One Hundred Copies only of this volume have been printed (all on the same paper and the type distributed) for Viscount Julian Smithson M. A., the Translator, and his Friends. None of these Copies are for Sale.

It is perhaps well to state at once that the “Manual of Classical Erotology” is intended only for Students of the Classics, Lawyers, Psychologists and Medical Men. Those persons, we think, who may peruse it as a means of awakening voluptuous sensations will be severely disappointed. Never did a work more serious issue from the press. Here we have no curious erotic story born of a diseased mind, but a cold, relentless analysis of those human passions which it is ever the object of Science to wrestle with and overthrow.

As a basis also for the correct interpretation of the drama of the ancient world, Forberg’s studies are most valuable. Apart from that extraordinary book, Rosenbaum’s History of the Esoteric Habits, Beliefs and Customs of Antiquity, we know of no other compilation which casts so intense a search-light upon those Crimes, Follies and Perversions of the “Sixth Sense” which transformed the olden glory of Greece and Rome into a by-word and a reproach amongst the nations.

The present English translation now offered to Scholars is entirely new and strictly exact. No liberties have been taken with the text. It was felt that any attempt to add more colour, or to increase the effect,—involving a departure from the lines of stern simplicity laid down by Forberg,—would have detracted from the scientific value and character of the work.

The late Isidore Liseux issued in 1882 a French version with Latin text imprimÉ À cent exemplaires “for himself and friends.” This work is now very seldom to be met with because the whole edition was privately subscribed by Scholars and Bibliophiles before its appearance. The thieving copyists went of course immediately to work and some wretched penny-a-liner, utterly ignorant of both Latin and Greek, produced an English transcript full of faults, based only on the French text.

There is no need to add that such a book as this is of no value to the Student as a work of reference, for the faulty and forceless renderings often to be met with in Liseux’ version are reproduced with charming exactness, while the absence of the original text makes it all the more perilous to accept the work as a guide. Having said this much concerning the only two translations known to us, we proceed to give some account of good master Forberg and what is known of the inception and building up of his chef-d’oeuvre.

The eminent Author of this book never became famous. His name is mentioned occasionally in connexion with the “Hermaphroditus” of Antonio Beccadelli, known by the surname of Panormitanus, which he edited. Brunet, Charles Nodier, and the Bibliographie des Ouvrages relatifs aux Femmes, À l’Amour et au Mariage, speak of him in this connexion; while a list of his works appears moreover in the Index Locupletissimus Librorum or BÜcher-Lexicon (Bibliographical Lexicon) of Christian Gottlob Kayser, Leipzig, 1834. But with the exception of the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, the publication of which was commenced in 1878 by the Historical Commission of the Munich Academy, and which has devoted a short notice to him, all Dictionaries and Collections whether of Ancient or of Modern Biography are mute with respect to him. The Conversations-Lexicon and the vast Encyclopaedia of Ersch and Gruber do not contain a single line about him, while Michaud, Didot, Bachelet and Dezobry, Bouillet, Vapereau, utterly ignore his existence. For all that he well deserves a word or two.

Friedrich Karl Forberg was born in the year 1770 at Meuselwitz, in the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, and died in 1848 at Hildburghausen. He was a philosopher and a collaborator with Fichte, while he devoted a part of his attention to religious exegesis: but above all he was a philologian, and a humanist,—at once learned and inquisitive. He followed first the career of a University-teacher; Privat-docent in 1792, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Jena (1793), he was installed in 1796 as Co-Rector at Saalfeld. His inaugural thesis: “Dissertatio inauguralis de aesthetica transcendentali”, is dated 1792 (Jena, 8vo.); this was followed by a “Treatise on the Original Conditions and Formal Limitations of Free Will” in German and an “Extract from my Occasional Writings” also in German (1795). From 1796 to 1800 he wrote extensively in defence of the teachings of Fichte in Journals, Reviews, particularly in the Philosophical Magazine of Schmidt, and in sundry publications emanating from Fichte himself. He published moreover: “Animadversiones in loca selecta Novi Testamenti” (Saalfeld, 1798, 4to.), “an Apology for his pretended Atheism”, in German (Gotha, 1799, 8vo.). “Obligations of Learned Men”, in German (Gotha, 1801, 8vo.), etc.

The second part of his life seems to have been devoted entirely to Literature. In 1807 he was appointed as Conservator of the Aulic Library at Coburg, and having had enough of philosophy, he turned his whole attention to the study of Latin and Greek antiquity. Previously to this his tastes had already been revealed by the publication of several pretty editions of the minor Latin erotic poets; these form a collection of six or eight volumes in 16mo., with red margin-lines, and are now very difficult to procure. The discovery he made in the Coburg library of a manuscript of the “Hermaphroditus” of Panormitanus, offering important new readings and variants from the received text, suggested the idea to him of producing a definitive edition of the work, with copious commentaries.

