alone ought to decide the point.  And what further confirms our view is, that it is impossible to point out any Englishmen of any distinction who ever had any of these names.  Here we do not argue from conjecture, after merely looking into the most recent biographical repertories (as, for example, the “Bibliotheca Clarisimorum Virorum,” in three hundred and fifty volumes folio); for it is no argument that this meagre collection makes no mention of any such names; since, in the successive compilations of such works, (as the world grows older,) it has been found necessary to extrude from time to time thousands of lesser names, which had twinkled in preceding ages.  But, deeply anxious to establish truth, we have at infinite pains caused to be fished up, from the depths of the archives of our national museums, very rare reprints of some of the works of the age nearest that in which these events are said to have occurred, and in none of these works is there an individual mentioned of the name of Newman or Masterman, and only one comparatively obscure person of the name of Wiseman,—­a presumptive proof that they were fictitious names.  Is it possible that these curious and varied coincidences can be the mere effect of chance?’

“I shall spare you,” said Harrington, “Dr. Dickkopf’s learned etymological disquisitions on the names Wilde and Philpotts, which, aided by the imputed ‘rashness’ of the one, and the ‘intoxicated zeal’ of the other, he clearly demonstrated to be fictitious.

“After which, I will suppose him to proceed thus:—­

’We presume we have said enough to convince any acute and candid mind of the extreme improbability of the document being designed to convey to posterity a literal statement of facts; not that we for a moment think it necessary to suppose that any evil design actuated the writer, whoever he might be.  It was most likely intended, as we have already said, to be an allegorico-political caricature of certain events which did undeniably occur, and which formed a slender basis of historic fact on which to found it.

“’Nor is the particularity of some of the dates and alleged circumstances of much weight in our judgment.  He must be a miserable inventor of fiction indeed, who cannot clothe a narrative in some verisimilitude of this kind.  It is said, that the historian makes a seeming reference to those who were living at the very time.  “Some,” he says, “still survive.”  But who does not see that the word “survive” may refer to the accounts (which he, it appears, knew little how to interpret), not the persons; though, be it observed, that on such a supposition he does not vouch for having seen them, and may have spoken merely from report.  This very clause, too, has undeniably much the appearance of an interpolation.  There are many other little circumstances, which, to those who have been accustomed to detect unhistoric characteristics in ancient documents, and to draw a sharp line between the mythic or allegoric and the historic, sufficiently proclaim the origin of this supposed narrative of facts.