The antiquarians of Rome believe that they have made a
great find. Signor Bacellai, the Minister of Education, in the course of some excavations at the east end of the Forum has come upon the great black stone under which it was intended to bury Romulus. The body of the founder disappeared, but his shepherd was buried there, and the stone was for ages regarded as the palladium and centre of Rome. Of its existence there is no doubt, and no invader would have thought it worth while to take it away. The discovery, like almost all discoveries of recent years in Italy as well as Egypt, helps to prove that destructive criticism is blundering criticism, and that the legends of history usually rest upon some solid basis. Stories are rarely transmitted rightly from month to mouth, unless, indeed, a perpetually renewed priest- hood has set itself to preserve them ; but the deliberate in. vention of a figure like Romulus is much more improbable than his existence.
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