MODERN CRITICISM.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1614, 23 April 1879, Page 3

MODERN CRITICISM.

According to the most “ advanced ” critics, there is not an historical narrative, ancient or modern, which is nut to bo relegated to the region of fable. The following abstract of a paper read by Professor Wheeler, of iale College, lately, before the Alumni Association of Now Fork, from the “ Springfield Republican,” is a good illustration; —The famous saying attributed to Louis the Fourteenth of France, “ L'etat, c’ent >nui,” according to Professor Wheeler, was never uttered by Louis at all, but was said by Mazarin twenty rears beloro Louis came to the throne, and said before Mazarin by Queen Elizabeth. Sappho never killed herself by jumping from a rock, but died a natural

death. Leonidas fought at Thermopylae, not with only three hundred at his back, but with seven thousand. The philosopher Diogenes never lived in a tub. The story of the virtue of the Romea matron Lucretia must be rejected, while the story of the Horatii and Curatii is worse than doubtful. The sons of Brutus were not the victims of their father’s firmness, but of his brutality. It was utterly impossible for Hannibal to have followed up his victory at Canme, and the story of his using vinegar to cleave the rocks of the Alps is absurd. So too, is the story of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in a goblet of vinegar and drinking up a fortune in one draught. Archimedes never said : “ Give me a lever long enough and I will move the world ; ” nor did he cry out “Eureka! ” at any known period of his life or discoveries. Alexandria was never visited by Omar, nor was the Alexandrian library burnt. No more did Galileo say, “ and yet it moves for all that! ” since it is proved from authentic documents that he did nob dare to. That Columbus broke the end of an egg, and thus confuted his mocke s is fabulous; as also is the story that he encouraged his followers with brave words when the shores of San Salvador were still out of sight. Richard the Third of England did not kill his brother Clarence, and the story about a butt of Malmsey arose from the fact that the body of Clarence, who died a natural death, was transported from Calais to England in a wine-butt. Charles the Second never had the body of Cromwell taken from Westminster Abbey and hanged at Tyburn, 'for the daughter of Cromwell, apprehensive of some such ill-treatment, had her father’s corpse secretly removed from the abbey and buried in a quiet churchyard. Milton’s daughters could not have consoled their father in his blindness by reading passages from the old authors, for the best of reasons —they did not know how to read. Almost the only story which Professor Wheeler did not demolish was the one about Washington and his hatchet—but possibly only because it has been sufficiently exploded already.