The Idaho world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1864-1918, 1870-11-10
THE LIES OF HISTORY.

RioCraphy, says an English paper, has lor q :
lono time formed the most amusing slapie "
our histories; but unfortunately most o. .e en1
nearls of these biographies are very ooupl'u a.
Wa have been called upon to ADMIRE NOT 50
much the savings and doings OF heroes, us tiie
ideals of these heroes, which the historians
have imagined. Like the German I'D Tue 9eio
brated anecdOte they have not SAT ao"h ho"-
estlv TO describe the camel from close ooser-
vation. but to .'evolve fictitious animal "out
of the depths of their own selt-conscl0usiiess
Niebuhr has taught us, in spite OF Sir U' Coflo-
wall Lewis. no longer to give credence 10 INC
hid stories of Liyy and the early Roman histo-
rims hut TO regard the legends OF home Jnst
as we should the old ballads OF England We
do NOT believe in Romulus and Remus ana
their wOlf-nurse, any more than we 40 III Iho
deeds of Percy at Chevy Chase. Did that
grand hero of romance, King Arthur ever s''
with his chosen knights at that wondrous Iooie
round? Did LaunceOt love GulneVere' ana
was Gunevere untaithtul! Or was the whoie
succession of legends that Sir Thomas Mallory
tells us so WELL as much fable ana an aiiesory
as the "Faerie Queen" OF Edmund spencer ;
Does anv one believe that King Alfred baked
cokes for the neatherds wife, or that that
strong earl of Warwick killed the dun COW
with blow of his fist? Did the industrious
Matilda, William the Conqueror's queen, exc
cute the Bayeux tapestry with her own ialr
hands. rs history tells US, or did she only do 1t
by proxy in the persons of fifty fair maldens
or so!
Was Cleopatra the divinity she is represent
ed to be? And at that glorious banquet, where
the mailed Antony" sat by her with the con-
centrated 10y that sees trouble near at hand,
how did she drop and suddenly dissolve pearl
with vinegar, when we have scarcely an acid
strong enough to effect that result III many
DAYS Was not Ceopatra's pearl Il sham one,
like the bullet of Robert Houdin or Prof. An-
Anderson! Was Lucretia chaste! a Ger
man author tries to prove that she was not So
| Did Mess;lina indulge i'll that enormous wee
tor which Juvenal lashed her SO terribly! On
the French stage we have seen Messalina
PLAYED with double, like the Corsican Broth
ers of Mr. Fechter, and the author has ingcni
ously thrown all the vice on the double, aud
has made the empress chaste martyr. Did
Joan of Arc really exist! They say not, now
adays. Her tomb has been discovered it,
we may credit report, at Rouen. and surely
her calcined bones would not yield skeleton.
Caesar, whose exhortation To the pilot, Thou
earliest Caesar aud his fortunes" (Cdesdrem
rehis Ct .tortanam ejnsl, has given Lord Bacon
one OF his golden sentences III his essays, makes
no mention of the circumstance aud speech,
both of which have been severely questioned
and denied. So also the crying out that the
- die is cast" and the thoughtful night spent
on horseback on the banks OF the Rublcon.
which have furnished many an eloquent tag"
to speech, carry somewhat OF discrcdit with
them He himself has not related either incl.
dent, though Surtonius and Putarch make Il
point out of each of them.
Thus we have shown that certain mixture
of fable exists in all history. and that. To quote
Lord Bacon, IA certain mixture of uutruth
doth ever add zest" But the harm of this
"zest" is that it gives the readers All unnatu-
raj appetite for marvels, and allows the part.
san room To disfgure the finest characters.