It was mentioned, however, to Voltaire by Catherine Barton, Newton's niece, and to Mr. Green by Mr. Martin Folkes, the President of the Royal Society. 'We saw the apple-tree in 1814, and brought away a portion of one of its roots.' The concluding remark reminds us of Washington Irving's hero, who boasted of having parried a musket bullet with a small sword, in proof of which he exhibited the sword a little bent in the hilt. The apple is supposed to have fallen in 1665. Father Prout (Mahony) translated several of the Irish Melodies into Greek and Latin verse, and then jocularly insinuated a charge of plagiarism against the author. Moore was exceedingly annoyed, and remarked to a friend who made light of the trick, 'This is all very well for your London critics; but, let me tell you, my reputation for originality has been gravely impeached in the provincial newspapers on the strength of these very imitations.'" Dr. Johnson's Latin translation of the Messiah was published in 1731, and Pope is reported to have said, "The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original." Trench, in a note to one of his Hulsean lectures, says, "There is a curious account of a fraud which was played off on Voltaire, connecting itself with a singular piece of literary forgery. A Jesuit missionary, whose zeal led him to assume the appearance of an Indian fakir, in the beginning of the last century forged a Veda, of which the purport was secretly to undermine the religion which it professed to support, and so to facilitate the introduction of Christianity--to advance, that is, the kingdom of truth with a lie. This forged Veda is full of every kind of error or ignorance in regard to the Indian religion. After lying, however, long in a Romanist missionary college at Pondicherry, it found its way to Europe, and a transcript of it came into the hands of Voltaire, who eagerly used it for the purpose of depreciating the Christian books, and showing how many of their doctrines had been anticipated by the wisdom of the East. The book had thus an end worthy of its beginning."