Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858
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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858
Author: Various
Release Date: May 18, 2004 [EBook #12374]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. I.--MAY, 1858.--NO. VII.
AMERICAN ANTIQUITY.
The results of the past ten or fifteen years in historical investigation are exceedingly mortifying to any one who has been proud to call himself a student of History. We had thought, perhaps, that we knew something of the origin of human events and the gradual development from the past into the world of to-day. We had read Herodotus, and Gibbon, and Gillies, and done manful duty with Rollin. There were certain comfortable, definite facts in antiquity. Romulus and Remus were our friends; the transmission of the alphabet by the Phoenicians was a resting-spot; the destruction of Babylon and the date of the Flood were fixed stations in the wilderness. In more modern periods, we had a refuge in the date of the discovery of America; and if we were forced back into the wilds and uncertainties of American History, Mr. Prescott soon restored to us the buried empires, and le