dea that the texts of ancient literature
must be submitted to this science. Henceforward a new spirit reigned
among the best classical scholars, prophetic of more and more light in
the greater field of sacred literature. Scholars, of whom Porson was
chief, followed out this method, and though at times, as in Porson's
own case, they were warned off, with much loss and damage, from the
application of it to the sacred text, they kept alive the better
tradition.

A hundred years after Bentley's main efforts appeared in Germany another
epoch-making book--Wolf's Introduction to Homer. In this was broached
the theory that the Iliad and Odyssey are not the works of a single
great poet, but are made up of ballad literature wrought into unity by
more or less skilful editing. In spite of various changes and phases of
opinion on this subject since Wolf's day, he dealt a killing blow at
the idea that classical works are necessarily to be taken at what may be
termed their face value.

More and more clearly it was seen that the ideas of early copyists, and
even of early possessors of masterpieces in ancient literature, were
entirely different from those to which the modern world is accustomed.
It was seen that manipulations and interpolations in the text by
copyists and possessors had long been considered not merely venial sins,
but matters of right, and that even the issuing of whole books under
assumed names had been practised freely.

In 1811 a light akin to that thrown by Bentley and Wolf upon ancient
literature was thrown by Niebuhr upon ancient history. In his History
of Rome the application of scientific principles to the examination
of historical sources was for the first time exhibited largely and
brilliantly. Up to that period the time-honoured utterances of ancient
authorities had been, as a rule, accepted as final: no breaking away,
even from the most absurd of them, was looked upon with favour, and any
one presuming to go behind them was regarded as troublesome and even as
dangerous.

Through this sacred conventionalism Niebuhr broke fearlessly, and,
though at times overcritical, he struck from the early history of Rome a
vast mass of accretions, and gave to the world a residue infinitely more
valuable than the original amalgam of myth, legend, and chronicle.

His methods were especially brought to bear on students' history by
one of the truest men and noblest scholars that the English race
has produced--Arnold of R