The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1870-11-17
The Lies or History.

Biography has for long time con-
stituted the most amusing staple Of
our histories; but unfortunately most
Of the pearls of these Biographies are
very doubtful. We have been called
upon to admire, not so much the say
ings and dOings of heroes, as the
ideals Of these heroes, which the his
tOrians have imagined. Like the Ger
man in the celebrated anecdOte, they
have not set down honestly to de-
scribe the camel from close Observa-
ton, but to ''evolve" a fictitious ami
NAL "Out of the depths of their own
self-consciOnsness, y Niebuhr has
taught US, in spite of Sir G. Cornewall
Lewis, no longer to give eredence to
the old stories of Livy and the early
Roman historians, bat to regard the
legends OF Rome just as we should
the old ballads of England. We do
not believe In Romulus and Remus,
and their wolf-nurse, any more than
we do the deeds Of Percy at Chevy
Chase. -.
Did that grand hero Of romance,
King Arthur, ever sit with his ehos-
en- knights at that wondrOus table
rOund2 Did LaneelOt love Guins,
we're, and was Guinevere unfaithfuli
Or was the whole succession Of leg
ends that Sir Thomas Mallory tells
US so well as much Of a fable and an
allegory as the FRrie Queen Of Ed
mund Spenser? Does any one be
lieve that King Alfred baked cakes
for the neatherd's wife, or that the
strong Earl Of Warwick killed the
dun COW with q blow Of his fist? Did
the industrious Matilda, William the
COnqueror's Queen, execute the Bay
eux tapestry with her own fair hands,
as history tells US, or did she only dc
it by proxy, in the persons Of fifty
fair maidens or so?
Was Cleopatra the divinity she is
represented TO be? And at that glOri-
Gus banquet, where the imailed An
tony" sat by her with the concentrate
ed JOY that sees trouble near at hand,
how did she drop and suddenly dis
solve pearl with vinegar, when we
have scarcely an acid strong enough
to effect that result in many days p
Was not Cleopatra's pearl q sham
one, like the bullet of Robert Houdin
of Professor Anderson? Was Lucretia
chaste? A German author tries to
prove that she was not so. Did Mes
salina indulge In that enormous vice
for which JuvenaT lashed her 50 terri
bly,? On the French stage we haze
seen Messalina played with double,
like the COrsiean Brothers Of SIR.
fletcher, and the author has ingeni-
ously thrown all the vice on the dou-
bic, and has made the Empress q
ehaste martyr.
Did Joan Of Arc really exist? They
say not, nowadays. Her tomb has
been discovered, if we naaIy credit re-
port, at ROuen, and surely her calcin-
ed bones would not yield q skele-
ton. Cesar, whose exhOrtatiOn to
the pilot, ''ThOu earliest Cesar and
his fortunes" (CtBsdriSDl UeIiis ct for
tuneDl. ejUs), has given Lord Bacon
one of his golden sentences in his
Essays, makes no mention Of the
and speech, both Of
which have been severely questioned
and denied. So, also, the crying out
that the''D:e is cast, "and the thought
ful night spent on horseback on the
banks of the Rubicon, which have
many an eloquent ''Tag"
to a speech, carry somewhat Of dis
credit with them He himself has
not related either incident, though
and Plutarch make a point
out Of each Of them.
Thus we have shown that a certain
mixture Of fable exists in all history,
and that, to quote Lord Bacon, "a
certain mixture Of untruth doth ever
add Zest." But the harm Of this
''Zest" is that II gives the reader an
appetite for marvels, and
allows the partisan room 10 disfgure
the finest eharacters.-Engiish paper.