Mr. Frederick Metcalfe, in his "Englishman and Scandinavian," says—"Then again our old institution, trial by jury, to our immortal King Alfred, the people's darling, it has been assigned, along with other tithings, hundreds, and a host of other inventions and institutions, which, we are persuaded, he would have been the first to repudiate. Indeed, he has become a sort of Odin to some antiquaries, on whom everything bearing the stamp of remote antiquity was gathered, the invention of names amongst the rest."
The same writer, referring to the "famous story of Theophilus," says—"The legend, as we have said, ran through Europe in various shapes, and was fitted to all people imaginable. It is referred to in one of Ælfric's homilies (i. 448), while in an Icelandic legend Anselm and Theophilus are thus blended. Now we know that Eormenric, who died 370, Attila, 453, Gundicar of Burgundy, 436, and the Ostrogothic King Theordoric or Dietrich, 536, become contemporaries and merge one into another in heroic mythus. But one is hardly prepared to find Dietrich of Bern and Theophilus of Sicily getting confused into one. But so it is. Amongst the Wends it has become a popular story, and is told of Dietrich (Theodoric of Verona), who among the peasantry is transmuted into the Wild Huntsman."
Mr. W. St. Chad Boscawen, in his learned lecture on "A Chaldean Heliopolis," at Manchester, in December, 1881, after referring to the manner in which Berosus "had resort to an ingenious literary fiction to preserve the continuity of the narrative in his history of Chaldea, which he claimed to have based on documentary evidence, extending back over fifteen myriads of years," says—"The daily recurring war of day and night, which had belonged to the nomadic age, now became national wars and combats of Samson, Shamgar, and Gideon, the solar heroes, against the dark forces of the Philistine and Midianite. But in this period of the heroic age—the 'once upon a time' of the Chaldean story-teller, the nation was not one consolidated whole; it was the age of polyarchy. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was not one capital city, it was the tetrapolis of Babel, Akkad, Erech, and Calrech, and each city was a little kingdom. So each city had its hero. The giant Isdubar was the hero of Erech; Sargon the Moses of Chaldea—the hero of Aganne; Etanne and Ner, of Babylon. In the labours and wars of these heroes we saw the labours and wars and struggles of the city kingdom, but lit with the lustre of divinity which shone forth from the age of the gods and clothed with its brightness the characters in the heroic age. But, in time, as the nation became consolidated, all became blended and absorbed into the great national hero, Isdubar, the great king."
The Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, in his "Mythology of the Aryan Nations," successfully shows that the principal materials of the Arthurian legends are identical with those which underlie the Hindoo, Grecian, Teutonic, and other common Aryan myths. He contends that Arthur is a solar hero, of the same type as Phoibus Chrysâôr, or Heracles, or Bellerophon, or Perseus, or Achilleus, or Sigurd; and he illustrates this position by the citation of numerous instances in which their common original is clearly perceptible, notwithstanding the great modification, especially in costume and morals, to which the original materials have been subjected. A single instance of this uniformity, but an important one, will suffice for the present purpose. The peculiar form as well as the name of the supernatural weapon of Indra, the Vedic lightning god, has undergone many changes in its progress through the mythical lore of the various Aryan nations, and yet its identity is rarely, if ever, doubtful. It is the "Durandal" of Roland; it is Arthur's famous sword "Excalibur," as well as the similar weapon which no one could draw from the "iron anvil-sheaf embedded in stone" except himself. It is the sword of the maiden drawn by Balin, after Arthur had failed in the attempt. It is the "Macabuin," the weapon of the Manx hero, Olave of Norway; it is Odin's sword "Gram," stuck in the roof-tree of Volsung's hall. It is the sword of Chrysâôr; it is that of Theseus, and that of Sigurd. It is very palpably the spear (Gûngnir) which Odin lent, in the form of a reed, to King Erich, in order to ensure him the victory in a battle against Styrbjörn. The reed in its flight is said to have assumed the form of a spear and struck with blindness the whole of the opposing army. It is the arrow with which Apollo slew the Python; it is the lance of St. George, the patron saint of England; it is the "sword of sharpness" of "Jack-the-Giant-Killer;" nay, it is the relatively humble magic cudgel of popular Norse story, which, like Thor's hammer, voluntarily returned to the lad's hand on the completion of the rascally innkeeper's well-merited castigation.
