iosity--to amuse the impatience--to stir the wonder of a lively and
motley crowd. Thus the historian imbibed naturally the spirit of the
taleteller. And he was driven to embellish his history with the
romantic legend--the awful superstition--the gossip anecdote--which
yet characterize the stories of the popular and oral fictionist, in
the bazars of the Mussulman, or on the seasands of Sicily. Still it
has been rightly said that a judicious reader is not easily led astray
by Herodotus in important particulars. His descriptions of
localities, of manners and customs, are singularly correct; and modern
travellers can yet trace the vestiges of his fidelity. As the
historian, therefore, was in some measure an orator, so his skill was
to be manifest in the arts which keep alive the attention of an
audience. Hence Herodotus continually aims at the picturesque; he
gives us the very words of his actors, and narrates the secrets of
impenetrable palaces with as much simplicity and earnestness as if he
had been placed behind the arras. [231]

That it was impossible for the wandering Halicarnassian to know what
Gyges said to Candaules, or Artabanus to Xerxes, has, perhaps, been
too confidently asserted. Heeren reminds us, that both by Jewish and
Grecian writers there is frequent mention of the scribes or
secretaries who constantly attended the person of the Persian monarch
--on occasion of festivals [232], of public reviews [233], and even in
the tumult of battle; and, with the idolatrous respect in which
despotism was held, noted down the words that fell from the royal lip.
The ingenious German then proceeds to show that this custom was common
to all the Asiatic nations. Thus were formed the chronicles or
archives of the Persians; and by reference to these minute and
detailed documents, Herodotus was enabled to record conversations and
anecdotes, and preserve to us the memoirs of a court. And though this
conjecture must be received with caution, and, to many passages
unconnected with Persia or the East, cannot be applied, it is
sufficiently plausible, in some very important parts of the history,
not to be altogether dismissed with contempt.

But it is for another reason that I have occasionally admitted the
dialogues of Herodotus, as well as the superstitious anecdotes current
at the day. The truth of history consists not only in the relation of
events, but in preserving the character of the people, and depicting
the man