Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/historicninepins01timb See pp. 161—165. REPUTED PENANCE OF HENRIETTA MARIA, QUEEN OF CHARLES I., AT TYBURN. From a German print in the Crowle Pennant, I in the British Museum. TO THE READER. The Art of Writing History has, ot late years, received many aids and accessions from the most accredited sources of truth, which, as Horace Walpole has remarked, is " the essence of History." The value of these gains has, however, been variously estimated. " We think," says a popular writer, " the existing generation is not favourable to the production of durable impartial history. Ours is an age of discovery ; we do not now mean scientific discovery. For a century or so the habit had prevailed of receiving implicitly the tra- ditions and records of past times, assuming them to have been sub- stantiated at the date of their publication. This style of constructing history consisted merely in breaking up and rearranging stereotype blocks. Recently, the worthlessness of such a mode of proceeding has become apparent, and now the opposite error has come strongly into vogue — that of leaping back to contemporaneous neglected documents, and, on their evidence, reversing the settled deliberate verdict of past centuries. Thus, Cromwell and Mary of Scotland, and George of England (we don't mean him of the Dragon) get new characters ; — nay, to such an extent is this carried, that, following the example of a learned prelate, we have a worthy man presenting us with ' historic doubts ' relative to the existence of Shakspeare — a writer of plays ; and this style of thing is creeping into science." It is not proposed in the present volume to treat of these historic studies in all their bearings ; our object in quoting the above passage be- ing to show the extent and variety which they have assumed. In France and Germany these inquiries have long occupied public attention very largely, and have had a corresponding influence upon historical works published contemporaneously in England A vigorous offshoot of this widely-extended object we have now had in this country for nineteen years, in the valuable Notes and Queries, a " Medium of Intercommunication" which has much of the historic element in its pages. Within the present year has appeared a volume, displaying much ,Q arning and research, by Dr. Octave Delepierre, entitled Historical ifficulties and Contested Events, in the introduction to which, the author ints out " a great many so-called historical facts, which are perfectly liliar even to the ignorant, and yet which never happened." The i vi TO THE READER. Historic Difficulties comprise twelve histories, ranging from the ancie world, b. c. 306, to Galileo Galilei, 1620. We had long observed the public taste for this species of corre tive reading, extended to modern times, and inquiries of a more popul and practical character than those of the antique world. In 1841 v published a volume of Popular Errors Explained and Illustrated, whic though successful, did not attain an extraordinary sale. Readers we not then ready for such inquiries; but, in 1858, we reproduced th work m an entirely new form; taking Sir Thomas Browne's Fuh, Errors as the text book for the older portion of the work, in gre part re-written. Of this improved edition of Popular Errors seve thousand copies have been sold, and the Work is kept in print. The present volume— Historic Ninepins— an eccentric title, | the way— seeks to supply the requirements of a large class of reade' » and m such plain words " that he may run who readeth." The worl^ |I divided into eleven sections, which collectively contain more than th' hundred articles. We have termed it " A Book for Old and Youn,^ |& inasmuch as, besides the Wonders of Classic Fable and Popular Ficti > \ those m our Early History extend beyond the limits of mere abstrar such are the Stories of English Life, which are the delight of our e years— indeed, of all ages. To the leading events of our hist. f proportionate attention is paid, in such a manner, as by their concc tration, to point with warmth and quickness upon the reader's coi prehension. j Meanwhile, a contemporaneous interest attaches to the Histok , Ninepins, for its " Historico- Political Information," by way of anm a tation ; and here we have specially to acknowledge our obligation t "the Fourth Estate," which affords a faithful and eloquent reflex of " th 1 very age and body of the time." The annexed Table of Contents and- copious Index will, however, best bespeak the variety as well as general character of the work, which has been prepared with due regard to ac- credited authorities, as well as attractiveness of narration. In such an assemblage of Names, Dates, and Facts, as the present volume contains, it would be presumptuous to promise freedom from error ; but the reader is assured that no pains have been spared to insure' accuracy. December, 1868. HISTORIC NINEPINS A BOOK OF CURIOSITIES, WHERE OLD AND YOUNG MAY READ STRANGE MATTERS: CONTAINING CHARACTERS AND CHRONICLES. DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES. FICTIONS AND FABULOUS HISTORIES. IFS AND INCREDIBILIA. LEGENDARY STORIES. MARVELS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS. MYTHS AND MYTHOLOGIES. PARALLELS AND PERIODS. POPULAR ERRORS. PROPHECIES AND GUESSES. PREHISTORIC TIMES. RECKONINGS AND REFUTATIONS. TALES AND TRADITIONS. UNIVERSAL HISTORY: READINGS, WITH NEW LIGHTS. * By JOHN TIMBS, AUTHOR OF "THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, NOTABLE THINGS OF OUR OWN TIME," LONDON: LOCKWOOD & CO., STATIONERS' HALL COURT. MDCCCLXIX. $& LONDON : SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN. CONTENTS. The General Subject. chances of history . . ;reat rulers in history :haracters of kings . fhe moral of monarchy the " ifs " of history . the muse of history . yorth of historical autho RITIES tVORTH OF ANTIQUARIANISM PAGE ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTI- MATE OF ORATORY .... 8 CHARTERS SIGNED WITH THE CROSS 9 WRITING HISTORY IO WORTH OF HERALDRY . . . IO WRITING HISTORY FOR THE STAGE II TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS . . 12 Ancient History. 'HE DEUCALIONAL DELUGE . 14 ^GYPT : ITS MONUMENTS AND HIS- TORY 14 •LATO SOLD AS A SLAVE . . 1 5 IOW DEMOSTHENES BECAME AN ORATOR 16 HE HOMERIC POEMS . . . . 16 [OMER'S BATTLES, AND HIS IMI- TATORS . .- 17 ABULOUS LOCALITIES OF CLAS- SIC HISTORY 18 OLOSSAL ANTS PRODUCING GOLD 19 SEEK A NEW LANGUAGE . . 19 IE DEATH OF ^SCHYLUS . . 20 •IE BATTLE OF ARBELA . . 20 LEXANDER THE GREAT, AND HIS HORSE BUCEPHALUS . . 21 5RODOTUS, THE FATHER OF fTORY 22 NES : HIS SAYINGS AND GS 24 AND HIS EXPLOITS . . 26 THE PLAINS OF TROY .... 26 SOLIMAN "THE MAGNIFICENT" 27 HISTORY OF EARLY ROME . . 28 HOW THE CAPITOL OF ROME WAS SAVED BY THE CACKLING OF GEESE 29 ROME THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD 30 extent of the roman empire 3 1 character of cato . . . . c^esar's conquest of gaul . middleton's life of cicero . the alexandrian library . rome under the oligarchy, cruelties of han no and the carthaginians 36 hannibal's vinegar passage through the alps • • • 37 corrupt history of the middle ages 3 8 abelard and eloisa . . . 40 31 32 32 34 34 I Vlll CONTENTS. Myths and Popular Fictions. " INCREDIBILIA OF THE AN- CIENTS, FROM PAL^EPHATUS . THE WANDERING JEW . . . THE FOUNDING OF CARTHAGE . SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON SAINT DUNSTAN AND HIS MIRA- CLES SAINT LUKE NOT A PAINTER . FRIAR BACON'S BRAZEN HEAD . COLUMBUS AND THE EGG . . WILLIAM TELL : A FABLE . . 41 42 44 45 47 49 49 50 5i THE TULIPOMANIA .... THE NINE WORTHIES . . . THE LABYRINTH OF CRETE . THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES . f COMMON ORIGIN OF POPULA* FICTIONS THE STORY OF JACK THE C KILLER THE STORY OF TOM HICKA1 THE STORY OF TOM THUMB LEGEND OF THE CROSS . . . Great Events from Little Causes. EVENTS AND SCENES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY 6l- British History. WHY WAS BRITAIN CALLED ALBION? 69 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST OF BRITAIN 69 DOMESDAY BOOK AND ITS PAR- TIALITIES 70 DISPERSION OF ANCIENT MANU- SCRIPTS 71 WHO WAS GILDAS? .... 73 INGULF OF CROYLAND AND WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY . 74 HISTORIC MISREPRESENTATIONS 74 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND . . 75 TEST OF HISTORIC TRUTH . . 76 DECAY OF LOCAL TRADITION . j-y AN ENGLISHMAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF HIS COUNTRY'S HISTORY . 78 HUME'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND . 79 PERSONAL MOTIVES AND PRE- TENDED PATRIOTISM ... 79 WHITEWASHING REPUTATIONS . 80 THE CELTS AND THE IRISH COM- PARED 8l THE CELTIC POPULATION OF BRITAIN 81 PREHISTORIC KINGS OF BRITAIN 82 THE BRITONS IN THE TIME OF C/ESAR 83 CANNIBALISM IN EUROPE . . 84 THE TWO ARTHURS AN! ROUND TABLE . . - ALFRED'S TIME-CANDLES BURIAL-PLACE OF HAROLD ENGLAND, FROM THE ROMAN PERIOD TO THE NORMAN IN- VASION DID WILLIAM THE CONQI DEPOPULATE THE in .V FOREST? DEATH OF WILLIAM RUFUS . .* THE KNIGHT TEMPLARS . . THE WAPSHOTTS OF CHERTSEY CHARACTER OF OUR NORMAN KINGS THE STORY OF FAIR ROSAMOND STORY OF THE LION KING . . THE CRUSADES AND CHIVALRY KING JOHN VINDICATED . ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH ARIS TOCRACY.— MAGNA CHARTS WHAT IS ARISTOCRACY? . . ORIGIN OF THE HOUSE OF COM MONS WHO WAS ROBIN HOOD? . / THE BATTLE OF SPURS THE BATTLE OF THE TF T " WHERE WAS THE FIRST OF WALES BORN ? . CONTENTS. British History — continued. PAGE WARD U. AT BERKELEY CASTLE 112 ERE CANNON USED AT CRECY? 113 K ORDER OF THE GARTER . 114 ~HE DE ST. PIERRE AND BURGESSES OF CALAIS . 115 (NCE OF WALES'S FEA- S 116 A i£ V Y-C H A S E, OROTTER- BOURNE? 119 T E EARLS AND DUKES OF NORTHUMBERLAND .... 121 THE POET GOWER, AND THE SUTHERLAND FAMILY . . .122 WARS OF THE ROSES .... 122 THE PROUD SOMERSETS . . . 123 WHO WAS JACK CADE? . . . 123 HENRY IV. AND THE JERUSALEM CI lMBER 124 KING OF THE ISLE OF WIGHT . 125 STOR T OF JANE SHORE AND S T REDITCH 126 ' ' -)ric doubts on richard third" 129 dstead of king richard E THIRD 132 /AS THE DUKE OF CLARENCE E DROWNED IN A BUTT OF Y r MSEY 134 r ° IRST PAPER-MILL IN uLAND ....... 135 SIR WILLIAM KINGSTON'S JOCU- LAR CRUELTY 136 SIR THOMAS MORE AND THE BUTLERSHIP OF LINCOLN'S INN 137 ROASTING AN ABBOT , . . . .138 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. . . 139 TOURNAMENT OF THE FIELD OF CLOTH OF GOLD I40 CARDINAL WOLSEY NOT A BUTCHER'S SON . . ... .142 RISE AND FALL OF WOLSEY . 143 tSTPRY OF KATHERINE OF ARRA- GON AND HER TWO MAR- RIAGES 144 131 '- FIRST-BORN OF HENRY VIII. " N ND QUEEN KATHERINE . . 145 '^.RE WAS ANNE BOLEYN ^ T ED? 146 HE LADY KATHERINE ESCAPED BEING BURNED IERESY 147 I PAGE SIR THOMAS WYAT'S BREAK- DOWN 147 CHARACTER OF QUEEN MARY . 148 HOW THE LADY ELIZABETH ES- CAPED THE MACHINATIONS OF BISHOP GARDINER . . . 149 THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA . . 150 FRENCH PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 150 SCANDAL AGAINST QUEEN ELIZABETH 151 DARNLEY'S MURDER, 1567 . . 153 ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 153 CHARACTER OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 154 SIR WALTER RALEIGH IN THE TOWER 156 SIR WALTER RALEIGH ON THE SCAFFOLD 157 TWO TIPPLING KINGS .... 157 MYSTERIOUS ROYAL DEATHS . 158 AN HISTORIC HOUSE IN FLEET- STREET 160 THE AGES OF ELIZABETH AND CHARLES 1 160 QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA, AND HER REPUTED PENANCE TO TYBURN l6r "THE SADDLE LETTER" AND CHARLES 1 165 CHARLES THE FIRST AND HIS PARLIAMENT, 1641 . . . . 166 MARTYRDOM OF CHARLES I. . . 167 LAST WORDS OF CHARLES I. . 168 THE CALVES' HEAD CLUB . . 169 ROYALTY DEDUCED FROM A TUB- WOMAN 170 CHARLES II. IN ADVERSITY AND PROSPERITY ...... 17I SIR RICHARD WILLIS'S PLOT AGAINST CHARLES II. . . . 172 WEARING OAK ON THE TWENTY- NINTH OF MAY 172 GENERAL MONK'S MARRIAGE . 173 LA CLOCHE, THE SON OF CHARLES II .173 WHO BUILT CHELSEA HOSPITAL? 174 THE FIRST DUKE OF ST. ALBAN'S 174 HOUSES IN WHICH NELL GWYN IS SAID TO HAVE LIVED . . 175 WAS CHARLES II. POISONED? . 175 b CONTENTS, British History — continued. PAGE STRANGE FORTUNES OF THE HOUSE OF STUART .... 176 ENGLISH ADHEkENTS OF THE HOUSE OF STUART .... 177 XINGS AND PRETENDERS . . 178 SIR RICHARD BAKER'S CHRO- NICLE OF THE KINGS OF ENG- LAND 179 DEFENCE OF LORD CHANCELLOR JEFFREYS l8l FATE OF SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL 182 BOTH SIDES OF THE QUESTION 183 AVARICE OF MARLBOROUGH . 1 84 THE ECCENTRIC SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH .... 186 WAS GEORGE II. AT THE BATTLE OF DETTINGEN ..... 288 THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE'S VAGARIES ....... 188 THE INSOLVENT THEODORE, EX- KING OF CORSICA .... X89 GENERAL WOLFE, AND THE EX- PEDITION TO QUEBEC . . .X92 QUEEN CHARLOTTE AND ST. KATHERINE'S HOSPITAL . . 193 PAGE HORNE TOOKE'S POLITICAL PRE- DICTION 194 LORD MAYOR BECKFORD'S MONU- MENTAL SPEECH ..... 196 THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY . . . 197 WILKES TRIUMPHANT ! . . . 198 HOW THE AMERICAN WAR MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED . . 399 GEORGE HI. AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 2CO A PAGE OF POLITICAL HATE . 201 LORD RODNEY IN DIFFICULTIES 201 CONFERRING THE GARTER . . 202 PITT AS A WAR MINISTER . . 203 PITT AND THE PITTITES . . . 204 WHAT DROVE GEORGE III. MAD 205 CHARACTER OF LORD NELSON . 207 FRENCH COLOURS TAKEN AT WATERLOO 20S GEORGE IV. AND HIS QUEEN . 211 SIR ROBERT WILSON AS A POLI- TICIAN 212 VISCOUNT MELBOURNE, THE MINISTER 213 ANCESTRY OF VISCOUNT PAL- MERSTON 214 CHARACTERISTICS OF COBBETT 215 French History. THE CHRONICLES OF FROISSART 217 VANITY OF THE FRENCH . . . 2l8 AUDACITY OF DU HAILLAN, THE FRENCH HISTORIAN .... 21 8 HOW FRENCH PIISTORY IS WRIT- TEN ......... 219 WAS JOAN OF ARC BURNT AS A WITCH? 220 TRAGIC TALES OF CHARLES VI. OF FRANCE . 222 IOUIS XI 223 REAL CHARACTER OF LOUIS XIV. 224 THE ANCIEN REGIME .... 226 CHARACTER OF CARDINAL RICHELIEU 227 KEEPING PIGEONS IN FRANCE . 228 THE STORY OF THE "VENGEUR DU PEUPLE " 229 THE FRENCH REVOLUTION . . 23O EXECUTION OF CHARLOTTE CORDAY 231 EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. . . 231 EXECUTION OF THE DUC D'EN- GHIEN ........ NAPOLEON'S STAR OF DESTINY. LOUIS XIV. AND NAPOLEON I. — A PARALLEL SHORTSIGHTEDNESS OF NAPO- LEON I. CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON I. . TERRITORY AND MONEY-COST OF NAPOLEON'S WARS .... THE FRENCH INVASION OF RUS- SIA SUCCESS OF TALLEYRAND . . SUCCESSION TO THE THRONE OF FRANCE . . HISTORICAL LORE IN THE FRENCH SENATE THE REIGN OF LOUIS XVIII. THE ORLEANS FAMILY . . . THE GREAT POLITICAL MONTH OF JULY . DEFEAT OF THE IMPERIAL GUARD AT WATERLOO . . 232 235 235 236 237 240 240 241' 10 242 10 24f 10 24- 10 244 IC I 245 CONTENTS. XI Historico-Political Information. PAGE THE NATIONAL DEBT .... 247 "ALL MEN HAVE THEIR PRICE " 247 BRIBING MEMBERS OF PARLIA- MENT 249 SUPPOSED PREROGATIVE OF THE CROWN IN MATTERS OF PEACE, WAR, AND ALLIANCES . . . 250 MARITIME SUPREMACY OF ENGLAND 252 PROPHECIES AND GUESSES . . 254 CHARACTER OF A TRIMMER . 255 POTWALLOPERS 255 ANACHARSIS CLOOTZ .... 256 MRS. PARTINGTON AND HER MOP 256 KING BOMBA 257 SIGNING THE TREATY OF UTRECHT 257 HOW THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT WAS OBTAINED 258 SMALL MAJORITIES 258 FREE-SPEAKING 259 PAGE " CAUCUS" 259 THE CAVE ADULLAM . . . .260 FOLLOWING AND LEADING . . 261 LEGITIMACY AND GOVERNMENT 261 "MEASURES, NOT MEN" . . 261 A SUFFERER BY REVOLUTIONS . 263 ORIGIN OF CROSS-READINGS IN NEWSPAPERS 262 POLITICAL NICKNAMES . . . 263 WASTE OF LIFE 264 THE MONEY-COST OF WAR . . 265 ABSOLUTE MONARCHY OF DEN- MARK 266 INVASION PANICS OF 1 847-8 AND 1851 267 SEEKING A PLACE 269 THE MODERN GREEKS . . . 27O "SIGHTS THAT I HAVE SEEN ". 271 MORGANATIC MARRIAGES . . 273 CHARACTER OF THE NABOB . 274 MEMORY OF DANIEL O'CONNELL 276 Ecclesiastical History. SPURIOUS CHARTERS .... 277 THE INQUISITION 278 FIGHTING ABBOTS AND PRE- LATES OF THE MIDDLE AGES 279 ASSASSINATION OF THOMAS A BECKET 280 HOSTILITY TO HOBBES .... 285 WHO WERE THE PURITANS ? . 285 THE STORY OF JOHN OF LEYDEN 286 EXHUMATION OF BODIES. — WORTH OF RELICS .... 288 CREDULITY OF GREAT MINDS . 289 TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS . 290 WHO WAS APOLLONIUS OF TYANA? 291 WHAT IS PANTHEISM?. . . . WHAT IS MUSCULAR CHRISTI- ANITY? PROPHECY-RIDDEN PRINCES . . THE REFORMATION — LUTHER AND TRANSUBSTANTIATION . FABLES ABOUT LUTHER . . . PORTRAIT OF MOHAMMED . . ORIGIN OF KISSING THE POPE'S TOE, AND THE LATERAN . . THE HISTORIC CHURCH OF ENG- LAND BURNING OF VEDAS WIDOWS . 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 298 300 Retributive Justice. CURIOUS INSTANCES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY 301—304 Xll CONTENTS. Science applied to the Arts. PAGE PREHISTORIC ARCHEOLOGY. . 305 MAN UPON THE EARTH . . . 306 GEOLOGY AND HISTORY . . . 307 WHO ARE THE IMPROVERS OF MANKIND ? 308 SCIENCE AND SUPERSTITION . 309 WHO DISCOVERED THE COMPO- SITION OF WATER ? . . . . 31O WHO INVENTED THE STEAM- ENGINE? ....... 311 THE OLD PHILOSOPHERS . . . 314 SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S APPLE- TREE, ETC 315 WHAT THE ENGLISH OWE TO NATURALIZED FOREIGNERS . 318 THE ALPHONSINE TABLES . . 319 GREEK ART 319 PAGE INVENTION OF THE LOCOMOTIVE 320 ENGINEERING MISCALCULATION 320 THE "GREAT EASTERN " STEAM- SHIP AND THE ARK . . .321 HISTORY OF MANNERS . . . 322 ASSYRIAN ART 323 FASHIONS IN DRESS — MALE AND FEMALE 323 HOUBRAKEN'S HEADS .... 324 STORY OF AN ARUNDEL MARBLE 324 VAST BUILDINGS ERECTED BY SLAVERY 325 THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRE- LAND 325 FALLACIES OF STATISTICS . . 326 THE LAST HALF CENTURY OF INVENTIONS 327 Books, Phrases, etc. FALSE ESTIMATES OF POPULAR BOOKS 329 BIRTHDAY OF SHAKSPEARE AND CERVANTES 333 MODERN MYTHOLOGY .... 333 FATE OF AMBITIOUS RULERS . 335 THE STORY OF DIDO .... 335 BURNING ALIVE . . . WHO'S WHO .... THE GREAT MOGUL AN INGENIOUS FORGERY HISTORICAL PHRASES . THE BOROUGH OF OLD SARUM WHAT IS BUNCOMBE? . . . 336 336 33 6 338 339 340 341 Appendix. LEADERS OF THE ENGLISH REBELLION 342 %* The " Ifs " of History, pp. 3—6, omitted to be acknowledged, — n Abridged from an able paper in the Saturday Review. to HISTORIC NINEPINS, Cfre (Smeral Subject* CHANCES OF HISTORY. ATIONS will more readily part with the essentials than with the forms of liberty ; and Napoleon might have died an emperor in reality, if he had been contented to have lived a consul in name. Had Cromwell displayed his hankerings for royalty somewhat sooner than he did, it is probable that he would have survived his power. Mr. Pitt gained a supremacy in this country, which none of his predecessors dared to hope, and which none of his successors will, we trust, attempt to attain. For twenty years he was " de facto" not " de jure" a king. But he was wise in his generation, and took care to confine the swelling stream of his ambition to channels that were constitutional ; and with respect to the impurity, the filth, and the corruption of those channels, he trusted to the vast means he possessed of alarming the weak, blinding the acute, bribing the mercenary, and intimidating the bold : confiding his own individual security, to that selfishness inherent in our nature, which dictates to the most efficient mind, to have too much respect for itself to become a Catiline, and too little esteem for others to become a Cato. There was a short period in the Roman history, when that nation en- joyed as much liberty as is compatible with the infirmities of humanity. Their neighbours the Athenians, had much of the form, but little of the substance, of freedom ; disputers about this rich inheritance rather than enjoyers of it, the Athenians treated liberty, as schismatics religion, where the true benefits of both have been respectively lost to each by their rancorous contentions about them. GREAT RULERS IN HISTORY. Lord Macaulay, in his admirable paper on the great Lord Clive, has rthe following remarks upon the rules for judging the conduct of eminent (H-ulers : — " Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off. The < greatest desert cannot be pleaded in answer to a charge of the slightest ' firansgression. If a man has sold beer on Sunday morning, it is no de- fence that he has saved the life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. jif he has harnessed a Newfoundland dog to his little child's carriage, it 2is no defence that he was wounded at Waterloo. But it is not in this Avay that we ought to deal with men who, raised far above ordinary J. B CHARACTERS OF KINGS. restraints, and tried by far more than ordinary temptations, are entitled to a more than ordinary measure of indulgence. Such men should be judged by their contemporaries as they will be judged by posterity. Their bad actions ought not, indeed, to be called good ; but their good and bad actions ought to be fairly weighed; and if, on the whole, the good preponderate, the sentence ought to be one, not merely of acquit- tal, but of approbation. Not a single great ruler in history can be absolved by a judge who fixes his eye inexorably on one or two unjusti- fiable acts. Bruce, the deliverer of Scotland ; Maurice, the deliverer of Germany; William, the deliverer of Holland; his great descendant, the deliverer of England ; Murray, the good Regent ; Cosmo, the father of his country ; Henry the Fourth of France ; Peter the Great of Russia — how would the best of them pass such a scrutiny ? History takes wider views ; and the best tribunal for great political cases is the tribunal which anticipates the verdict of history." CHARACTERS OF KINGS. Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, in 1764: — "Count Poniatowski, with whom I was acquainted when he was here, is King of Poland, and calls himself Stanislaus the Second. This is the sole in- stance, I believe, upon record, of a second of a name being on the throne while the first was living, without having contributed to dethrone him. Old Stanislaus lives to see a line of successors, like Macbeth in the cave of the witches. So much for Poland ! Don't let us go farther north ; we shall find there Alecto herself. I have almost wept for poor Ivan. [The deposed Czar Ivan, attempting to make his escape, had been murdered ; but it is very doubtful whether the Czarina could be privy to his death.] I shall soon begin to believe that Richard III. murdered as many folks as the Lancastrians say he did. I expect that this Fury will poison her son next, lest Semiramis should have the bloody honour of having been more unnatural. As Voltaire has poisoned so many per- sons of former ages, methinks he ought to do as much for the present time, and assure posterity that there never was such a lamb as Catherine the Second, and that, so far from assassinating her own husband and Czar Ivan, she wept over every chicken that she had for dinner. How crimes, like fashions, flit from clime to clime! Murder reigns under the State, while you, who are in the very town where Catherine de' Medici was born, and within a stone's-throw of Rome, where Borgia and his holy father sent cardinals to the other world by hecatombs, are surprised to hear that there is such an instrument as a stiletto. " I have no more monarchs to chat over ; all the rest are the most Catholic or most Christian, or most something or other that is divine ; and you know one can never talk long about folks that are only excellent. One can say no more about Stanislaus the First than 1$ that he is the best of beings. I mean, unless they do not deserve il it, and then their flatterers can hold forth upon their virtues by the * ' hour." 105 THE "IFS" OF HISTORY. THE MORAL OF MONARCHY. " A man may read a sermon," says Jeremy Taylor, " the best and most passionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter into the se- pulchres of kings. In the same Escurial where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and decree war or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery where their ashes and their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more : and where our kings have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsire's head to take his crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. There is enough to cool the flames of lust, to abate the height of pride, to appease the itch of covetous de- sires, to sully and dash out the dissembling colours of a lustful, artificial, and imaginary beauty. There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortu- nate and the miserable, the beloved and the despised princes mingle their dust, and lay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world, that when we die our ashes shall be equal to kings, and our accounts shall be easier, and our pains for our crimes shall be less. To my appre- hension, it is a sad record which is left by Athenaeus, concerning Ninus, the great Assyrian monarch, whose life and death is summed up in these words: 'Ninus, the Assyrian, had an ocean of gold, and other riches more than the sand in the Caspian Sea ; he never saw the stars, and per- haps he never desired it ; he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi, nor touched his God with the sacred rod, according to the laws; he never offered sacrifice, nor worshipped the Deity, nor administered justice, nor spake to the people, nor numbered them ; but he was most valiant to eat and drink, and having mingled his wines, he threw the rest upon the stones. This man is dead : behold his sepulchre, and now hear where Ninus is. Sometime I was Ninus, and drew the breath of a living man, but now am nothing but clay. I have nothing but 'what I did eat, and what 1 served to myself in lust is all my portion : the wealth with which I was blest, my enemies meeting together shall carry away, as the mad Ihyades carry a raw) goat. I am gone to Hell ; and when I went thither, I carried neither gold nor horses, nor a silver chariot. I that wore a mitre, am now) a little heap of dust /" THE "IFS OF HISTORY. If something had happened which didn't happen, what would have hap- pened afterwards ? is a kind of speculation which is now much in fashion. * Of course, no one can answer positively the above inquiry. Yet, in : looking back upon the course of history, it is impossible not to dwell I for a moment upon some of the more important crises, and to remark I* how small a difference might have made an incalculable change. We 'know the usual sayings about the decisive battles of the world. If Themistocles had lost the battle of Salamis, if Asdrubal had won | the battle of the Metaurus, if Charles M artel had been beaten by the B 2 THE "IPS" OF HISTORY. Saracens, would not the subsequent history of Europe and the world have been altered, and a great many fine philosophical theories have been destroyed before their birth ? Even the strictest believer in universal causation may admit without prejudice to his opinions that the most trivial circumstances may be of cardinal importance. The reluctance to admit the doctrine about great events springing from trivial causes results from another consequence of the theory. Where the fate of a few persons is concerned, no one cares to dispute it. When Noah was in the Ark, the most trifling error of steering might (in the absence of providential interference) have ship- wrecked the whole human race. Now the logical difficulties raised by Necessitarians apply just as much to a party of twenty as to twenty millions. The importance of small cases does not affect their theory more in one case than the other. But philosophers are unwilling to allow that the fate of whole countries and many generations can depend upon these petty accidents, because it would obviously render all pre- diction impossible, and at least leave the future of mankind dependent upon the chance of the necessary hero arising at the critical moment. It is impossible here to discuss so large a question as the frequency with which those historical crises occur in which the merest trifle may turn the balance, or to inquire whether they ever occur at all. But we may notice shortly two or three conditions of the argument which are frequently overlooked, and which make most of these discussions emi- nently unsatisfactory. Thus, for example, the believers in decisive bat- tles very seldom take the trouble even to argue the real difficulty of the question. The defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, or perhaps at Waterloo, it has been said, changed the history of Europe. It may be so ; but the fact that a particular battle was the most crushing, or the final blow which he received, does not even tend, to prove that a different result woul have been equally decisive the other way. On the contrary, a victor might probably have been the next worst thing to a defeat. The battle in which the Saracens or the Hungarians received the final check to their advance are in the same way reckoned as decisive of history. But, to make this out, we should have to prove that which is at first sight op- posed to all probability — that, in the event of a victory, they could have permanently held their conquests ; and afterwards that, if they had held them, they would not have been absorbed by the conquered population. When Canute rebuked his courtiers, he happened to select a time at which the tide was rising. If, by a little management, they had induced him to give the order just as the tide turned, they might perhaps have persuaded him that his order was the cause of the change. A good many historical heroes seem to have been Canutes who issued their com- mands precisely at the turn of the tide, and historical writers have been crying out ever since that, if it had not been for this marvellous Canute, the tide would have swelled until the whole country had been en- gulphed. The analogy is, of course, imperfect; for the historical tide is really affected in some degree by the hero who opposes its progress at the proper moment, only he has a wonderful advantage if he happens to strikejust at the fortunate epoch. — Saturday Review, 1 THE (i IFS" OF HISTORY. The absurdity of a series of " ifs " has also been thus shown. " If this did not happen, then something else must have happened, and the whole course of subsequent events must have been altered." It is one ot those far-fetched explanations which we can produce at will to account for any phenomenon. We might say, for instance, that the prophet Jonah is the cause of American slavery. If he had not preached, Nineveh would not have repented ; if Nineveh had not repented, it would have been overthrown ; if it had been overthrown, who knows the con- sequences ? The whole course of empire would have been changed, and America might still be a forest. Mr. Phillimore, in his History of England in the Reign of George III., describes the difficulty of writing modern history, and laments that in modern times we have no Herodotus nor Thucydides, no Livy nor Tacitus. He says, that if these Greek and Roman historians lived in our day — if they saw this, and if they saw that, if they were acquainted with India, if they were acquainted with America, and if they knew a great number of other things besides — the result, the grand result, the astonishing result, would be that they would have known more than they knew, and would have told us more. In Whitaker's Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots, that curious writer thus speculates in the true spirit of this paper. When dependence was made upon Elizabeth's dying without issue, the Countess of Shrewsbury had her son purposely residing in London, with two good and able horses continually ready, to give the earliest intelligence of the sick Elizabeth's death to the imprisoned Mary. On this the historian observes, " And had this not improbable event actually taken place, 'what a different com- plexion would our history have assumed from what it wears at present ! Mary would have been carried from a prison to a throne. Her wise conduct in prison would have been applauded by all. From Tutbury, from Sheffield, and from Chatsworth, she would have been said to have touched with a gentle and masterly hand the springs that actuated all j the nation, against the death of her tyrannical cousin," &c. So ductile is history in the hands of man ! and so peculiarly does it bend to the force of success, and warp with the warmth of prosperity ! " If Mary had lived a little longer, or Elizabeth died sooner," says Mr. Mill, "the Reformation would have been crushed in England. People who believe in a steady development of human thought, are naturally unwilling to allow that the spread of new ideas may be arrested or made possible by the accident of a single woman's life ; for, on the same principles, we can have no certainty that in a few years hence j we may not all be Roman Catholics, or Mormons, or followers of Comte." T It is always a question among military writers how far the pause of Hannibal was compulsory — a question not likely now to be solved, unless Pompeii yields us further literary treasures. As far as one can decide at such a distance of time and of scene, it seems all but certain that the rapid advance of Hannibal on Rome after the battle of Cannae, that of Henry of Navarre on Paris after the battle of Ivry, or that of Charles Stuart on London after penetrating as far as Derby, would have changed the course of human history. — Builder, 186S. " THE MUSE OF HISTORY^ "THE MUSE OF HISTORY. In an able review of Mr. Froude's History of England, vols. v. and vi., the writer thus reproves a fashion of writing history in the present day, which is unsound and misrepresentative. " History/' says the critic, " is one of those pursuits which have been blest with a Muse, and for the love of this excellent lady, historians are continually aiming at the heroic. They select a theme — the life of a nation within a particular century. They represent this life as actuated by the sublimest motives which they can invent. The heroes are patriots fighting for the inde- pendence of their homes, or citizens resisting the encroachments of tyranny, or believers animated by the ardours of a religious struggle. There is an epic grandeur in the action. The men are giants ; then- motives are divine, and the result is sacred. The history of our own times is paltry in comparison. In writing contemporary history, we are obliged to confine ourselves to the facts before us ; and what are these facts ? That statesmanship in its last analysis is reduced to a question of finance ; that Cocker is the greatest of our Ministers ; that the re- sumption of cash payments, the repeal of a duty, the discovery of a gold mine, the accident of a potato-blight, the sale of opium, and the state of the Three per Cents, are the dominant elements of our political life ; and that, however we may prate of Church and State, life and liberty, most of the leading questions of the day reduce themselves by a very simple process to the old eternal question of the big loaf, the little loaf, and the payment of the piper. By way of contrast, look at any history of the Tudor reigns, including even the work of Mr. Froude. We at once leap to the conclusion that there were people of simple faith and noble aspirations in those days, who were raised high above the petty con- cerns which trouble nations now. They thought more of the remission of sins than of the reduction of taxes. They were more interested in the mass than in their daily bread. The Bible supplied the place of Consols in public regard. The rate of wages and the price of mutton were matters of indifference ; but the sermon preached at Paul's Cross and the last bull from the Pope were affairs of the greatest moment. Whether the revenue of the year was short and the expenditure of the country was excessive, were inquiries completely overshadowed by ques- tions relating to the religious nurture of the boy-King, or the religious sentiments of the Queen's betrothed. We observe that the whole nation is intent on mighty speculations as to fate and free will, the real presence, the Pope's authority, and justification by faith ; and it is only when we come to the appendix that we find huddled together a few scraps of information as to the state of the currency, the price of wheat, and the amount of the public income. We have surely had quite enough of this highflying style of history. We would say nothing disrespect- ful of the Muse who has inspired some very pretty histories in her time. We only wish that historians would give her a holyday for a little while, and come down to the sober level of facts. Human nature is pretty much the same all the world over, and the nature of nations has a won- derful similarity from age to age. That 300 years ago a nation which WORTH OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. 7 now grovels in pursuit of gain, and aims at physical perfection, was all for romance and spiritual profit, is a fallacy which we leave to the poets, but deny to the historian. With regard to our own history, and with regard to a period of it not very far removed from the present time, a purifying criticism is required similar to that which the German scholars have applied to the early legends of Greece and Rome. The history of England during the sixteenth century, which witnessed the revival of letters and the reform of religion, has a legendary tone about it from which even Mr. Froude's volumes are not entirely free. — Times t 1 860. WORTH OF HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. Among the various kinds of original authorities, some form the main staple of our knowledge of one age, and some of another. For old Greek and Roman history, we have to rely mainly on literary evidence — the direct statements of historians, and the incidental allusions of other writers. Of strictly documentary evidence we have none, except what may be found in coins and inscriptions. This is of course partly the result of the destruction of documents, but it is far more extensively owing to their original paucity. The Greeks not only had no printing, but they were incomparably more chary of writing than our forefathers of the Middle Ages. This was owing to several causes — to their general out-door life, to the publicity of everything in so many of their govern- ments, and to the awkward and costly nature of their writing materials. Public documents took the form of inscriptions on brass or stone; when the state of things which they expressed ceased to exist, the visible memorial of that state of things was often taken away. If Athens and Sparta made a treaty, its terms were graven on a pillar ; the next time war broke out, the pillar was taken away. The best chance of a docu- ment surviving the state of things which it described was if some historian like Thucydides or Polybius thought fit to insert it bodily in his text. And this not only confines modern inquirers almost wholly to literary sources ; it gives a peculiar character to the literary sources themselves. If Mr. Kinglake sits down nowadays to write the history of the Crimean war, besides his personal knwledge and the oral reports of eye-witnesses, he has before him vast masses of literary material. Thucydides, in writing the history of his own contemporaries, Herodotus, in writing the history of his father's contemporaries, could have got nearly all their information by word of mouth. This was not wholly a disadvantage ; for there can be no doubt that, where there are few artificial helps to memory, the memory itself becomes much stronger and clearer. When people read so much about everything as we do now, and read it, too, fcr the most part, so very hastily and superficially, it is wonderful how fast they forget things. Altogether, though the old writers had to trust mainly to oral information, yet the oral information to which they had to trust must have been of a much higher kind than most oral information now. And one can hardly doubt that the sort of reflexion and inquiry thus needed, the necessity of personal recollection for many things and of 8 ESTIMATE OF ORATORY, personal intercourse with actors for others, had something to do in pro- ducing that peculiar and unapproachable character which distinguishes the best of the old Greek histories from all other human writings — Abridged from the Saturday Review. » WORTH OF ANTIQUARIANISM. m Antiquarianism has been pronounced, by high authority to be "an indispensable element in history." Unquestionably it is so Yet nothing is more certain than that histories of steady popularity and considerable renown have been written without it. In one sense indeed it is of very modern growth and culture. Real antiquarianism ' defined as a lively knowledge of the past, comprehending the spirit of a period through the details of its customs, events, and institutions, may of course be exercised m any direction ; in Athens and Attica, or at Stonehenge SJ? ifT^, • , e 1S aS much anti q« a "anism in Arnold's Thucydides, or Mitchell s Aristophanes, as in any cubic foot of the Gentleman's Magazine. And there are few generations without individual examples of this spirit J3ut the conventional import of the term is a particular and circumstan- tial knowledge of the men, manners, and events of the Middle Ages a knowledge m which the writers of the last century could hardly have been otherwise than deficient, since they openly treated it with contempt Hume considers it a singular proof of Horace Walpole's eloquence that he succeeded m attracting attention to so obsolete a subject as the'reien of Richard HI. The judgments of these writers have accordingly been liable to reversal, and their misstatements to exposure. Whether the opinions of later generations may have gone too far in an opposite direc- tion, is a point which we shall not here discuss ; but the change of sen- timent has certainly been for the advantage of medieval history. One remarkable improvement is in the circumstantial detail of the narrative Compare the return cf Edward IV., or the reign of Edward V. in Turner, with the like portions in Hume, and the contrast will be most striking. It is by this method of proceeding, by entering into the spirit or an age by living for a while in the language of its writers, by handling its relics, by contemplating the monuments of its sciences and its arts and by concentrating upon one object the numberless rays of light which are thus procurable, that the modern historian of the Middle Ages must hope tosupplythe deficiency of acontemporary authority.— Quarterly Review. o ■ ANCIENT AND MODERN ESTIMATE OF ORATORY. There are no potentates of modern times that would imitate Philip arid offer a town containing ten thousand inhabitants for an orator The ancients were a gossiping and a listening rather than a writing or a reading set. This circumstance gave an orator great opportunities of display ; for the tongue effects that for thoughts that the Press does for words; but the tongue confers on them a much shorter existence and produces them in a far less tangible shape— two circumstances that are often not unfavourable to the speechifier. An ancient demagogue said CHARTERS SIGNED WITH THE CROSS. 