Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-11-19
SOME LOST ILLUSIONS.
lcoNocLAsTs DESTROY PRETTY
STORIES OF HISTORY.
Legends of Gre ut Heroes of q Bygone
Day Ruthlessly Proved to BE Nothing
but Stories of Imaginative Historical
writers-Some Famous Myths.

but Stories of Imaginative Historical
writers-Some Famous Myths.
1t seems to be the purpose of certain
writers to pull down Pocahontas from the
pedestal on which she stands as the reputed
savior of Captain John Smith when he was
father, King PoShatan, and to convict
Smith of regeneration, if not downright
mendacity. Mr.. Henry Adams is the lat
est writer, in book of essays, to make a
thorough examina ton of the Pocahontas
legend, which Ban croft, in his history of
the United States, accepted as true. The
starting point of Mr.. Adams critical re-
view is 1.-THE True History of Virginia, -
written by Smith himself in 1905 in which
he relates his exploration of the Chicka-
hominy, the killing of two of his men by
the Pamunkey indians, his own subsequent
capture, his being carried In triumph
through number of Indian towns, and
his final delivery IS a prisoner to King
Powhatan, who received and treated him
we'll and furnished him with guides, who
took him back to il mestown
In this true story there is not word
about Pocahontas and her rescue of Smith
from impending death. In Wingfield's
discourse on Virginia" published in
London a few weeks before the publication
of Smiths True History, an account is
given of Smiths journey up the Chicka-
hominy on a voyage of exploration and in
search of food for The starving colony of
which Wingfeld was then the president,
but there is no mention of the Pocahontas
incident Accounts of the colony pub
lished in England in 1912 and 1915 are
equally silent as to the fact of the heroic
act of Pocahontas, w lich has since become
historical.
1t was not until the publication in 1924
of Smiths General History" which was
collection of papers OH Virginia by vari-
Gus hands, edited by John Smith, Late
governor of Virginia, that the Pocahontas
episode first appeared. The story of how
Smith was condemned to death, how he
was dragged to the sicrificial block how
he was thrown down and the eXecutioners
made ready to crush his skull and how
Pocahontas sprang forward, and, putting
her head on the head of Smith, pleaded
with Powhatan for his life, is not told by
Smith himself in the general history, al
though he virtually confirms the truth of
it by his tacit Endorsement.
WHEN THE PoCAHoNTAS ROMANCE STARTED
said that he owed his life to the Princess
Pocahontas, and in his letter TO the queen
of James he strongly recommended Poca-
hontas to the patronage of the court when
she came to England as the wife of John
Rolfe, on the ground of the signal service
she had rendered him but even then he
entered into no details. The extraordinary
thing about the matter is that in Smiths
narrative of his capture on the headwaters
of the Chickahominy, and of his subse-
quent adventures as prisoner, he invari-
ably speaks of having been well treated
and says nothing of his rescue from death
at a critical moment by The intervention of
Pocahontas.
1t was not until sixteen years later that
this romantic incident in the annals Of
Virginia was made public with Smiths
acquiescence and by another hand, and
from that time passed il to history. With
some persons who read the essay of Mr..
Adams the verdict will be that the story of
the rescue of Smith by Pocahontas was a
fraudulent Interpolation. With others it
will be the Scotch verdict of mot proved, :"
implying doubt, but with the generality
the ingrained belief in the truth of the
story will remain mistaken.
The literary iconoclasts are so many in
these latter days that doubt is being
thrown on the truth Of the existence, or
the fate, or the sayings OF quite number
of historical personages. They are raising
at this time new statues in France TO Joan
of Arc, the heroic peasant girl of Dom
remy, who, after leading The troops to vic
tory against the English was taken pris-
oner, tried and condemned as hereto and
sorcerer, and was burned at the stake in
the market place at Rouen. We are now
told by more than one French writer that
she was not burned, but pardoned and re-
leased, and that she married and became
the mother of a family.
EXPLODED LEGENDS.
They have been celebrat ny, in SwitZer-
land, the sixth centenary anniversary of
the independence of that republic and in
the great parade of historical personages
was William Tell and his son, having the
mythical apple that Tell is alleged to have
shot from the child's bead with a crossbow
in the market place of Altiorf. We now
are assured that the story oil Tell is myth.
That there was no Tell, that he did not
shoot an apple on the head of his son by
that Gessler was good administrator and
a merciful man.
The infamous Lucretia Bo rgia is declared
by Roscoe, the English historian, and by
Mr. Aston, of New York, to have been a
good and much maligued woman. The
famous Sappho did not throw herself from
the Leucadiap cliff for love of Phaon, nor
did she live lewd life, but married and
lived respectfully and respected, according
to the German writer Welcker, who wrote
book to prove her Innocence. Bishop
Thirlwall and Lord Lytton both believed
in the purity of her character.
The slaughter of the rear guard of the
army of Charlemagne. immortalized in the
Norman-Freuch epic, "Chanson de Ro-
land, - was not the work of the Moors of
Spain, US declared for centuries in song
and story, but of the wild Gascons, who
descended from their mount aims and fell
upon Roland and his knightly followers
and men at arms and massa cred them to
the last man.
Washington did not cut down the young
cherry tree with his little Ratchet. Shake,
speare's hunchback, Richard Ill, was q
well proportioned man. CaInbronne did
not say at Waterloo, The guards die, they
uavar surrender - nor did The Duke OF