Antiquity has, in a greater or less degree, charms for all; and it is supposed to stamp such a value on things as nothing else can confer. This feeling, unexceptionable in itself, is liable to great abuse; especially in relation to historical matters. In States and in Families, Antiquity implies greatness, strength, and those other attributes which command veneration and respect. Hence the first historians of nations have uniformly endeavoured to carry up their annals to periods far beyond the limits of probability, thus rendering the earlier portions of their works a tissue of absurdity deduced from the misty regions of tradition, conjecture, and song.
