Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-11-05
HISTORIC DOUBTS.
The Romance of the OIden Time
What is True.

Biography has for long time formed
the most amusing staple Of our histories; I;
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
"evolve" fictitious animal ''out of the
depths of their own self-consciousness
Niebuhr has taught us, in spite of Sir
G. Cornwall Lewis, no longer to give
credence to the old story Of Lazy and
the early Roman historians, but 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 wolfnurse 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
round2 Did Lancelot love Guinevere,
and was Guinevere unfaithful? Or was
the succession of legends that Sir Thos.
Mallory tells us so we'll as much a fable
and an allegory as the "Ferie Queen" of
Edmund Spencer? Does any one be-
lieve that King Alfred baked pies for the
neatherd's wife, or that the strong Earl
of Warwick killed the dun COW with a
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?
Was Cleopatra the divinity she is re-
presented to be2 Apd at that glorious
banquet, 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 Cleopatra's pearl
sham one, like the bullet of Robert
Houdin or Professor Anderson? Was
Lucretia chaste? A Roman author tries
to prove that she was not so. Did Mes
salina indulge in that enormous vice for
which Juvenal lashed her so terribly
On the French stage we have seen Mes
salina played with double, like the Cor
sican Brothers of Mr.. Fletcher, 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 not, nowadays. Her tomb has been
discovered, if we may credit report, at
Rouen, and surely her calcined bones
would not yield a skeleton. Cesar,
whose exhortation to the pilot, oThou
earliest Caesar and his fortunes, Ctsear-
em uehis ct Jhrttnas ems, that has given
Lord, Bacon one his golden sentences in
his essays, makes no mention of the |
circumstance and speech, both of which |
have been severely questioned and de- |
MED. So all the crying out that the |
die is cast, and the thoughtful night
spent on horseback on the banks of the |
Rubicon, which have furnished many an
eloquent tag to a speech, carry some-
what of discredit with them. He himself |
has not related either incident, though
Suetonius 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 GER
tain mixture of pntrpth doth ever add
Sest. &" But the harm of this " zest " is,
that it gives the reader an unnatural
appetite for marvels, and allows the
partisan room to dis6gure the finest
characters. English Paper.