The said “Hermaphroditus” so called, “because”, says La Monnoye, “all the filth in connection with both sexes forms the theme of the volume”, is a collection of Latin Epigrams filled out with a patchwork of quotations from Virgil, Ovid and Martial, in which memory has a much larger share than imagination, and which has never appeared to us to possess any great literary value. But the mishaps the book has had to encounter, its having been publicly burnt in manuscript in the market places of Bologna, Ferrara and Milan, the anathemas hurled against it by some savants, and the favour with which it was received by others, who were glad to awaken by its perusal old reminiscences, have given it a kind of reputation. The AbbÉ Mercier de Saint-LÉger was the first to publish it in Paris, together with the works of four other poets of the same sort: Ramusius de Rimini, Pacificus Maximus, Jovianus Pontanus, and Joannes Secundus^[1]. But Forberg, whilst fully appreciating the work and particularly the courage of the learned Frenchman, found much to find fault with; the Epigrams of Panormitanus were not numbered, which made citations from them troublesome, a great number of readings were faulty, and, thanks to his manuscript, he could correct them; lastly, Mercier de Saint-LÉger had omitted to give any running commentary on his author, to explain his text by means of notes and the comparison of parallel passages, whereas, according to Forberg a book of this character required notes by tens and hundreds, each verse, each hemistich, each word, offering matter for philosophical reflections and highly interesting comparisons. He therefore took the book in hand and began to collect with inquisitive care everything the Ancients had written upon the delicate subjects treated in the “Hermaphroditus.”

But having come to the end of his task, he found that his commentary would drown the book, that hardly would he be able to get in a verse of it every two or three pages, all the remainder of the book being taken up by his notes, and that the result would be chaos. Dividing his work into two parts, he left the smaller one in the shape of annotations, reduced to the merest indispensable explanations, to the “Hermaphroditus”, while of the second and more copious harvest of his erudite researches he composed a special treatise, which he had printed as a supplement under the title, “Apophoreta”, or “Second Course”; this treatise being in his eyes only a kind of dessert, following upon the substantial repast furnished by the Latin Poet of the XVIth. century. The whole forms a volume much sought after by amateurs: “Antonii Panormitae Hermaphroditus; primus in Germania edidit et Aphoreta adjecit Frider. Carol. Forbergius. Coburgi, sumtibus Meuseliorum, 1824, 8vo.”^[2].

Forberg, good, simple man, was mistaken, owing to his too great modesty; the true feast, at once substantial, nourishing and savoury, is his own work, the work which he elaborated from his own resources, from his inexhaustible memory and from his astonishing knowledge of the Greek and Latin authors down to their minutest details. On reprinting this excellent work, which undoubtedly deserved to be translated, we have given it a new title, one that is much more suitable than the old, “The Manual of Classical Erotology.” In virtue of the charm, the abundance, the variety of the citations, it is a priceless erotic Anthology; in virtue of the methodical classification of the contents Forberg has adopted, it is a didactic work,—a veritable Manual. He began with collecting from the Greek and Latin writers the largest number possible of scattered notices, which might serve for points of comparison with the Epigrams of Beccadelli; having possessed himself of a large accumulation of these, it occurred to him to set them out in order, arranging them in conformity with the similarity of their contents, deciding finally upon a division into eight chapters, corresponding with the same number of special manifestations of the amorous fancy and its depravities:

He found that he had to make subdivisions in each class according to the nature of the subject, to note particularities, individualities; and the contrast between this scientific apparatus, and the facetious matters subjected to the rigorous laws of deduction and demonstration is not the least amusing feature of the book. Probably no one but a German savant could have conceived the idea of thus classifying by categories, groups, genera, variations, species and sub-species all known forms of natural and unnatural lusts, according to the most trustworthy authors. But Forberg pursued another aim besides. In the course of his researches he had noticed how reticent the annotators and expounders generally are in clearing up matters which would seem to require it the most, some in consequence of a false reserve, others for fear of appearing too knowing, and others again from ignorance; also how many mistakes and gross blunders they have fallen into, by reason of their not understanding the language of erotics and failing to grasp its infinite shades of meaning.

It is precisely on those obscure and difficult passages of the Ancient poets, on those expressions purposely chosen for their ambiguity, which have been the torment of the critics and the puzzle of the most erudite commentators, that our learned Humanist has concentrated his most convincing observations.

The number of authors, Greek, Latin, French, German, English, Dutch, whom he has laid under contribution in order to formulate his exact and judicious classifications, mounts up to a formidable total. There are to be found in the Manual of Erotology something like five hundred passages, culled from more than one hundred and fifty works, all classified, explained, commented upon, and in most cases, enveloped in darkness as they had been, made plain as light itself by the mere fact of juxtaposition. With Forberg for a guide no one need henceforth fear to go astray,—to believe, for instance, like M. Leconte de Lisle, that the woman of whom Horace says that she changes neither dress nor place, “peccatve superne” “has not erred beyond measure”; what a mistake!—or with M. Nisard to translate Suetonius expression, “illudere caput alicuius” “to attempt some ones life”^[3]!

Forberg, a philosopher, has treated these delicate subjects like a philosopher, namely, in a purely speculative manner, as a man quite above and beyond terrestrial matters, and particularly so with respect to the lubricities which he has made it his task to examine so closely. He declares he knows nothing of them personally, has never thought of making experimental investigations on them, but derives all his knowledge, from books. His candour is beyond suspicion. He has not escaped censure; but having a reply ready for every objection and authorities to quote on every point, he found an answer to his detractors ready made in the phrase of Justus Lipsius, who had been reproached with taking pleasure in the abominations of Petronius: “The wines you set upon the table excite the drunkard and leave the sober man perfectly calm; in the same way, these kinds of reading may very likely inflame an imagination already depraved, but they make no impression upon a mind that is chaste and disciplined.”