known, and he sleeps somewhere, anywhere in old Selwood, in an unmarked grave. His wife, too, who was such a prominent actor in the drama, and who performed one of the speaking parts, has left no trace of her origin, her name and date of marriage being alike omitted from the record. The dramatis persone included but three, the disguised king, the leal-hearted neat-herd, and the painfully disturbed housewife. The sovereign's disguise was penetrated; the others, who wore no disguise, and could, therefore, have easily been recognized and identified, cannot be discovered, and no one's memory holds them in ken. And this is all the more unpardonable, when that rough and untoward churl, Denewulf, the swineherd, is made conspicuous by oft-reiterated reference, and his deeds, though trivial, are set forth with great prominence. Can it be that the rude press-censor of those early English days allowed prejudice to overcome his sense of justice, or are the discarded ones merely innocent victims of cold neglect? The real truth may never be known.

From whatever cause, the fact remains that a brilliant page of history is marred by omissions, which, at this remote date from the event, cannot be restored. We will never know the names of the reticent peasant, and the woman who rebuked the lord of Wessex, in the humble hut, over a thousand years ago.

It is indeed, singular to note, how prone the older historians were to omit the connecting links in the chain of evidence, which they left to posterity. The barons who forced King John to sign Magna Charta, we know to a man, though we may not be able to decipher their chirography. But the Jews, whose teeth he extracted when demanding loans, we may never know by name. And yet, without the aid of the usurers, John could never have carried on affairs at home or abroad. His unwilling money-lenders saved the situation, but notwithstanding the tortures they endured, their cognomens cannot be found in the list of martyrs of that despicable ruler's reign.

And then, again, there is that charming object-lesson, the story of Canute and his sycophant courtiers. They flattered him up to a point, which tickled the shrewd Dane's fancy so much, that he resolved to try the effect of an experiment.

You are the grandest monarch in the world, said his followers, in so many words. You can even command the services of the waves, and the great waters of the sea will obey your every wish. These courtiers are known now only as lay figures. They may have been dukes or earls or barons; probably all three orders numbered them as members. But their names, have, somehow, been suppressed, and all that we know of their personal history is the fact that one day the king commanded his chair to be set on the seashore. He sat upon it, pleasantly chatting to those who pressed around him, apparently unmindful that the tide was coming along swiftly in his direction. Majesty, in a loud voice, bade the waters recede, and called on them to obey the orders of their lord. He even pretended that they would retire, and submit themselves to his will. But when they rose and wet his royal feet, he calmly moved off, and cried out to his embarrassed courtiers, whose names we are not in a position to give, "the power of kings is but vanity. He only is king who can say to the ocean, thus far shalt thou go and no farther." And, adds the chronicler of that day, "he never bore his crown again."

His

The absence of the names of the courtiers, we repeat, robs the story of a very salient feature. Fortunately, however, the facts have been substantiated, though it would have been wise to preserve the names of the king's attendants, the eyewitnesses of a scence, which conveyed so admirable a lesson in morals and common sense. Many a true story has suffered for the want of endorsing testimony, but this one has escaped challenge on that score.

Many more examples of the woful neglect by historians of the foils who have made incidents in the careers of the great possible might be cited, but one other will suffice. There is, for instance, that popular episode in the life of Napoleon. Letter-press and the engraver's art have told the story of the weary sentinel discovered sleeping at his post, on the very eve of a battle, by the little Corporal when going his rounds. The Emperor took the man's musket and mounted guard himself, while the warrior on the ground remained exhausted, and rooted to the spot. When he awoke, his frightened eyes be

replied the professor when, seated in his college rooms, I asked how he first came to be interested in archæological research. "I always had a fancy for it; it was ingrained in me. When I was a small boy my lungs were not strong, and I had to pass a good deal of the winter in the house. I was obliged to amuse myself as best I could, and took a great fancy to the forms of the letters in the Hebrew Bible. These I learned, and the result, I suppose, was that I came to have a love for the East and Oriental things. When I was a schoolboy I read Layard's Travels with great delight, and from that time forward I date my interest in Assyriology. Then I wished to know something of cuneiform characters. and their meaning. But I was not able to take up the subject seriously until I had finished my Oxford work and taken my degree. When I was an undergraduate I always had a great liking for the study of languages, and my lungs still being bad, I was obliged to spend my winters in the south of France and north of Spain. That led me to live among the Basques, and to take an interest in the Basque language. As soon as I was free from my Oxford work I devoted myself to my special pursuits, and published an Assyrian Grammar for comparative purposes, in which I endeavored to compare the grammatical forms of Assyrian with those of the other Semitic languages, and as far as possible to trace the origin and development of them. Then I devoted myself to the study of comparative philology."

