ory, 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![85]

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 his
pursuits--and it proves that the personal is too apt to predominate over
the literary character.

I have already touched on the main point of the present article in the
one on "Political Nicknames." I have there shown how political calumny
appears to have been reduced into an art; one of its branches would be
that of converting forgeries and fictions into historical authorities.

When one nation is at war with another, there is no doubt that the two
governments connive at, and often encourage, the most atrocious libels
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 Athenians employed the same policy
against the Macedonians and Persians. Such is the origin of a vast
number of supposititious papers and volumes, which sometimes, at a
remote 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 suspicious libels which were drawn out of their obscurity
in Cromwell's time against James the First have overloaded 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 written by
the names subscribed; printed declarations never declared; battles never
fought, and victories never obtained! Such is the language of Rushworth,
who complains of this evil spirit of party forgeries, while he is
himself suspected of having rescinded or suppressed whatever was not
agreeable to his patron Cromwell. A curious, and perhaps a necessary
list might be drawn up