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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 different 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 effect 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 
w r hich 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 Beaehy- 
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 off, 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 aver a wide extent of 
