(and of course when there is anything
remarkable in them they must and will do so,) invention
glides into the images as they form in us; it must, as it
ever has, from the first legends of a cosmogony, to the
written life of the great man who died last year or century,
or to the latest scientific magazine. We cannot relate
facts as they are, they must first pass through ourselves,
and we are more or less than mortal if they gather nothing
in the transit. The great outlines alone lie around us
as imperative and constraining; the detail we each fill
up variously according to the turn of our sympathies,
the extent of our knowledge, or our general theories of
things, and therefore it may be said that the only
literally true history possible, is the history which mind
has left of itself in all the changes through which it has
passed.

Suetonius is to the full as extravagant and superstitious
as Surius, and Suetonius was most laborious
and careful, and was the friend of Tacitus and Pliny;
Suetonius gives us prodigies, when Surius has miracles,
but that is all the difference; each follows the form of
the supernatural which belonged to the genius of his
age. Plutarch writes a life of Lycurgus with details of
his childhood, and of the trials and vicissitudes of his
age; and the existence of Lycurgus is now quite as
questionable as that of St. Patrick or of St. George of
England.

No rectitude of intention will save us from mistakes.
Sympathies and antipathies are but synonyms of prejudice,
and indifference is impossible. Love is blind,
and so is every other passion; love believes eagerly what
it desires; it excuses or passes lightly over blemishes, it
dwells on what is beautiful, while dislike sees a tarnish
on what is brightest, and deepens faults into vices. Do
we believe that all this is a disease of unenlightened
times, and that in our strong sunlight only truth can
get received: then let us contrast the portrait for
instance of Sir Robert Peel as it is drawn in the Free
Trade Hall, at Manchester, at the county meeting, and
in the Oxford Common Room. It is not so. Faithful
and literal history is possible only to an impassive spirit;
it is impossible to man, until perfect knowledge and
perfect faith in God shall enable him to see and endure
every fact in its reality; until perfect love shall kindle
in him under its touch the one just emotion which
is in harmony with the eternal order of all things.

How far we are