Prof. Sayce's work has now extended over thirty years, and during that time. he has helped to build up what we now know about the Assyrian language and the history of Babylon. And his work is not yet done. A few days after I saw him, he returned to his vessel on the Nile, and there proposes to write four new books. One will be upon the history of the Hebrews in the light of archæology; another will deal with the religions of the ancient East; and a third will be on the social life of the ancient Babylonians.

The professor has witnessed some strange scenes in his travels. He has himself been attacked by Bedouins when travelling in Palestine. But one of the most curious sights he saw was at Gaza, in the south of Palestine. "While stay

ing there as the guest of a Mohammedan family"-so Mr. Sayce began the story -"the festival took place of the grandfather of Mahomet, who was supposed to be buried in one of the mosques in the town. As I was considered to be a member of the family, I was taken to the festival. It was a very curious sight, for the whole of Gaza was there under the dark blue sky. There was no moon, but the atmosphere was very clear, and the great court of the mosque was lit up with innumerable lights. What struck me most was the way in which a spirit of religious ecstasy fell on the people. They were not professional dervishes, but simply the townspeople. But one by one a strange spirit of ecstasy fell upon them, and I realized what was meant regarding Saul when it was said that a sort of afflatus came upon him. These people formed circles and moved to a certain chant, with their eyes open, but in a state of trance. Then they fell to the ground, and after a time some began to torture themselves; I saw them putting skewers through their skin and yet no blood came out. Some began to stand on braziers of burning charcoal, and apparently without hurt. They were in a cataleptic state, brought on by religious excitement. I have seen the same sort of thing performed in Algeria, but there it is impossible to tell how much of it is imposture."

I was anxious to hear something about the very interesting discoveries with which Prof. Sayce has been associated, so I asked him to tell me some of the results of recent research.

"As far as our researches among the monuments of Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt are concerned," he replied, "they have opened up a new world undreamed of a few years ago. They show that the history of mankind goes back to a very remote past, and that civilization was then quite as high as that of Imperial Rome or the civilization of Europe at the time of the Renaissance, if not higher in some respects. They have also shown how much there is still to be discovered. After all, what we have found is only the beginning of what we shall find. It is no longer possible to say, as in the early days of Oriental research, that such and such a thing could not have been. The population of the early East was highly cultured and highly

literary. Both in Egypt and in Babylon a large portion of the people seem to have occupied their time in reading and writing."

"What has actually revealed these hitherto unknown facts?"

"The monuments which have been found in Egypt and Babylonia have revealed them in part. These are literally covered with writing. Even the smallest articles of daily use have been found covered with inscriptions. The revelations are also partly due to the discovery that the old cities of the East had very large libraries of books. And some discoveries made a few years ago at Tel-elAmarna in Egypt - where a large number of letters on clay tablets were found proved that in the fifteenth century before the Christian era the whole educated population of the East from the Euphrates to the Nile were engaged in writing letters to one another. This correspondence was going on actively in a language and form of writing which belonged only to the Babylonians. Those, therefore, who wrote in this language must have studied and learned it as we learn French. Hence there must have been schools in which the language and script of Babylonia were studied all over Western Asia.

"Only last winter a discovery was made in the extreme south of Egypt, showing that papyrus books were written in the very early days of Egyptian history. As regards the Babylonian libraries, they were equally ancient and very numerous. Every great library had its clay books. A year ago, at a place called Tello, in South Chaldea, a French excavator discovered a library which was formed three or four centuries before the birth of Abraham, and which, he concludes, bad contained thirty-three thousand separate clay tablets or books on all kinds of subjects. He found them arranged in shelves, piled one upon another. They had probably been overwhelmed by the fall of the building in which they were placed. Many of these clay tablets are now in Constantinople. About ten thousand were stolen by the Arabs, and some are being sold in England. The tablets. are mostly written in Accadian, a language which is still imperfectly known."

What further excavation promises to yield the most important results?"

"What is specially needed now is excavation on the site of certain old cities

in Palestine, where it is certain we should find early libraries of clay books like those I have spoken of. For instance, there is one place I should like to excavate, and that is Gezer. There we know, from the cuneiform inscriptions, that there was a library in the Canaanitish days, and I believe a number of inscribed clay tablets would be found. No doubt these would throw much light on the history of Palestine.