So fascinating are the so-called "historical novels" of such men as Sir Walter Scott and the late Lord Lytton, such "historical plays" as Shakspere's, and the popular ballads and other lyric narratives of great historical events, that some of the most permanent impressions on the mind of the studious, and many on that of the relatively non-studious sections of mankind, have been derived therefrom. Indeed, there are persons who roundly assert that "good historical novels" convey to the ordinary reader a better idea of the manners and customs and general aspect of society, as well as of the idiosyncrasies, or special characteristics, of distinguished individuals, than historical works of a more definite and presumedly more reliable character. Those who entertain these views, however, as a rule, are not themselves historical students in its higher or more legitimate sense, but merely dabblers in history with an æsthetic object. Besides, if the hypothesis be a sound one, these "historical novelists" must themselves be more fully and accurately informed concerning all the hard elements of fact and individual feeling with which they deal than their rivals (which, unfortunately, they never or rarely are), or how could they, by any human process, produce their presumedly more truthful artistic "counterfeit presentments?" The late Lord Lytton, in the preface to the third edition of his novel, "Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings," expressly says "It was indeed my aim to solve the problem how to produce the greatest amount of dramatic effect at the least expense of historical truth."
On the other hand, Sir Francis Palgrave denounces "historical novels" as the "mortal enemies to history," and Leslie Stephen adds, "they are mortal enemies to fiction" likewise. The latter writer contends, under such conditions, one of two evils necessarily results, notwithstanding the fact that perhaps an isolated exception or two might be cited in opposition: "Either the novel becomes pure cram, a dictionary of antiquities dissolved in a thin solution of romance, or, which is generally more refreshing, it takes leave of accuracy altogether and simply takes the plot and the costumes from history, but allows us to feel that genuine moderns are masquerading in the dress of a bygone century." Dean Milman, in his review of Ranke's work on the Papacy, referring to the scene in the conclave on the elevation of Sixtus V. to the Papal chair, which, he says, Gregoria Leti "has drawn with such unscrupulous boldness," adds, "All the minute circumstances of his (the Pope's) manner, speech, and gesture is like one of Scott's happiest historical descriptions, but, we fear, of no better historical authority than the picture of our great novelist."
The false impressions often formed of actual fact from implicit reliance on artistic fiction, as authority in such matters, is admirably illustrated in a passage in "Travels in Central Asia," by Arminius Vámbéry. After journeying from Tabris to Teheran, he says—"It is a distance of only fifteen, or perhaps we may rather say of only thirteen caravan stations; still, it is fearfully fatiguing, when circumstances compel one to toil slowly from station to station under a scorching sun, mounted upon a laden mule, and condemned to see nothing but such drought and barrenness as characterise almost the whole of Persia. How bitter the disappointment to him who has studied Persia only in Saadi, Khakani, and Hafiz; or still worse, who has received his dreamy impressions of the East from the beautiful imaginings of Goethe's 'Ost-Westlicher Divan,' or Victor Hugo's 'Orientales,' or the magnificent picturings of Tom Moore."
If, under circumstances so favourable as those attendant upon such a "Dryasdust" historical student as Sir Walter Scott, historical truth is violated or perverted as often as it is illustrated, it is painful to reflect what must have resulted when solar and other myths, miraculous legends and traditions of pagan times, have become interwoven with the faith and morals of Christianity, and the pomp and pageantry of mediæval chivalry! Leslie Stephens asserts that "'Ivanhoe,' and 'Kenilworth,' and 'Quentin Durward,' and the rest are, of course, bare, blank impossibilities." "No such people," he declares, "ever lived or talked on this planet." He is willing to allow that some fragments of genuine character may be embedded in what he terms "the plaster of Paris;" but he insists that "there is no solidity or permanence in the workmanship." If this be true, how has history fared at the hands of such craftsmen as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Archdeacon Walter Map, Sir Thos. Malory, and a whole host of mediæval romance writers, with their King Arthur, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad, their magicians, sorcerers, giants, dragons, and other monsters? History, in its highest, indeed its only legitimate, sense, most unquestionably has suffered to a much greater extent than can be conceived, except by those who have patiently plodded amongst the details of a portion at least of its dim and dusty, and oft-times doubtful, raw material. But, on the other hand, to the novelist or the poet historical truthfulness in the incidents of which his plot is composed, or biographical truthfulness in the characters delineated, is simply surplusage, if it be nothing worse, æsthetic or artistic verities having no necessary foundation thereupon. It is this æsthetic ideal, evolved from general rather than individual truths, this poetic element, which lies at the root, and, indeed, furnishes the raison d'être, the very life-giving blood, of such art products as those under consideration. Hamlet, Lear, Imogen, Ophelia, Cordelia, Oberon, Elaine, Sir