and the King of Mirth. Naught have ye by way of proof of your
slander but the talk of Jean Bernier, a scurrilous, starveling
apothecary, who put forth his fables in 1697, a century and a half
after Maitre Francoys died. Bayle quoted this fellow in a note, and
ye all steal the tattle one from another in your dull manner, and
know not whence it comes, nor even that Bayle would none of it and
mocked its author. With so little knowledge is history written, and
thus doth each chattering brook of a "Life" swell with its tribute
"that great Mississippi of falsehood," Biography.



LETTER--To Herodotus



To Herodotus of Halicarnassus, greeting.--Concerning the matters set
forth in your histories, and the tales you tell about both Greeks
and Barbarians, whether they be true, or whether they be false, men
dispute not little but a great deal. Wherefore I, being concerned
to know the verity, did set forth to make search in every manner,
and came in my quest even unto the ends of the earth. For there is
an island of the Cimmerians beyond the Straits of Heracles, some
three days' voyage to a ship that hath a fair following wind in her
sails; and there it is said that men know many things from of old:
thither, then, I came in my inquiry. Now, the island is not small,
but large, greater than the whole of Hellas; and they call it
Britain. In that island the east wind blows for ten parts of the
year, and the people know not how to cover themselves from the cold.
But for the other two months of the year the sun shines fiercely, so