genius of the man, who being educated amidst naval and Without the aid of a friendly hand, we should probably military enterprises, had surpassed in the pursuits of litera- have been deprived of the delightful history of Artists by ture, even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives; and Vasari: although a mere painter and goldsmith, and not they admired his unbroken magnanimity, which at his age, a literary man, Vasari was blessed with the nice discernand under his circumstances, could engage him to under- ment of one deeply conversant with art, and saw rightly take and execute so great a work, as his History of the what was to be done, when the idea of the work was sugWorld. Now when the truth is known, the wonderful in gested by the celebrated Paulus Jovius as a suppliment to this literary mystery will disappear, except in the eloquent, his own work of the Eulogiums, of illustrious men.' Vathe grand, and the pathetic passages interspersed in that sari approved of the project; but on that occasion judi= venerable volume. We may, indeed, pardon the astonish- ciously observed, not blinded by the celebrity of the literament of our calm philosopher, when we consider the recon- ry man who projected it, that it would requre the assis=dite matter contained in this work, and recollect the little tance of an artist to collect the materals, and arrange them time which this adventurous spirit, whose life was passed in their proper order; for although Jovius displayed great =in fabricating his own fortune, and in perpetual enterprise, knowledge in his observations, yet he had not been equalcould allow to such erudite pursuits. Where could Raw-ly accurate in the arrangement of his facts in his book of leigh obtain that familiar acquaintance with the rabbins, of Eulogiums.' Afterwards, when Vasari began to collect whose language he was probably entirely ignorant? His his information, and consulted Palus Jovius on the plan, numerous publications, the effusions of the most active although that author highly approved of what he saw, he mind, though excellent in their kind, were evidently comalleged his own want of leisure and ability to complete such posed by one who was not abstracted in curious and re- an enterprise; and this was fortunate: we should othermote inquiries, but full of the daily business and the wis- wise have had, instead of the rambling spirit which charms dom of human life, His confinement in the tower, which us in the volumes of Vasari, the verbose babble of a delasted several years, was indeed sufficient for the compoclaimer. Vasari, however, looked round for the assistance sition of this folio volume, and of a second which appears he wanted; a circumstance which Tiraboschi has not noto have occupied him. But in that imprisonment it singuticed; like Hogarth, he required a literary man for his larly happened that he lived among literary characters, scribe. I have discovered the name of the chief writer of with the most intimate friendship. There he joined the the Lives of the Painters, who wrote under the direction of Earl of Northumberland, the patron of the philosophers Vasari, and probably often used his own natural style, and of his age, and with whom Rawleigh pursued his chemiconveyed to us those reflections which surely come from their source. cal studies; and Serjeant Hoskins, a poet and a wit, and I shall give the passage, as a curious inthe poetical father' of Ben Johnson, who acknowledged stance where the secret history of books is often detected in the most obscure corners of research. Who could that it was Hoskins who had polished him;' and that have imagined that in a collection of the lives de' Santi e Rawleigh often consulted Hoskins on his literary works, I learn from a manuscript. But however literary the atBeati dell' ordine de' Predicatori, we are to look for the mosphere of the Tower proved to Rawleigh, no particle writer of Vasari's lives? Don Serafini Razzi, the author of Hebrew, and perhaps little of Grecian lore, floated of this ecclesiastical biography, has this reference: Who from a chemist and a poet. The truth is, that the collec- would see more of this may turn to the lives of the paintion of the materials of this history was the labour of seveters, sculptors and architects, written for the greater part by Don Silvano Razzi, my brother, for the Signor Cavaral persons, who have not all been discovered. It has liere M. Giorgio Vasari, his great friend.'* been ascertained, that Ben Jonson was a considerable contributor; and there was an English philosopher from whom Descartes, it is said, even by his own countrymen, borrowed largelv-Thomas Hariot, whom Anthony Wood

