"Of the romantic historians, Herodotus is the earliest and the best. His animation, his simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful talent for description and dialogue, and the pure, sweet flow of his language, place him at the head of narrators. He reminds us of a delightful child. There is a grace beyond the reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his nonsense, and an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. We know of no other writer who makes such interest for himself and his book in the heart of the reader. He has written an incomparable book. He has written something better, perhaps, than the best history; but he has not written a really good history; for he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inventor. We do not here refer merely to those gross fictions with which he has been reproached by the critics of later times, but we speak of that coloring which is equally diffused over his whole narrative, and which perpetually leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt what to reject and what to receive. The great events are, no doubt, faithfully related; so, probably, are many of the slighter circumstances, but which of them it is impossible to ascertain. We know there is truth, but we cannot exactly decide where it lies. "If we may trust to a report not sanctioned, indeed, by writers of high authority, but in itself not improbable, the work of Herodotus was composed not to be read, but to be heard. It was not to the slow circulation of a few copies, which the rich only could possess, that the aspiring author looked for his reward. The great Olympian festival was to witness his triumph. The interest of the narrative and the beauty of the style were aided by the imposing effect of recitation--by the splendor of the spectacle, by the powerful influence of sympathy. A critic who could have asked for authorities in the midst of such a scene must have been of a cold and skeptical nature, and few such critics were there. As was the historian, such were the auditors--inquisitive, credulous, easily moved by the religious awe of patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men to hear with delight of strange beasts, and birds, and trees; of dwarfs, and giants, and cannibals; of gods whose very names it was impiety to utter; of ancient dynasties which had left behind them monuments surpassing all the works of later times; of towns like provinces; of rivers like seas; of stupendous walls, and temples, and pyramids; of the rites which the Magi performed at daybreak on the tops of the mountains; of the secrets inscribed on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. With equal delight they would have listened to the graceful romances of their own country. They now heard of the exact accomplishment of obscure predictions; of the punishment of climes over which the justice of Heaven had seemed to slumber; of dreams, omens, warnings from the dead; of princesses for whom