on_, as to the time or circumstances of a fact, in the
authors who record it, _can be a sufficient ground_ for doubting its
reality."--Greece, vol. i. p. 332.

Accordingly, my assailant is virtually saying of the latter of these
two historians, "When I found the Bishop of St. David's talking
nonsense of this kind, which saps the very foundation of historic
truth," was it "hasty or far-fetched" to conclude "that he did not
care for truth for its own sake, or teach his disciples to regard it
as a virtue?" p. 21. Nay, further, the Author of St. Angustine is no
more a disciple of mine, than the Bishop of St. David's is of my
assailant's, and therefore the parallel will be more exact if I
accuse this professor of history of _teaching_ Dr. Thirlwall not to
care for truth, as a virtue, for its own sake. Blot _twenty-two_.

It is hard on me to have this dull, profitless work. But I have
pledged myself;--so now for St. Walburga.

Now will it be believed that this writer suppresses the fact that the
miracles of St. Walburga are treated by the author of her Life as
mythical? yet that is the tone of the whole composition. This writer
can notice it in the Life of St. Neot, the first of the three Lives
which he criticises; these are his words: "Some of them, the writers,
for instance, of Volume 4, which contains, among others, a charming
life of St. Neot, treat the stories openly as legends and myths, and
tell them as they stand, without asking the reader, or themselves, to
believe them altogether. The method is harmless enough, if the
legends had stood alone; but dangerous enough, when they stand side
by side with stories told in earnest, like that of St. Walburga."--p.
22.

Now, first, that the miraculous stories _are_ treated, in the Life of
St. Walburga, as legends and myths. Throughout, the miracles and
extraordinary occurrences are spoken of as "said" or "reported;" and
the suggestion is made that, even though they occurred, they might
have been after all natural. Thus, in one of the very passages which
my assailant quotes, the author says, "Illuminated men feel the
privileges of Christianity, and to them the evil influence of Satanic
power is horribly discernible, like the Egyptian darkness which could
be felt; and _the only way to express_ their keen perception of it is
_to say_, that they _see_ upon the countenances of the slaves of sin,
the marks, and lineaments, and stamp of the evil one; and [that] they
_smell_ wit