nto another track, which, in
its turn, has been capriciously deserted. His "Studies of Roman history"
give him an honourable claim to the title of historian; his "Notes of
Archaeological Rambles" are greatly esteemed; he has written plays; and
his prose fictions, whether middle-age romance or novel of modern
society, rank with the best of their class. He began his career with a
mystification. His first work greatly puzzled the critics. It professed
to be a translation of certain comedies, written by a Spanish actress,
whose fictitious biography was prefixed and signed by Joseph L'Estrange,
officer in the Swiss regiment of Watteville. This imaginary personage
had made acquaintance with Clara Gazul in garrison at Gibraltar. Nothing
was neglected that might perfect the delusion and give success to the
cheat; fragments of old Spanish authors were prefixed to each play,
showing familiarity with the literature of the country; the style, tone,
and allusions were thoroughly Spanish; and, through the French dress,
the Castilian idiom seemed here and there to peep forth, confirming the
notion of a translation. Clara was an Andalusian, half gipsy, half Moor,
skilled in guitars and castanets, saynetes and boleros. L'Estrange makes
her narrate her own origin.

"'I was born,' she told us, 'under an orange-tree, by the roadside, not
far from Motril, in the kingdom of Granada. My mother was a
fortune-teller, and I followed her, or was carried on her back, till the
age of five years. Then she took me to the house of a canon of Granada,
the licentiate Gil Vargas, who received us with every sign of joy.
Salute your uncle, said my mother. I saluted him. She embraced me, and
departed. I have never seen her since.' And to stop our questions, Dona
Clara took her guitar and sang the gipsy song, _Cuando me pario mi
madre, la gitana_."

Biography and comedies were so skillfully got up, the deception was so
well combined, that the reviewers were put entirely on a wrong scent.
Two years later, M. Merimee was guilty of another harmless literary
swindle, entitled La Guzla, a selection of Illyrian poems, said to be
collected in Bosnia, Dalmatia, &c., but whose real origin could be
traced no further than to his own imagination. Although the name was a
manifest anagram of Gazul, the public were gulled. The deceit was first
unmasked in Germany, we believe, by Goethe, to whom the secret had been
betrayed. Thenceforward the young author was content to pu