Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/518

 486 HISTORY OF GREECE. I presume to think that our great poet has proceeded upon mistaken views with respect to the old British fables, not less in Preface is, indeed, full of philosophical reflection on popular fables gene- rally. Mr. Price observes (p. 79) : " The great evil with which this long-contested question appears to be threatened at the present day, is an extreme equally dangerous with the incredulity of Mr. Ritson, a disposition to receive as authentic history, antler a slightly fabulous coloring, every incident recorded in the British Chronicle. An allegorical interpretation is now inflicted upon all the mar- vellous circumstances ; a forced construction imposed upon the less glaring deviations from probability; and the usual subterfuge of baffled research, erroneous readings and etymological sophistry, is made to reduce every stubborn and intractable text to something like the consistency required. It might have been expected that the notorious failures of Dionysius and Plu- tarch, in Roman history, would have prevented the repetition of an error, which neither learning nor ingenuity can render palatable ; and that the havoc and deadly ruin effected by these ancient writers (in other respects so valuable) in one of the most beautiful and interesting monuments of tradi- tional story, would have acted as sufficient corrective on all future aspirants. The favorers of this system might at least have been instructed by the phi- losophic example of Livy, if it be lawful to ascribe to philosophy a line of conduct which perhaps was prompted by a powerful sense of poetic beauty, that traditional record can only gain in the hands of the future historian by one attractive aid, the grandeur and lofty graces of that in- comparable style in which the first decade is written ; and that the best duty towards antiquity, and the most agreeable one towards posterity, is to trans- mit the narrative received as an unsophisticated tradition, in all the plenitude of its marvels and the awful dignity of its supernatural agency. For, how- ever largely we may concede that real events have supplied the substance of any traditive story, yet the amount of absolute facts, and the manner of those facts, the period of their occurrence, the names of the agents, and the local- ity given to the scene, are all combined upon principles so wholly beyond our knowledge, that it becomes impossible to fix with certainty upon any single point better authenticated than its fellow. Probability in such decis- ions will often prove the most fallacious guide we can follow ; for, independ- ently of the acknowledged historical axiom, that ' le vrai n'est pas toujours le vraisemblable,' innumerable instances might be adduced, where tradition has had recourse to this very probability to confer a plausible sanction upon her most fictitious and romantic incidents. It will be a much more useful labor, wherever it can be effected, to trace the progress of this traditional story in the country where it has become located, by a reference to those natural or artificial monuments which are the unvarying sources of fictitious events ; and, by a strict comparison of its details with the analogous memo- rials of other nations, to separate those elements which are obviously of > native growth, from the occurrences bearing the impress of a foreign origiu