former ages could allow. Mere statements are jealously watched, and the motives

of the writer form as important an ingredient in the analysis of his history,

as the facts he records. Probability is a powerful and troublesome test; and it

is by this troublesome standard that a large portion of historical evidence is

sifted. Consistency is no less pertinacious and exacting in its demands. In

brief, to write a history, we must know more than mere facts. Human nature,

viewed under an introduction of extended experience, is the best help to the

criticism of human history. Historical characters can only be estimated by the

standard which human experience, whether actual or traditionary, has furnished.

To form correct views of individuals we must regard them as forming parts of a

great whole—we must measure them by their relation to the mass of beings

by whom they are surrounded; and, in contemplating the incidents in their lives

or condition which tradition has handed down to us, we must rather consider the

general bearing of the whole narrative, than the respective probability of its

details.


It is unfortunate for us, that, of some of the greatest men, we know least, and

talk most. Homer, Socrates, and Shakespere have, perhaps, contributed more to

the intellectual enlightenment of mankind than any other three writers who

could be named, and yet the history of all three has given rise to a boundless

ocean of discussion, which has left us little save the option of choosing which

theory or theories we will follow. The personality of Shakespere is, perhaps,

the only thing in which critics will allow us to believe without controversy;

but upon everything else, even down to the authorship of plays, there is more

or less of doubt and uncertainty. Of Socrates we know as little as the

contradictions of Plato and Xenophon will allow us to know. He was one of the

dramatis personæ in two dramas as unlike in principles as in style. He