The theory and the application, it will be seen, are worthy of each other. All comment would be superfluous. We have preferred to retain the original language for this, amongst other reasons, that we should have found it difficult to represent in honest English the exact degree of affirmation to which the Frenchman pledges himself by his "j'enterpreterais volontiers." It is something less than conviction, and something more than guess;--it certainly should be, or it ought to have no place in history. It is not by mangling the legend, or by predicating of it fantastic modes of construction, that the few grains of sober fact concealed about it are to be secured; but by studying honestly the laws of imagination under which all fabulous narratives are constructed. However wildly the fancy may range in the main events of a fable, there will be always a certain portion of the details gathered from real life; and the manners and morals of an age may be depicted in fictions, the substance of which is altogether supernatural. The heroes fight like gods, but they dine and dress like ordinary mortals. Achilles drags the body of Hector three times round the walls of Troy, both armies looking on the while. Such sight the earth never beheld. But the ear of the warrior and the harness of his steeds resembled such as had been seen or heard of. The poet invents a centaur, but not the bow and arrow he puts into his hands. His hero scales the sky, but carries with him the sandal on his foot which was made in the village below.