this--that, not in proportion to the learning and profundity brought to
bear upon Herodotus, did the doubts and scruples upon his fidelity
strengthen or multiply. Precisely in the opposite current was the
movement of human opinion, as it applied itself to this patriarch of
history. Exactly as critics and investigators arose like Larcher--just,
reasonable, thoughtful, patient, and combining--or geographers as
comprehensive and as accurate as Major Rennel, regularly in that ratio
did the reports and the judgments of Herodotus command more and more
respect. The other point is this; and, when it is closely considered, it
furnishes a most reasonable ground of demur to the ordinary criticisms
upon Herodotus. These criticisms build the principle of their objection
generally upon the marvellous or romantic element which intermingles
with the current of the narrative. But when a writer treats (as to
Herodotus it happened that repeatedly he treated) tracts of history far
removed in space and in time from the domestic interests of his native
land, naturally he misses as any available guide the ordinary
utilitarian relations which would else connect persons and events with
great outstanding interests of his own contemporary system. The very
abstraction which has silently been performed by the mere effect of vast
distances, wildernesses that swallow up armies, and mighty rivers that
are unbridged, together with the indefinite chronological remoteness, do
already of themselves translate such sequestered and insulated chambers
of history into the character of moral apologues, where the sole
surviving interest lies in the quality of the particular moral
illustrated, or in the sudden and tragic change of fortune recorded.
Such changes, it is urged, are of rare occurrence; and, recurring too
often, they impress a character of suspicious accuracy upon the
narrative. Doubtless they do so, and reasonably, where the writer is
pursuing the torpid current of circumstantial domestic annals. But, in
the rapid abstract of Herodotus, where a century yields but a page or
two, and considering that two slender octavos, on the particular scale
adopted by Herodotus, embody the total records of the human race down to
his own epoch, really it would furnish no legitimate ground of scruple
or jealousy, though every paragraph should present us with a character
that seems exaggerated, or with an incident approaching to the
marvellous, or a catastrophe that is