thens.

HERODOTUS.

Scarcely more is known of the celebrated historian, Herodotus, than of
the illustrious poet, Homer. He was born in Asia Minor about 484 B.C.

After being well educated he commenced that course of patient and
observant travel which was to render his name illustrious as a
philosophic tourist and historian. The shores of the Hellespont,
Scythia, and the Euxine Sea; the Isles of the AEgaean; Syria, Egypt,
Palestine, Colchis, the northern parts of Africa, Ecbatana, and even
Babylon were the objects of his unwearied research. On his return from
his travels, after about twenty years, he settled for some time at
Samos, where he wrote the nine books of his travels in those
countries.

The charm of Herodotus' writings consists in the earnestness of a man
who describes countries as an eye-witness, and events as one
accustomed to participate in them. The life, the raciness, the vigor
of an adventurer and a wanderer, glow in every page. He has none of
the defining disquisitions that are born of the closet. He paints
history, rather than descants on it; he throws the colorings of a
mind, unconsciously poetic, over all he describes. Now a soldier--now
a priest--now a patriot--he is always a poet, if rarely a philosopher.
He narrates like a witness, unlike Thucydides, who sums up like a
judge. No writer ever made so beautiful an application of
superstitions to truths. His very credulities have a philosophy of
their own; and modern historians have acted unwisely in disdaining the
occasional repetition even of his fables. For if his truths record
the events--his fables paint the manners and the opinions of the time;
and the last fill up the history, of which events are only the
skeleton.

To account for his frequent use of dialogue, and his dramatic effects
of narrative, we must remember the tribunal to which the work of
Herodotus was subjected. Every author, unconsciously to himself,
consults the tastes of those he addresses. No small coteries of
scholars, no scrupulous and critical inquirers, made the ordeal
Herodotus underwent. His chronicles were not dissertations to be
coldly pondered over, and skeptically conned; they were read aloud at
solemn festivals to listening thousands: they were to arrest the
curiosity--to amuse the impatience--to stir the wonder of a lively and
motley crowd. Thus the historian imbibed naturally the spirit of the
tale-teller, as he was driven to embellish his history with the
r