9 that so long as the people had ears, he would rather that they should be without understandings. All good things here below have their draw- backs, and all evil things their compensations. The drawback of the advantage of printing is, that it enables coxcombs to deluge us with dulness ; and the compensation for the want of that art was this, that if blockheads wrote nonsense, no one else would transcribe it : neither could they take their trash to the market, when it cost so much time and labour to multiply the copies. Booksellers are like horse-dealers in one respect, and, if they buy the devil, they must also sell the devil ; but the misfortune is, that a bookseller seldom understands the merits of a book so thoroughly as the horsedealer the merits of a horse, and reads with far less judgment than the other rides. But to return to the speechifiers. An orator who, like Demosthenes, appeals to the head rather than the heart, who resorts to argument, not to sophistry, who has no sounding words, unsupported by strong conceptions, who would rather convince without persuading than persuade without convincing, is an exception to all rules, and would succeed in all periods. When the Roman people had listened to the loud, diffuse, and polished dis- courses of Cicero, they departed, saying to one another, what a splendid speech our orator has made ; but when the Athenians heard Demos- thenes, he so filled them with the subject-matter of his oration, that they quite forgot the orator, but left him at the finish of his harangue, breathing revenge, and exclaiming, " Let us go and fight against Philip. — Colton's Lacon. CHARTERS SIGNED WITH THE CROSS. The practice of affixing the sign of the Cross proceeded from the inability of the signers to write : this is honestly avowed by Caedwalla, a Saxon king, at the end of one of his charters. A similar circumstance is related of the Emperor Justin in the East, and Theodore, king of the Goths in Italy. Procopius, in his Historic Arcana, says : " Justin, not being able to write his name, had a thin, smooth piece of board, through which were cut the four letters of his name, J. V. S. T., which, laid on the paper, served to direct the point of his pen, his hand being guided by another. Possibly this may likewise have given the hint to the first of our card-makers, who paint their cards in the same manner, by plates of pewter or copper, or only pasteboard, with slits in them in form of the figures that are to be painted on the cards." {Philosophical Trans- actions, vol. xl. p. 393.) This is the art of stencil, which has been applied, in our time, to decorating the walls of rooms, as well as to the marking of linen. Charlemagne used his monogram for his signature, for which Eginhard gives this as the reason : namely, that Charlemagne could not write ; and, having attempted in vain to learn in his grown age, he was reduced to the necessity of signing with his monogram. The probable reason why the Cross was always used in the Middle Ages in the testing of ecclesiastical charters, was not only that it was a sacred symbol, but that Justinian had decreed it should have the strength of an oath. i o WOR TH OF HERALD R Y. WRITING HISTORY. Many writers, including now an Imperial historian, have attempted to weigh and measure the share that individual men and accidents have in the course of human affairs. How far has the world really been affected by Alexander, or by the cold bath that cut him off in his very youth ; by the day's march of Claudius Nero, that drove the Carthagi- nians out of Italy, and led to the ruin of their State ; by the mighty genius, or the assassination, of Julius Caesar ; by the arrow that pierced Harold, or the bullet that killed Charles XII., of Sweden ; by the pas- sions of our Henry VIII., by the obstinacy of Charles I., or by the religious convictions of James II. ; by the cold ragout which is said to have deprived Napoleon of one victory, or the timely arrival of the Prussians, which extinguished all hope of another ? History must deal with persons and things, and it must also clothe them with dramatic interest and importance, but philosophers are apt to think them only the superficial indications of an irresistible current below. A despot is mur- dered, but the despotism remains. A great soldier falls, but the nation is not less warlike. — Times journal. When, after the victory of Aumale, in which Henry IV. was wounded, he called his generals round his bed, to give him an account of what had occurred subsequently to his leaving the field, no two could agree on the course of the very events in which they had been actors ; and the king, struck with the difficulty of ascertaining facts so evident and recent, exclaimed, " Voila ce que cest Vhistoire (" — " What, then, is history!" " Give me my liar," was the phrase in which Charles V. was used to call for a volume of history; and certainly no man can attentively examine any important period of our annals without remarking that almost every incident admits of two handles, almost every character of two interpretations ; and that by a judicious packing of facts the histo- rian may make his picture assume nearly what form he pleases without any direct violation of truth.— Quarterly Review, 1832. WORTH OF HERALDRY. The only individuals who affect to sneer at Heraldic pursuits and studies are those of apocryphal gentility, or whose ancestral reminiscences are associated with the rope sinister, or some such distinctive badge. Heraldry is, however, a branch of the hieroglyphical language, and the only branch which has been handed down to us with a recognised key. It in many cases represents the very names of persons, their birth, family, and alliances ; in others, it illustrates their ranks and titles; and in all is, or rather was, a faithful record of their illustrious deeds, represented by signs imitative and conventional. Taking this view of the question, it is evident that it is capable of vast improvements : in fact, a well-emblazoned shield might be made practically to represent, WRITING HISTORY FOR THE STAGE. it at a single glance, a synopsis of biography, chronology, and history. Insignia of individuals and races, which are of a kindred character with heraldry, at least in its original form and design, may be recognised among the nations of antiquity, and may perhaps be carried back to the primeval ages of Egyptian history. The Israelites, from their long cap- tivity familiarized with such objects, naturally adopted them as distin- guishing characteristics ; and Sir William Drummond believed that the twelve tribes adopted the signs of the zodiac as their respective ensigns ; " nor," as has been observed, " does the supposed allusion to those signs by Jacob imply anything impious, magical, or offensive to the Deity." The heraldry (?) of the heroic ages may be traced in the pages of Homer and iEschylus ; and in the succeeding generations we have testimony of the adoption of a sort of armorial bearings by the princes of Greece. Omitting Nicias, Lamachus, Alcibiades, and others on record, we will merely observe that the arms of Niochorus, who slew Lysander, were a dragon, thus realizing the prediction of the oracle, Fly from Oplites' watery strand ; The earth-born serpent, too, beware. Nor were mottoes by any means unfrequent. The shield which Demosthenes so pusillanimously threw away was inscribed " To good Fortune." The animals which are frequently represented within shields on the Roman vases sufficiently establish the fact, that this usage was common amongst that great people ; and the striking example of a goat on a specimen in the British Museum, might by analogy, without any great stretch of imagination, be ascribed to the family of Caprus ! Students of heraldry are commonly great enthusiasts ; so that, in its pursuit, they are apt to depreciate more important subjects. We remember to have heard an amateur herald painter, who had filled all his windows with arms of his own painting, condemn Mr. Salt's collec- tion of Egyptian Antiquities in terms of unmistakeable contempt ! — Knowledge for the Time, 1864, p. 85. WRITING HISTORY FOR THE STAGE. Sheridan's popular play of Pizarro owes much of its success to its sentiments, chiefly made up by Sheridan from his speeches on the trial of Warren Hastings, and on the subject of the invasion. The most objectionable point in the original arrangement of the piece is the ill- contrived and almost ludicrous manner in which retributive justice is dealt on Pizarro, who, after being bullied through five acts by Alonzo, Elvira, and Rolla in succession, is killed unfairly in the end, as Porson commemorates in his amusing parody : — Four acts are tol, lol ; but the fifth's my delight ; Where history's trac'd with the pen of a Varro ; And Elvira in black, and Alonzo in white, Put an end to the piece by killing Pizarro. 1 2 TRA VELS OF ANA CHA RSIS. It is but just to the memory of Kotzebue to remark, that this gross departure from historical fact was a gratuitous interpretation by- Sheridan. Every schoolboy might have known and remembered that Pizarro lived to conquer Peru, and was finally assassinated in his vice- regal palace at Lima by the son and friend of his early associate, Almagro, whom he executed some years before. The inflated, false sentiments of the play have received this chastise- ment from a contemporary critic :— " It is observable and not a little edifying to observe, that when those who excel in a spirit of satire above everything else come to attempt serious specimens of the poetry and romance whose exaggerations they ridicule, they make ridiculous mis- takes of their own, and of the very same kind, — so allied is the habitual want of faith with want of all higher power." TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS. This popular work of the Abbe Barthelemy, first published in 1788, is a strange admixture of fiction with real facts, which is not very favourable to historical accuracy. Barthelemy supposes a young Scythian, of the name of Anacharsis, acquainted with the language of the Greeks, to have made a journey into Greece in search of informa- tion, and to have resided many years in its principal cities, between 363 and 337 B.C. The greater part of this period corresponds with the reign of Philip of Macedonia till the battle of Cheronsea, after which Anacharsis is made finally to leave Greece and return to Scythia, where he is supposed to have compiled a narrative of his travels and observa- tions in Greece. Barthelemy's object in writing the Anacharsis was to revive among the people of his age the taste for ancient erudition, to vindicate it from the supercilious contempt of the philosophers of the day, and to show the utility of such studies. "In this work the Abbe enlightens us on the memorable battle of Thermopylae, where Leonidas, instead of resisting the Persians with three hundred men, commanded, according to Diodorus, at least seven thousand, or even twelve thou- sand, if we may believe Pausanias." — See Delepierre's Historical Difficul- ties and Contested Events, p. 8. Horace Walpole criticises Barthelemy with much verve. In a letter to the Countess of Ossory, he writes : — " I am reading the Anacharsis of the Abbe Barthelemy, four most corpulent quartos, into which he has amassed, and, indeed, very ingeniously arranged, every passage I believe (for aught I know) that is extant in any Greek or Latin author, which gives any account of Greece, and all and every part of it ; but, alas ! I have not yet waded through the second volume — a sure sign that the appetite of my eyes has decayed. I can read now but for amuse- ment. It is not at all necessary to improve one's self for the next world, especially as one's knowledge will probably not prove standard there. The Abbe is, besides, a little too partial to the Grecian accounts of their own virtues, and, as Dr. Pauw and Dr. Gillies have lately un- hinged their scale of merits, a rehabilitation is no business of mine." In TRAVELS OF ANACHARSIS. 13 another letter to the Countess, Walpole writes : — " The Abbe's book is extremely well described by a Mosaic compound all-bits of truth; but, alas ! the pavement is a fiction, and not slippery enough to make one slide over it. It is, as Mrs. Darner says, a vision — a dream about truths ; in short, it is an excellent work for a man of twenty-five, just fresh from the classics, and would range them most compendiously in his head, and he would know where to find any parcel he should want on occasion ; but for me, I have not been able to wade to the end of the second volume. I cannot gulp again the reveries of the old philosophers on the origin of the world, and still less the foolish romances of Herodotus, such as that of the patriotic courtier who cut off his own nose and ears in order to betray Babylon to Darius. Iron tears may fall down Pluto's cheek when he sees Nebuchadnezzar come to himself; yet even that I should not believe at the distance of two thousand years ! Then, having just read Dr. Gillies and Mr. Pauw, I cannot for the life of me admire the Lacedemonians again, nor listen gravely to the legend of Lycurgus, when Mr. Pauw has proved it very doubtful whether any such person existed. If there did, he only refined savages into greater barbarism. I will tell your Ladyship an additional observation that I made just as I broke off with Anacharsis. We are told that Lycurgus allowed theft, and enjoined community of goods. I beg to know where was the use of stealing where there was no individual property ? Does stealth consist in filching what is your own as much as any other man's ? It would be like Mr. Cumberland, who steals from himself." Again : " I allow all the merit of Anacharsis, and do believe your Ladyship reads it ; but I know that its great vogue at Paris, on its first appearance, was during the first fortnight, when, to be sure, nobody had got through thirty pages of the first volume. I penetrated a great way, and, though I was tired of it, it was not from any faults I found, but it did not interest me in the least. Mrs. Darner is a convert, and is now reading it. I broke off at the Lacedemonians, whom I abhor, though I allow the merit your Ladyship so justly admires in them — their brevity." Voltaire's 'Universal History was a favourite book of Walpole' s. He thought it Voltaire's chef-d'oeuvre. " It is a marvellous mass both of genius and sagacity, and the quintessence of political wisdom as well as of history. Any one chapter on a single reign, as those of Philip II., Henry IV., Richelieu, Elizabeth, Cromwell, is a complete picture of their characters and of their times. Whatever may be said of his incorrectness in some facts, his observations and inferences are always just and profound The story of the whole modern world is comprised in less space than that of the three centuries of diminutive Greece in the tedious travels of Anacharsis, who makes you remember rather than reflect" 14 THE DEUCALIONAL DELUGE. EUCALION, in Grecian legend, is the person specially saved at the general deluge ; and he is the father of Hellen, the great eponym of the Hellenic race. The enormous iniquity, as Apollodorus says, of the then existing brazen race, or, as others say, of the fifty monstrous sons of Lycaon — provoked Zeus to send a general deluge. An unremitting and ter- rible rain laid the whole of Greece under water, except the highest mountain tops, whereon a few stragglers found refuge. Deucalion was saved in a chest or ark, which he had been forewarned by his father, Prometheus, to construct. After floating for nine days on the water, he at length landed on the summit of Mount Parnassus. He then prayed that men and companions might be sent to him in his solitude, when Zeus directed both him and Pyrrha, his wife, to cast stones over their heads : those cast by Pyrrha became woman, those by Deucalion men. And thus " the stony race of men came to tenant the soil of Greece." The reality of this deluge was firmly believed throughout the his- torical ages of Greece : the chronologers, reckoning up by genealogies, assigned the exact date to it, and placed it at the same time as the con- flagration of the world, by the rashness of Phaeton. The meteoro- logical work ascribed to Aristotle, places Mount Pindus near Dodona, and the river Achelous : he treats it as a physical phenomenon, the re- sult of periodical cycles in the atmosphere, thus departing from the re- ligious character of the old legend, which described it as a judgment inflicted by Zeus upon a wicked race. Statements founded upon this event were in circulation throughout Greece to a very late date. The Megarians affirmed that Megaros, their hero, son of Zeus by a local nymph, had found safety from the waters on the lofty summit of their mountain Geranei, which had not been completely submerged ; and in the magnificent temple of the Olympian Zeus, at Athens (ac- cording to the Parian marble, founded by Deucalion), a cavity in the earth was shown, through which it was affirmed the waters of the deluge had retired: even in the time of Pausanias, the priests poured into this cavity holy offerings of meal and honey. — Abridged from Gratis Hut. Greece, vol. i. EGYPT : ITS MONUMENTS AND HISTORY. Egypt has been under many dynasties, none of which sprang originally from her own soil. Indeed, to those who take pleasure in observing historical retribution, it must be a striking reflection that this country PLATO SOLD AS A SLAVE. *5 has been subject to foreign powers, or to dominant races unassimilated with the original stock, ever since the days of those mighty kings who were wont from time to time tea oppress the children of Israel. It is true that subjection to a foreign race has become the normal condition of many Eastern countries:, but there is, perhaps, no region in which ancient splendour and long- -continued modern degradation are so harshly contrasted as in the land of the Pharaohs. — (Athenaum?) Canon Trevor puts this strikingly: — " It is hardly possible to imagine a greater contrast than is presented between the Monuments and the History of Egypt. The monuments tell of a native monarchy flourishing among the great empires of the East ; its kings little less than demi-gods ; its priesthood endued with a sanctity revered in distant lands ; its chariots and horses pouring out to battle under the banners of a thousand gods; the nations of the earth bringing tribute; and art and luxury carried to an extent only possible to a numer ous population, with abundant material resources and a high mental development. On the date and duration of this splendid period the momuments are dumb. They witness what Ancient Egypt was ; they kn ow nothing of her rise, progress, or decay. Their testimony is confirmed by the position of Egypt in the Holy Scriptures, where her rvders are found showing hospitality to the father of the faithful, or reducing his descendants into bondage. Still, we only know that Eg,ypt was a great power before Israel was a nation^ It gleams out of a remote antiquity with a splendour that cannot be denied ; but the •splendour is a pre-historic memory, separated from authentic chrono- logy by a gulf, which nothing but the Bible can span. All that we know of it is, that it existed before Moses, and perished about the close of the Old Testament. With the first page of secular history Ancient Egypt is already dead. The Pharaohs have become a tradition, the temples and altars are shrouded in mystery, the fleets and armies have disappeared, the people are reduced to inexorable servitude." PLATO SOLD AS A SLAVE. When Dionysius received, at Syracuse, the visit of Plato (who came to Sicily to see Mount Etna, 388 B.C.), he discoursed eloquently upon justice and virtue, enforcing his doctrine that wicked men were in- evitably miserable, that true happiness belonged only to the virtuous, and that despots could not lay claim to the merit of courage. This pleased not Dionysius, who took a deep-rooted dislike to Plato, whom, according to Diodorus, the despot caused to be seized, taken to the Syracusan slave-market, and put up for sale as a slave, at the price of twenty minae ; which his friends subscribed to pay, and thus re- leased him. Plato then left Syracuse in a trireme which was about to convey home the Lacedaemonian envoy, Pollio. But Dionysius secretly- entreated Pollio to cause him to be slain on the voyage — or at least to sell him as a slave. Plato was accordingly landed at iEgina, and there 16 HOW DEMOSTHEMKS BECAME AN ORATOR. sold; but, being re-purchased, he w/as sent back to Athens: but it is certain that Plato was really sold, and i became for a moment a slave ! — Abridged from Grotes Hist. Greece, vol. *.xi. HOW DEMOSTHENES BECAME ,AN ORATOR. Demosthenes, when a youth, corrected his affective elocution by speaking with pebbles in his mouth ; he prepared . himself to overcome ■ the noise of the assembly by declaiming in stormy \ veather on the sea- shore of the Phalerum ; he opened his lungs by runming, and extended the power of holding breath by pronouncing sentences in marching up- hill ; he sometimes passed two or three months without interruption in a subterranean chamber, practising night and day, either mi composition or declamation, and shaving one-half of his beard in order t.o disqualify himself from going abroad. In his unremitting private practice, he ac- \ quired a graceful action by keeping watch on all his moveme its while [ declaiming before a tall looking-glass. More details are j. -iven by I Plutarch, from Demetrius, the Phalerean, who heard them himse T from Demosthenes ; and the subterranean chamber where he practise^ i was shown at Athens, even in the time of Plutarch. THE HOMERIC POEMS. Mr. Froude, the historian, loves Homeric masterpieces ; and he has traced with a fine and cunning hand the moral creed of the great poet, the state of society described by him, the power and grand simplicity of his manner, his sympathy with what is noble and beautiful. We quote his very striking reflections on the moral differences between the Iliad and Odyssey: " In the Iliad, in spite of the gloom of Achilles, and his complaint of the double urn, the sense of life, on the whole, is sunny and cheer- ful. There is no yearning for anything beyond — nothing vague, no- thing mystical. The earth, the men, the gods, have all a palpable reality about them. From first to last, we know where we are, and what we are about. In the Odyssey, we are breathing another atmosphere. The speculations on the moral mysteries of our being hang like a mist over us from the beginning to the end, and the cloud, from time to time, de- scends on the actors, and envelopes them in a preternatural halo. . . We never know as we go on, so fast we pass from one to the other, when we are among mere human beings, and when among the spiritual and mystical. Those sea-nymphs, those cannibals, those en- chantresses, if intended to be real, are neither mortal nor divine ; at any rate, like nothing divine which we had seen in Olympus or on the plains of Ilium ; and at times there is a strangeness seen in the hero himself. Sometimes it is Ulysses painfully toiling his way home across the un- known ocean ; sometimes it is we that are Ulysses, and that unknown ocean is the life across which we are wandering with too many Circes HOMERS BATTLES, AND HIS IMITATORS. 