the public by literary artifices. He distorted facts in order to embellish them according to his own æsthetic notions. We have therefore to look for the ideal of the author or of his time, in order to be on our guard against passages distorted to suit that ideal. But without special study we may calculate on the common kinds of literary distortion. Rhetorical distortion consists in attributing to persons noble attitudes, acts, sentiments, and, above all, words: this is a natural tendency in young boys who are beginning to practise the art of composition, and in writers still in a semi-barbarous stage; it is the common defect of the mediæval chroniclers. Epic distortion embellishes the narrative by adding picturesque details, speeches delivered by the persons concerned, numbers, sometimes names of persons; it is dangerous, because the precision of the details produces an illusive appearance of truth. Dramatic distortion consists in grouping the facts in such a way as to enhance the dramatic effect by concentrating facts, which in reality were separate, upon a single moment, a single person, or a single group. Writing of this kind is what we call "truer than the truth." It is the most dangerous form of distortion, the form employed by artistic historians, by Herodotus, Tacitus, the Italians of the Renaissance. Lyrical distortion exaggerates the intensity of the sentiments and the emotions of the author and his friends: we should remember this when we attempt to reconstruct "the psychology" of a person.
Literary distortion does not much affect archives (though instances of it are found in most charters of the eleventh century); but it profoundly modifies all literary texts, including the narratives of historians. Now, the natural tendency is to trust writers