he actions of men may
not be effaced by time, nor great and wondrous deeds be deprived of
renown. And one may notice the same style and method in the
historical books of the Old Testament. In both these ancient histories
the narratives represent life, action, speech, situations.

It is futile, I may suggest, to subject work of this sort to critical
analysis by attempting to sift out what is probably true from what is
certainly false. You only break up the picture, you destroy the
artistic effect, which is at least a true reflection of real life.
Moreover, it is dangerous for learned men sitting in libraries to
regard as incredible facts stated by these old writers. The legend of
Romulus and Remus having been suckled by a wolf has been dismissed as
a childish fable. Yet it is certain that this very thing has happened
more than once in the forests of India within the memory of living
men. You cannot be particular about details, you must take the story
as a whole.

From this standpoint we may agree, I think, that in illiterate times,
and, indeed, throughout the middle ages of Europe, history-writing was
practised as an art. The unlearned chronicler wrote in no fear of
critics or sceptics; he drew striking scenes and portraits; he
described warlike exploits; he related characteristic sayings and
dialogues which completely satisfied his audience or his readers. The
society in which he lived was not far different, in morals and
manners, from that which he portrayed, so that he can have committed
very few anachronisms or incongruities; and in sentiments and
character-drawing he could not go far astray. He produced, at any
rate, vivid impressions of reality, just as Shakespeare's historical
plays have stamped upon the English mind the figures of Hotspur or
Richard III., which have been thus set up in permanent type for all
subsequent ages. At any rate portraits of this kind have not been
modernised to suit the taste of a later age, as has been done with
King Arthur in Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King.' And when work of this
sort has been finely executed, the question whether the details are
untrustworthy or even fictitious is immaterial, particularly in cases
where the precise facts can never be recovered. We do not know exactly
how the battle of Marathon, or, indeed, the battle of Hastings, was
fought, but we have in the chronicles something of great value--a true
outline of the general situation, and some stirring narratives