17 and Sirens, and Isles of Error in our path. In the same spirit death is no longer the end, and on every side long vistas seem to stretch away into the infinite, peopled with shadowy forms." The candour and integrity of Homer, in an historical point of view, have been so impugned as to be set beneath the authority of Geoffrey of Monmouth. One of the latest Homeric theories is that by Mr. James Hutchinson, of Cape Town, Cape of Good Hope, who points out remarkable resemblances in the Iliad of Homer and the Ramayana of Valmiki. He contends that the rape of Helen and the siege of Troy are really but the carrying off of Sita and the capture of Lanka done into Greek verse. He goes further, and as- serts his conviction that Homer not only worshipped the same deities as the Hindus, but was himself a Hindu. Dr. August Jacob, after six years' study of the ancient Greek epics, has constructed a theory of Homer, according to which there was really a singer, or bard, named Homer, who, somewhere about the tenth century B.C., flourished on the western coast of Asia Minor, or in the islands hard by. The wrath of Achilles, and the return of Odysseus, formed the subjects of his songs, which, for a long time, were not written down, but preserved by oral tradition. But Homer had pre- decessors, contemporaries, and successors, who celebrated the fall of Troy. All the lays, Homeric and others, were altered from time to time; and were edited by Pisistratus, who presented them to the Athenians in thesame order in which they now appear. Dr. Jacob points out the ancient son£ or stories, examines the whole of the Iliad and Odyssey book by book, and makes his citations in German. HOMER S BATTLES, AND HIS IMITATORS. The first great poet whose works have come down to us sang of war long before war became a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between two little Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements of labour rudely turned into weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good armour, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had enabled them to practise military ex- ercises. One such chief, if he were a man of great strength, agility, and courage, would, probably, be more formidable than twenty common men ; and the force and dexterity with which he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable share in deciding the event of the day. Such were, probably, the Battles with which Homer was familiar. But Homer re- lated the actions of men of a former generation, of men who sprang from the gods, and communed with the Gods face to face, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks, which two sturdy hinds of a later period would be unable even to lift. He therefore naturally represented their martial exploits as resembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest and most expert combatants of his own age ! Achilles, clad in celestial armour, drawn by celestial coursers, grasping c tS fabulous classic localities. nis spear which none but himself could raise, driving all Troy and Lyc : a before him, and choking the Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses of Thessalian breed, struck down with his right arm, foe after foe. In all rude societies, similar notions are found. There are at this day countries where the Life-guardsman, Shaw, would be considered as a much greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Buonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with which the Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, distin- guished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, and by the skill with which he managed his horse and his sabre ; could not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, and rode like a butcher, could be the greatest soldier in Europe. Homer's description of war had, therefore, as much truth as poetry requires. But truth was altogether wanting to the performances of those who, writing about battles which had scarcely anything in common with the battles of his times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of the first order ; and his narrative is made up of the hideous wounds which these generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero sends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and Maris and Arst- and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigant'c Thylis, and Sapharu . and Monassus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Telesinus with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was copied in modern times, and continued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of the Splendid Shilling, represented Marlborough as having w T on the battle of Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and skill in fence. — Macaulay. FABULOUS LOCALITIES OF CLASSIC HISTORY. Mr. Grote, at the opening of his valuable History of Greece, gives this very interesting precis of certain classic localities, the existence of which has been disproved by the extension of geographical discovery : — " Many of these fabulous localities are to be found in Homer and Hesiod, and the other Greek poets and topographers, — Erytheia, the garden of the Hesperides, the garden of Phcebus, to which Boreas trans ported the Attic maiden Orithya, the delicious country of the Hyper- boreans, the Elysian plain, the floating island of jEoIus, Trinakria, the country of the ^Ethiopians, the Losstrygones, the Cyclopes, the Loto- phagi, the Sirens, the Cimmerians, and the Gorgons, &c. These are places which (to use the expression of Pindar respecting the Hyperbo- GREEK A NEW LANGUAGE] 19 reans) you cannot approach either by sea or by land : the wings of the poet alone can bring you there "In the present advanced state of geographical knowledge, the story of that man who, after reading Gullivers Travels, went to look in his map for Lilliput, appears an absurdity ; but those who fixed the exact locality of the floating island of iEolus on the rocks of the Sirens did much the same ; and with their ignorance of geography and imperfect appreciation of historical evidence, the error was hardly to be avoided. The ancient belief which fixed the Sirens on the island of Sireneuse off the coast of Naples; the Cyclopes, Erytheia, and the Laestrygones in Sicily; the Lotophagi on the island of Meninx, near the Lesser Syrtis ; the Phasa- cians at Corcyra, and the goddess Circe at the promontory of Circeium, took its rise at a time when these regions were first Hellenized, and com- paratively little visited." COLOSSAL ANTS PRODUCING GOLD. This extravagant fable is related by the Greeks, and repeated by tra- vellers of the Middle Ages, of ants as big as foxes producing gold. Thr passage states that the tribes who dwell between the Mem and Mandau mountains brought lumps of the paipilika, or ant-gold, — so named be- cause it was dug out by the common large ant, or paipilika. Professor Wilson explains this absurdity, by observing that it was believed that the native gold found on the surface of some of the auriferous deserts of Northern India had been laid bare by the action of these insects, — an idea by no means irrational, although erroneous, but which grew up, in its progress westward, into a monstrous fable. The native country of these tribes is that described by the Greeks — the mountains between Hindostan and Thibet ; and the names are those of barbarous races still found there. GREEK A NEW LANGUAGE ! In the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxix. p. 477, we are told that Conrad, a monk of Heresbach, had pronounced, in presence of an assembly, an anathema against Greek, saying that " a new language had been dis- covered, called Greek, against which it was necessary to guard, as this language engendered every species of heresy ; just as all they who learned Hebrew infallibly became Jews." M. Delepierre, in correction, says : — " The real fact is, that Conrad of Heresbach had never been a monk, but was a confidential councillor of the Duke of Cleves, and that, far from prohibiting the study of the ancient languages, he was one of the savans of the sixteenth century who showed the greatest zeal in encouraging a taste for their culture. It is he him- self who, in order to expose the ignorance of the clergy of that period, relates that he heard a monk from the pulpit pronounce the anathema on the Greek language mentioned above. So easy is it, by distorting facts, to make or mar a reputation 1" — Historical Difficulties, 1S6S, pp. 5, 6. C 2 20 THE BA TTLE OF ARBELA. THE DEATH OF AESCHYLUS. iEschylus, the celebrated Athenian tragic poet, spent the latter part of his life in Sicily, where he died. For this change of residence, at an ad- vanced period of life, no certain reason has been transmitted by ancient authors. It has been recorded that a prophet informed him of the day on which he would be killed by something falling upon his head ; and, in order to avoid an accident of that kind, he quitted the town, and retired to the fields, where an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head, probably mistaking it for a stone, as he was very bald. This stroke instantly de- prived the poet of life. Pliny and Valerius Maximus narrate the account of the death of iEschylus with all the gravity of truth; and, however improbable it may appear, there can be little doubt but both believed in the accuracy of what they stated. Plutarch has, in his writings, men- tioned a number of particulars of the life of TEschylus, which would re- auire to be confirmed by other testimony before they are admitted as authentic history. THE BATTLE OF ARBELA. Mr. Rawlinson, in the closing volume of his Five Great Monarchies of the Eastern World, makes the following remarks on the battle of Arbela, and its effects on the Persian Empire : — " Arbela was not, like Issus, won by mere fighting. It was the leader's victory, rather than the soldiers'. Alexander's diagonal advance, the confusion which it caused, the break in the Persian line, and its prompt occupation by some of the best cavalry and a portion of the phalanx, are the turning-points of the engagement. All the rest followed as a matter of course. Far too much importance has been assigned to Darius's flight, which was the effect rather than the cause of victory. When the centre of an Asiatic army is so deeply penetrated that the per- son of the monarch is exposed and his near attendants begin to fall, the battle is won. Darius did not — indeed, he could not — ' set the example of flight.' Hemmed in by vast masses of troops, it was not until their falling away from him on his left flank at once exposed him to the enemy and gave him room to escape, that he could extricate himself from the melee. No doubt it would have been nobler, finer, more heroic, had the Persian monarch, seeing that all was lost, and that the Empire of the Per- sians was over, resolved not to outlive the independence of his country. Had he died in the thick of the fight, a halo of glory would have sur- rounded him. But because he lacked, in common with many other great kings and commanders, the quality of heroism, we are not justified in affixing to his memory the stigma of personal cowardice. Like Pompey, like Napoleon, he yielded in the crisis of his fate to the instinct of self- preservation. He fled from the field where he had lost his crown, not to organize a new army, not to renew the contest, but to prolong for a few weeks a life which had ceased to have any public value. It is needless to pursue further the dissolution of the Empire. The fatal blow was struck at Arbela — all the rest was but the long death-agony. At Arbela ALEXANDER'S HORSE BUCEPHALUS. 21 the crown of Cyrus passed to the Macedonian ; the Fifth Monarchy- came to an end. The he-goat, with the notable horn between hi? eyes, had come from the west to the ram which had two horns, and had run into him with the fury of his power. He had come close to him, and, moved with choler, had smitten the ram, and broken his two horns — there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but he had cast him down to the ground and stamped upon him — and there was none to deliver the ram out of his hand."* ALEXANDER THE GREAT, AND HIS HORSE BUCEPHALUS. The fame of Alexander and his steed, Bucephalus, are built up together. The latter was named from his head resembling that of an ox. Alexander was the first to break in this famous horse, and thus fulfil the condition stated by an oracle as necessary for gaining the crown of Macedon. Aulus Gelliusf has given a minute account of Bucephalus, and records that, after he had been killed in battle, Alexander builtj in honour of his horse, a city in India, which, from him, he called Bucephale. To this day, the burial-place of Bucephalus is pointed out by the natives, and the tomb erected to his memory by Alexander stands in the centre of a large plain, between Jelam and Chenab rivers, in the Punjab. It is formed of earth, breasted with marble ; the base extends 100 paces, and diminishes at the top to thirty, to which you ascend by a flight of stone steps, fifty-five in number. In the centre, at the top, which is quite flat, is a square draw-well, faced with stone ; a tree grows a few yards from the mouth of the well, and under its shade sits a faquier (a monk or mendicant). We gather these details from the letter of an officer of the 4 1 st Regiment, who was, a few years since, encamped close to the tomb in his campaign. * Le Brim has painted the Battle of Arbela, which we remember to have seen engraved upon a glass vase, by a Bohemian artist : as a modern intaglio en- graving, this vase was unrivalled. It was long in the possession of Mr. Apsley Pellatt, who has engraved it in his Curiosities of Glass-making, 1849. f Aulus Gellius (or, according to some writers, Agellius), the author of the Nodes Atticce, was born at Rome, early in the second century, and died at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Nodes Atticce was written, as he informs us in the preface to the work, during the winter evenings in Attica, to amuse his children in their hours of relaxation. It appears from his own account, that he had been accustomed to keep a commonplace book, in which he entered whatever he heard in conversation, or met with in his private reading that appeared worthy of memory. There is no attempt at classi- fication or arrangement in the work, which contains anecdotes and arguments, scraps of history and pieces of poetry, and dissertations on various points, its philosophy, geometry, and grammar. Amidst much that is trifling and puerile, we obtain information upon many subjects relating to antiquity, of which we must otherwise have been ignorant. The work was printed for the first time at Rome in 1469 ; it was translated into English by Beloe, 1795. 22 HERODOTUS. The name Bucephalus has been applied to a beautiful animal of the gazelle tribe, as well as generally to a showy steed. Sheridan, in his Prologue to Pizarro, sings of the Sunday equestrian in Hyde Park:— Anxious — yet timorous too ! — his steed to show, The hack Bucephalus of Rotten Row. HERODOTUS, THE FATHER OF HISTORY. Herodotus, the author of the most ancient history which has been transmitted to modern times, was born at Halicarnassus about 484 B.C. If the passages in his own History (i. 30, iii. 15) were written by himself, he was probably alive 408 B.C. To obtain authentic and abundant materials for writing his History, he visited Asia, spent some time in Egypt, crossed to Greece, and afterwards to Italy. To the Egyptian priests he, probably, owed the greatest obligations. He presents himsef as a traveller and observer, and as an historian. The story of his reading his work at the Olympic Games has been disproved, and is not even alluded to by Plutarch, in his Treatise on the malignity of Herodotus. He makes no display of the extent of his travels ; but his details are sur- prising: he describes an object as standing behind the door, or on the right hand, as you enter a temple ; or he was told something by a per- son in a particular place; or he uses other words equally significant. The sketches of the various people and countries are among the most valuable parts of the work of Herodotus, throwing a clear and steady light over ancient history. When he has any doubt about the authenticity of his information, Herodotus always uses qualifying expressions ; but his statements made without doubt or hesitation may be relied on. His digressions elevate him to the rank of an intelligent traveller, who com- bines in harmonious union with a great historical work, designed to per- petuate the glories of his own nation, so endless a variety of matter collected from the general history of mankind. He chose for his subjects a series of events which concerned the universal Greek nation, and not them only, but the whole civilized world ; and by his execution of his great undertaking, he was called by Cicero the Father of History. He was not fully appreci- ated by all his countrymen ; and in modern times his wonderful stories have been the subject of merriment to the half-learned, who measure his ex- perience by their own ignorance. The incidental confirmations of his veracity have been accumulating of late years on all sides, and our more exact knowledge of the countries which he visited enable us to appreciate him better than many of the Greeks themselves could do. His style is simple, pleasing, and generally perspicuous ; but with evident marks of defective composition. Forty years ago, it was remarked in the Edinburgh Review: — " Few persons are aware how often they imitate the Father of History. Thus, children and servants are remarkably 'Herodotean' in their style of narration. They tell everything dramatically. Their ' says hes ' and HERODOTUS. 23 ■ says shes ' are proverbial. Every person who has had to settle their disputes, knows that, even when they have no intention to deceive, then- reports of conversation always require to be carefully sifted. If an educated man were giving an account of a certain change of administra- tion, he would say: 'Lord John Russell resigned, and the Queen, in consequence, sent for Sir Robert Peel.' A porter would tell the story as if he had been behind the curtains of the Royal be A at Buckingham Palace. ' So Lord John Russell says, " I cannot manage this business, I must go out." So the Queen says, " Well, then, I must send for Sir Robert Peel, that's all." This is the very manner of the Father of History. " Herodotus has been most unblushingly mis-quoted, by great men, too : Denon, the traveller in Egypt, several times quotes Herodotus for what is not in that author. But this is so common even with people who have claims to scholarship, that it has become almost a fashion to say that anything is in Herodotus." In a review of Wheeler's Geography of Herodotus, in the Literary Gazette, 1854, we find this summary of his present status : — " The fame of Herodotus brightens as time advances. After all the assaults upon his veracity as a traveller and his credibility as a historian, the substantial truth and value of his writings are more and more acknow- ledged. The researches of the most learned scholars and the discoveries of the most recent travellers are ever bringing to light new proofs of the authenticity of his narrative. That he admitted into his history many doubtful traditions, and that along with the record of what he himself saw he gave many idle tales related to him by others, is understood by every reader. But the historian himself made no pretension to an exact and systematic narrative of events. His work was intended not for philosophical but for popular use, and he set down all that he thought might prove generally interesting. Sometimes he warns his readers against receiving his statements as facts, as in the account of the clerk of the temple at Elephantina, when, recording the reply to his inquiry about the course of the Nile, he adds, ' the man, however, seemed to me to be jesting.' He frankly tells the sources of his information, and makes no concealment of his being frequently a mere compiler and reporter of tales, as well as an eyewitness and narrator of events. For the purposes of his work, he did not think it necessary to exercise the strict discrimina- tion between fact and fiction which is now expected in every historian. It is not fair, therefore, to judge him accord ng to the ideas of modern criticism, as has been done by the commentator on Herodotus, Mr. Biakesley, in the introduction to the recently published edition of his his- tory. He repeats the old charge, that much of the narrative of ' the Father of History ' is a mere bundle of stories, imposed upon his credulity by ' Egyptian priests ' and 'ancient mariners;' and he even renews the discussion as to whether Herodotus really did accomplish those travels which have been generally ascribed to him. The criticisms and argu- ments of the learned commentator may serve to induce increased caution and discrimination in regard to the details of the writings of Hero- dotus, but we do not think they injure his general reputation either as a historian or as a geographer. Notwithstanding Mr. Blakesley's seep- 24 DIOGENES: HIS SAYINGS AND DOINGS. ticism, and that of all previous critics, from Plutarch to Voltaire, we still turn with confidence to the pages of the old < Homer of History be- lieving that there we find much true and valuable information as to the nations of antiquity which no other work contains, and that we there Save a rtrikingV on the whole, a faithful picture of the ancient world as it appeared to a Greek traveller five centuries before the Christian era. DIOGENES: HIS SAYINGS AND DOINGS. Diogenes was a native of Sinope, in Pontus, which he and his father, who was a banker, were compelled to quit, for coining false money. On settling at Athens, he studied philosophy under Antisthenes. b rom his writings being lost, the extent of his information and his discoveries in science are unknown. That he had the reputation of being a great genius seems undeniable ; although much of his celebrity -may be referred to the strictness of his tenets, contempt of comfort, and oddity of manner. It must not be inferred that because he despised riches he cultivated humility: on the contrary, he looked down with scorn upon the whole world censured with the dignity of a magistrate all mankind, and con- sidered every philosopher as greatly his inferior Extreme poverty the result of his despising riches, obliged him to beg-a state to which his raiment was not superior ; yet, when Alexander the Great offered him Sto hTSurned at the proposal, and said, « All I ask is do not stand between me and the sun/ In after-life, Diogenes was taken by pirates who carried him into Crete, and sold him to Xeniades, a Corinthian m whose family he lived as tutor, and refused to be ransomed by Ins friends giving as a reason, that " a lion was not the servant of his feeders, but their master." He died in the same year, and, according to one account on the same day, with Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), at the age of ninety years. Of him Plato may be said to have given a just character in a few words, that "he was Socrates run mad His dress was a coarse double robe, which served him as a cloak by day and a coverlet by night, and carried a wallet to receive alms of food. His abode was a cask in the temple of Cybele. In the summer he rolled himself upon the burning sand, and in the winter clung to the images in ttesteeet covered with snow, in order that he might accustom himself to endure all kinds of weather. The smart things and witty repartees of Diogenes were collected by his kinsman, Diogenes Laertius ; and of them Professor de Morgan has, in the Athenaum, collected some specimens. "Diogenes is not a Cynic : that is a name for the snapping school which he raised into fame, nominally founded by Antisthenes He is as much more than a Cynic as Plato is more than a Platonist. 