It would be as reasonable to deny the existence of Charlemagne, and the reality of Godfrey, because Ariosto and Tasso have sung them. Indeed Homer was considered by his countrymen not only authentic, but so absolute an authority, that when the Athenians and Megarensians claimed the possession of Salamis, and the dispute was referred to the Assembly of Sparta, Solon argued the title of the Athenians to it from the famous catalogue of the ships in the second book of the Iliad:

σε Αίας δ' εκ Σαλαμίνος αγεν δυοκαίδεκα νηας,

Στησε δ' αγων, ἵν ̓ Αθηναίων ισαντο φάλαγγες.”

It is well argued by Morritt that the opposite hypothesis "annihilates the whole of the early history of Greece. Before this, we are acquainted with most of the heroes, their birth, descent, and intermarriages. Thus Agamemnon and Menelaus marry two sisters, the daughters of Tyndarus, and rule over Mycenae and Sparta. Ulysses marries Penelope, the daughter of Icarius; and traditions, and monuments relative to these facts, and a hundred similar to them, were found in the country of Sparta, Ithaca, and Argolis. We know, independent of the siege, the private history of all the great families of Greece during this time; many of these are slightly alluded to by Homer, and are preserved by other authors.......After the Iliad, we know the lot of the heroes, we know the conduct of their wives and children: Greece, weakened by her dear-earned victory, and torn by internal dissensions, saw all her thrones overturned by the return of the Heraclidæ. Thus we have at once a regular series of events, of which no part can be annihilated without affecting the credibility of the whole of history, and the united testimony of the ancient world."

The ex-absurdo method might be resorted to in meeting the dogged obstinacy of many in their disbelief of history. Every proof they can turn aside. All is invention, all is craft! Suppose that men averred that there was a state-document, called Magna Charta. How easily might that be disputed on the common principles of historical scepticism. We may throw the assertions of its defenders and impugners into dialogue, and they shall be known as A. and B.

A. You cannot be the first to doubt the existence and fact of that great settlement of national rights and liberties. B. You are carried away by a vulgar delusion.

A. Did not King John

B. Hold. Is it likely that he, if you mean the brother of Richard the First, ever did reign? Was not Arthur, Duke of Bretagne, a more direct successor to Coeur-de-lion, and would he, in those high monarchical times, be overlooked?

A. But Arthur, after long persecution, was missing, and almost surely murdered.

B. I deny not that a youth of that name was carried through England and France, by Constance, who, being always in quest of husbands, had no objection to a little lady-errantry : the pretensions of the boy were favourable to her speculations. But I give up the question of John.

A. Well then, did not the barons wrest it, sword in hand, from John?

B. I cannot find that a baron was then in being. That charter affects the date of 1255. The patent of Lord de Roos bears but the date of 1264. You might as well suppose that a De Roos could practise sauter la coupe.

A. But it is clear that the date of the charter is wrong. It should be 1215. All combines to establish this chronology. Do you think that patents never become extinct?

B. Were it so, internal evidence is against the thing itself. You represent that a professed tyrant was his country's liberator. You bring on the stage Langton, who had received his archiepiscopal pall from Rome, abetting the side of the people. Your barons, too, were likely asserters of justice and freedom!

A. Circumstances are often very powerful. Langton was suspended because he would not publish the bull of excommunication. But we have good history,-Matthew Paris.

B. He never says that he was there, and at that time was most probably at Holm, in Norway. And it is pretty well understood how Matthew Paris and Matthew of Westminster played into each other's hands.

N

A. But the very scene has been remembered ever since.— What heart beats not at the sound of Runneymede ?

B. If that had been the scene, and the event were real, would it not be piled with monuments? Would not Englishmen be obliged to pay for seeing it? Believe it not,-the tradition is just kept up by the innkeepers at Staines, and to help to buy cups at the Egham races.

A. But the autograph may be seen. The wrong date I have mentioned is not in the Latin. You have only to visit the Cottonian Library of the British Museum to satisfy yourself.

B. Did not John do all he could to annul it? Would he not get it into his power and keeping? How contrary to reason that he would surrender it to his enemies?

A. But it has universal belief in its favour!

B. The people, not one in a million having seen any pretended copy, are possessed with the idea that it is the title deed of their liberty,—their governors see that it contents them,—all are for bringing back the constitution to it,-every statute, concession, grant, bill, from that hour, may have been erroneous, niggard, partial, but this is perfect,-it is ruled for common law,—and so it passes as the Sybil's books.