charges with infusing into Rawleigh's volume philosophi cal notions, while Rawleigh was composing his History of the World. But if Rawleigh's pursuits surpassed even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives, as Hume observed, we must attribute this to a Dr Robert Burrel, Rector of Northwald, in the county of Norfolk, who was a great favourite of Sir Walter Rawleigh, and had been his chaplain. All, or the greatest part of the drudgery of Sir Walter's history for Criticisms, Chronology, and reading Greek and Hebrew authors were performed by him, for Sir Walter.'* Thus a simple fact, when discovered, clears up the whole mystery; and we learn how that knowledge was acquired, which as Hume sagaciously detected, required a recluse and sedentary life,' such as the studies and the habits would be of a country clergyman in a learned age.

The secret history of another work, still more celebrated than the History of the World, by Sir Walter Rawleigh, will doubtless surprise its numerous admirers.

*I draw my information from a very singular manuscript in the Lansdowne collection, which I think has been mistaken for a boy's ciphering book, of which it has much the appearance, No. 741. fo. 57, as it stands in the auctioneer's catalogue. It appears to be a collection closely written, extracted out of Anthony Wood's papers; and as I have discovered in the manuscript, numerous notices not elsewhere preserved, I am in. clined to think, that the transcriber copied them from that mass of Anthony Wood's papers, of which more than one sack full was burnt at his desire before him, when dying. If it be so, this MS. is the only register of many curious facts.

Ben Jonson has been too freely censured for his own free censures, and particularly for one he made on Sir Walter Rawleigh, who, he told Drummond, esteemed more fame than conscience. The best wits in England were employed in making his history: Ben himself had written a piece to him of the Punic war, which he altered and set in his book.' Jonson's powerful advocate Mr Gifford has not alleged a word in the defence of our great Bard's free conversational strictures; the secret history of Rawleigh's great work had never been discovered; on this occasion, however, Jonson only spoke what he knew to be true-and there may have been other truths, in those conversations which were set down at random by Drummond, who may have chiefly recollected the satirical Louches.

The discovery that Vasari's volumes were not entirely written by himself, though probably under his dictation, and, unquestionably, with his communications; as we Hogarth, will perhaps serve to clear up some unaccounta know that Dr Morrell wrote the Analysis of Beauty' for ble mistakes or omissions which appear in that series of volumes, written at long intervals, and by different hands. Mr Fuseli has alluded to them in utter astonishment; and cannot account for Vasari's incredible dereliction of reminiscence, which prompted him to transfer what he had rightly ascribed to Giorgione in one edition to the elder Parma in the subsequent ones.' Again: Vasari's memory was either so treacherous, or his rapidity in writing so inconsiderate, that his account of the Capella Sistina, and the stanze of Raffaello, is a mere heap of errors and unpardonable confusion.' Even Bottari, his learned editor, is at a loss to account for his mistakes. Mr Fuseli

finely observes, He has been called the Herodotus of our art; and if the main simplicity of his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle him in that the information of every day adds something to the some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget authenticity of the Greek historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to question the credibility of the Tuscan.' All this strongly confirms the suspicion that Vasari employed different hands at different times to write out his work. Such mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always conversant with the subject he was composing on, and the disjointed materials of which were often found in a disordered state. It is, however, strange that neither Bottari nor Tiraboschi appear to have been aware that Vasari employed others to write for him; we see that from the first suggestion of the work he had originally proposed that Paulus Jovius should hold the pen for him.

The principle illustrated in this article might be pursued; but the secret history of two great works so well known are as sufficient as twenty others of writings less celebrated. The literary phenomenon which had puzzled the calm inquiring Hume to cry out 'a miracle!' has been

I find this quotation in a sort of polemical work of natural philosophy, entitled Saggio di Storia Litteraria Fiorentina del Secolo XVII, da Giovanne Clemente Nelli, Lucca, 1759,' 58. Nelli also refers to what he had said on this subject in his Piante ad alzati di S. M. del Fiore, p. vi. vii;' a work on architecture. See Brunet; and Haym, Bib. Ital. de libri rari.