'lam Alex- ander the great king.-And I am Diogenes the Dog (kvov). The school frequented the Cynosargus at Athens ; whence some thought The name was derived. Very likely ; and in thisway : dirty mendicants hunting a place so called would be called dogs, and philosopnic pride would adopt the name. DIOGENES: HIS SAYINGS AND DOINGS. 2$ " Diogenes, like R. B. Sheridan, must have every stray joke sworn to him. But the genuine stock is in Laertius. He was asked why gold is so pale, and he replied, Because so many are lying in wait for it. Very likely the querist expected Diogenes to answer that he did not know, and would then have answered his own question with — Because it is afraid you and your father will put a wrong stamp on it. For Icesias and Son were bankers at Sinope, and were driven away for operations on the coinage. When Diogenes was afterwards reproached with this, his answer was— I was once what you are now ; what I am now you never will be. " When should a man dine ? If rich, said Diogenes, when he likes ; if poor, when he can. " Why, said some one, who wanted to be very smart upon the poor tub-tenant who lived by his wit, do people give cheerfully to the lame and blind, but not to philosophers ? Because said Diogenes, people feel they may (e\7ri(ovcn) become lame and blind themselves, but they have no fear of becoming philosophers. He begged of a stingy man who was very slow about producing anything: My friend ! said he, what I ask for is to feed me, not to bury me. " The well-known house, or bed, in which the sage lived — when at Athens, at least ; no doubt Xeniades found him a better lodging — has produced a comparison. Granger said that the large hoop-apparatus which the ladies wore in hi da/ was no more a petticoat than Diogenes's tub was his breeches. W ould they now let Diogenes, tuo and all, into an omnibus ? " The humility of Diogenes was of that kind which is ' aped by pride,' and is, perhaps, the best understood point of his enigmatical character. It did not impose upon Plato, whose repartee is equally well known. Byron embodies it in one of the stanzas of Don Juan : — Trampling on Plato's pride, with greater pride, As did the cynic on some like occasion : Deeming the sage would be much mortified, Or thrown into a philosophic passion, For a spoilt carpet— but the ' ' Attic bee Was much consoled by his own repartee. " The same idea is illustrated in a different way by Sir Thomas Browne: " Diogenes I hold to be the most vain inglorious man of his time, and more ambitious in refusing all honours than Alexander in rejecting none." — Religio Medici. The tub story has been demolished : " And why ?" says De Morgan. "Because it is not mentioned by Cicero, Plutarch, Arrian, and Valerius Maximus ; only by Lucian, Laertius, Juvenal, and Seneca." Diogenes desired to be buried head downwards, feeling sure, he said, that things would soon be topsy-turvy : this was an allusion to the growth of Macedonia. Diogenes was imitated by the eccentric Major Labelliere, who was buried on the most north-western brow of Box Hill, in Surrey, with his head downwards, in order, he said, that " as the world was turned topsy-turvy, it was fit he should be buried so, that he might be right at last." THE PLAINS OF TROY. XERXES AND HIS EXPLOITS. Ancisit authors differ respecting the number of the army under Xerxes in his invasion of Greece. Justinus makes it consist of 700,000 native troops and 300,000 auxiliaries, adding that it had not been im- properly recorded that rivers had been drunk up by his armies, and that his fleet consisted of 14,000 ships. That historian says: "His army wanted a commander : that, in considering the king, you may praise his wealth, but see him as a general : that he was first in flight, last in war, timid in perils, and puffed up when not in personal danger. Before he made trial of war, from confidence of his strength, he seemed the lord of nature itself, levelled mountains, filled up valleys, covered certain seas with bridges, and contributed to the advantage of navigation by the invention of shorter methods. His entrance into Greece was as terrible as his retreat was dishonourable. When he came down upon Greece, Leonidas, with 4000 men, guarded the Straits of Thermopylse for three days against the whole army of Xerxes, and would probably have success- fully repelled the invaders (though, according to Diodorus, there were at least 7000, or even 12,000, if we may believe Pausanias), had not the enemy, by the treachery of a Grecian, been conducted to the top of a hill which overhangs the pass. The obstinate bravery of Leonidas and his men had nearly proved fatal to the king himself, who, in his retreat, crossed the Hellespont in a fishing-boat, traversing the space in thirty days, and returned to Persia ; traversing a space in thirty days over which it took six months to march with his army. Such mortality prevailed among the troops who accompanied him, that the birds of prey marked his track, and feasted on the bodies of the Persians. Before the naval engagement, Xerxes sent 4000 armed men to plunder Delphi, who fell by showers and lightning. He made war a second time on Greece, and was defeated by Cimon, son of Miltiades, both by land and sea. These unsuccessful attacks on Greece rendered Xerxes contemptible in the eyes of his own subjects ; and Artabanus, his prefect, put him to death, in order to procure the crown for himself. THE PLAINS OF TROY. The histories of the Troad and the city of Troy are either mythical or entirely lost to us. Of the latter, although it was one of the most celebrated cities of antiquity, its site has been the subject of much dis- cussion in modem times by travellers and antiquaries. Some have denied the existence of ancient Troy altogether, or have declared it to be a useless task to investigate its site, since it was totally destroyed by the Greeks, and abandoned by its inhabitants. But this last opinion is too sweeping ; since, although Troy may have been destroyed by the Greeks, Homer, who cannot have been mistaken on this point, clearly suggests, and is borne out by Strabo, that after the calamity that befel Troy in the reign of Priam, it continued, at least for some time, to be ruled over by the iEneadae, a branch of the house of Priam. The city of Troy, wnich SOLIMAN " THE MAGNIFICENT." 27 Xerxes (Herodotus) and afterwards Alexander the Great visited, may- have been of later origin, but it is nevertheless attested that it was built on the site of the ancient Troy. This town gradually decayed after the time of Alexander, and a new town of the same name was built, which the Romans regarded and treated as the genuine ancient Troy, from which they derived their descent. After a siege of nine years, the Greeks took and destroyed the city of Troy, about the year 11 84 B.C. Thenceforth, the history of Troy, which, until then, is thoroughly mythical, is completely lost to us ; although, as indicated above, it must have continued for a considerable time afterwards. At the time of the Trojan war, the inhabitants of the Troad had reached a higher state of prosperity than their opponents, the Achseans. There seems, however, to have been no considerable town in the district, except the capital, Ilium or Troy : the cities mentioned by Homer would seem, from the ease with which they were taken, to have been nothing more than villages. The strength and resources of Troy baffled the united efforts of all Greece for nine years. Catullus has beautifully described the enormous carnage of its bloody siege in a single line : — " Iniquitous Troy, the common grave of Europe and Asia." The Trojan walls were built by Neptune and Apollo for a certain sum, which they were to receive from Laomedon, but out of which he defrauded them. Webster, who visited the plains of Troy in T830, describes them as now barren and desolate. The classic Scamander is but a muddy stream, winding through an uncultivated plain, covered with stunted oaks, underwood, and rushes. At the opposite extremity of the plain, stood the tombs of Hector and Achilles ; that of the latter near the Helles- pont, where the Greek fleet was moored. Near is the grave of his friend Patroclus. Thus, Athenian glories are now reduced to a few tumuli about thirty feet high. SOLIMAN "THE MAGNIFICENT. 7 Here is a specimen of the barbarity with which this historical butcher treated his fellow-creatures : — Among the many distinctions of Soliman's reign must be noticed the increased diplomatic intercourse with European nations. Three years after the capture of Rhodes appeared the first French ambassador at the Ottoman Porte : he received a robe of honour, a present of two hundred ducats, and, what was more to his purpose, a promise of a campaign in Hungary, which should engage on that side the army of Charles and his brother, Ferdinand. Soliman kept his promise. At the head of 100,000 men and 300 pieces of artillery, he commenced this memorable campaign. On the fatal field of Mohacs the fate of Hungary was decided, in the year 1526, in an unequal fight. Louis II., as he fled from the Turkish sabres, was drowned in a morass. The next day the Sultan received in state the compliments of his officers. The heads of 20co of the slain, including those of seven bishops, and many of the nobiiity, 28 HIS TOR Y OF EARL Y ROME. were piled up as a trophy before his tent. Seven days after the battle a tumultuous cry arose in the camp to massacre the prisoners and peasants, and, in consequence, 10,000 men were put to the sword. The keys of Buda were sent to the conqueror, who celebrated the feast of Bairam in the Castle of the Hungarian Kings. Fourteen days after- wards he began to retire, bloodshed and devastation marking the course of his army. To Maroth, belonging to the Bishop of Gran, many thousands of the people had fled with their property, relying on the strength of the castle. The Turkish artillery, however, soon levelled it, and the wretched fugitives were indiscriminately butchered. No less than 25,000 fell here ; and the whole number ot the Hungarians de- stroyed in the barbarous warfare of this single campaign amounted to at least 200,000 souls. HISTORY OF EARLY ROME. The early history of Rome has undergone some strange ups and downs within the memory of man. A generation which is hardly yet extinct, believed it as it stood. Niebuhr taught us to disbelieve the old history; he gave a history of his own making to believe instead of it; though his statements too often rested not on any tangible evidence, but on a power of " divination" vested in Niebuhr himself. Much that Niebuhr had rejected, Mr. Newman believed. The last history of Rome, that of Mommsen, like Niebuhr's, pulls down and builds up, but never quotes authorities. Meanwhile, Sir George Cornewall Lewis assailed Niebuhr's whole system, scoffed at the power of divination, denied the right of any man to assert anything which he could not prove, and maintained that next to nothing could be proved as to the times embraced in the first Decade of Livy. Yet, Sir G. C. Lewis did net deny that many of the leading events in earlier times had a real historical groundwork ; and he only laid it down, that without contemporary evi- dence it is impossible to distinguish the truth from falsehood, while he did infinite service in utterly discrediting the wild notion of " divination," and in exposing the reckless dogmatism with which Niebuhr had im- posed upon the world statements unsupported by a shadow of evidence. The result of Sir G. C. Lewis's labours is, in effect, to wipe Niebuhr out altogether, and to leave the early books of Livy as a beautiful story, a sort of prose Iliad, which we may read and enjoy, without believing it. For history, he would send us to the later days of Rome ; to those mighty struggles with Hannibal and Philip, which have been so strangely neglected for myths about Romulus and Coriolanus. The one fact of early Roman history for which real contemporary evidence can be shown, is the fact that Rome was taken by the Gauls. Roman history, in the highest and fullest sense of the word, begins only with the war with Pyrrhus. Up to the invasion, all is chaos; all records have perished ; we can be sure of nothing. The political history of Rome, if we like to believe it, begins with Romulus and Tatius. Tha Romulus made a treaty with Tatius is in itself more credible than that THE CAPITOL SAVED BY GEESE. 29 he was suckled by a wolf; but there is no more historical evidence for one story than the other. Except two or three notices of Polybius, we have nothing earlier than Livy and Dionysius, though they were but ' copyists of copyists. — Selected and abridged from the Saturday Review. HOW THE CAPITOL OF ROME WAS SAVED BY THE CACKLING OF GEESE. The goose appears to have been much maligned by the moderns, who term it a "stupid bird," and even the trustworthiness of modern history " has been impeached in support of this imputation. Every one recollects the story in Livy of the geese of Juno saving the Roman Capitol. The historical credit of this story depends in great measure upon the vigilant habits of the bird, and its superiority to the dog as a guardian. The alertness and watchfulness of the Wild Goose, which have made its chase proverbially difficult, appear, from the following testimony, to be characteristic of the bird in its domesticated state. The establish- ment of this fact we have in the following evidence, by Professor Owen, from Richmond Park: — " Opposite the cottage where I live is a pond, which is frequented during the summer by two brood-flocks of Geese belonging to the keepers. These geese take up their quarters for the night along the margin of the pond, into which they are ready to plunge at a moment's notice. Several times when I have been up late, or wakeful, I have heard the old gander sound the alarm, which is immediately taken up, and has been sometimes followed by a simultaneous plunge of the flock into the pool. On mentioning this to the keeper, he, quite aware of the characteristic readiness of the Geese to sound an alarm in the night, attributed it to a foumart, or other predatory vermin. On other occa- sions the cackling has seemed to be caused by a deer stalking near the flock. But often has the old Roman anecdote occurred to me, when I have been awoke by the midnight alarm-notes of my anserine neigh- bours ; and more than once I have noticed, when the cause of alarm has been such as to excite the dogs of the next-door keeper, that the Geese were beforehand in giving loud warning of the strange steps. " I have never had the smallest sympathy with the sceptics as to Livy's statement : it is not a likely one to be feigned ; it is in exact accordance with the characteristic acuteness of sight and hearing, watch- fulness and power, and instinct to utter alarm-cries, of the goose." The Gray Lag Goose, identical with the domestic goose of our farm- yards, is the Anser of the Romans — the same that saved the Capitol by its vigilance, and was cherished accordingly. Pliny (lib. x., c. xxii.) speaks of this bird at much length, stating how they were driven from a distance on foot to Rome ; he mentions the value of the feathers of the white ones, and relates that in some places they were plucked twice a year. In the Palazzo de Conservatory fifth room, are " two Ducks, in bronze, said to have been found in the Tarpeian Rock, and to be the re- presentation of those ducks which saved the Capitol." — Starke, 30 ROME, THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD. The liver of the goose seems to have been a favourite morsel with epicures in all ages, and their invention appears to have been active in exercising the means of increasing the volume of that organ. The pate defoie d'ote de Strasburg is not more in request now than were the great goose-livers in the time of the Romans. — See Pliny, Hist. lib. x. c. 22, &C. The Egyptian goose, which appears to be the Chelanopex of the Greeks, was much prized on account of its eggs, second only to those of the peacock, i^lian notices this bird, and speaks of its cunning. But it is Herodotus who draws our attention to the bird as one of those held sacred by the Egyptians ; and the researches of modern travellers have fully shown that it was at least a favourite dish with the priests. It is impossible to look at the paintings and sculptures — many will be found in the British Museum, and many more copied in Rocellmi's, and other works of the same kind — without being struck with the frequent occur- rence of geese represented both alive and plucked, and prepared for the table. That some of these represent the Chelanopex there can be no doubt. It is of frequent occurrence on the sculptures in the British Museum, though it was not a sacred bird ; unless it may have some claims to that honour from having been a luxurious article of food for the priests. A place in Upper Egypt had its name Chenoboscion, or Chenoboscia (goose-pens), from these animals being fed there, probably for sale; . though there may have been sacred geese, for the goose, we are told, was a bird under the care of I sis. The tame goose is very long-lived. " A certain friend of ours," says Willoughby, "of undoubted fidelity, told us that his father had once a goose that was known to be eighty years old, which, for aught he knew, might have lived another eighty years, had he not been constrained to kill it for its mischievousness in beating and destroying the younger geese." Dr. Buckland describes and figures from the clay in which the remains of elephant and rhinoceros are so often found, the humerus of a bird in size and shape nearly resembling that of a goose, which, says Dr. Buckland, " is the first example within my knowledge of the bones of birds being noticed in the diluvium of England." The name of goose- berry has been most probably applied from the fruit being made into a sauce and used for young or green geese. ROME, THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD. An achievement almost unrivalled in military annals was the strategic march by Nero, which deceived Hannibal, and defeated Asdrubal. The first intelligence of Nero's return to Carthage, was the sight of Aedrubal's head thrown into his camp. When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed, with a sigh, that " Rome would now be the mistress of the world." And yet, to this victory of Nero's it might be owing that his imperial name- sake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one has eclipsed the glory of CHARACTER OF CATO. 3, the other. When the name of Nero is heard, who thinks of the consul? But such are human things ! — Lord Byron : Notes to the Island. The virtues of Hannibal were counterbalanced by vices of equ. 1 magnitude: inhuman cruelty, perfidy beyond that of a Carthaginian, no regard for truth, no sense of religious obligations, no fear of the gods, ar.d no respect for an oath. Livy ascribes to him actions which the reader :s unwilling to believe of so great a man, such as making bridges and ram- parts of the bodies of the dead, and even teaching his men to feed on human flesh ! During the sixteen years he was in Italy, he destroyed 400 towns, and killed 300,000 men in battle. After his submission to Rome, he was persecuted by the Romans with rancour disgraceful to their na- tional character. After wandering about destitute and forlorn, he sought the protection of Prusias, king of Bithynia, whom, however, the Romans compelled to surrender the aged and excited Hannibal a sacrifice 1o their vengeance, and being beset in his fort by armed men, he swallowed poison, and expired, in 185 B.C.; but other accounts of his death are given. EXTENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. We are sometimes under a little delusion in the estimates we form of the magnitude of the Roman Empire, or the multitude of troops that it maintained. Russia surpasses it in extent of territory, and maintains an army considerably more numerous. France and Austria, who rank nex to Russia in the number of their standing armies, could singly bring into the field a much larger force than the whole Roman Empire. The mili- tary force of the Pagan Empire is here estimated at 450,000 men ; the Christian monarchies of France and Austria are each of them reputed to maintain an army of 650,000 men. And when we reflect upon the in- vention of gunpowder, and the enormous force of artillery, it is evident that any one of the first-rate powers of modern Europe could bring into the field a destructive force that would sweep from the face of the earth the thirty legions of Adrian. The very division of Europe into a num- ber of States involves this increase of soldiery. In the old Roman Em- pire, the great Mediterranean Sea lay peaceful as a lake, and the Roman ships had nothing to dread but the winds and the waves ; whereas in modern Europe many quite artificial boundaries have to be guarded by an array of soldiers. " Belgium defends her flats with a hundred thou- sand men, and the marshes of Holland are secured by sixty thousand Dutch." — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. CHARACTER OF CATO. Dr. Mommsen, in his History of Rome, gives the following depreciatory and unjust character of this " noble Roman": — " Cato was anything but a great man ; but with all that shortsighted- ness, that perversity, that dry prolixity, and those spurious phrases which have stamped him, for his own and for all time, as the ideal of unreflect- 32 MIDDLE TON'S LIFE OF CICERO. ing republicanism, and the favourite of all who make it their hobby, he was yet the only man who honourably and courageously defended in the last struggles the great system doomed to destruction. It only elevates the deep and tragic significance of his death, that he was himself a fool ; in truth, it is just because Don Quixote is a fool that he is a tragic feature. It is an affecting fact, that on that world stage on which so many great and wise men had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue. His greatest title to respect is the involuntary homage which Caesar rendered to him when he made an exception to the contemptuous clemency with which he was wont to treat his oppo- nents, Pompeians as well as Republicans, in the case of Gato alone." cesar's conquest of gaul. Dr. Mommsen, in his History of Rome, does not conceal the atrocities committed by Caesar in this war, nor yet the carnage of the vanquished nation ; nor does he dwell with too much emphasis on Caesar's clemency in pacifying Gaul, or extol too highly his settlement of the province. He knows that a solitude may be called peace, and he is perfectly aware to what account the great Proconsul turned his conquest. But he tries to make us forget these deeds in contemplating the glorious results so far as regards the safety of Rome, and he persists not only in describing Caesar as conquering Gaul in the interests of humanity, but he thinks him entitled to claim credit for all that ever flowed from the conquest. This, the merest fallacy of hero-worship, is thus exemplified : — " What the Gothic Theodoric achieved was nearly effected by Ario- vistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would have hardly stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano- Greek than to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting the past story of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern history ; that Western Europe is Romanic and Germanic Europe classic ; that the names of Theinistocles and Scipio have to us a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar ; that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa, attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden — all this is the work of Caesar ; and while the creation of his great antagonist in the East has been almost re- duced to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Caesar has outlasted these thousands of years, and stands erect for what we may term perpetuity." MIDDLETON'S LIFE OF CICERO. Macaulay has observed that the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith ; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as MIDDLETON'S LIFE OF CICERO. 