The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1870-11-12
HISTORIC DOUBTSl
The ROmances of the Olden Time
a What is True!

our histories; but, unfortunately,
most of the pearls of these biogra-
plies are very doubtful. We have
been called upon to admire, not so
much the sayings and doings Of
heroes, as the ideals of these he
roes. which the historians have i'm
agined. Like the German in the
celebrated anecdoie, they have not
sat down honestly to describe the
| camel from close observation, but
to evolve fictitious animal out
of the depths Of their own self
consciousness Niebuhr has
'aueht US; in spite o: Sir G. Corn
wall Lewis, no longer to give Gre
dence to the old story of Livy and
the early Roman historians, but
to regard the legends of Rome just
rs we should the old ballads of
England. We do not believe in
RomElus and Remus, and their
wolf-nurse. any more than we do
OF Percy at Chevy Chase. Did that
grand hero Of romance, King Ar
| thur, ever sit with his chosen
knights at that wondrous table
round? Did Lancelot love Guine-
we're. and was Guinevere unfaith-
| full? Or was the succession Of le-
gends that Sir Thomas Mallory
tells us so well as much a fable
and an allegory as the 'Farie
| Queen of Edmund Spencer? Does
any one believe that King Alfred
baked cakes for the neatherd's
wife, Or that the strong Earl of
Warwick killed the dun COW with
a blow Of his fist? Did the indus
trious Matilda William, the Con-
queror' Queen, execute the Beyeux
tapestry with her own fair hands,
as history tells US, or did she only
do it by proxy in the persons of
fifty fair maidens or so?
Was Cleopatra the divinity she
is represented to be2 And at that
glorious banquet, when the mailed
Antony sat by her with the con
centratcd joy that sees trouble
near at hand, aow did she drop
and suddenly dissolve pearl with
vinegar, when we have scarcely
an acid strong enough to effect that
result in many days? Was not
Cleopatra's pesi'i sham one. like
the bullet of Robert Houdin or
Professor Anderson? Was Lucre-
tia chaste2 A German author tries
to prove that she was not so. Did
Messalina indulge in that enormous
vice for which Juvenal dashed her
so terribly? On the French stage
we have seen Messalina played
with a double, like the 'Corsican
Brothers. Of Mr. Fechter, and the
author has ingeniously thrown all
the vice on the double, and has
made the Empress chaste martyr.
Did Joan of Arc really exist? They
say rot, nowadays. Her tomb
has been discovered. If we may
credit report, at Rouen, and surely
her calcined bones would not WELD
skeleton Caesar, whose exhor
tation to the pilot, Thou earliest
Caesar end his fortunes C@sarem
vehis ct fortunam ejus; has given
Lord Bacon one Of his golden SEN
fences in his essays, makes no
mention of the circumstance and
speech, both of which have been
severely questioned and denied -
So all the crying out that the Die
is cast and the thoughtful p;gnt
spent on horseback on the banks
of the Rubicon. which have fur
nisted many an eloquent tag to a
speech. carry somewhat of discred-
it with them. He himself has not
related either incident, though
Suetonius and Plutarch makes a
point out of each of them.
Thus we have shown that GER
tain mixture Of fable exists in all
history, and that, to quote Lord
Bacon, "a certain mixture Of un-
truth doth ever add zest.' But the
harm Of this 'zest' is, that it gives
the reader an unnatural appetite
for marvelS, and allows the par
tisan room to disfgure the finest
characters.- English Paper.
A Polish legion has at last. much
against Trocuh's will, been organ
lied on condition that the men
armed themselves either from the
towards who ran away from the
enemy or at their own expense.
The Moniteur, of Paris, notices,
as proof of the humanity of the
French, the fact that the Prussian
wounded who died in French am
bulance hospitals were followed to
their graves by French soldiers.