Holiness and led by Cardinal Cesarini and a host of German princes, since which they had boldly and openly preached against the papal supremacy, and were in many districts publicly distributing copies of the writings of Aristotle and Averroes. The Church and the Papacy were thus in real and imminent danger, for hitherto the people had believed whatever the priests had told them, whereas now they appeared determined to investigate the whole matter themselves and to dispense with the services of the priestly mediator. At such a time the discovery of the “Annals” came as a windfall to the Church; every one apparently accepting them as having been originally written by Tacitus; and every author, from this time forward, quoted them repeatedly. The strangest thing about the affair is that no one even thought of questioning the genuineness of the writings, especially when it must have been well known that not one historian or writer, from the time of Tacitus, who lived in the first century, down to the end of the fifteenth century, when the “Annals” (so-called for the first time by Beatus Rhenanus in 1533) were discovered, had ever once quoted or even referred to them; not even Christian writers had as much as once noticed them, which they could not have failed to do had such valuable evidence of the sufferings of their brethren really existed. Besides the “Annals” other MSS. were produced by pious monks and passed off as ancient writings, until at length the Vatican and other papal libraries were literally swarming with them; but all these writings paled into insignificance 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 Cæsarea, 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 the 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 centuries 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 perpetrator 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 Bracciolini 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 (1) that, owing to the teachings of Abelard, Arnold, Wicliffe, Jerome, Huss, and other fifteenth-century reformers, the authority of the Church and the very existence of Christianity were seriously menaced; (2) that, on account of the failure of the Inquisition to stem the current of scepticism, large sums of money were offered for the discovery of ancient writings which would bear testimony to the divine authority of the Church and the divine establishment of Christianity; (3) that, in consequence of this bribe, shoals of writings were forged by needy monks and scholars, and attributed to ancient authors; and (4) that among these forgeries were the “Annals” of Tacitus, which were composed by Bracciolini and re-written by the Hirschfeldt monk in a style as nearly as possible like a very old copy of the “History” of Tacitus, which was supplied to him as a guide.

CREATION AND FALL.

The one great differential mark between man and the brutes is his higher development of brain power, by which he is enabled to discriminate between right and wrong, or good and evil, and thus to improve his bodily and social condition. The individual who obstinately refuses to avail himself of the great mental power within him not only deprives himself of the greatest pleasure in life, but also allows himself to sink to the level of the brutes from which he evolved, exhibiting at the same time a gross want of gratitude to the being who endowed him with so lofty an attribute. On the other hand, he who cultivates his mental faculties, and uses them for his own improvement and advancement, and also that of his fellows, fulfils the highest mission of man, and continually shows his deep gratitude to his mysterious benefactor.

To think is the grandest faculty of man. To think logically and well ought to be his noblest aspiration. To prevent, by any means whatever, the individual from exercising his right to think, and from giving expression to his thoughts, is a direct outrage upon the great author of us all, upon the individual himself, and also upon the whole human race. The greatest thinker of modern times, John Stuart Mill, says, “The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race, posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise that, as a thinker, it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who with due study and preparation thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think ... complete liberty of contradicting and disproving our opinion is the very condition which justifies us in assuming its truth for purposes of action; and on no other terms can a being with human faculties have any rational assurance of being right.”

We claim the right to think upon any and every subject, and also to express our thoughts before the world, in spite of the menace held out to us by those whose interests conflict with any honest expression of opinion. There is no tribunal but that of reason to which we possibly can submit any theory or proposition. To talk of faith as opposed to reason is to speak without seriously thinking. Such faith is but a weird phantom that haunts the irresolute and credulous unthinker, but which really has no existence at all. A man may say that he believes something entirely opposed to reason, but he deceives himself, for it is quite impossible to believe what does not appear to the mind to be in accordance with reason. Such a man accepts, but does not believe. We have faith in the existence of the island of Otaheite, although we have never been there ourselves. Geographers tell us that such an island exists on the other side of the world; and we have full faith in such an existence, because it is in accordance with reason. But if we were told that the king of Otaheite had never been born, but had, like Topsy, ‘grow’d,’ or that he and his subjects, instead of talking, crowed like cocks, or brayed like donkeys, we should not believe it, because it would be contrary to reason. Sensible and thoughtful people will, therefore, not accept anything as truth that does not accord with reason and I ask you tonight to follow me in my endeavour to submit the two important dogmas of my lecture to the test of reason, in the full belief that you are as anxious as myself to arrive at a reasonable and true conclusion regarding them.

The doctrines of the creation and fall are, as it were, the foundations upon which the huge superstructure of Christianity has been founded. Take away these fundamental doctrines, and the whole fabric totters to the ground; for without a fall there can be no possible need for a redemption, and the etceteras of the religion, such as the miraculous conception and ascension, baptism, and the eucharistic feast, vanish into thin air as vain imaginations and things of naught.