P

solved by the discovery of a little fact on literary unions, which derives importance from this circumstance.

OP A BIOGRAPHY PAINTED.

There are objects connected with literary curiosity, which, though they may never gratify our sight, yet whose very history is literary; and the originality of their invention, should they excite imitation, may serve to constitute a class. I notice a book-curiosity of this nature.

This extraordinary volume may be said to have contained the travels and adventures of Charles Magius, a noble Venetian; and this volume, so precious, consisted only of eighteen pages, composed of a series of highlyfinished miniature paintings on vellum, some executed by the hand of Paul Veronese. Each page, however, may be said to contain many chapters; for, generally, it is composed of a large centre-piece, surrounded by ten small ones, with many apt inscriptions, allegories, and allusions; the whole exhibiting romantic incidents in the life of this Venetian nobleman. But it is not merely as a beautiful production of art that we are to consider it; it becomes associated with a more elevated feeling in the occasion which produced it. The author, who is himself the hero, after having been long calumniated, resolved to set before the eyes of his accusers the sufferings and adventures he could perhaps have but indifferently described: and instead of composing a tedious volume for his justification, invented this new species of pictorial biography. The author minutely described the remarkable situations in which fortune had placed him; and the artists, in eunbellishing the facts he furnished them with to record, emulated each other in giving life to their truth, and putting into action, before the spectator, incidents which the pen had less impressively exhibited. This unique production may be considered as a model, to represent the actions of those who may succeed more fortunately by this new mode of perpetuating their history; discovering, by the aid of the pencil, rather than by their pen, the forms and colours of an extraordinary life.

It was when the Ottomans (about 1571) attacked the Isle of Cyprus, that this Venetian nobleman was charged by his republic to review and repair the fortifications. He was afterwards sent to the Pope to negotiate an alliance: he returned to the senate, to give an account of his commission. Invested with the chief command, at the head of his troops, Magius threw himself into the island of Cyprus, and after a skilful defence, which could not prevent its fall, at Famagusta, he was taken prisoner by the Turks, and made a slave. His age and infirmities induced his master, at length, to sell him to some Christian merchants; and after an absence of several years from his beloved Venice, he suddenly appeared, to the astonishment and mortification of a party who had never ceased to calummate him; whilst his own noble family were compelled to preserve an indignant siience, having had no communications with their lost and enslaved relative. Magius now returned to vindicate his honour, to reinstate himself in the favour of the senate, and to be restored to a venerable parent amidst his family: to whom he introduced a fresh branch, in a youth of seven years old, the child of his misfortunes, who, born in trouble, and a stranger to domestic endearments, was at one moment united to a beloved circle of relations.

I shall give a rapid view of some of the pictures of this Venetian nobleman's life. The whole series has been elaborately drawn up by the Duke de la Valliere, the celehrated book-collector, who dwells on the detail with the curiosity of an amateur.*

In a rich frontispiece, a Christ is expiring on the cross Religion, leaning on a column, contemplates the Divinity, and Hope is not distant from her. The genealogical tree of the house of Magius, with an allegorical representation of Venice, its nobility, power, and riches: the arms of Magius, in which is inserted a view of the holy sepulchre of Jerusalem, of which he was rade a knight; his por trait, with a Latin inscription; 'I have passed through arms and the enemy, amidst fire and water, and the Lord

The duke's description is not to be found, as might be expected, in his own valued catalogue, but was a contribution to Gaignat's II, 16, where it occupies fourteen pages. This sin. cular work sold at Gaignat's sale for 902 livres. It was then the golden age of literary curiosity, when the rarest things were not ruinous; and that price was even then considered extraordinary though the work was an unique. It must consist of about 180 subjects, by Italian artists.

conducted me to a safe asylum, in the year of grace 1571.* The portrait of his son, aged seven years, finished with the greatest beauty, and supposed to have come from the hand of Paul Veronese; it bears this inscription: ' Overcome by violence and artifice, almost dead before his birth, his mother was at length delivered of him, full of life, with all the loveliness of infancy; under the divine protection, his birth was happy, and his life with greater happiness shall be closed with good fortune.'

