in the _Gesta
Ottonis_ of Wittekind.

[155] For example, the statistics on the population, the commerce, and
the wealth of European countries given by the Venetian ambassadors of
the sixteenth century, and the descriptions of the usages of the Germans
in the _Germania_ of Tacitus.

[156] It would be interesting to examine how much of Roman or
Merovingian history would be left if we rejected all documents but those
which represent direct observation.

[157] It will be seen why we have not separately defined and studied
"first-hand documents." The question has not been raised in the proper
manner in historical practice. The distinction ought to apply to
_statements_, not to documents. It is not the document which comes to us
at first, second, or third hand; it is the statement. What is called a
"first-hand document" is nearly always composed in part of second-hand
statements about facts of which the author had no personal knowledge.
The name "second-hand document" is given to those which, like the work
of Livy, contain nothing first-hand; but the distinction is too crude to
serve as a guide in the critical examination of statements.

[158] There is much less modification where the oral tradition assumes a
regular or striking form, as is the case with verses, maxims, proverbs.

[159] Sometimes the _form_ of the phrase tells its own tale, when, in
the midst of a detailed narrative, obviously of legendary origin, we
come across a curt, dry entry in annalistic style, obviously copied from
a written document. That is what we find in Livy (see Nitzsch, _Die
roemische Annalistik_, Leipzig, 1873, 8vo), and in Gregory of Tours (see
Loebell, _Gregor von Tours_, Leipzig, 1868, 8vo).

[160] The events which strike the popular imagination and are
transmitted by legend are not generally those which seem to us the most
important. The heroes of the _chansons de gestes_ are hardly known
historically. The Breton epic songs relate, not to the great historical
events, as Villemarque's collection led people to believe, but to
obscure local episodes. The same holds of the Scandinavian sagas; for
the most part they relate to quarrels among the villagers of Iceland or
the Orkneys.

[161] The theory of legend is one of the most advanced parts of
criticism. Bernheim (in his _Lehrbuch_, pp. 380-90) gives a good summary
and a bibliography of it.

[162] "History of Greece," vols. i. and ii. Compare Renan, _Histoire du
peuple d'Israel_, vol