delinquencies, or even to say whether they have been committed. There
may be, for aught I know, some cases (of infinite importance of
course) in which he has represented an event as having taken place
on the 20th of Dec. 1693; whereas it took place on the 3d Jan. 1694;
or he may have said that Sir Thomas Nobody was the son of another
Sir Thomas Nobody, whereas two or three antiquarians can
incontestably prove that he was the son of Sir John Nobody, and nephew
of the above. To me, I confess, he appears distinguished scarcely more
by the splendor of his imagination than by the opulence of his knowledge,
and the imperial command which he possesses over it. But, in truth,
the accuracy or otherwise of history, when it is at all remote, is a
matter in which I feel less interest than I once did. I read, indeed,
Mr. Macaulay with perpetual renewal of wonder and delight. But though
I believe that his vivid pictures are the result, of a faithful use of
his materials, yet, if I must confess the full extent of my scepticism,
his work, and every other work which involves a reference to events which
transpired only a century or two ago, is poisoned as history by the
suspicion that to ascertain the truth is impossible. I know it must
be so, if the principles of your favorite Strauss are to be received;
and yet it seems so absurd, that I am sometimes inclined, on that account
alone, to laugh at Strauss's criticisms, just as David Hume did at his
own speculative doubts when he got into society and sat down to
backgammon with a friend. At other times, as I say, the whole field
of historic investigation seems more or less the territory of scepticism."

"I know not," said the other, "how you can justify any such general
scepticism from any thing that Strauss has written."

"Do you not? and yet I think it is a perfectly legitimate inference.
Does not Strauss argue that certain discrepancies are to be observed,
certain apparent contradictions and inconsistencies detected, in the
New Testament narratives; and that therefore we are to reckon, if not
the whole, yet by far the larger part, as utterly fabulous or doubtful,
mythic or legendary? Now, I cannot but feel, on the other hand, that
these narratives are as strikingly marked by all the usual indications
of historic truthfulness as any historic writings in the world. The
artlessness, simplicity, and speciality of the narrative,--a certain
inimitable tone and air of reality, earnestness, an