Galahad, Achilleus, Arthur, et hoc genus omne, possess an inherent subjective vitality and truthfulness of their own, drawn from the universal and everlasting fountains of human emotion, passion, and psychical aspiration, however little realistic, individual, or strictly historic value the learned may place on the legends of Saxo Grammaticus and Geoffrey of Monmouth, or the myths of our common Aryan ancestors. Thos. Carlyle, in "Sartor Resartus," aptly asks—"Was Luther's picture of the devil less a reality, whether it were formed within the bodily eye, or without it?" Dean Milman, in his essay on "Pagan and Christian Sepulchres," referring to the "two large mounds popularly known as the tombs of the Horatii and the Curiatii," on the Appian way, near Rome, says—"Let us leave the legend undisturbed, and take no more notice of those wicked disenchanters of our old belief." Yet he feelingly and truthfully adds—"They will leave us at least the poetry, if they scatter our history into a mist." Truly the æsthetic element, if in itself worthy, will ever survive the destruction of the presumed historical verity with which it may have been for ages allied. Who now believes in the historic truthfulness of the reputed deeds of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome? And yet the æsthetic beauties of Homer, Æschylus, Virgil, and Ovid are none the less admired and enjoyed. Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, in his Life of J. M. W. Turner, when commenting on the lack of "topographical," and other realistic truthfulness, both in colour and details, in many of the great landscape painter's finest productions, thus aptly deals with the difference between æsthetic and literal truthfulness—"It is with these drawings as with the romances of Sir Walter Scott: a time comes in the life of every intelligent reader when he perceives that Scott was not, and could not be, really true to the times he represented, except when they approached very near his own; but a student of literature would be much to be pitied who was unable to enjoy 'Ivanhoe' after this discovery. So when we have found out the excessive freedom which Turner allowed himself; when we have discovered that he is not to be trusted for the representation of any object, however important—that his chiaroscuro, though effective is arbitrary, and his colour though brilliant is false; when we have quite satisfied ourselves, in a word, that he is a poet, and not an architectural draughtsman, or an imitator of nature, is that a reason why we should not enjoy the poems? There is a wide difference, I grant, between the pleasure of real belief and the pleasure of confessed imagination: the first belongs to imaginative ignorance, and is only possible for the uncritical; the second belongs to a state of knowledge, and is only possible for those in whom the acquisition of knowledge has not deadened the imaginative faculties. Show the 'Rivers of France' to a boy who has the natural faculties which perceive beauty, but who is still innocent of criticism, he will believe the drawings to be true, and think as he dreams over them that a day may come when he will visit these enchanting scenes. Show them to a real critic, and he will not accept for fact a single statement made by the draughtsman from beginning to end, but he will say—'The poetic power is here,' and then he will yield to its influence, and dream also in his own way—not like the boy, in simple faith, but in the pleasant make-belief faith which is all that the poet asks of us."
This æsthetic truthfulness, in contradistinction to literal historic fact, is admirably expressed by Macaulay in an entry in his journal, in August, 1851. He says—"I walked far into Herefordshire," (from Malvern) "and read, while walking, the last five books of the 'Iliad,' with deep interest and many tears. I was afraid to be seen crying by the parties of walkers that met me as I came back; crying for Achilles cutting off his hair; crying for Priam rolling on the ground in the court-yard of his house; mere imaginary beings, creatures of an old ballad maker who died near three thousand years ago."
Lord Byron wrote under the influence of the traditions of his youth or of his classical college education, and not as the true poet, when he said—"I stood upon the plain of Troy daily for more than a month, in 1810; and if anything diminished my pleasure it was that the blackguard Bryant had impugned its veracity." On the contrary, I felt no such lack of pleasurable emotion when I first gazed on the Thames at Datchet, or on the withered trunk of "Herne's Oak," or on the Trossachs and Loch Katrine, or on the Rialto or the Ducal palace at Venice, or on the Colisseum or the adjacent ruins of the "lone mother of dead empires," because the mere historical verity of Jack Falstaff's unwieldly carcase, or of Shakspere, Otway, Byron or Scott's ideal and semi-historical personages, never once entered into my mind. It was sufficient for me that the scenes before me were those which were contemplated and portrayed by the great dramatists and the great novelist and the great poet. For the time being, thanks to the law of mental association, to my imagination their characters were as real personages as was necessary for the fullest appreciation and enjoyment of the ideal of their artistic creators, and anything more, being unnecessary, might have been intrusive, or even impertinent, in the original and non-metaphorical meaning of that somewhat abused word. Byron spoke more to the purpose in the opening stanzas of the fourth canto of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," when, after lamenting the fate of Venice, and recalling the glories of her past history, he exclaims:—