33 boundless and a zeal as unscrupulous as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political factions. The most decisive proofs are rejected ; the plainest rules of morality are explained away ; extensive and important portions of history are completely distorted The enthusiast represents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, and confounds right and wrong with all the dexterity of a Jesuit ; and all this only in order that some man who has been in his grave many ages may have a fairer character than he deserves. i " Middleton's Life of Cicero is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the biographer brought to his examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and sense which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time ; but this most ingenious and learned man, though So wary held and wise, That, as 'twas said, he scarce received For gospel what the church believed, had a superstition of his own. The great Iconoclast was himself an idolater. The great Awocato del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athanasius to a place in the calendar, was himself composing a lying legend in honour of St. Tully. He was holding up as a model of every virtue a man whose talents and acquirements, indeed, can never be too highly extolled, and who was by no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a craven fear. Actions for which Cicero himself, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could con- ceive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of the great revolution which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make out something which may look like a defence of one most eloquent and accomplished trimmer. We are not surprised that the Emperor of the French, in his Life of Julius Casar, should have made the most of the weakness of Cicero, and should have glossed over his eminent qualities, for, unluckily, Cicero's view of Cassar contradicts that of his imperial admirer. Every school- boy can appreciate the vanity of the accomplished philosopher and rhetorician ; and we quite admit that on some occasions he seems to have been timid and vacillating, that he tried to keep well with both parties in the State, and that he was a lukewarm adherent, as well as a placable antagonist. But Cicero displayed consummate ability in over- whelming the conspiracy of Catiline ; his civil and even his military services in his provincial government were conspicuous; and, by his D 34 ROME UNDER THE OLIGARCHY. example and his noble eloquence, he endeavoured to raise the standard of statesmen, and to oppose political tyranny and corruption. These ^reat merits defy detraction; and even the trimming tendencies of Cicero, placed by the Emperor in harsher relief than by Lord Macaulay, may not have been caused by moral cowardice. His pure, scrupulous, and upright character seems to have shrunk from taking a decided course in an age of revolution and disorder ; and he shaped his way between hostile parties, and leaders ready to overwhelm the State, not so much to advance his own interests, as from a desire to moderate and to con- ciliate, and a strong dislike to extreme measures. We cannot forget the remark of Thucydides, that in times such as those of Cicero, the wise and the good are ever denounced as wanting in downrightness and zeal, and seem to oscillate between opposite factions. THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY. This celebrated collection of books was formed and maintained by the first Ptolemy, King of Egypt, and his successors. Eusebius states the number of volumes at 100,000; though Josephus sets it at 200,000. Orosius tells us 400,000 volumes, when burnt with the fleet by Julius Caesar. It is not, however, generally known that the rolls (yolumina) here spoken of contained far less than a printed volume : for instance, the Metamorphoses of Ovid, in fifteen books, would make fifteen volumes ; and one Didymus is said by Athenaeus to have written 3500 volumes. This consideration will bring the number assigned at least within the bounds of credibility. After the siege of Alexandria, the library was re-established, and con- tinued to increase for four centuries, when it was dispersed. It was again re-established, until Alexandria was conquered by the Arabs, a.d. 640. The collection was then distributed in the various baths of Alex- andria, to be burnt in the stoves ; and, after six months, not a vestige of them remained ; so says a Syriac chronicle. D'Herbelot tells there were then 4000 baths in Alexandria, which were heated by the burning for six months ! Renaudot discredits this as an Eastern tale. At any rate, Amrou, who had, for centuries, been set down as guilty of burning the Alexandrian Library, is now exonerated from that unenviable dis- tinction. We read, however, of other destruction of prodigious numbers of books. At the taking of Bagdad by Halagon, the Tartars threw the books belonging to the colleges of this city into the river Euphrates, when, we are told, the number was so great, that they formed a bridge, across which went foot-passengers and horsemen ! ROME UNDER THE OLIGARCHY. It was a dark and disastrous era when the sword of Sulla restored order, and having, after atrocious crimes, put an end to the struggles of ROME UNDER THE OLIGARCHY. 3.i the democracy, and covered Italy with blood and ashes, he handed over the dominion of the world to the reorganized but corrupt Senate, invested by him with absolute power. We may judge from Dr! Mommsen's description of the most respectable members of this body what was the nature of its meaner elements : — " Even the better aristocrats were not much less remiss and short- sighted than the average senators of the time. In presence of an out- ward foe the more eminent among them, doubtless, proved themselves useful and brave ; but no one of them evinced the desire or the skill to solve the problems of politics proper, and to guide the vessel of the State through the stormy seas of intrigue and faction with the hand of a true pilot. Their political wisdom was limited to a sincere belief in the oligarchy as the sole means of salvation, and to a cordial hatred and courageous execration of demagogism, as well as of every individual authority seeking to emancipate itself. Their petty ambition was con- tented with little They were content when they had gained, not favour and influence, but the consulship and a triumph, and a place of honour in the Senate ; and at the very time when, with right ambi- tion, they would have first begun to be truly useful to their country and their party, they retired from the political stage to spend their days in princely luxury The traditional aptitude and the individual self-denial in which all oligarchic government is based were lost in the decayed and artificially restored Roman aristocracy of this age." The provinces ruined by a succession of harpies, Italy partly disfranchised and largely unpeopled, and the vast capital, corrupt yet supreme, with its frightful contrasts of power and misery, form a spectacle possibly too darkly painted, but of remarkable and appalling interest. Dr. Mommsen has this frightful reflection on Rome : — " It is a dreadful picture, this picture of Italy under the oligarchy. There was nothing to bridge over or soften the fatal contrast between the world of beggars and the world of the rich. The more clearly and painfully this contrast was felt on both sides — the giddier the height to which riches rose, the deeper the abyss of poverty yawned — the more frequently, amid that changeful world of speculation and playing at hazard, were individuals tossed from the bottom to the top, and again from the top to the bottom. The wider the chasm by which the two worlds were externally divided, the more completely they coincided in the like annihilation of family life — which is yet the germ and core of all nationality— in the like laziness and luxury, the like unsubstantial economy, the like unmanly dependence, the like corruption differing only in its scale, the like demoralization of criminals, the like longing to begin the war with property. Riches and misery in close league drove the Italians out of Italy, and filled the peninsula partly with swarms of slaves, partly with awful silence. It is a terrible picture, but not one- peculiar to Italy; wherever the government of capitalists in a Slave State has fully developed itself, it has desolated God's fair world in the same way. As rivers glisten in different colours, but a common «ewer D2 3 6 CRUELTIES OF HANNO. everywhere looks like itself, so the Italy of the Ciceronian epoch resembles substantially the Hellas of Polybius, and still more decidedly the Carthage of Hannibal's time." CRUELTIES OF HANNO AND THE CARTHAGINIANS. Mr. Saxe Bannister, in his Records of British Enterprise beyond Sea s says in a note : — " The first nomade tribe the voyagers reached was friendly, and furnished Hanno with interpreters. At length they dis- covered a nation whose language was unknown to the interpreters. These strangers they attempted to seize, and, upon their resistance, they took three of the women, whom they put to death, and carried their skins to Carthage." — (Geogr. Graci Minores, Paris, 1826, p. 115.) " Hanno obtained interpreters from a people who dwelt on the banks of a large river, called the Lixus, and supposed to be the modern St. Cyprian. Having sailed thence for several days, and touched at diffe- rent places, planting a colony in one of them, he came to a mountainous country, inhabited by savages, who wore the skins of wild beasts. At a distance of twelve days' sail he came to some Ethiopians, who could not endure the Carthaginians, and who spoke unintelligibly even to the Lixite interpreters. These are the people whose women Mr. Bannister says they killed. Hanno sailed from this inhospitable coast fifteen days, and came to the gulf South Horn. Here was an island containing a lake, and in this another island full of wild men, but the women were much more numerous, with hairy bodies. The voyagers pursued the men, who, flying to the precipices, defended themselves with stones, and could not be taken. Three women, who bit and scratched their leaders, would not follow them. Having killed them, the voyagers brought their skins to Carthage." Here it is not intimated that the creatures who defended themselves spoke any language ; while the description of the behaviour of the men, and the bodies of the women, is not repugnant to the supposition that they were large apes, baboons, or ourang-outangs common to this part of Africa. At all events, the voyagers do not say that they flayed a people having the faculty of speech. In the History of Maritime Discovery, it is stated that these Gorilla were probably some species of ourang-outang." Purchas says they might be the baboons or Pongos of those parts. Ramusio gathered from a Portuguese pilot some particulars of this Gorgon Island full of hairy men and women— judged to be Fernando Po. Gosselin, also, speaking of this part of Hanno's voyage, says: — "Hanno encountered a troop of ourang-outangs, which he took for savages, because these animals walk erect, often having a staff in their hands to support themselves, as well as for attack or defence ; and they throw stones when they are pursued. They are the satyrs, and the Argipani, with which Pliny says Atlas was peopled. It would be use- less to say more on this subject, as it is avowed by all the modern com- mentators of the Periplus." Upon this, says Mr. S. W. Singer (Notes and Queries, No. 26), " the relation we have here is evidently only an abridgment or summary, made HANNIBAL'S PASSAGE THROUGH THE ALPS. 37 by some Greek studious of Carthaginian affairs, long subsequent to the time of Hanno; and, judging from a passage in Pliny (1. ii. c. 67), it appears that the ancients were acquainted with other extracts from the original ; yet, though its authenticity has been doubted by Strabo and others, there seems little reason to question that it is a correct outline of the voyage. That the Carthaginians were oppressors of the people they subjugated may be probable; yet we must not, on such slender grounds as this narration affords, presume that they would wantonly kill and flay human beings to possess themselves of their skins." HANNIBAL'S VINEGAR PASSAGE THROUGH THE ALPS. . The passage of Hannibal across the Alps has been a matter of much dispute. Whitaker, in a work published in 1794, maintains that the passage was made over the Great St. Bernard. Our inquiry is, how- ever, not as to the route, but the means by which this great exploit was accomplished. Having gained the summit of the Alpine range, on the top of the highest eminence he pitched his camp, and continued for two days to recruit the exhausted strength both of men and beasts : to make a way down the rock, through which it was necessary to effect a passage, he felled a number of trees which stood near, raised a vast pile of timber, which he set on fire as soon as a strong wind arose, and, when the stone was violently heated, he poured vinegar upon it, which made it either crumble in pieces or rend. Through the rock disjointed by the power of heat, he opened a way with iron instruments, and made the descent so gentle that both the beasts of burden and the elephants could be brought down. Such is the account of Livy, 1st book, 3rd decade. Sir Thomas Browne is content to class the above with his Vulgar Errors, _ as follows : — " That Hannibal ate or brake through the Alps with vinegar may be too grossly taken, and the author of the Life annexed unto Plutarch affirmeth only he used this artifice upon the tops of some of the highest mountains. For as it is vulgarly understood that he cut a passage for his army through these mighty mountains, it may seem incredible not only in the greatness of the effect, but the quantity of the efficient, and such as behold them may think an ocean of vinegar too little for that effect." Upon this Dr. (Sir Christopher) Wren notes : " There needed not more than some few hogsheads of vinegar ; for, having hewed down the woods of fir growing there, and with the huge piles thereof calcined the tops of some cliffes which stood in his waye, a small quantity of vinegar poured on the fire-glowing rocks would make them cleave in sunder, as is manifest in calcined flints, which being often burned, and as often quencht in vinegar, will in fine turn into an impalpable powder, as is truly experimented, and is dayly manifest in the lime-kilnes." Dr. M'Keevor {Annals of Philosophy, N. S., vol. v.) discusses this question, and considers the expansive operation of the fire on the water percolating through the fissures of the rocks, may have led to the de- tachment of large portions by explosions, just as masses are detached 38 CORRUPT HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. from cliffs, by a similar physical cause ; and icebergs, with summer-heat, break away. Or perhaps the only vinegar employed might be the pyroligneous acid produced by the combustion of the wood. But Mr. Brayley, the chemist, supposes Hannibal might have used vinegar to dissolve a particular mass of impeding limestone. An ingenious commentator, less credulous than either of the foregoing, observes : — " The vinegar of the Ancients must have been, beyond all comparison, greatly more potent than any of modern times, for if all that is recorded of it be true, it could not only dissolve pearls, but melt mountains. I must confess, however, to having been always exceedingly and incurably sceptical as to the story of Hannibal having made a way for his army across and through the Alps by such a coup-de-main of scientific skill as well as generalship, as enabled him to mollify the solid rock. He and each of his soldiers must have been provided with more than a cruet-ful of vinegar. An ingenious friend of mine, who has made such matters his study, assures me that even 22,000,000,000 gallons of vinegar, or even aquafortis, would make scarcely the slightest perceptible impression on the Alps, except as so much water would do ; in fact, the story of Hannibal's winning his way over the Alps with vinegar is one of those puzzling problems in history which will never be solved satisfactorily." CORRUPT HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. The literature of Europe, shortly before the final dissolution of the Roman Empire, fell entirely into the hands of the clergy, who were long venerated as the sole instructors of mankind. For several cen- turies, it was extremely rare to meet with a layman who could read or write ; and, of course, it was still rarer to meet with one able to com- pose a work. There was nothing men were unwilling to believe. Nothing came amiss to their greedy and credulous ears. Histories of omens, prodigies, apparitions, strange portents, monstrous appearances in the heavens, the wildest and most incoherent absurdities, were repeated from mouth to mouth, and copied from book to book, with as much care as if they were the choicest treasures of human wisdom. Hence the history of Europe became corrupted to an extent for which we can find no parallel in any other period. There was, properly speaking, no history ; and, unhappily, men, not satisfied with the absence of truth, supplied its place by the invention of falsehood, especially regarding the origin of different nations. During many centuries it was believed by every people that they were directly descended from ancestors who had been present at the siege of Troy. This was a proposition which no one thought of doubting. The descent of the Kings of France from the Trojans was universally believed before the sixteenth century. Polydore Vergil, who died in the middle of the sixteenth century, at- tacked this opinion in regard to England, and thereby made his history unpopular : he discarded Brute as an unreal personage. Matthew of \\ estminster describes the descent of the Britons from Priam and Apneas j and at the beginning of the fourteenth century, their Trojan CORRUPT HISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 39 origin was stated as a notorious fact. In a letter written to Pope Boniface, by Edward I., and signed by the English nobility, it was admitted that the French were descended from Francus, whom everybody knew to be the son of Hector ; and it was also known that the Britons came from Brutus, whose father was no other than iEneas himself, though some historians affirmed that he was the great-grandson. The great historians of the Middle Ages usually begin their history 3t a very remote period ; and the events relating to their subject are often traced back, in an unbroken series, from the moment when Noah left the ark, or even when Adam passed the gates of Paradise. William of Malmesbury traces the genealogies of the Saxon kings back to Adam ; the Spanish chroniclers present an uninterrupted succession of Spanish kings from Tubal, a grandson of Noah. And in the Notes to a Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483, edition 4to, 1827, there is a pedigree, in which the history of the Bishops of London is traced back, not only to the migration of Brutus from Troy, but also to Noah and Adam. The