ion, and ever had that opinion, that amongst the modern languages
which originally had compass enough of strength and opulence in their
structure, or had received culture sufficient to qualify them plausibly
for entering the arena of such a competition, the English had certain
peculiar and inappreciable aptitudes for the highest offices of
interpretation. Twenty-five centuries ago, this beautiful little planet
on which we live might be said to have assembled and opened her first
parliament for representing the grandeur of the human intellect. That
particular assembly, I mean, for celebrating the Olympic Games about
four centuries and a half before the era of Christ, when Herodotus
opened the gates of morning for the undying career of history, by
reading to the congregated children of Hellas, to the whole
representative family of civilisation, that loveliest of earthly
narratives, which, in nine musical cantos, unfolded the whole luxury of
human romance as at the bar of some austere historic Areopagus, and,
inversely again, which crowded the total abstract of human records,
sealed[11] as with the seal of Delphi in the luxurious pavilions of
human romance.

[10] This fragment appeared in _The Instructor_ for July, 1853. The
subject was not continued in any form.--H.

[11] '_Sealed_,' &c.:--I do not believe that, in the sense of holy
conscientious loyalty to his own innermost convictions, any writer of
history in any period of time can have surpassed Herodotus. And the
reader must remember (or, if unlearned, he must be informed) that this
judgment has _now_ become the unanimous judgment of all the most
competent authorities--that is, of all those who, having first of all
the requisite erudition as to Greek, as to classical archaeology, &c.,
then subsequently applied this appropriate learning to the searching
investigation of the several narratives authorised by Herodotus. In the
middle of the last century, nothing could rank lower than the historic
credibility of this writer. And to parody his title to be regarded as
the 'Father of History,' by calling him the 'Father of Lies,' was an
unworthy insult offered to his admirable simplicity and candour by more
critics than one. But two points startle the honourable reader, who is
loathe to believe of any laborious provider for a great intellectual
interest that he _can_ deliberately have meant to deceive: the first
point, and, separately by itself, an all-sufficient demur, is