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are true : I did not see them : I simply say what the priests told me.” We 
find something of the same sort in quite modern history. Most of you have 
read the book of Hue and G-abet, the Jesuit travellers, who went through 
China and Thibet into Russia. They accurately record what they saw, but 
they also speak of things which we consider impossible, though in those 
cases they carefully abstain from saying that they saw what they describe. 
But, unfortunately, they went from Paris before their work was published, 
and gave their manuscript into the hands of a publisher who thought 
he would give the public something sensational, so that they would be the 
more likely to buy the book. In one remarkable instance in which the - 
travellers were referring to the sacred tree of Thibet, they were made to say 
that they saw the sacred verses growing upon the leaves and upon the bark 
of the tree, and, of course, every one was ready to say, “ These men are de- 
ceivers.” It turned out, however, that nobody was more astonished at the story 
than the authors themselves, who had merely given it as a story which they 
had heard from the priests, but whose publisher had omitted that import- 
ant qualification. This shows how difficult it is, after the lapse of a 
number of years, to find out what is the truth of the historian, and how far 
he has been misrepresented, or how far he has been misled. Nobody knows 
who wrote Ossian, and it is doubtful whether Rowley’s poems were written 
by Chatterton, or by some one else. On the last page of this paper Mr. 
Forsyth has laid down a great many canons for the belief or disbelief of 
history, and I think he has laid them down in a satisfactory way ; but if 
we are to take the testimony of contemporary writers, I would ask 
every one to take the history of the last ten years, as written by the Standard, 
and as written by the Daily News ; and I maintain that nothing which Lord 
Macaulay has said about the Duke of Marlborough or William III. would 
differ from any other author more than the writers in these two newspapers 
differ from each other, and yet, for want of anything better, we must take 
them as the historians of the present day, for future times. What I 
desire to show is that the reception of anecdote in certain cases goes a 
great way to prove what is the belief of the people with regard to the his- 
tory of their times, but I admit it does not follow from this acceptance 
that that history is true. There is an instance in the time of Pope Leo X. : 
some people went from Spain to that Pope, and told him that they had 
found a new saint, and had got his grave-stone, on which was inscribed his 
name, St. Yiar, and they wished him to be canonized, as it was quite proper 
that he should be added to the calendar. Pope Leo, who was much more 
learned than most of the men of his age, had never heard of St. Yiar, and 
doubted the whole case exceedingly ; but he sent competent people into 
Spain to investigate the matter, and obtain information. I dare say you 
all remember the case of “Bill Stumps, his X mark,” in Pickwick. 
(Laughter.) Well, the case of St. Yiar turned out to be something like 
it. They found on a large stone the letters “ S YIAR,” and they saw at 
once that it was a piece of an old Roman mile-stone, which had been signed 
by somebody who held the post of Prefectus Yiarum, but all the letters had 