"Then there is another thing which is very much needed. One of my discoveries was that of the Hittite Empire. Certain monuments found in Asia Minor were the work of the Hittites, and they possessed a peculiar system of hieroglyphics. Their empire extended from North Syria through the greater part of Asia Minor. One of the Hittite cities, where monuments are known to exist, is now called Bor. It is the ancient Tyana, in the great mound of which Hittite monuments have been found. This is a mound which it would be very desirable to excavate as soon as facilities for doing so can be given; because there, in all probability, we should find monuments which would throw light on Hittite history. There, too, we might find inscriptions in two languages Hittite and Assyrian-which would enable us to decipher the Hittite language."

And what has been the result of these discoveries so far as the Bible is concerned?"

"I believe that in the main they establish the traditional as opposed to the modern critical view of the antiquity and credibility and historical trustworthiness of the Old Testament records-more es

pecially the Pentateuch. I do not mean to say that in all respects the old views we had upon the subject were correct, but that on the whole the Old Testament records seem to have been vindicated by the discoveries we are making. I have come to disbelieve thoroughly in the socalled critical view of the composition of the Pentateuch. I believe that substantially it belongs to the Mosaic age, and I see no reason why it should not have been written by Moses. The book has undergone certain alterations and changes, but substantially it is the work of the Mosaic age and of Moses himself. It contains extracts from earlier documents, more especially in the Book of Genesis ; and some of these earlier documents can

be shown to have been written and to have been contemporaneous documents, in the Babylonian language and cuneiform characters."

"Then you do not adopt all the conclusions of the Higher Critics?"

"No; the more archæological facts come to the light the more I am inclined to mistrust their conclusions. The Higher Criticism rests entirely upon what is called the literary analysis of the Bible, the division of the writings of the Old Testament among authors whose works are distinguished from one another by differences in style and in the use of words and grammatical expressions. Experience shows that any conclusion of that kind must be extremely precarious, because it is next to impossible to successfully analyze written documents upon a merely philological basis, even in the case of languages well known and still spoken. Take, for example, the case of Besant and Rice, the novelists. We know how Besant writes, for he has written books by himself since Rice's death; but although these novels are written in English, which we are supposed to know well, there is not a single English scholar who could undertake to say in the case of one of these composite novels where Besant begins and ends and where Rice comes in.

"If that is the case with modern English, how is it possible for a European scholar of the nineteenth century to determine who were the authors of an ancient Hebrew work which is supposed to have been written by several persons? It must be remembered that our knowledge of Hebrew is very imperfect. We have only a fragment of Hebrew literature to begin with. That fragment has come down to us through the medium of copyists who have often corrupted the text. There are words in the Old Testament the meaning of which is unknown or doubtful, and under these circumstances it seems to me that what we cannot do in the case of a modern English work cannot possibly be done in the case of a book two thousand or three thousand years old. I entirely mistrust the conclusions of the Higher Criticism in so far as they mean the breaking up of the text and the distribution of it among various authors, each of whom is clearly and distinctly mapped out and defined by the critics. At the same time, the Higher

Critics have cleared away a great number of misconceptions and false ideas, and directed attention to points which had been overlooked. Above all, they have done a great deal in trying to understand what the text actually means.”

Professor Sayce thinks that monumental evidence is on the side of the critics in relation to the Book of Daniel. "The general result of it," he says, "is this: the historical facts as we know them from the contemporaneous records are irreconcilable with the statements found in the historical portions of the Book of Daniel. I therefore see in those portions examples of what we find in the Talmud, -what the Jews called 'Haggadah,' that is to say, legends which we use for purposes of religious and moral instruction."

"In what way do you define the special inspiration of the Bible?"

"Judging from what one reads in the newspapers and magazines, educated opinion in England has undergone a great change in the way in which the Bible is regarded. Instead of being considered as verbally inspired, authoritative in every word, it is now considered to contain the word of God, rather than to be itself the word of God. We believe, at any rate, that in the Bible we have the special revelation made by God to man, but made in the form of literature; and that it is the spirit that underlies the form, and not the form itself, which contains the message of God's will. As you know, the idea of inspiration has never been authoritatively formulated. The English Church knows nothing of the inspiration of a book. In the liturgy the only inspiration spoken of is the inspiration of the hearts and souls of men by the Spirit of God. What we mean by the inspiration of the Bible is that in it we have the will of God revealed to us. That will is revealed by the general spirit of the Bible, and not by the individual words or phrases."

One is often led to wonder whether, with the progress of the years, an equal measure of inspiration might not be given to the men of to-day, and whether other books might not be produced which might be ranked with that wonderful Oriental literature which we call the Bible.

When I put these questions to Professor Sayce, he answered, "All things