they only slightly affect the portions which treat of later times and form the special subject of his history. In confirmation of this view, it may be noted that the authority of Herodotus for the circumstances of the great Persian war, and for all local and other details which come under his immediate notice, is accepted by even the most sceptical of modern historians, and forms the basis of their narratives.
Among the merits of Herodotus as an historian, the most prominent are the diligence with which he has collected the materials for his history, the candour and impartiality with which he has placed his facts before the reader, the political dispassionateness which he displays in the judgments that he passes upon party leaders, the absence of undue national vanity, and the breadth of his conception of the historian's office, which makes his work a storehouse of diversified knowledge for which the student of antiquity can never be sufficiently grateful. On the other hand, he has no claim to rank as a critical historian; he has no conception of the philosophy of history, no insight into the real causes that underlie political changes, no power of penetrating below the surface, or even of grasping the real interconnexion of the events which he describes. He belongs distinctly to the romantic school; his forte is vivid and picturesque description, the lively presentation to the reader of scenes and actions, characters and states of society, not the subtle analysis of motives, or the power of detecting the undercurrents which sway events, or the generalizing faculty which draws lessons from history and makes the past illumine the darkness of the future.
But it is as a writer that the merits of Herodotus are most conspicuous and most unquestioned. "O that I were in a condition," says Lucian, "to resemble Herodotus, if only in some measure! I by no means say in all his gifts, but only in some single point; as, for instance, the beauty of his language, or its harmony, or the natural and peculiar grace of the Ionic dialect, or his fulness of thought, or by whatever name those thousand beauties are called which to the despair of his imitator are united in him." Cicero calls his style "copious and polished;" Quintilian, "sweet, pure, and flowing;" Longinus says he was "the most Homeric of historians;" Dionysius, his countryman, prefers him to Thucydides, and regards him as combining in an extraordinary degree the excellencies of sublimity, beauty, and the true historical method of composition. Moderns are almost equally complimentary. "The style of Herodotus," says one, "is universally allowed to be remarkable for its harmony and sweetness." "The charm of his style," argues another, "has so dazzled men as to make them blind to his defects." Various attempts have been made to analyse the nature of the charm which is so universally felt; but it may be doubted whether any of them are very successful, whether the aroma of the flower does not evaporate in the critic's alembic. All, however, seem to agree that among the qualities for which the style of Herodotus is to be admired are simplicity, freshness, naturalness, and harmony of rhythm. Master of a form of language peculiarly sweet and euphonical, and possessed of a delicate ear which instinctively suggested the most musical arrangement possible, he gives his sentences, without art or effort, the most agreeable flow, is never abrupt, never too diffuse, much less prolix or wearisome, and being himself simple, fresh, naïf (if we may use the word), honest, and somewhat quaint, he delights us by combining with this melody of sound simple, clear, and fresh thoughts, perspicuously expressed, often accompanied by happy turns of phrase, and always manifestly the spontaneous growth of his own fresh and unsophisticated mind. Reminding us in some respects of the quaint mediæval writers, Froissart and Philippe de Comines, he greatly excels them, at once in the beauty of his language and the art with which he has combined his heterogeneous materials into a single perfect harmonious whole.
As might have been expected from its excellence, the history of Herodotus has been translated by many persons and into many languages. About 1450, at the time of the revival of learning, a Latin version was made and published by Laurentius Valla. This was revised in 1537 by Heusbach, and accompanies the Greek text of Herodotus in many editions. The first complete translation into a modern language was the English one of Littlebury, published in 1737. This was followed in 1786 by the French translation of Larcher, a valuable work, accompanied by copious notes and essays. Beloe, the second English translator, based his work on that of Larcher. His first edition, in 1791, was confessedly very defective; the second, in 1806, still left much to be desired. A good German translation, but without note or comment, was brought out by Friedrich Lange at Berlin in 1811. Andrea Mustoxidi, a native of Corfu, published an Italian version in 1820. In 1822 Auguste Miot endeavoured to improve on Larcher; and in 1828-32 Dr Adolf Scholl brought out a German translation with copious notes (new ed., 1855), which has to some extent superseded the work of Lange. About the same time a new English version was made by Mr Isaac Taylor (London, 1829). Finally, in 1858-60, the history of Herodotus was translated by Canon Rawlinson, assisted in the copious notes and appendices accompanying the work by Sir Gardner Wilkinson and Sir Henry Rawlinson. More recently we have translations in German by Bähr (Stuttgart, 1867) and Stein (Oldenburg, 1875); in French by Giguet (1857) and Talbot (1864); and in Italian by Ricci (Turin, 1871-76), Grandi (Asti, 1872), and Bertini (Naples, 1871-2). A Swedish translation by F. Carlstadt was published at Stockholm in 1871.
