Nugae literariae: prose and verse

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I f it can be proved that any name has been surreptiliou8lyassxod to a historical Work, it is a circumstance of graVe SUSPicton. It is a literary sorgery, and an ianworthy counternit. The extreme probability is, that there is sonas artifice in the story om whicli this device is contrived to turn our attention. Ιt Will be supposed by many that tho most authenti history must be written by one Who lives in the very scenes whicli ho describes. It is a natural presumption that he is of alimen the bost equippeii and qualised. Ηe has communed withthe living actors, and trod the actuat Stage. I e has not onlybeen spectator, he has performed a pari. This is, hoWever, a very doubiful advantage. Such a one can Scarcely Striaggle out of the vortex os locul and individual Deling. Ιt can harilly beoxpoctod that lis has lived isolated amidst surrounding society. Will not tho tinge of Deling be involuntarily communicated tollis leaves 8 Personat Narratives, emoirs of His Οwn

good basis of history. They are osten nothing botter than liconsed libois. It is the exhaustion os a pol Soned quiver. But

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can disgust be too strong at his banter of Addison's dying bod lFar bet ter collaterat evidelice is, howevor, to be mund in the fasciculi of pamphleis of the day, whether in satire, ballad,

or Sober appeat. Such are the Somers' Tracis. The Ηarteian Alanuscripis must be of invalu te interest to those Who cultivate the abstruser potnts of historic lore. The power of the historian is not, there re, absolute. Heis restrained by every consideration Whicli sel Diove and consciolis responsibility can impose. Ηe is controited by influoncos which no citigen can stight. Ηe writes under a constellation ofkeenly-attentive and expressive eyes. One act of historic libertinisui dashos his bust Doui the nicho of fame. Convici him ofa bias, and ali suspect him. The light of truth disclatins thomedium utiless it be transmitted unrefracted. Gibbon presenis a specimen os punishment Whicli Will alWays, soon or late, fallretributively upon the historian Who suffers his prejudices tosway him. He is far tess credited than ho deserves to bo, in consequence of this, io use the mildest Word, indiscretion. His extonuation of Julian is blinil to the fact of that monarciss cruei persecution of his former fellow-discipies. Christianity, ' ho

birth-placo 8 A land whicli formed the geographical centro ofilio inhabited earth, commanding a principat inore of the Μediterranean, extending to the coast of Tyre, Washed by alibut the waves of tho Grecian Archipelago, stretching to the frontiers of Syria, close on the Asiatic access to Egypt, lyingin the pathWay to India, looking sortii on the Italian seas.

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What peopte Witnessed iis origin and progress 8 A peopte

WhΟSe commerce Was Wafted to every pori, and tramched in every city: than Dom Whose sacred literature the great criticos the sublime could seleel no more glorious Specimen: illustraled by Warriors, and princes, and poetS, of confessed renown visited by hings who came With pil grim veneration to iis monil-ments and shrines. What were the present circumStances of

thom iis imperiat glare: est lislied iis ethnarciis and procurators among them, garrisoned iis legions in their metropolis, butit iis Caesarea as a rival capital with iis sumptuous theatres, galleries, and palaces, and ali the pompotis glorieS of iis master-

The lansume in Which History is Written may happen to corroborato it. Is that langu age be noW dead, We may beassured that it Was composed, is in fullest classic purity, Whenthat language mas a living one. The diale t of that langua gemay greatly assist iis in determining the date of the work. Normiast we be sWayed by a translation. Α critical knowledge os these languages is essentiat in the setilement of such a question. I remember it to have been said, not for the sirst time, that therecord in the Book of Genesis, respecting Jubal, as the fallier of ail Who handio thse organ, ' must bo incorreet, hecause in that sera Such a nobie, complicate i, invention os musical mechanismcould not be known. Νow the Hebrow Word, a P, Signisses aset of reeds,-the sirst instrument, it is probabie, eVer Con- Structed, and yet certainly containing the generat principie of the vocat Damo. It is not lihely that any competitor Willspring up to palm another Grecian history, masked in the pure Iangvage of Ηellas, and of that Ionic forna, Whicli the ne Attic could not surpass. Then may he displace Herodotus.

