Quaestor Pontificius"--"steward," "receiver," or "collector",--
Angelo Arcomboldi, brought to him a new MS. of the works of
Tacitus, with a most startling novelty--THE FIRST SIX (or, as then
divided, FIVE) BOOKS OF THE ANNALS! Everybody was amazed; and
everybody was extremely anxious to know where and how it had been
obtained. The story of Arcomboldi was that he had found the
stranger among the treasures on the well-stored shelves in the
Library of the Benedictine monastery on the banks of the Weser, at
Corvey, in Westphalia, long famed for the high culture of its
learned inmates. The MS. was given out as being of great
antiquity, traceable to, at the very least, the commencement of
the ninth century; for it was said to have belonged to one of the
most distinguished and accomplished scholars of the abbey,
Anschaire, whom Gregory IV. in the year 835 appointed his Legate
Apostolic in Denmark and Sweden, and who Christianized the whole
northern parts of Europe. The MS. was conned with care: it was
musty, discoloured and antique-looking; furthermore, it was of the
usual orthodox nature of recovered ancient MSS.--it was
fragmentary: the genius of Tacitus was believed to be detected in
the newly found books: 500 gold sequins were counted out from the
Papal Treasury to the greedy discoverer: at the expense of Leo,
the scholastic Philippo Beroaldi the Younger, who was Professor of
the learned languages in the University of Rome, and who wrote
Latin lyric poetry (in the opinion of Paulus Jovius) with the
elegance and correctness of Horace, superintended the text; the
celebrated Stephen Guilleret came all the way from Lorraine to
print it; and the "Historiarum Libri quinque nuper in Germania
inventi" were ushered forth to the world in Rome _literis
rotundis_ on the first day of March, 1515. From that day to
this the imposture has slumbered; the counterfeit coin has passed