As  history  in  general  is  said  to  be  less
truthful  than  poetry,  so  the  fictions
which  were  formed  and  cherished
among  a  great  people,  though  false  ia
their  details,  may  be  more  true  in  the
spirit,  than  the  letter  of  the  best  at-
tested discoveries  which  had  been  lost
sight  of  in  popular  tradition.
That  much  of  early  Roman  history
must  be  fabulous,  all  men  always
knew  ;  for  they  had  no  letters  for
centuries — no  historians  till  centuries
later — and  all  public  monuments  had
been  destroyed  by  fire.  All,  then,  was
left  to  tradition ;  and  what  faith  could
be  placed  in  tradition,  reaching  back
so  far  ?

Tradition,  it  is  easy  to  see,  roust,
from  many  causes,  still  stray  further
and  further  from  the  truth  in  each
succeeding  generation.  What  innu-
merable   unintentioiiiil    inai  curacies


mnst  occur  in  each  successive  nar-
rator*8  statement  of  the  facts — from
the  gathering  on  them  of  obscuiity,
through  which  they  loom  larger  than
life,  or  sink  into  the  shade,  or  are  par-
tially discerned,  or  recede  into  obli-
vion! Then  how  perpetual  is  the
action  of  imagination  upon  every  nar-
rative !  A  slight  variation  in  the  cir-
cumstances of  the  event  suggests  a
new  meaning  in  it ;  and  the  event  it-
self is  then  altered  in  its  outline  to
sustain  that  idea  of  its  significance.
Sometimes  that  is  done  involuntarily ;
oftener,  perhaps,  the  process  is  wil-
fully indulged,  as  nothing  more  than
an  innocent  ingenious  restoration  of
the  traces  which  time  had  obliterated.
