FAKE NEWS AND QUESTIONABLE SOURCES IN MID-18TH CENTURY EUROPE. “The public, by being frequently deceived, are grown extremely distrustful… they keep themselves on their guard against those performances that bear the surest stamp of truth; and the care that is taken to obviate their suspicions, seems to convince them, that there is a settled design laid to deceive them.” (pp. IX-X). 8vo. xxxii pp, 343 pp, (1) p publisher’s catalogue. Bound in contemporary sheep, rebacked; boards rather rubbed. Old bookplate of the [Benedictine] Ramsgate Monastery (dispersed 2010). Internally clean and fresh. Sole English edition of this wide-ranging discussion of European political intrigue. However spurious in origin, Alberoni’s Political Testament attracted the commentary of Voltaire and Friedrich Melchior Grimm among others due to its inflammatory content. Giulio Alberoni (1664-1752) rose from farmhand to become prime minister of Spain under Philip V, along the way hatching various meddlesome plots. “Another extravagant scheme of Alberoni's was the restoration of the Stuarts to the British throne by the co-operation of the Tsar and the King of Sweden. At last, in 1719, Philip V, to save himself from being treated as the common enemy of Europe, dismissed and exiled the Cardinal, who returned to Italy to face the indignation of Clement XI. His journey was interrupted at Genoa, where he was placed under arrest to await the decision of a special commission of the Sacred College. He escaped, however, and remained in hiding until the death of Clement XI in 1721. Under the next Pope, Innocent XIII, he was cleared, by a commission of cardinals, of the charges brought against him…” (Catholic Encyclopedia). In Chapter VI we find “Cardinal Alberoni’s plan to render the house of Bourbon mistress of the sea, and of the commerce of both the Indies” with much discussion of slavery and New World colonies. The editor of the Monthly Review (Nov. 19th, 1753, pp. 382-393), however, devoted most of his 12-page article to a discussion of Chapter VII, “Of England and the Pretender”, in which Alberoni accuses Henry VI of setting a standard of “effeminate indolence” for English monarchs, in contrast to the House of Stuart. It is the naturally belligerent inclinations of the English populace which drive English foreign policy: “The cardinal introduces [the chapter] with observing, that as England is cut off from the rest of Europe, it would have no other interest besides that of its commerce, if the restless disposition of its inhabitants did not impose on the king, as a principle of his policy, the necessity of entering into all the quarrels of the other powers…” (Monthly Review, p. 387). The present work is assumed to be a translation (rather than vice-versa) of the Testament politique du Cardinal Jules Alberoni printed at Lausanne in 1753 – which also claimed to have been translated from the Italian. However, no Italian edition was ever published. The ESTC shows US copies at Cornell, Harvard, Haverford, Library Company of Philadelphia, NYHS, Newberry, Salem Athenaeum, Minnesota, and Texas.* ESTC T206385.