Mount Viso. 2. Over Mount Genevre. 3. Over Mount Cenis. 4. Over the Little St. Bernard. 5. Over Great St. Bernard. 6. Over the Simplon. 7. Over the Julian Alps! 6. Consider, now, what a multitude of contradictory opinions we have here; and consider that all these profess to refer to Livy and Polybius as sustaining them; and consider, once more, that these authors had their information, one from a captive, who had it from Hannibal himself; and the other doubtless from those who had witnessed the passage of the Carthaginian army with their own eyes; and yet that they flatly contradict or are irreconcilably opposed to, each other! Consider all these facts, and then ask if there can be a reasonable doubt that the whole story is a fiction. It was unquestionably an allegory at first; not having even the small historical basis necessary for a myth. It was, without doubt, orig. inally designed to illustrate the disciplining of a great mind; its successful struggles against temptation and evil, its triumphant passage over the mountain difficulties of life, and its joyful descent into the sunny plains of virtue and happiness-(Italy). The battles of Trebia, and Thrasymene, and Cannæ, are the temptations and struggles renewed again at times, in the lives of even the best men; as Paul confesses of himself the war between the law in the members and the law of the mind. Capua, with its delicious air and fruits, its luxuries and dissipation, and the enervating fatal effect of these on Hannibal and his army, clearly reveal the final yielding of a noble soul, too confident of its own strength, to the insidious and seductive influences of sin. And the retreat of Hannibal, his return to Africa, and at last his miserable death, represent to us the final overthrow and ruin of a great and brave soul, which, though battling so long and so successfully, is overcome in some unguarded moment, and hur ried down into the depths of disgrace and sin, of woe and death. 7. This is plainly the intent and meaning of this supposed history, as every philosophical German critic will readily discover. The blunder began with Livy and Polybius, who mistook the object of their informants, and understood as a narrative of actual occurrences, what was designed as a parable or allegory, teaching a beautiful and important lesson to the individual soul. These material, matter-of-fact writers, who take every thing in a literal gross sense, unable to distinguish the philosophical and spiritual life from the outward form or body of a narrative, have made terrible work with ancient history; so that it is now confusion worse confounded. It is high time that a rational criticism, following the steps of Niebuhr and Strauss, should sift out these fabulous stories of Alexander and Hannibal from ancient history, and showing their origin, design and growth, give us whatever grains of truth may remain. 8. That this view is correct respecting the exploits of this supposed Hannibal, or at least that the accounts of him are not to be received as history, will farther appear from the self-contradictions of Livy with regard to him and his Carthaginians. A few instances will suffice. In Book xxiii. 30, he states that Locri is taken by the Carthaginians; but, turning to the following book, xxiv. 1, we find it is still in the hands of the Romans. In Book xxv. 1, he speaks of Thurii as returning again into the possession of the Romans; whereas he represents it after this as going over to Hannibal for the first time. xxv. 15. In Book xxx. 45, he tells us that Scipio, who subdued Hannibal and the Carthaginians, was the first who was honored with the surname of a conquered people. But if we turn back as far as Book ii. 32, we find him saying that this honor had been bestowed on Coriolanus, more than three hundred years before. So in Book xxx. 33, he states that Carthage gives a hundred hostages to the Romans; but, in xxxii. 2, speaking of these hostages, he says a hundred were restored, while the remainder (!) were sent into safe keeping at another place. In xxx. 43, he relates that there was bitter lamentation at Carthage for the loss of her fleet; but in the very next chapter he says no one lamented! 9. These discrepancies and plain contradictions show, to the satisfaction of every critic, that Livy is not writing history, however honest he may be in thinking so. He has mistaken legend for fact, and has created a Hannibal and a Carthage, and a series of actual battles and sieges, out of an allegory; and narrates the whole story with all the gravity and confidence of authentic history. His entire innocence, and the absence of all suspicion on his part, is very amusing to a critic; and equally amusing the credulity of modern writers and readers, who have been so easily duped into the belief that there really was such a person as Hannibal; that he did the wonderful things told of him; that there was such a city as Carthage, of which most of them have no proof but the testimony of some obscure sailors and pretended travelers, who say they have been there. But who knows? Sailors and travelers have said a great many things that are not true. And suppose they have visited certain ruins which they call the ruins of Carthage; what then? How do we or they know that they are the ruins of Carthage? 10. But beside the above we might adduce much more in proof of the position taken respecting the legendary character of this Carthage and its history. Take, for example, the story of Regulus, so intimately connected with the imaginary city. The common relation is, that * See Tholuck; Voices of the Church, p. 165, and onward. he was put to death by its inhabitants in the most cruel manner. Yet Polybius, who is most minute in all that belongs to Regulus, and distinctly declares that he is particular to recount all his actions and history as an example to others, passes over the whole affair of his dreadful tortures in utter silence! This he could not have done, had they been real instead of legendary. And other ancient writers contradict each other respecting his death. Some say he died of neglect and starvation; others that he was crucified; and others that, being enclosed in a cask stuck full of sharp nails, so that he could not rest at all, he died of exhaustion and torment. So utterly contradictory is every thing connected with this fabulous Carthage and its inhabitants. SECTION II. MODERN HISTORY: JOAN OF NAPLES-JOHN MILTON-MARQUIS 1. In looking into the pages of any modern history, we find the same state of things. The New Testament narratives are not alone; nor must they be put in the worst lot in this argument, as will be seen by the following examples. 2. As a specimen, take the case of Joan of Naples. Rees' Cyclopedia informs us that, on the death of James of Majorca, in 1375, she married, in the following year, Otho of Brunswick for her fourth husband, and ended her life in 1382. But Mrs. Jameson, in her Female Sov. reigns, says that after the death of James she remained twelve years a widow, governing with remarkable wisdom and energy, and then married Otho; i. e. five years after she was dead, according to the other account! Of course the whole story of her marriage with Otho, so far from being true, to use the classic speech of Mr. Paine, "is not even a reasonable lie." 3. Again; let us take the case of John Milton, the re |