One may write a successful book without a thread of romance; one cannot write a successful romance without some knowledge of realism; the more intimate the knowledge the better the book, and it is frequently to this that the failure of a novel is due, although the critic might be at a loss to explain it.

Petronius lies behind Tristram Shandy, his influence can be detected in Smollett, and even Fielding paid tribute to him.
IV FORGERIES OF PETRONIUS.
From the very nature of the writings of such an author as Petronius, it is evident that the gaps in the text would have a marked tendency to stimulate the curiosity of literary forgers and to tempt their sagacity, literary or otherwise.

The recovery of the Trimalchionian episode, and the subsequent pamphleteering would by no means eradicate this "cacoethes emendandi." When, circa 1650, the library of the unfortunate Nicolas Cippico yielded up the Trau fragment, the news of this discovery spread far and wide and about twelve years later, Statileo, in response to the repeated requests of the Venetian ambassador, Pietro Basadonna, made with his own hand a copy of the MS., which he sent to Basadonna.

The ambassador, in turn, permitted this MS.

to be printed by one Frambotti, a printer endowed with more industry than critical acumen, and the resultant textual conflation had much to do with the pamphlet war which followed.