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Quotations and references may a1 rd much weight to thequestion os authenticity. Historians, When they cite each other, cannot be supposed to practiSe collusion. The argument is irresistibis, that any Works thus mentioned, and appealed to, Were atthat time extant. Sometimes, it has occurred, that the originalis tost, and only the citatiori is preserved. But Who Would interpolate his oWn Work With this spurious authority 8 Who Would Dist into his own texi any thing so audacious 8 Thus, in thesrst book of Eus ius' Preparationes Evangelicae, there is introduced an extraci froni the Phenician History by Sanchoniathon. Μystical as it may be,-and reluctant as We most probably areto accepi ali the speculations of Cumberland Upon these ancientremains,-there is no justice in disputing that whicli suci, controvertisis as Eusebius and Porphyry allowed. And Thucydides, in his sirst book of the Peloponnesian War, thias adduces tho history of Hellanicus, though With some cenSUre Upon him, Who Was older than Herodotus. The very Deedom with whichthese Writers discuss each other Will prove at once their generat authority, and that they Were knoWn as real PerSonS. ΗΟW Volumes so Dail as papyrus and parchinent, hoW dyesso fugitivo as the disserent inlis, have been sus red to reach uswith so litile mutilation and injury,-some of them to be disin

their libraries. In the rudest periods of the Roman history, theΜaximus Pontifex kept the public annals : and after tho Christian epoch, many of the religiolis houses Wore silled with thogowilling scribes. It is, indeed, but justice to the monasteries torecord that they Were the best sanctuaries, and their inmatos the most active polygraphisis, in the middie ages. In the

HebreW Μanuscripis the transcribers Were compelled to such Persect accuracy, that the middie verse in each book is noted the number of verses in the whole is declared, and Masoretic

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vigilance Would seige the alteration os a potnt. The classicaland sacred copyism of the sirst ages fought the most solitarylasinesses for iis sa ty. Μount Athos was peculiarly distinguished. Amongst iis desiles and heighis learnsed and holy monWere thus employed. And this endues it with a sanctity beyondali the majesty whicli Croly ascribes to it. Ι allude to the description os it whicli tho Caloyer gives to the uninitiated traveller Whenthey stanti, after climbing the spirat os a litile path, at the Dotof the great pinnacle of the mountain. This, said he, is tho

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os documentary truth. Μoney has been soland necessary torepresent property in eVery civili sed state. And though thoheen jealousy of numismatologisis may be Sometimes deceived, yet with Gery deduction, ample quantities exist of the most interesting specimens and unsuspected dies. We cari handiethe currency of Philip, of Alexander, of Lysimachus, of the

Ptolemies: We can conceive of the rude palms Whicli grasped thesesterce and denarius in the popular barier os ancient Rome: While the begant carries iis to the neW- unded city of Constantine, and we see the minted gotii delicately fingered by the patri

Chronoseis is not only most serviceable in helping us to a connected knowledge of History, but to iis credibility. Wheredates are un6Xed, there can be litile other precision. The probabie, and even the possibie, in transaction may depend tapon a

particular computation. The antiquity of an event is no reason,

as is commonly imagined, Why it should bo discreditod: it is that sucii antiquity is vagiae and unintelligibie. The supposed

event is thrust back into a remoteness whicli is brought, and cantie brought, under no notation. We Dei that this is osten amere blinii and pretexi, and that a truly reported event Would illuminate itself. It must be seen under some of the great aeraS. Whon wo bogin With the olympiads, we seel on certain ground in our investigation of the ancient Grecian History : and withevery improvenient of the Roman Calendar seems to riso theauthenticity of Hl that is Woven in to that heroic tale. When

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our chronological scale and chari is well-established, - have a mea Suring reed, a speedy ordeat, to determine the truth or lableos a thousand magnificent preten SionS. G609rrephy is, perhaps, Scarcely of less assistance in thesepiarSuits. Evenis must have as sXed a relation to space as totime. When, there re, the sito os a city, and the boundary ofa country, as laid down by an ancient historian are proVed, ΟΠmodern researeh, to be correctly desned, a presumption of nomean value, of no Stight force, is raised by this circumstantialaccuracy. And it is of greater importance in tho argument thanit might at first foena, or than it can ever be again. For thegenerat mapping of our planet Was, at the times Supposed, most incomplete. The tables of Claudius Ptolomais, the Alexandrine, who lived in the poriod of the Antonines, erfeci as they aresor tho disad varitages under Whicli they were drawn,-Would not

And ovon this is nearly sve hundred years posterior to soland Historic date. Νow how could Herodotus, and that earlier class of writers, attain to this precision 8 We know they tr velled into the climes Where their scenes Nere laid, that theypersonalty inspected the spois of the great actions Whicli theyrecord,-that they made minute und scrupulous enquiry of thopeoples among Whom they 8 ourned. And in tho main naturestheir geography is confirmed. The ternas denoting mensurement in every language a re dissiculi os adjustinent, and the discrepa iacies, feW and trivial, may thus bo solved. The latest travollers in Chaldaea and Persia give the most confirmatorystalements of that whicli it has been common, Without any justgrounds of objection, to dispute. WE should a id our candour by remembering that they, who in Our day profess to explorellis sanie localities, do not uniformiy agree,-that Briace, Valentia, and Burckhardi have not ali the happy art of seeing the very thing in the fame angle of vision, that Tadmar and Palmyra remain to be identissed - and that Μemphis, as arvined city, is almost as undetermined in position as Prester Iolin s Dominion S. Custom is an usserat medium os Historic light. Let us

