Roman created
a new style of writing and inaugurated a class of literature which was
without parallel until the time of Apuleius and, in a lesser degree, of
Lucian. This class of literature, though modified essentially from age
to age, in keeping with the dictates of moral purity or bigotry, innocent
or otherwise, has come to be the very stuff of which literary success in
fiction is made. One may write a successful book without a thread of
romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of
realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book, and it is
frequently to this that the failure of a novel is due, although the
critic might be at a loss to explain it. Petronius lies behind Tristram
Shandy, his influence can be detected in Smollett, and even Fielding paid
tribute to him.

IV

FORGERIES OF PETRONIUS.

From the very nature of the writings of such an author as Petronius, it
is evident that the gaps in the text would have a marked tendency to
stimulate the curiosity of literary forgers and to tempt their sagacity,
literary or otherwise. The recovery of the Trimalchionian episode, and
the subsequent pamphleteering would by no means eradicate this "cacoethes
emendandi."

When, circa 1650, the library of the unfortunate Nicolas Cippico yielded
up the Trau fragment, the news of this discovery spread far and wide and
about twelve years later, Statileo, in response to the repeated requests
of the Venetian ambassador, Pietro Basadonna, made with his own hand a
copy of the MS., which he sent to Basadonna. The ambassador, in turn,
permitted this MS. to be printed by one Frambotti, a printer endowed with
more industry than critical acumen, and the resultant textual conflation
had much to do with the pamphlet war which followed. Had this Paduan
printer followed the explicit directions which he received, and printed
exactly what was given him much good paper might have been saved and a
very interesting chapter in the history of literary forgery would
probably never have been written. The pamphlet war did not die out until
Bleau, in 1670-71, printed his exact reproduction of the Trau manuscript
and the corrections introduced by that licentiousness of emendation of
which we have spoken.

In October, 1690, Francois Nodot, a French soldier of fortune, a
commissary officer who combined belles lettres and philosophy with his
official duties, wrote to Charpentier, President of the Academy