A plan of the isle of Cyprus, where Magius commanded, and his first misfortune happened, his slavery by the Turks-The painter has expressed this by an emblem of a tree shaken by the winds and scathed by the lightning; but from the trunk issues a beautiful green branch shining in a brilliant sun, with this device- From this fallen trunk springs a branch full of vigour.'

The missions of Magius to raise troops in the province of la Puglia-In one of these Magius is seen returning to Venice; his final departure,-a thunderbolt is viewed falling on his vessel-his passage by Corfu and Zante, and his arrival at Candia.

His travels to Egypt-The centre figure represents this province raising its right hand extended towards a palmtree, and the left leaning on a pyramid, inscribed 'Celebrated throughout the world for her wonders.' The smaller pictures are the entrance of Magius into the port of Alexandria; Rosetta, with a caravan of Turks and different nations; the city of Grand Cairo, exterior and interior, with views of other places; and finally, his return to Ve

nice.

His journey to Rome-the centre figure an armed Pallas seated on trophies, the Tyber beneath her feet, globe in her hands, inscribed Quod rerum victrix ac domina 'Because she is the Conqueress and Mistress of tho World.' The ten small pictures are views of the cities in the Pope's dominion. His first audience at the conclave, forms a pleasing and fine composition.

His travels into Syria-the principal figure is a female emblematical of that fine country; she is seated in the midst of a gay orchard, and embraces a bundle of roses, inscribed Mundi delicia-' The delight of the universe.' The small compartments are views of towns and ports, and the spot where Magius collected his fleet.

His pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where he was made a knight of the holy sepulchre-the principal figure repre sen's Devotion, inscribed Ducit. It is she who conducts me.' The compartments exhibit a variety of objects, with a correctness of drawing, which are described as belonging to the class and partaking of the charms, of the pencil of Claude Lorraine. His vessel is first viewed in the roadstead at Venice beat by a storm; arrives at Zante to refresh; enters the port of Simiso; there having landed, he and his companions are proceeding to the town on asses, for Christians were not permitted to travel in Turkey on horses In the church at Jerusalem the bishop, in his pontifical habit, receives him as a knight of the holy sepul chre, arraying him in the armour of Godfrey of Bouillon, and placing his sword in the hands of Magius. His arrival at Bethlem, to see the cradle of the Lord-and his return by Jaffa with his companions, in the dress of pilgrims; the groups are finely contrasted with the Turks mingling amongst them.

The taking of the city of Famagusta, and his slaveryThe middle figure, with a dog at its feet, represents Fidelity, the character of Magius who ever preferred it to his life or his freedom, inscribed Captivat-She has reduced me to slavery.' Six smaller pictures exhibit the different points of the island of Cyprus, where the Turks effected their descents. Magius retreating to Famagusta, which he long defended, and where his cousin, a skilful engineer, was killed. The Turks compelled to raise the siege, but return with greater forces-the sacking of the town and the palace, where Magius was taken -One picture exhibits him brought before a bashaw, who has him stripped, to judge of his strength and fix his price, when after examination he is sent among other slaves.He is seen bound and tied up among his companions in misfortune-again he is forced to labour, and carries a cask of water on his shoulders-In another picture, his master, finding him weak of body, conducts him to a slave merchant to sell him. In another we see him leading an ass loaded with packages; his new master, finding him loitering on his way, showers his blows on him, while a soldier is seen purloining one of the packages from the