A. But it has been acted upon from that period!

B. I cry you mercy! During the times of the Star Chamber?

A. That was an iniquitous departure from this Charter, and the contrast proved its iniquity.

B. Hume has taught me that the evidence of testimony diminishes in proportion to a fact being unusual: now it seems to me very unusual that a king should sit out of doors, and give to feudal oppressors of his people an inheritance of freedom. He moreover says, that we should be very slow in believing "any report which favours the passion of the reporter, whether it magnifies his country, his family, or himself:" but this report does magnify national vanity,—the antiquarian, who gave out that he had found the original, magnified his family and name, and a reference to it magnifies each individual who is pleased to imagine that his house is his castle. I therefore,

though you may call me incredulous and obstinate, do not believe it. It is an epidemic vertigo, and all heads have got wrong together!

Great improbabilities must not always obstruct our assent or shake our faith. Such have often been the odds of battle. Marathon, Thermopyla, Granicus, Agincourt, recall to our minds contests the most unequal in numbers and in losses.— What might not the glories of Blenheim and Ramilies have warranted England to demand, when from the height of those great victories she dictated the peace of Europe? Hard is it for posterity to believe that she suspended all on the treaty of Utrecht: one clause of which was great, the liberation of the persecuted Huguenots of France. But is it credible that another clause should be found, securing to Britain a share in the Spanish Assiento with the French Guinea Company, by which we won the palmy privilege of furnishing to the Spanish American Dominions, an annual importation of four thousand eight hundred slaves! And sometimes we learn, that where there was to the public eye unmixed atrocity, a redeeming virtue may have existed,—an unknown hand strewed flowers upon Nero's tomb. These improbabilities will often require us to recollect the different position of parties. I will refer to an example, which has long since ceased to be a question of exciting politics. Three royal sepulchres rise between us and that date; and the contending statesmen now sleep side by side among the mighty dead. In the question of the first regency, who would not be surprised to find the absolute monarchism, the popular restraint, in the mouths of those who seem exactly to have changed natures, as well as sides, for that passing turn?

Certain fopperies, a fanfaronnade, of criticism have done much harm to the cause of historic truth. A gentleman of this neighbourhood has done the world the amusing kindness of assuring it, that the two worst-treated personages are Richard the Third and Eugene Aram. The first it seems had a son who was taught the learned languages, and who, when reduced to be a shepherd, spoke of the stolen interviews he had enjoyed with his royal sire. Hunch and all are to be disbelieved! The best

of uncles too! Poor Eugene Aram, it is not to be denied, did commit the murder for which he was executed; but then he laid out the proceeds, as a good botanist should do, in a flowergarden! The Defence may come rather late, but better late than never! The next tyrant, according to popular injustice, who shall receive vindication may be Caligula, and as an appropriate pendent, I would put in a plea for Turpin! Could a man be utterly depraved, who rode so well?

Another injury done to historic credit is from the quarter of the drama. Shakspeare is more fascinating,-and more readily, more lastingly, remembered-than Rapin. But as a dramatist he altered, invented, transposed. His Hubert is a knightattendant upon John, the Hubert of history is Archbishop of Canterbury. For other discrepancies I have not further space. The genius of Walter Scott will never excuse his perversions of history.

A too philosophic tone is adopted by some of these authors. It is not disputed, what Tacitus observed, "that it is incumbent on the writer to rejudge the actions of men, to the end that the good and worthy may meet with the reward due to eminent virtue, and that mischievous citizens may be deterred by the condemnation that waits on evil deeds, at the tribunal of posterity." In this consists the chief part of the historian's duty. But histories have been composed too much on a theory, upon a prejudice, the course of events has been held back from its natural progress by disquisition,-you were allowed to look at nothing without the troublesome showman bawling into your ears. Coleridge is said to have asked Southey, hearing that he was engaged on his History of Brazil, “Do you write of man natural as Herodotus, or of man political as Thucydides, or of man technical as Polybius?" The answer was smartly happy. "I mean to write the History of Brazil."

I know nothing which would more tend to damage the influence, or pervert the investigation, of history, than a blind acquiescence in Bolingbroke's Letters on its Study and its Use. To his noble style all will bear testimony. But his acerbity, his vanity, his recklessness of remark, his disdain of authority,