Middle Age historians likewise say that the capital of France is called after Paris, the son of Priam, because he fled there when Trov was overthrown. Monteil, in his curious book, Histoire des divers Etats, mentions the old belief that the Parisians are from the blood of the kings of the ancient Trojans, by Paris, son of Priam; even in the seventeenth century this idea was not extinct ; and Coryat, who tra- velled in France in 1608, gives another version of it : he says, "As for her name of Paris, she hath it (as some write) from Paris, the eighteenth King of Gallia Celtica, whom some write to have been lineally descended from Japhet, one of the three sons of Noah, and to have founded this city." ; They also mention that Tours owed its name to being the burial-place ofTuronus, one of the Trojans, while the City of Troyes was actually built by the Trojans, as its etymology clearly proves. It was well ascertained that Nuremberg was called after the Emperor Nero, and Monconys, who was at Nuremberg in 1663, found this opinion still held there, and he seems himself half inclined to believe it. Jerusalem, it was held, was called after King Jebus, a man of vast celebrity in the Middle Ages, but whose existence later historians have not been able to verify. The river H umber received its name because in ancient times a king of the Huns had been drowned in it. The Gauls derived their origin, according to some, from Galathia, a female descendant of Japhet ; according to others, from Gomer, the son of Japhet ; and these two opinions long divided the learned world. Prussia was called after Prussus, a brother of Augustus. This was remarkably modern, but Silesia had its name from the prophet Elisha, from whom, indeed, the Silesians descended ; while as to the city of Zurich, its exact date was a matter of dispute, but it was unquestionably built in the time ot Abraham, as Coryat when at Zurich, in 1608, was told by the learned Hospinian. It was likewise from Abraham and Sarah that the Gipsies immediately sprung — their " seuls enfans legitimes." The blood of the Saracens was less pure, since they were only descended from Sarah, in what way is not mentioned. At all events, the Scotch certainly came from Egypt, for they were originally the issue of Scota, who was a 4 o ABELARD AND ELOISA. daughter of Pharaoh, and who bequeathed to them her name ; stated in a letter to the Pope, early in the fourteenth century, as a well-known historical fact. On sundry similar matters the Middle Ages possessed information equally valuable. It was well known that the city of Naples was founded on eggs; and it was also known that the Order of St. Michael was instituted in person by the archangel, who was himself the first knight, and to whom, in fact, chivalry owes its origin. (See Mills's Chivalry). In regard to Tartary, that people, of course, proceeded from Tartarus, ascribed to the piety of St. Louis. Since the thirteenth century the subject has attracted the attention of English divines ; and the celebrated theologian Whiston, mentions : "My last famous dis- covery, or rather my revival of Dr. Giles Fletcher's famous discovery, that the Tartars are no other than the ten tribes of Israel which have been so long sought for in vain." Then the Turks were identical with the Tartars, and it was notorious that since the cross had fallen into Turkish hands all Christian children had ten teeth less than formerly ; an universal calamity, which there seemed to be no means of repairing.* ABELARD AND ELOISA. Abelard died long before Eloisa; and the hour never arrived for him of which with such tenderness she says, — It will be then no crime to gaze on me. But another anticipation has been fulfilled in a degree that he could hardly have contemplated, the anticipation, namely, — That ages hence, when all her woes were o'er, And that rebellious heart should beat no more, wandering feet should be attracted from afar, To Paraclete's white walls and silver springs. as the common resting-place and everlasting marriage-bed of Abelard and Eloisa. They were buried in the same grave ; Abelard dying first by a few weeks more than twenty-one years ; his tomb was opened to admit the coffin of Eloisa ; and the tradition at Quincy, the parish near Nogent-sur-Seine, in which the monastery of the Paraclete is situated, was — that at the moment of interment Abelard opened his arms to receive the impassioned creature that once had loved him so frantically, and whom he loved with a romance so memorable. In the last century, six hundred years after their departure from earth, there was placed over their common remains a Latin inscription, singularly solemn in its brief simplicity, considering that it came from Paris, and from Academic wits. The epitaph is thus Englished: — " Here, under the same marble slab, lie the founder of this Monastery, Peter Abelard, and its earliest Abbess, Heloisa, once united in studies, in love, and in their unhappy nuptial engagements, and in penitential sorrow ; but now, our hope is reunited for ever in bliss." * Selected and abridged from Buckle's History of Civil Lxtion in England, vol. i. pp. 282—288. 4i Utgffrs antr |)jopIai Jfotfona. " INCREDIBILIA OF THE ANCIENTS. IR THOMAS BROWNE shows from Palaephatus's book " concerning Incredible Tales" — " That the fable of Orpheus by his music making woods and trees to follow him, is founded upon a crew of mad women retired unto a mountain being pacified by his music, and caused to descend with boughs in their hands : whence the magic of Orpheus's harp, and its power to attract the senseless trees about it. "That Medea, the famous sorceress, could renew youth, and make old men young again ; being nothing else but that from the knowledge of simples she had a receipt to make white hair black, and reduce old heads into the tincture of youth again. "The fable of Geryon and Cerberus with three heads was this : Geryon was of the city of Tricarinia (Trinacria), that is, of three heads ; and Cerberus, of the same place, was one of his dogs, which, running into a cave in pursuit of his master's oxen, Hercules perforce drew him out of that place : from whence the conceits of those days affirmed no less than that Hercules descended into hell, and brought up Cerberus into the habitation of the living. " Upon the like ground was raised the figment of Briareus, who dwelling in a city called Hekatoncheira, the fancies of those times as- signed him a hundred hands. " That Niobe weeping over her children was turned into a stone, was nothing else but that during her life she erected over their sepulchres a marble tomb of her own. " When Actaeon had undone himself with dogs and the prodigal at- tendants of hunting, they made a solemn story of how he was devoured by his hounds. And upon the like grounds was raised the anthropo- phagie of Diomedes his horses. " Diodorus plainly delivereth that the famous fable of Charon had this nativity : who, being no other but the common ferryman of Egypt that wafted over the dead bodies from Memphis, was made by the Greeks to be the ferryman of hell, and solemn stories raised after of him. " The Centaurs were a body of young men from Thessaly, who first trained and mounted horses for repelling a herd of wild bulls belonging to Ixion, king of the Lapithas. They pursued these wild bulls on horse- back, and pierced them with their spears, thus acquiring both the name of prickers, and the imputed attribute of joint body with the horse. " The Dragon whom Cadmus killed at Thebes was in reality Draco, king of Thebes ; and the dragon's teeth which he is said to have sown, 42 THE IVAN DERI NG JEW. and from whence sprung a crop of armed men, were in point of fact elephant's teeth which Cadmus as a rich Phoenician had brought over with him. The sons of Draco sold these elephants' teeth, and employed the proceeds to levy troops against Cadmus. " Daedalus, instead of flying across the sea on wings, had escaped from Crete in a sailing-boat, under a violent storm. Kottus, Briareus, and Gyges, were not persons with one hundred hands, but inhabitants of the village of Hekatoncheira in Upper Macedonia, who warred with the in- habitants of Mount Olympus against the Titans. Scylla, whom Odysseus so narrowly escaped, was a fast- sailing piratical vessel; as was also Pegasus, the alleged winged horse of Bellerophon. " Again, Gal and Westermann, like Palasphatus, interpret Scylla as a beautiful woman surrounded with abominable parasites. She ensnared and ruined the companions of Odysseus, though he himself was prudent enough to escape her. Atlas was a great astronomer. Pasiphae fell in love with a youth named Taurus. The monster called the Chimaera was in reality a ferocious queen, who had two brothers named Leo and Draco. The ram which carried Phryxus and Helle across the iEgean was a boatman named Krius. " Plutarch, however, in one of his treatises, accepts minotaurs, sphinxes, centaurs, &c, as realities; and Dr. Delany, in his Life of David, pro- duces some ingenious arguments to prove that Orpheus was in reality, the same person with David." THE WANDERING JEW. Of the many myths which diverge from every little incident of Our Saviour's career, the legend of Ahasuerus, the Wandering Jew, is cer- tainly the most striking and widely distributed. According to the old ballad, in Percy's collection : He hath past through many a foreign place : Arabia, Egypt, Africa, Greece, Syria, and great Thrace, And throughout all Hungaria. All the nations of the Seven Champions have it in some shape or other, and it is amusing to note the way in which the story adapts itself to the exigencies of time and place. In Germany, where he appeared a.d. 1547, he was a kind of Polyglot errant, battling professors and divines with the accumulated learning of fifteen centuries. In Paris, he heralded the advent of Cagliostro and Mesmer, cured diseases, and astounded the salons by his prodigious stories. He remembered seeing Nero standing on a hill to enjoy the flames of his capital ; and was a particular crony of Mahomet's father at Ormus. It was here, too, he anticipated the coming scepticism, by declaring, from personal experience, that all history was a tissue of lies. In Italy the myth has become ■nterwoven with the national art lore. When he came to Venice, he Drought with him a fine cabinet of choice pictures, including his own THE WANDERING JEW. 43 portrait by Titian, taken some two centuries before. In England John Bull has endowed him with the commercial spirit of his stationary- brethren, and, to complete his certificate of naturalization, made him always thirsty ! But the Jew of Quarter Sessions' Reports, who is always getting into scrapes, is not the Jew of the rural popular legends ; in which he is invariably represented as a purely benevolent being, whose crime has been long since expiated by his cruel punishment, and there- fore entitled to the help of every good Christian. When on the weary way to Golgotha, Christ fainting, and overcome under the burden of the cross, asked him, as he was standing at his door, for a cup of water to cool his parched throat, he spurned the supplication, and bade him on the faster. " I go," said the Saviour, " but thou shalt thirst, and tarry till I come." And ever since then, by day and night, through the long centuries, he has been doomed to wander about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever expecting the day of judgment which shall end his toils. Sometimes, during the cold winter nights, the lonely cottager will be awoke by a plaintive demand for " Water, good Christian ! water for the love of God !" And if he looks out into the moonlight, he will see a venerable old man in antique raiment, with grey flowing beard and a tall staff, who beseeches his charity with the most earnest gesture. Woe to the churl who refuses him water or shelter. If, on the contrary, you treat him well, and refrain from indelicate inquiries respecting his age — on which point he is very touchy — his visit is sure to bring good luck. Perhaps years afterwards, when you are on your death-bed, he may happen to be passing ; and if he should, you are safe ; for three knocks with his staff will make you hale, and he never forgets any kindnesses. Many stories are current of his wonderful cures.* In the Athenaum, No. 2036, it is ingeniously remarked : " When it is remembered that these Wandering Jews were received at great men's tables, and were kept as guests as long as they had any wild story to tell (they all grew old till they were a hundred, and then began again, at the age at which Christ found them) it is simply astonishing that we do not hear more of these clever and erratic parasites." The writer then relates the last on the mysterious roll. " From the year 18 1 8 (perhaps earlier) to about 1830, a handsomely- featured Jew, in semi-eastern costume, fair-haired, bare-headed, his eyes intently fixed on a little ancient book he held in both hands, might be seen gliding through the streets of London, but was never seen to issue from or to enter a house, or to pause upon his way. He was popularly known as " the Wandering Jew," but there was something so dignified and anxious in his look, that he was never known to suffer the slightest molestation. Young and old looked silently on him as he passed, and shook their heads pitifully when he had gone by. He disappeared, was seen again in London some ten years later, still young, fair-haired, bare- headed, his eyes bent on his book, his feet going steadily forward as he This able precis is from Notes and Queries, No. 322. 44 THE FOUNDING OF CARTHAGE. went straight on ; and men again whispered as he glided through our streets for the last time, ' The Wandering Jew !' There were many who believed that he was the very man to whom had been uttered the awful words, ' Tarry thou till I come !' " Roger of Wendover, a monk of St. Albans, and Matthew Paris, a Benedictine monk of Clugny and likewise of St. Albans, give the oldest traditions of the Wandering Jew. According to Menzel (History oj German Poetry) the whole tradition is but an allegory, symbolizing heathenism. M. Lacroix suggests that it represents the Hebrew race dispersed and wandering throughout the earth, but not destroyed. In Germany, the tradition of the Wandering Jew became connected with John Bultadaeus, a real person, said to have been at Antwerp in the 13th century, again in the 15th, and a third time in the 16th, with every appearance of age and decrepitude. His last recorded apparition was at Brussels, in April, 1774. Southey, in his Curse of Kehama, and Croly, in his Salathiel, trace the course of the Wandering Jew, but in violation of the whole legend ; and Eugene Sue adopted the name as the title of one of his most popular and most immoral novels (Le Juif Errant), though the Jew scarcely figures at all in the work. (Wheeler's Noted Names of Fiction.) There is a well-known English ballad on the Wandering Jew, perhaps of the time of Elizabeth. It relates to the Jew's appearance in Germany in the sixteenth century. The first stanza is, — Whereas in fair Jerusalem, Our Saviour Christ did live, And for the sins of all the world His own dear life did give : The wicked Jews, with scoff and scorn, Did dailye him molest, That never till he left his life Our Saviour could not rest. THE FOUNDING OF CARTHAGE. Most ancient writers agree in following an old tradition, that Carthage was founded about a hundred years before Rome, by Dido or Elissa, upon her arrival in Africa, after her flight from Tyre ; when the wily Queen purchased as much land of the natives of the former place as she could cover, or rather enclose, with an ox's hide ; and thereupon cut the hide into thongs, and thus included a much larger space than the sellers expected. Now, the place which afterwards became the citadel of Car- thage was called Betzura, or Bosra — i.e., the castle; a name which the Greeks altered into Byrsa, a hide, from the shape of the peninsula re- sembling an ox-hide. This tale, which is either related or alluded to by Appian and Dionysius the geographer amongst the Greeks, and by Justin, Virgil, Silius Italicus, and others of the Latins, has been applied by later writers. Thus, Sigebert, monk of Gemblours, in 1100, relates that Hengist, the first Saxon king of Kent, purchased of the British king, and SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. 45 enclosed, a site called Castellum Corrigioe, or the Castle of the Thong] but there being several more edifices named Thong, or Tong, in England, as in Kent, Lincolnshire, Shropshire, and Yorkshire (Doncaster being written in Saxon Thongceaster), the story has been applied to most, if not all of them. It is true that Sigebert knew nothing of the Greek authors, but he was well acquainted with Justin and Virgil, and Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1 159, who has the same story. Again, Saxo Grammaticus, in it 70, applied the tale to I varus, who, by the thong artifice in respect of Hella, got a footing in Britain. The like story has travelled to the East Indies. "There is a tradition," says Hamilton, "that the Portu- guese circumvented the King of Guzerat, as Dido did the Africans, when they gave her leave to build Carthage, by describing no more ground than could be circumscribed in an ox's hide, which having ob- tained, they cut a fine thong of a great length," &c. Now, the Indians knew nothing of the Greek or Latin authors, nor probably did the Por- tuguese, who first made the settlement at Din ; though it may have been carried there as a tradition by missionaries from Europe. (Gentleman s Magazine, 1771.) This legend seems to have gone round the world. Hassun Subah, the chief of the Assassins, is said to have acquired in the same manner the hill-fort of Allahamowt. The Persians maintain that the British got Calcutta in the same way ; and it is somewhere stated, that this was the mode by which one of our colonies in America obtained their land of the Indians. An English tradition avers that it was by a similar trick Hengist and Horsa got a settlement in the Isle of Thanet. To the legend of Dido's expiatory sacrifice upon a vast funeral pile Virgil has given a new colour by interweaving the adventures of iEneas, and thus connecting the foundation legends of Carthage and Rome, care- less of his deviation from the received mythical chronology. Dido was worshipped as a goddess at Carthage until the destruction of the city ; she is, with some probability, imagined to be identical with Astarte, the divine patroness under whose auspices the colony was originally estab- lished ; the tale of the funeral pile and self-burning appearing in the reli- gious ceremonies of other Cilician and Syrian towns. Napoleon I. used to compare our countrymen to the Carthaginians • both being distinguished by their success in commerce, their command of the sea, and their numerous colonies ; and he predicted that a similar fate, originating in similar causes, would overtake his great rival. But the comparison is imperfect ; the reputation of the Carthaginians was not equal to that of their country, and the reproach of Punic Faith still adhered to their crafty and subtle character. SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. It has been strangely asserted that Alban Butler identifies St. George the Martyr with George, the infamous Arian ; whereas he settles the question as follows : — " Certain ancient heretics forged false acts of St. 4 6 SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON. George which the learned Pope Gelasius condemned in 494. Calvin and the'centuriators call him an imaginary saint; but their slander is confuted by most authentic titles and monuments. Junen, Reynolds, and Ischard, blush not to confound him with George, the Arian usur- per of the see of Alexandria, the infamous persecutor of St. Athanasms and the Catholics, whom he endeavoured to dragoon into Ariamsm by butchering great numbers, banishing their bishops, plundering the homes of orphans and widows, and outraging the nuns with the utmost barbarity till the Gentiles, exasperated by his cruelties and scandalous behaviour, massacred him, under Julian. The stories of the combat of St George with the magician Athanasius, and the like trumpery, came from the mint of the Arians ; and we find them rejected by Pope Gela- sius and the other Catholics, who were too well acquainted with the Arian wolf whose acts they condemned, to confound him with the illustrious martyr of Christ; though the forgeries of the heretics have been so blended with the truth in the history of this holy martyr, that, as we have it, there is no means of separating the sterling from the counterfeit." Again as to the dragon of St. George, the learned Pettingall shows that the symbol is merely a relic of the ancient amulets, invented by Oriental nations to express the virtues of Mithra, the sun, and the confidence which they reposed in that great luminary. From the Pagans he says, " The use of these charms passed to the Basilidians, and m their Abraxas the traces of the ancient Mithras and the more modern St. George are equally visible. In the dark ages, the Christians borrowed their superstitions from the heretics, but they disguised the origin or them, and transformed into the saint the sun of the Persians and the archangel of the Gnostics." % Still this is one of the class of minor historic doubts which seems least likely to be ever satisfactorily disposed of. Between the disparaging estimate of Gibbon and the more flattering one of Alban Butler it is next to impossible to strike the balance. The fairest course with the reader doubtless is to state what few facts rest upon actual testimony. Whether we elect to pin our belief upon the fraudulent contractor of Cappadocia with his loose semi- Arian tendencies, or upon the orthodox champion of the Romish martyrology, the oddest thing about both these rival hypotheses is that neither of them can be said to affect appreciably the real point of interest— why, that is, St. George ever came to be the special patron of Englishmen at all. The view of Butler and the Bollan- dists in other respects the weakest of the two, gives, at all events the go-by to the notion that the special cultus of the saint arose out of his favour to the national arms during the Crusades. In vain is it urged that St. George first fought for the host of Godfrey at Antioch, or pre- saged to Cceur de Lion the victory of Acre, when it is known that even before the Conquest, his name had its place in Saxon martyrologies. The true key to this difficulty is to be sought, we are persuaded, through a closer study of the relations between the early British Church and the Greek communions in the East— a subject strangely neglected by our SAINT DUNSTAN AND HIS MIRACLES. 