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suppose that hom the occurrence of Some event, a series of observances Was instituted to signatiso it, that the series could bo prouod to be unbrohen ,-that Such observance WaS perpetuated through generations ali jealous of any innovation on it, and ali unanimous in the declaration of iis impori, and thenthis question presses itself upon our attention : How could sucha custom originate 8 Who could givo it a credibie sexplanation ΘWho could infuse into the contemporary mind associations Whichalone Would make it a precious monument and Worthy celebra

was such a Hero, and that he delivered his country Dom manyeVils, perhaps reatly hom a Nemean lion. An excellent archer of the name of Apollo may have transfixed ther Python. Butilis Nemean and tho Pythian Games cannot pretend to an uninterrupted continuance. The Isthmian, after long disuse, were revived by Theseus, and the Olympic are tost in uncertainty

introducod in to them Whicli destroyed the simplicity of any primary design. They became political instruments to divert, andio consolidate. They fostered literature, but especialty were thetraining schools of athletic Vigour and courage. They became divisions os time, and were incentives to ambition. But th rotainod littis that was storied in them. The Purpose os commemoration can Scarcely be discern ed. We should, theresoro, deny that we must concede the alleged origin of these institutions, froin the rules that We lay doWn concerning public festi- vias in support of History. Consecutiveness is necessary. An intelligent motive is necessary. An aVoWed purpori iS neceSSary. The necessity does not rest on eVery agent, hiat iapon the solem-

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There is an evidence, in favour os History, to be draWnfroni iis internat character, When the writer professes to have been a Witness of What he relates. There is a verisimilitude

Whicli can harilly bo mistaken. It is not dented that this style has been very success&lly imitate i. This has boen done bythrowing a fictilious narrative into stiori para graphs, as is despalched in haste, and enumerating disserent dates, as is pen-ned in a j ournal. Our own De Foe is an adept in this art,-anart whicli is biit a literary display and pleasant conceit,-m artwhich was never designed to deceive. But that tone of realityand of nature is after ali very disserent. It is insumcient toprove that the description is true, but it is very felicitous asincidental to iis truth. I his is the picturesque os History whicharises Dom the acquaintance of the author With the circumstances of his narration. It stands out in a vivid interest. Itgrows upon us With a living reality. The reader has litile imagination to exercise, t is a perfeci autopsy. We have allowed that there may be an art which shali imitate this. That art maybe very ingeniolasty applied. But it is soon detected. Thersis a greater disseretice belWeen the truth, and the artifice, than belWeen any grand original of painting and iis copy. This sincerity, this simplicity, this naturainess, these uni oured reflect-ings of nature and faci, could only have been found where tho

historiari Was the spectator too. Some of the ancients, theresere,

supposed that though the annalist might marinat ancient dates and evenis of which he had no cogniZance, history could only be

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known the heroes who hunted down the faithless Iugurtha; and except he had afterWards himself governed Numidia, and therohad learni the burning tale. What besides could have Wrought' his coid, sensual, nature to the protection of suffering and the indignation of wrong 8 In the Same manner of poWer, Severelydescriptive, Thucydides relates his scenes. We move with himalong them. Wo See and Del each change. The style is representation. We stand Dpon the stiores of Pylos. We look out Upon Sphacteria. The seu rolis heavily on the beach. A nobis fortification rises up, and the feW Ships are Inoored together as a barricado. Demosthenes, choosing his faithful baiid, marches with them to the very edge of the sea. We catch the animationos his harangue. They post themselves. They aWait the charge of the Lacedaemonian land force as Weli as the irruption of the confoderato fleet. Ali is collected courage. Not a spirit droops. Brasidas attempis to breah the line. Ηe runs his triereme

whilo lis reads 8 But Thucydides lineW the geography of the coast; though now banished he had fought in these very wars; hohad confronted Brasidas at Amphipolis and been deseated; and

noW, generous aS impartiat, dOeS honour to his rival-De. Thessare not only the tolaches of historic truth, they Stamp a moralworth upon the graphic delineatiora. This Sort of veri0ing method in historic composition may be further illustraled DomXenophon s Anabasis. Every one Will recali that crisis in thoretrent of the ten thousand Greelis When the vanguard reached the summit of Μount Theches. Theiace they saW that glorious