Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/465

 SEMI HISTORICAL 'fHEORY. 433 matter of fact and plausible fiction between truth and that which is like truth can neither be discerned nor sought for. Yet it is precisely upon the supposition that this distinction is present to niens habitual thoughts, that the semi-historical theory of the mythes is grounded. It is perfectly true, as has often been stated, that the Grecian epic contains what are called traditions respecting the past the larger portion of it, indeed, consists of nothing else. But what are these traditions ? They are the matter of those songs and stories which have acquired hold on the public mind ; they are the creations of the poets and storytellers themselves, each of whom finds some preexisting, and adds others of his own, new ind previously untold, under the impulse and authority of the mspiring Muse. Homer doubtless found many songs and stories current with respect to the siege of Troy ; he received and trans- mitted some of these traditions, recast and transformed others, and enlarged the whole mass by new creations of his own. To the subsequent poets, such as Arktinus and Lesches, these Ho- meric creations formed portions of preexisting tradition, with which they dealt in the same manner ; so that the whole mass of traditions constituting the tale of Troy became larger and larger /ith each successive contributor. To assume a generic differ- ence between the older and the newer strata of tradition to >reat the former as morsels of history, and the latter as appen- lages of fiction is an hypothesis gratuitous at the least, not to say inadmissible. For the further we travel back into the past, >he more do we recede from the clear day of positive history, ind the deeper do we plunge into the unsteady twilight and gorgeous clouds of fancy and feeling. It was one of the agree- able dreams of the Grecian epic, that the man who travelled far enough northward beyond the Rhipsean mountains, would in time reach the delicious country and genial climate of the virtuous Hyperboreans the votaries and favorites of Apollo, who dwelt in the extreme north beyond the chilling blasts of Boreas. Now v jie hope that we may, by carrying our researches up the stream of time, exhaust the limits of fiction, and land ultimately upon 5ome points of solid truth, appears to me no less illusory than Jiis northward journey in quest of the Hyperborean elysium. roL. i. 19 28oc.