Dr. Gervinus says--"Shakspere's representations of the passionate, the prodigal, the hypocrite, are not portraits of this or that individual, but _examples of those passions elevated out of particular into general truth_, of which, in real life, we may find a thousand diminished copies, but never the original in the exact proportions given by the poet." And so it is with the æsthetic truth embodied in artistic creations of a plastic or pictorial character. No one acquainted with art products of its class imagines that the colossal statue recently erected in Germany to the memory of Hermann, or Arminius, the conqueror of the Roman legions under Varus (A.D. 9), is an absolute every-day portrait-likeness of that not very morally scrupulous "hero and patriot;" or that the faces, figures, costumes, and other accessories, in the "Last Supper" of Da Vinci, or the "Cartoons" of Raffaelle, represent, _historically_ or _de facto_, the scenes as they actually occurred. Though conventionally called "historical pictures," they are emphatically creations of the imaginations of the artists, notwithstanding their historic basis, and consequently the great truths that pervade them, and for which they are justly admired, are of an artistic or æsthetic, and not of a strictly historic, character. Notwithstanding this general lack of historic truthfulness we, nevertheless, do gain valuable knowledge of a psychological, ethnological, and even of a strictly historical character from stories of the mythical and legendary class; but much of that knowledge pertains to the age and its mental associations in which the story-tellers or other artistic exponents themselves lived. In the Arthurian romances we find an immense amount of historic truthfulness with reference to the habits of thought, costume, and religious sentiment, which obtained in and about the twelfth century; but which truths are utterly untrue, as applied by the writers, to the fifth and sixth, the era in which Arthur and his Christian knights, magicians, and giants are presumed to have been corporal existences. The same may be said of much of Bede's, and, indeed, of most other early chronicles. Although we may refuse our assent to the improbable and miraculous stories therein narrated, we feel convinced, in Bede's instance especially, that the writer is thoroughly in earnest, and honest in his work, and that he, at least, correctly describes the manners, customs, faiths, superstitions, and legendary history prevalent at the period in which he lived. This view is now the one generally accepted by the best historians and ethnological and psychological students. Mr. Ralph N. Wornum, in his "Epochs of Painting Characterised," says--"Ancient opinions are of themselves facts, and the history of any subject is indeed imperfect when the ideas of early ages regarding it are altogether overlooked, for the impressions and associations made or suggested by any intellectual