Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 1.djvu/31



History of Romantic Fabling is enveloped in much perplexity; nor is it diminished by the various conjectures which have been started and upheld. The labours of ingenuity are not always convincing; and perhaps the very fact of their plausibility leads us to mistrust. Discussion upon remote history is ever attended with difficulty; and arguments that rest upon the basis of refined deduction that are artfully designed to pull down one system while they support another equally imaginative, may have a well-founded