The best recent editions of the Greek text of Herodotus are the following:—Herodoti Historæ, ed. Schweighäuser, 5 vols. 8vo, Strasburg, 1816; Herodoti Halicarnassei Historiarum libri IX., ed. Gaisford, Oxford, 1840; Herodotus, with a Commentary, by J. W. Blakesley, B.D., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1854; Herodoti Musæ, ed. Bähr, 4 vols. 8vo, Leipsic, 1856-61, 2d ed.; Herodoti Historiæ, ed. Abicht, 2 vols. 8vo, Leipsic, 1869; and Herodoti Historiæ, ed. H. Stein, 2 vols., 1869-71. Among works of value illustrative of Herodotus may be mentioned Bouhier, Recherches sur Hérodote, Dijon, 1746; Rennell, Geography of Herodotus, London, 1800; Niebuhr, Geography of Herodotus and Scythia, Eng. trans., Oxford, 1830; Dahlmann, Herodot, aus seinem Buche sein Leben, Altona, 1823; Eltz, Questiones Herodoteæ, Leipsic, 1841; Kenrick, Egypt of Herodotus, London, 1841; Mure, Literature of Greece, vol. iv., London, 1852; Abicht, Uebersicht über den Herodoteischen Dialect (Leipsic, 1869, 3d ed. 1874), and De codicum Herodoti fide ac auctoritate (Naumburg, 1869); Melander, De anacoluthis Herodoteis (Lund, 1869); Matzat, "Ueber die Glaubenswürdigkeit der geograph. Angaben Herodots über Asien," in Hermes, vi.; Büdinger, Zur egyptischen Forschung Herodots (Vienna, 1878, reprinted from the Sitzungsber. of the Vienna Acad.); Merzdorf, Quæstiones grammaticæ de dialecto Herodotea (Leipsic, 1875); A. Kirchhoff, Ueber die Entstchungszeit des Herodotischen Geschichtswerk (Berlin, 1878); and Adolf Bauer, Herodots Biographie (Vienna, 1878). For notices of current literature see Bursian's Jahresbericht. Students of the original may also consult with advantage the lexicons of Æmilius Portus (Oxford, 1817) and of Schweighäuser (London, 1824). (G. R.)
HÉROLD, Louis Joseph Ferdinand (1791–1833), French musician, was born in Paris, January 28, 1791, the son of François Joseph Hérold, an accomplished pianist, who, however, did not at first wish his son to adopt the musical profession. It was indeed not till after his father's death that Hérold in 1806 entered the Paris conservatoire, where he studied under Catel and Méhul, one of the leading composers of the time, by whose teaching his pupil profited soon and permanently. In 1812 he gained the grand prix de Rome (a travelling scholarship awarded by the French Government to the best pupils of the conservatoire), and accordingly started for Italy, where he remained till 1815, and composed a symphony, a cantata, and several pieces of chamber music. It was also during his stay in Italy that Hérold for the first time ventured on the stage with the opera La Gioventù di Enrico V., first performed at Naples in 1815 with moderate success. Returning to Paris he had the good fortune to be invited by Boieldieu to participate in the composition of an opera called Charles de France, performed in 1816, and soon followed by Hérold's first French opera, Les Rosières (1817), which was received very favourably. Of the numerous dramatic works which Hérold produced for
