, the Argonauts), which is consecrated as the first voyage of any
extent undertaken by Greeks. Both these events are as full of heroic
marvels, and of supernatural marvels, as the legends of King Arthur,
Merlin, and the Fairy Morgana. Later than these absolute romances comes
the semi-romance of the Iliad, or expedition against Troy. This, the
most famous of all Pagan romances, we know by two separate criteria to
be later in date than either of the two others; first, because the
actors in the Iliad are the descendants of those who figured as actors
in the others; secondly, from the subdued tone of the romantic[38] which
prevails throughout the Iliad. Now, with respect to these three events
in Grecian history, anterior to the Olympiads, which are all that a
young student ought to notice, it is sufficient if generally she is made
aware of the order in which they stand to each other, or, at least, that
the Iliad comes last in the series, and if as to this last and greatest
of the series, she fixes its era precisely to one thousand years before
Christ. Chronologers, indeed, sometimes bring it down to something
lower. But one millennium, the clear unembarrassed cyphers of 1,000,
whether in counting guineas or years, is a far simpler and a far more
rememberable era than any qualifications of this round number; which
qualifications, let it not for a moment be forgotten, are not at all
better warranted than the simpler expression. One only amongst all
chronologers has anything to stand upon that is not as unsubstantial as
a cloud; and this is Sir Isaac Newton. And the way in which he proceeded
it may be well to explain, in order that the young pupil may see what
sort of evidences we have _prior to the Olympiads_ for any chronological
fact. Sir Isaac endeavoured by calculating backwards to ascertain the
exact time of some celestial phenomenon--as, suppose, an eclipse of the
sun, or such and such positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to
each other. This phenomenon, whatever it were, call X. Then if (upon
looking into the Argonautic Expedition or any other romance of those
elder times) he finds X actually noticed as co-existing with any part of
the adventures, in that case he has fixed by absolute observation, as it
were, what we may call the latitude and longitude of that one historical
event; and then using this, as we use our modern meridian of Greenwich,
as a point of starting, he can deduce the distances of all subsequent