299 



neighbouring country ; but on these points all local knowledge 

 has perished. 



If popular recollection of distant events is very imperfect, even 

 when it is aided by the existence of an historical literature, it is 

 a much more uncertain vehicle for the transmission of facts, 

 when it is forced to rely on its own unaided resources. In fact, 

 events transmitted orally become speedily varied, coloured, and 

 exaggerated. This is particularly the case with respect to 

 numbers, even when the events are recent. I can well recollect 

 the surprise with which I first learned the numbers which were 

 engaged at Waterloo, compared with the popular exaggerations 

 of them. We may lay it down as a general rule that popular 

 conceptions of numbers are nearly always exaggerated, and when 

 handed down to us by mere tradition grossly so. Hence, the high 

 numbers so generally found in ancient writers. When we take 

 into consideration that the hosts of Xerxes, after they had passed 

 the Straits of Thermopylse, could have derived their subsistence 

 only from supplies which must have been transported by sea, it 

 is evident that the accounts which have been handed down 

 as to the numbers of the army and the camp-followers are 

 unwwthy of credit. In fact, the mode in which they were said 

 to have been ascertained was the roughest possible. The late 

 war proves that the numbers of armies on paper and of those which 

 took the field differ widely. Ancient writers have given the num- 

 bers of the Persian force which fought at Marathon as varying 

 from 100,000 to 600,000 men. We have a solid fact by which to 

 test the truth of this report. The whole was conveyed across 

 the ^geau in 600 trireme galleys, the ordinary crew of one of 

 which consisted of 200 sailors and thirty marines. For these 

 the space on board was so limited, that whenever a favourable 

 opportunity presented itself, they took their meals on land. You 

 are aware that the accounts handed down of the earliest portions 

 of Roman history are filled with minute specifications of num- 

 bers. If these accounts of the numbers which fell in battle are 

 worthy of credit, the inhabitants of that portion of Italy must 

 have been more prolific than mice. One army is no sooner 

 slaughtered that another is in the field, and this year after year. 



But it will be more satisfactory to test the value of oral 

 tradition as an accurate reporter of events, not through the 

 remote past, but by the recollections of the times in which we 

 live. Let us take an instance very favourable for the trans- 

 mission of traditionary historical recollections, — the inhabitants 

 of a great naval port. Everything in such a place would tend to 

 keep alive the knowledge of events, the esprit de corps of a 

 constant succession of seamen, the interest felt by the whole 

 population in their actions, aud the ships which would help to 



