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recollection, therefore, had become confused at Athens within 

 a period a little over a century respecting a most important 

 event in its history. It is easy to explain how the error 

 originated, because Hipparchus was killed by Harmodius 

 and Aristogiton, and Hippias continued to reign four years after 

 his death ; but the fact of the error proves that there is con- 

 siderable danger that fictions should get into histories which 

 are only transmitted orally. Another fiction had also become 

 current on the same subject. A popular song represented 

 Harmodius and Aristogiton as the liberators of their country, 

 and statues had been erected to them in that capacity ; 

 whereas the fact was that they killed Hipparchus as an act of 

 private revenge ; that the tyranny lasted four years longer, and 

 was dissolved by the interference of the Lacedsemonians, 

 who acted under entirely diff'erent motives, namely, a false 

 oracle, obtained by the exertion of influence on the Delphian 

 priests. Such falsifications of history are frequently due to 

 political partisanship. A few tolerably accurate accounts of 

 events which occurred 140 years before the birth of Herodotus 

 and Thucydides, reached these historians ; but there were favour- 

 able circumstances which kept the recollection of them fresh in 

 the popular mind. 



These considerations prove that, as a general rule, it is im- 

 possible to trust tradition for the accurate transmission of facts 

 for a period much exceeding a century ; it speedily becomes 

 confused when the chief actors are dead. The utmost which it 

 can eff*ect is the transmission of general statements ; but 

 in minor details, it becomes hopelessly inexact. After a 

 considerable lapse of time, even these require corroborating 

 testimony for their substantiation. Great was the interest 

 which was excited in the minds of the mass of our popu- 

 lation by the great French war ; but the knowledge of its events 

 is rapidly dying out, and that which remains is chiefly preserved 

 by books. If an historian were to attempt to write an account 

 of it from popular reminiscences, it would be one mass of inac- 

 curacies. Yet thousands of our grandfathers fought and perished 

 in it. Still more dim is the recollection of more distant events 

 in the popular mind. Any knowledge of the battle of Beachy- 

 head has perished from the recollections of the inhabitants of 

 the neighbouring coasts. Hardly a recollection remains at 

 Barnet of anything connected with the battle. A monument 

 points out the spot where it is said to have been fought ; still 

 there is much doubt as to the precise locality. If it is true 

 that a mound, three miles ofi^, on which I stood a few months 

 since, contains beneath it a large number of the remains of the 

 fallen warriors, it must have been spread over a wide extent of 



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