The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-11-09
Historic DOnbts-The Romance OF the
'sta 0lden TaneLWllat 10 True.

Biography has for a long time formed 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 sayings and doings Of heroes, as the
ideals Of these heroes, which the historians
have imagined, Like the German in the
celebrated anecdote, they have not set down
honestly to describe the camel from close
observation, but to &c evolve fictitious
animal fe.out Of the depths Of their own
self.consciou usness!', Niebuhrlla taught tls,
in spite of Sir G.. Cornwall Lewis, no longer
to give credence to the old story of Liyy
and the early Roman historians, but to re-.
gard the legends of Rome just as we should
the old ballads OF, England ia -=s-s
We do not believe in Romulus and Remus
and their wolf-nurse any more than we do
of the deeds of Percy at Chevy Chase. Did
that grand hero of romance, King Arthur,
ever sit with his chosen knights at that
wondrous table round? Did Lancelot love
Guinevere, and was Guinevere unfaithful ?
Or was the succession Of legends that Sir
Thos. Mallory tells us so well az much q
fable and allegory as the "Farie Queen"
of Edmund Spencer Does any one believe
that King Alfred baked pies for the Meath
|erd's wife, or that the strong Earl Of War
wick killed the dun COW with blow of his
fist? Did the industrious Matilda William,
the Conqueror' Queen, execute the Beyeux
tapestry with her own fair hands, as history
tells us, or did she only do it by proxy in
the person of fifty fair maidens or so z
| Was CLEOPATRA the divinity she is repre-
sented to he? And at that glorious BAN
quet, when the ''mailed Anthony" sat by
her with the concentrated joy 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 in many days?
. Was not Cle0patra's pearl sham one, like
Anderson 7 Was Lucretia chaste A
Roman author tries to prove that she was
not so. Did Messalina indulge in that enor-
irnolis vice for which Jupenal lashed her so
terribly? On the French stage we have
seen i1esselina played with double, like
the Corsican Brothers Of Mr.. Fletcher, and
the author has ingeniously thrown all the
vice OH the double and has made the EN-
press chaste martyr.
Did Joan of Arc really exist? They say
not, nowadays. Her tomb has been dis
covered, if we may, credit report, at Rouen,
and surely her calcined bones would not
yield skeleton. Caesar, whose eXhortation
to the pilot, "Thou earliest Cesar and his
C9sdrem Uehis ct fortunds ej,s--
that has given Lord Bacon one of his golden
sentences 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 night spent
on horseback on rhe banks Of the Rllbicon,
which have furnished many m eloquent
"tag" to II speech, carry somewhat OF dis
credit with them. He himself has not re-
lated either incident, though Suetonus and
Plutarch make point out of each of them.
Thus we have shown that certain mix
ture 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 "Ze>L" is, that it gives the
and allows the partisan room to disfgure
the finest characters.-English paper.