Fairy Tales on the other hand have evolved into allegories and Dramas,--first the dramas of the sky, now the dramas of earth. Tales of Sexual exploits have become novels, novelettes, short stories, sketches,--a many-expressioned countenance of Man. But the old Heroic Legend,--and the Hero is always the next born after the Monster in the far-back dawn-days, is the lineal progenitor of History,--History which was first the glorification of a warrior and his aids; then the story of Kings, courts, and intrigues; now mostly the report of the deeds of nations in their ugly moods; and _to become_ the record of what people have done in their more amiable moments,--the record of the conquests of peace; how men have lived and labored; dug and built, hewn and cleared, gardened and reforested, organized and coöperated, manufactured and used, educated and amused themselves. Those of us who aspire to be more or less suggesters of social change, are greatly at a loss, if we do not know the face of Man as reflected in history; and I mean as much the reflection of the minds of historians as seen in their histories as the reflection of the minds of others they sought to give; not so much in the direct expression of their opinion either, as in the choice of what they thought it worth while to try to stamp perpetuity upon. When we read in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle these items which are characteristic of the whole: "A. D. 611. This year Cynegils succeeded to the government in Wessex, and held it 31 winters. Cynegils was the son of Ceol, Ceol of Cutha, Cutha of Cymric." And then, "614. This year Cynegils and Cuiehelm fought at Bampton and slew 2046 of the Welsh." And then "678. This year appeared the comet star in August, and shone every morning during three months like a sunbeam. Bishop Wilfred being driven from his bishopric by King Everth, two bishops were consecrated in his stead." --when we read these we have not any very adequate conception of what the Anglo-Saxon people were doing; but we have a very striking and lasting impression of what the only men who tried to write history at all in that period of English existence, thought it was worth while to record.