240 
games were celebrated at intervals of four years, and if we know 
independently the exact date of an event, and find it placed in 
the particular year of a particular Olympiad, we can, by reckon- 
ing backwards, ascertain accurately the date of the first, kor 
instance, we know, from contemporary or other evidence, that 
the consulships of C. Pompeius Gallus and Q. Yeranmus, at 
Pome, coincided with the first year of the 207th Olympiad, and 
we know the year of the Christian era of those consulships : this 
was the year a.d. 49. Now, 206 Olympiads or 824 years had 
elapsed since the beginning of the first, and this gives the year 
b.c. 776 as its date. A 
It is no doubt difficult to invent wholly so-called historical 
facts, which, if closely compared with known contemporaneous 
occurrences and ascertained dates, may not be shown to be 
false. But it is often still more difficult to find the matenal 
for such criticism. Oblivion may have swallowed up the records 
of the past, and then the only tests we can apply are the inneren 
probability or improbability of the alleged facts, their consist- 
ency or inconsistency with themselves, and our knowledge of 
the means which the writer possessed of being acquainted with 
their truth. I have already pointed out the untrustworthiness 
of historical statements first made by authors who lived long 
after the events which they record. And I have also shown 
that it is by no means altogether safe to gauge the credibility 
of a fact by its agreement or disagreement with probabih-y, 
but as regards thl test supplied by the means of comparing 
historical allegations with other historical facts which have been 
sufficiently proved, some of the most brilliant triumphs of 
criticism have been won by applying it. My time i is J too hmi e 
to allow me to adduce more than one or two specimens ot this, 
and I think I cannot do better than cite that splendid example 
of scholarship and criticism, Bentley’s Dmertahon on the 
Genuineness of the Epistles of P^aUris The ^°ry °f its 
authorship is this. About the year 1690, Sir William iemple 
published an essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning^ in 
which he maintained the superiority of the ancients. And 
support of his position, “ that the oldest books we have are still 
in P their kind the best,” he adduced the “ Fables of Alsop and 
the “ Epistles of Phalaris.” This attracted attention to the 
epistles, and a new edition of them was given to the ’ world by 
the Hon. Charles Bovle; and then Bentley published his Dis- 
sertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, the object being to prove 
that they were spurious. I may mention, in P , 
an amusing parody of the original controversy between the 
respective champions of ancient and modern learning was 
written by Swift, called “The Battle of the Books. It may 
be interesting to point out some of the proofs by which Bentley 
