appears by existing manuscripts!

Literary forgeries have been introduced into bibliography; dates have
been altered; fictitious titles affixed; and books have been reprinted,
either to leave out or to interpolate whole passages! I forbear entering
minutely into this part of the history of literary forgery, for this
article has already grown voluminous. When we discover, however, that
one of the most magnificent of _amateurs_, and one of the most critical
of bibliographers, were concerned in a forgery of this nature, it may be
useful to spread an alarm among collectors. The Duke de la Valliere, and
the Abbe de St. Leger once concerted together to supply the eager
purchaser of literary rarities with a copy of _De Tribus Impostoribus_,
a book, by the date, pretended to have been printed in 1598, though
probably a modern forgery of 1698. The title of such a work had long
existed by rumour, but never was a copy seen by man! Works printed with
this title have all been proved to be modern fabrications. A copy,
however, of the _introuvable_ original was sold at the Duke de la
Valliere's sale! The history of this volume is curious. The Duke and the
Abbe having manufactured a text, had it printed in the old Gothic
character, under the title, _De Tribus Impostoribus_. They proposed to
put the great bibliopolist, De Bure, in good humour, whose agency would
sanction the imposture. They were afterwards to dole out copies at
twenty-five louis each, which would have been a reasonable price for a
book which no one ever saw! They invited De Bure to dinner, flattered
and cajoled him, and, as they imagined, at a moment they had wound him
up to their pitch, they exhibited their manufacture; the keen-eyed
glance of the renowned cataloguer of the "Bibliographie Instructive"
instantly shot like lightning over it, and, like lightning, destroyed
the whole edition. He not only discovered the forgery, but reprobated
it! He refused his sanction; and the forging Duke and Abbe, in
confusion, suppressed the _livre introuvable_; but they owed a grudge to
the honest bibliographer, and attempted to write down the work whence
the De Bures derive their fame.

Among the extraordinary literary impostors of our age--if we except
Lauder, who, detected by the Ithuriel pen of Bishop Douglas, lived to
make his public recantation of his audacious forgeries, and Chatterton,
who has buried his inexplicable story in his own grave, a tale, which
seems but half told