Note 5 — BIBLIOGRAPHY.

DISRAELI’S CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE.

Title, “Literary Forgeries.”

“The Duc 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 book had long existed by rumor, 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 Duc de la Valliere’s sale. The history of this volume is curious. The Duc 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 bibliopobet, De Bure, in good humor, whose agency would sanction the imposition. They were afterwards to dole out copies at 25 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 the 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 Duc 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.” ↑