The famous league in France was raised for 'religion and the relief of public grievances; such was the pretext! After the princes and the people had alike become its victims, this 'league' was discovered to have been formed by the pride and the ambition of the Guises, aided by the machinations of the Jesuits against the attempts of the Prince of Condé to dislodge them from their seat of power.' While the Huguenots pillaged, burnt, and massacred, declaring in their manifestoes, that they were only fighting to release the king, whom they asserted was a príSuch are the most interesting incidents which I have soner of the Guises; the catholics repaid them with the selected from the copious description of the Duke de la same persecution and the same manifestoes, declaring that Valliere. The idea is new of this production, an auto- they only wished to liberate the Prince of Condé, who was biography in a series of remarkable scenes, painted under the prisoner of the Huguenots. The people were led on the eye of the describer of them, in which too he has pre- by the cry of religion but this civil war was not in reserved all the fulness of his feelings and his minutest re-ality so much Catholic against Huguenot, as Guise against collections; but the novelty becomes interesting from the character of the noble Magius, and the romantic fancy which inspired this elaborate and costly curiosity. It was not indeed without some trouble that I have drawn up this little account; but while thus employed, I seemed to be composing a very uncommon romance.

struggle for predominance between the Pensionary Barnevelt, assisted by the French interest, and the Prince of Orange, supported by the English. These were the real sources,' says Lord Hardwicke, a statesman and a man of letters, deeply conversant with secret and public history, and a far more able judge than Diodati the Swiss Divine, and Brandt the ecclesiastical historian, who in the synod of Dort could see nothing but what appeared in it; and gravely narrate the ille squabbles on phrases concerning predestination or grace. Hales, of Eaton, who was secretary to the English ambassador at this synod, perfectly accords with the account of Lord Hardwicke. Our synod,' writes that judicious observer,' goes on like a watch; the main wheels upon which the whole business turns are least in sight; for all things of moment are acted in private sessions; what is done in public is only for show and entertainment.'

The cause of the persecution of the Jansenists was the jealousy of the Jesuits; the pretext was la grace suffisante. The learned La Croze observes, that the same circumstance occurred in the affair of Nestorius and the church of Alexandria; the pretext was orthodoxy, the cause was the jealousy of the church of Alexandria; or rather the fiery and turbulent Cyril, who personally hated Nestorius. The opinions of Nestorius, and the council which condemned them, were the same in effect. I only produce this remote fact to prove that ancient times do not alter the the truth of our principle.

When James II was so strenuous an advocate for toleration and liberty of conscience in removing the test act, this enlightened principle of government was only a pretext with that monk-ridden monarch; it is well known that the cause was to introduce and make the catholics predominant in his councils and government. The result, which that enger and blind politician hurried on too fast, and which therefore did not take place, would have been, that liberty of conscience' would soon have become an overt act of treason,' before an inquisition of his Jesuits!

In all political affairs drop the pretexts and strike at the causes; we may thus understand what the heads of parties may choose to conceal.

POLITICAL FORGERIES AND FICTIONS,

A writer whose learning gives value to his eloquence, in his Bampton Lectures has censured, with that liberal spirit so friendly to the cause of truth, the calumnies and rumours of parties, which are still industriously retailed, though they have been often confuted. Forged documents are still referred to, or tales unsupported by evidence are confidently quoted. Mr Heber's subject confined his inquiries to theological history; he has told us that Augustine is not ashamed, in his dispute with Faustus, to take advantage of the popular slanders against the followers of Manes, though his own experience, for he had himself been of that sect, was sufficient to detect this falsehood.' The Romanists, in spite of satisfactory answers, have continued to urge against the English protestant the romance of Parker's consecration; while the protestant persists in falsely imputing to the cathole public formularies, the systematic omission of the second commandment. The calumnies of Rimius and Sunstra against the Moravian brethren are cases in point,' continues Mr Heber. 'No one now believes them, yet they once could deceive even Warburton!!

We may

also add the obsolete calumny of Jews crucifying boys-of which a monument raised to Hugh of Lincoln perpetuates the memory, and which a modern historian records without any scruple of doubt; several authorities, which are cited on this occasion, amount only to the single one of Matthew Paris, who gives it as a popular rumour. Such accusations usually happened when the Jews were too rich and the king was too poor!

