nius too often
raises a suspicion of those whispers, _Quid rex in aurem reginae dixerit,
quid Juno fabulata sit cum Jove_. It is certain that Plutarch has often
told, and varied too in the telling, the same story, which he has applied
to different persons. A critic in the Ritsonian style has said of the
grave Plutarch, _Mendax ille Plutarchus qui vitas oratorum, dolis et
erroribus consutas, olim conscribillavit_.[88] "That lying Plutarch, who
formerly scribbled the lives of the orators, made up of falsities and
blunders!" There is in Italian a scarce book, of a better design than
execution, of the Abbate Lancellotti, _Farfalloni degli Antichi
Historici_.--"Flim-flams of the Ancients." Modern historians have to
dispute their passage to immortality step by step; and however fervid be
their eloquence, their real test as to value must be brought to the
humble references in their margin. Yet these must not terminate our
inquiries; for in tracing a story to its original source we shall find
that fictions have been sometimes grafted on truths or hearsays, and to
separate them as they appeared in their first stage is the pride and
glory of learned criticism.

FOOTNOTES:

[84] Absurdly reported to have taken place at a meeting in the
Nag's-head Tavern, Cheapside.

[85] M. Michel published in Paris, in 1834, a collection of poems
and ballads concerning Hugh of Lincoln, which were all very popular
at home and abroad in the Middle Ages. One of these, preserved in an
Anglo-Norman MS. in the Bibliotheque Royale at Paris, was evidently
constructed to be sung by the people soon after the event, which is
stated to have happened in the reign of our Henry III.; but there
are many ballads comparatively modern which show how carefully the
story was kept before the populace; and may be seen in the
collections of Bishop Percy, Jameson, Motherwell, &c.

[86] Book iii. ch. 29, sec. 18.

[87] A story still more absurd was connected with the name of
Colonel Lunsford, a soldier who consistently defended Charles I.,
and was killed in 1643. It is related by Echard as reported of him,
that he would kill and eat the children of the opposite party. This
horridly grotesque imputation has been preserved in the political
ballads and poetry of the day. Cleveland ridicules it in one of his
poems, where he makes a Roundhead declare--

"He swore he saw, when Lunsford fell,