47 ecclesiastical historians. The name of St. George forms a text for some curious particulars upon dragon worship, and the legendary lore con- nected with those singular monsters in the mythology of the middh ages. In many instances, there is no doubt that the ravages of floods have been " emblematized as the malevolent deeds of dragons* ": — "In the seventh century, St. Romanus is said to have delivered the city of Rouen from one of those monsters. The feat was accomplished in this very simple manner. On Ascension day, Romanus, taking a con- demned criminal out of prison, ordered him to go and fetch the dragon. The criminal obeyed, and the dragon following him into the city, walked into a blazing fire that had previously been prepared, and was burned to death. To commemorate the event, King Dagobert gave the clergy of Rouen the annual privilege of pardoning a condemned criminal on Ascension day ; a right exercised with many ceremonies, till the period of the first Revolution. This dragon, named Gargouille (a water-spout), lived in the river Seine ; and as Romanus is said to have constructed embankments to defend Rouen from the overflowing of that river, the story seems to explain itself. The legends of Tarasque, the dragon of the Rhone, destroyed by St. Martha, and the dragon of the Garonne, killed by St. Martial at Bordeaux, admit of a similar explanation. The winding rivers resembling the convolutions of a serpent, are frequently found to take the name of that animal in common language, as well as in poetical metaphor. The river Draco, in Bithynia, is so called from its numerous windings, and in Italy and Germany there are rivers deriving their names from the same cause. In Switzerland the word drach has been frequently given to impetuous mountain torrents, which, suddenly breaking out, descend like avalanches on the lower country. Thus we can easily account for such local names as Drachenlok, the dragon's hole ; Drachenreid, the dragon's march ; and the legends of Struth, of Winkelreid, and other Swiss dragon-slayers." — Chambers's Book of Days. SAINT DUNSTAN AND HIS MIRACLES. Dunstan, " the arch miracle-monger," as Southey styles him, was in every way a remarkable man. At Mayfield, in Sussex, is a well called St. Dunstan's, which is thought to be that referred to in the legends of him, which say that wherever he struck his staff fountains of limpid water burst forth. Dunstan built the original church of wood at May- field, and its orientation not being accurate, was made so by an appli- cation of his shoulder to one of the angles, which caused it to slue round to its proper point, to the amazement of all present ! In his retreat at Glastonbury, he employed himself in such manual arts as were useful to the service of the Church, as a worker in metals, and in the formation of crosses, censers, &c. Here, to escape from unholy thoughts, he almost destroyed himself with fasting and labour- Saturday Review. 48 SAINT DUNS TAN AND HIS MIRACLES. ing at his forge. Osborn relates a story of this period of his life, which has become one of the best known of monkish legends. The devil used to annoy the young saint by paying him untoward visits, in the form of a bear, or serpent, or other noxious animal ; but one night, as he was hammering at his forge, Satan came in a human form, as a woman, and looking in at his window, began to tempt him with improper conversa- tion. Dunstan bore it till he had heated his pincers sufficiently, and then, with the red-hot instrument, seized his visitor by the nose. So, at least, he is reported to have told his neighbours in the morning, when they inquired what those horrible cries were which had startled them from their sleep during the previous night. St. Dunstan was chosen patron saint of the Goldsmiths' Company, whose noble Hall, in Foster-lane, Cheapside, contains several interesting memorials of the holy man. Their second Hall was hung with Flemish tapestry, representing the history of the saint. In the court-room of the present Hall hangs a large painting of St. Dunstan in rich robes, and crozier in hand 5 while in the background the saint is taking the devil by the nose with a pair of tongs, the heavenly host appearing above. Their list of splendid jewellery is remarkable, as tending to show the antiquity, as well as traditionary propriety, of the goldsmiths adopting St. Dunstan as their patron, since it specifies among the articles, " a gold ring with a sapphire, of the workmanship of St. Dunstan," thus de- scribed in a Wardrobe Account of Edward I. Great honours have been paid by the Company to this saint. His image, of silver gilt, set with gems, adorned the screen of the second Hall ; and his memory was drunk, at particular times, from a great cup, equally rich, called " St. Dunstan' s Cup," which was surmounted by another image of the saint. At the Reformation, by entries in the Company's books, "the Image of Seynt Dunstan," and "the grete Standyng Cup," were "broken and turned into other plate." The Company had also their " St. Dunstan's Light " in St. John Zachary Church ; and their chapel of St. Dunstan, with a second image of him, in St. Paul's Cathedral. The style given him in their books is — " Seynt Dunstan, our blessed patron, protector, and founder."* St. Dunstan is also said to have built the palace at May field, when he was Archbishop of Canterbury, for the residence of the See ; and this was made the scene of his reputed contest with the devil, though others place it at Glastonbury. As though that was not sufficiently marvellous, tradition has added a clincher. After holding the evil spirit with his tongs for some time, the saint let him go, when he leaped at one bound to Tunbridge Wells, where plunging his nose into the spring, he imparted to the water its chalybeate qualities ; another version attributes the chalybeate to St. Dunstan himself, who, finding that the enemy's nose had imparted an unusual heat to his tongs, cooled them in the water at this place. May field Palace is in part an ivied ruin ; here are preserved St. Dunstan's forge, and anvil, and tongs. Walter Gale, the Sussex schoolmaster, records, that in 1749, " there * Curiosities of London, new edit., i858, p. 403. FRIAR BACON'S BRAZEN HEAD. 49 was at Mayfield a pair of tongs, which, the inhabitants affirmed, and many believed, to be that with which St. Dunstan " pinched the devil by the nose." SAINT LUKE NOT A PAINTER. Little is recorded of St. Luke in Scripture, but from a passage in the Epistle to the Colossians, we infer that he had been bred a physician. He is also stated, by ecclesiastical writers, to have practised as a painter, and some ancient pictures of the Virgin, still extant, are ascribed to his pencil. In consequence of this belief, which, however, rests on very uncertain foundations, St. Luke has been regarded as the patron of painters and the fine arts. The mulatto or black Madonnas, which go by St. Luke's name, were not painted by him, but by Signor Luco, who flourished in the fifteenth century ; whose works were, by a " pious fraud " of the monks, attributed to the saint, as more likely to com- mand the reverence of the ignorant, who were also taught to regard the pictures as " miraculous." (See the Private Diary of the Duke of Buckingham^) In May, 1868, Sir George Bowyer sent to the Archaeological In- stitute a photograph of the picture of our Blessed Lady of Philermos, attributed to St. Luke, and removed from Malta to St. Petersburg by the Emperor of Russia on its surrender to the French Republic. This was one of the Black Madonnas which it was the fashion for a certain period to paint. Its attribution, with that of other pictures, to St. Luke the Evangelist, was owing to there having been a famous artist in the eleventh century named Luke. The example shown was probably of the twelfth or thirteenth century ; a point which caused some discussion, in the course of which Mr. Waller read an extract from Molanus, to show that St. Luke was not considered a painter. Raphael's famous picture of Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin, has, doubtless, fostered the above popular error. He is commonly represented in a seated position, writing or painting, whilst behind him appears the head of an ox, frequently winged. The Academy of St. Luke, at Rome, for painters and sculptors, would also foster the error. St. Luke would be more appropriately the patron of hospitals, from his having been bred a physician. FRIAR BACON S BRAZEN HEAD. This widely-known legend has little to do with the veritable history of Roger or Friar Bacon, the greatest of English philosophers before the time of his celebrated namesake ; though he, Roger Bacon, is more popularly known by this fictitious name than by his real merit. In a rare tract, entitled The Famous Historie of Friar Bacon, 4.to, London, 1652, it is pretended he discovered, "after great study,' that if he could succeed in making a head of brass, which should speak, and hear it when it spoke, he might be able to surround all England with a wall E ^0 COLUMBUS AND THE EGG. of brass. By the assistance of Friar Bungay, and a devil likewise called into the consultation, Bacon accomplished his object, but with this draw- back — the head, when finished, was warranted to speak in the course of one month ; but it was quite uncertain when ; and if they heard it not before it had done speaking, all their labour would be lost. After watch- ing for three weeks, fatigue got the mastery over them, and Bacon set his man Miles to watch, with strict injunctions to awake them if the head should speak. The fellow heard the head at the end of one half- hour say, " Time is ;" at the end of another, "Time was;" and at the end of another half-hour, " Time's past;" when down it fell with a tremen- dous crash, but the blockhead of a servant thought that his master would be angry if he disturbed him for such trifles ! "And hereof came it," says the excellent Robert Recorde, "that fryer Bacon was accompted so greate a necromancier, whiche never used that arte (by any conjecture that I can finde), but was in geometrie and other mathe- maticall sciences so experte that he coulde doe by them suche thynges as were wonderful in the sight of most people." Bacon died at Oxford in 1292, where existed, nearly until our own times, a traditional memorial of " the wonderful doctor," as he was styled by some of his contemporaries. On Grandpont, or the Old Folly Bridge, at the southern entrance into Oxford, stood a tower called " Friar Bacon's Study," from a belief that the philosopher was accus- tomed to ascend this building in the night, and " study the stars." It was entirely demolished in 1778. Of the bridge, Wood says: "No record can resolve its precise beginning." "The mind of Roger Bacon," says Hallam, "was strangely com- pounded of almost prophetic gleams of the future course of science, and the best principles of the inductive philosophy, with more than a sacred credulity in the superstitions of his own time. Some have deemed him overrated by the nationality of the English. But if we have some- times given him credit for the discoveries to which he had only borne testimony, there can be no doubt of the originality of his genius." He bears a singular resemblance to Francis Bacon, not only in the character of his philosophy, but in several coincidences of expression ; and the latter has even been charged with having borrowed much from Roger Bacon without having acknowledged his obligations. COLUMBUS AND THE EGG. Among the popular errors of the day is the story of Columbus, who, finding it impossible to make an egg stand on its end, crushed in the basis, and thus made it stand. The goldfish of Charles II. was accepted as imponderable by many wise heads without experiment (if, indeed, it ever had a being), and the story of Columbus and the egg is supposed to be based on the physical axiom that it is impossible to make an egg stand on its end. Yet, five minutes' careful balancing will convince any dexterous experimenter that an egg may be made to stand, and remain balanced on its end, without breaking the shell. All that is required is WILLIAM TELL: A FABLE. ^ steadiness of hand, and perhaps a little patience. And M. Delepierre mentions that " the fable of the egg that he is said to have broken, in order to make it stand upright, has been disproved by M. de Humboldt, in his Ex amen Critique de VHistoire de la Geographie." Hogarth, it will be recollected, has made " Columbus and the Egg" the subject of one of his admirable illustrative prints. Now, if Vasari is to be credited, the Florentine architect, Brunelleschi, many years before Columbus was born, performed the egg feat relative to his intended cupola for the Church of Santa Maria del Fiore, in Florence. The other architects desired that Filippo should explain his purpose minutely, and show his model, as they had done theirs. This he would not do, but proposed to all the masters, foreigners and com- patriots, that he who could make an egg stand upright on a piece of smooth marble should be appointed to build the cupola, since in doing that his genius should be made manifest. They took an egg accordingly, and all those masters did their best to make it stand upright, but none discovered the method of doing so. Wherefore, Filippo being told that he might make it stand himself, took it daintily into his hand, gave the end of it a blow on the plane of the marble, and made it stand upright. Beholding this, the artists loudly protested, exclaiming that they could all have done the same ; but Filippo replied, laughing, that they might also know how to construct the cupola if they had seen the model and the design. This occurred about a.d. ^420. WILLIAM TELL: A FABLE. Delepierre shows there to be four different views existing of this tradition of William Tell. 1. The authenticity of the legend, in all its details, as it is believed in the canton of Uri. 2. The existence of Tell, his refusal to do homage to the hat, his voyage on the lake, and the tragical end of Gessler, but rejects the story of the apple. 3. William Tell is believed to have existed, and to have made himself remarkable by some daring exploit ; but this exploit was not connected with the plans of the conspirators, and consequently exercised no influence over the formation of the Swiss Confederation. 4. The tradition of William Tell, a mere fable, an after-thought, unworthy of being inserted in any history of Switzerland. In 1760 Uriel Frendenberger created a terrible disturbance in Berne by publishing a small volume in Latin, entitled William Tell; a Danish Fable. The canton of Uri condemned the author to be burned with his book. In 1727 Isaac Christ. Iselin, in his large historical dictionary, doubted the story, because Olaus Magnus has related the same adventure of a certain Toko, in the reign of Harold, King of Denmark. The two stories are so similar that one is supposed to have been copied from the other. In 1840 M. Hausser, in answer to a proposition from the University of Heidelberg, obtained a prize for his essay, showing — 1. There is nothing to justify the historical importance that is commonly attached to William Tell. He has no right to the title of Deliverer of Sv/itzer- e 2 52 THE TULIPOMANIA. land, seeing that he took no active part in the freedom of Waldstatter. 2. The existence of a Swiss named William Tell, is without doubt, but not in any way connected with the history of the Confederation. 3. The tradition, as preserved in ballads and chronicles, is a pure invention : the apple shot from the head of the child is of Scandinavian origin. (See Hiseley's Recherches Critiques, 1843.) Ideler (Berlin, 1836). says: — " There exists no record of incontestable authenticity referring to the romantic incident of Tell's life. The chapel near Fliielen, on the borders of the lake, was only constructed in 1388; the chapel at Burglen, on the spot where Tell's house formerly stood, dates back to the same time ; and there is no written document to prove that they were built to commemorate any share taken by Tell in the emancipation of Swit- zerland. The stone fountain at Altdorf, which bore the name of Tell, and above which was seen the statue of Tell, and of his son with an apple placed upon his head, was only constructed in 1786, when the tradition had already been invalidated by critical researches. The foun- tain was taken down in t86i. Tell's lime-tree in the market-place at Altdorf, and his crossbow, preserved in the arsenal at Zurich, are not more valid proof than the pieces of the true cross which are exhibited in a thousand places. In conclusion, M. Delepierre relates the corresponding apple legends. Altogether this is one of the most interesting of his Historical Difficulties. » THE TULIPOMANIA. With the marvels of this madness, as told in books of wonders, the world is tolerably familiar. The gardens of Haarlem are still famous for their luxuriant flowers ; but the trade in tulips is not earned on as in the -days of the Tulipomania, and too florins is now a very large sum for a root. Beckmann states, on Dutch authorities, that 400 perits in weight (something less than a grain), of the bulb of a tulip named Admiral Leifken, cost 4400 florins ; and 200 of another, named Semper Augustus, 2000 florins. Of this last, he tells us, it once happened there were only two roots to be had, the one at Amsterdam, the other at Haarlem ; and that, for one of these, were offered 4600 florins, a new carriage, two grey horses, and a complete set of harness ; and that another person offered 1 2 acres of land. It is almost impossible to give credence to such madness. The real truth of the story is that these tulip roots Gildas was called Albanius, from his being born in Albany, 74 HISTORIC MISREPRESENTA TIONS. now Scotland ; 2. Aldanus, a nonentity, forged by T. Dempster ; 3. Badonicus, from his having mentioned the battle of Badon, or being born in that year ; 4. Cambrius, as being a Briton ; 5. Hibernus, as sometime residing in Ireland ; 6. Quartus, from an absurd fancy that there were three of y e name before him ; 7. Sapiens, from his write- ings, real or imaginary. " There were no less than five Gildases made out of one, each of whom is the author of books that never existed." * INGULF OF CROYLAND AND WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY. The soi-disant Ingulf of Croyland's chronicle is now known — though apparently Savile, and Spelman, and other giants of antiquarianism did not know it — to have been framed with a dishonest object, and to be from first to last a monkish forgery, with its charters composed in the scriptorium, its general history a patchwork of piracies, and its special anecdotes fictions. The compilers of such narratives, whether retained advocates— for authorship was now become a profession — or patriotic believers in the abstract justice of their society's claims, and in the duty of all pious brethren to repair unlucky legal flaws, had their appointed task — viz., to arrange, not to select, materials, and to make out as good a case as possible from them. The name of William of Malmesbury himself, prefixed to works of this order, is no guarantee of good faith. His critical sceptic sm may perhaps be seen struggling occasionally, as in his Glastonbury Chronicle ; but in the end, as servilely, though with more semblance of squeamishness than the pseudo- Ingulf, " pure fable" and " forged charters" are all obediently copied by him and stamped with the authority of his name. The History of Ingulphus is a clever but undoubted fiction of the four- teenth and fifteenth centuries, an impudent fabrication, to all appear- ance, by the Croyland monks for patching up a defective title. The genuineness and authenticity were first questioned more than a century ago ; and in the last ten or twelve years the subject has received in- creased attention. In the Archafological Journal for March, 1862, both the history and charters of Ingulphus have been dissected at consider- able length ; and though in some parts an interesting compilation, the book, as an historical authority, is altogether worthless. — Athenaum.\ HISTORIC MISREPRESENTATIONS. We have been accustomed of late to very remarkable disturbances in the atmosphere of history. We have been told that Richard the Third * A Manual of 'British Historians, 1845. t In the same journal, No. 2121, we read of Giraldus's Itinerarium, being "stuffed full of stupendously impossible things that are gravely described as facts. " THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. 75 did not kill his nephews, and that Henry the Eighth was rather a tender husband ; but we were not prepared for Major Murray's discovery that the Black Prince, and not Henry the Fifth, won the great day at Agin- court. Surely this transfer of glory from Lancaster to Plantagenet is a little unjust to the former ! Would it be fair if we were to maintain that Sir Cloudesley Shovel gained the battle of Trafalgar or that Marl- borough won the victory of 18 15 at Waterloo ? If this be the method by which the Major registers the glories of the Scottish regiments, we may well be doubtful of the few he does chronicle amid the masses of fine writing, droll logic, and of his oracular remarks, which remind us of the words of the poet : — To observations which ourselves we make, We grow more partial for th' observer's sake. Again, as if to render undoubted the right of the Black Prince to the glory of being the victor at Agincourt, the Major calls Poitiers, Agin- court, and Cressy successive defeats. If you allow that young Edward at fifteen or sixteen gained the last of these fields in 1346, the Major supposes, it would seem, that he, incontestably, carried off the glory of Agincourt some years previously — Agincourt having been fought in 14 15 ! and that the young hero commenced his career of invincibility at Poitiers, which