The falsehoods and forgeries raised by parties are overwhelming! It startles a philosopher, in the calm of his study, when he discovers how writers, who, we may presume, are searchers after truth, should, in fact, turn out to be searchers after the grossest fictions. This alters the habits of the literary man: it is an unnatural depravity of pursuits-and it proves that the personal is too apt to predominate over the literary character.

his

I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the one on Political Nick-names.' I have there shown how political calumny appears to have been reduced into an art; one of its branches would e

When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two governments connive al, and often encourage the most atrocious abeis on each other, to madden the people to preserve their independence, and contribute cheerfully to the expenses of the war. France and England formerly complained of Holland-the Athe nians employed the same policy against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast number of sup posititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a re mote date, confound the labours of the honest historian, and too often serve the purposes of the dishonest, with whom they become authorities. The crude and suspi

cious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity in
Cromwell's time against James the First nave over-loaded
the character of that monarch, yet are now eagerly referred
to by party writers, though in their own days they were
obsolete and doubtful. During the civil wars of Charles
the First, such spurious documents exist in the forms of
speeches which were never spoken; of letters never wr
ten by the names subscribed; printed declarations never
declared; battles never fought, and victories never obtain-
ed! Such is the language of Rushworth, who complams
of this evil spirit of party-forgeries, while he is himself sus-
pected of having rescinded or suppressed whatever was
not agreeable to his patron Cromwell. A curious, and,
perhaps, a necessary list might be drawn up of poinical
forgeries of our own, which have been sometimes referred
to as genuine, but which are the inventions of wits and sa-
tirists!
Bayle ingeniously observes, that at the close of
every century such productions should be branded by a
skilful discriminator, to save the future inquirer from er
rors he can hardly avoid. 'How many are still kept in
error by the satires of the sixteenth century! Those
of the present age will be no less active in future. ages, for
they will still be preserved in public libraries.'

The art and skill with which some have fabricated a forged narrative, render its detection almost hopeless. When young Maitland, the brother to the secretary, in or der to palliate the crime of the assassination of the Regent Murray, was employed to draw up a pretended conference between him, Knox, and others, to stigmatize them by the odium of advising to dethrone the young monarch, and to substitute the regent for their sovereign, Maitland produced so dramatic a performance, by giving to each per son his peculiar mode of expression, that this circumstance long baffled the incredulity of those who could not in consequence deny the truth of a narrative apparently so correct in its particulars! The fiction of the warmingpan, enclosing the young Pretender, brought more adherents to the cause of the Whigs than the Bill of Rights," observes Lord John Russell.

Among such party narratives, the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk, has been worked up by Hume with all his eloquence and pathos; and, from its interest no sus picion has arisen of its truth. Yet, so far as it concerns Kirk, or the reign of James the Second, or even English history, it is, as Ritson too honestly expresses it, an im pudent and a barefaced lie! The simple fact is told by Kennet in a few words: he probably was aware of the nature of this political fiction. Hume was not, indeed, himself the fabricator of the tale; but he had not any histor cal authortly. The origin of this fable was probably a pious fraud of the Whig party, to whom Kirk had rendered himself odious; at that moment stories still more terrifying were greedily swallowed, and which, Kitson insinuates, have become a part of the history of England. The original story, related more circumstantially, though not more affectingly, nor perhaps more truly, may be found m Wanley's Wonders of the Little World, which I give, relieving it from the tediousness of old Wanley.

A governor of Zealand, under the bold Duke of Burgundy, had in vain sought to seduce the affections of the beautiful wife of a citizen. The governor imprisons the husband on an accusation of treason; and when the wife appeared as the suppliant, the governor, after on brief eloquence, succeeded as a lover, on the plea that her husband's life could only be spared by her compli The woman, in tears and in aversion, and not without a hope of vengeance only delayed, lost her hotour! Pointing to the prison, the governor told her If you seek your husband, enter there, and take him along with Book III, ch. 2, sec. 18

ance.