A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental and extraneous.

Tytler wrote of the past in the life of nations with the exclusive reliance on written proof that a conveyancer places upon title-deeds, and beside the glowing and harmonious pictures of later annalists such writing now appears obsolete.

Piso had already written works which are mentioned with respect by Latin authors, but they were mere annalists or antiquarians, like the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and had no claim as artists.

After his death, and when the illusion of godship had subsided, his spoliation of the very Heiau in which he had been deified was not one of the least of the grievances which native annalists laid up against him.

It has been said that "leading ideas" are fatal to accuracy of statement; and these dominate in the minds of French philosophical annalists; while the more sympathetic class are fond of rhetorical display and fanciful episodes.

"For it was so ordered," says the pious annalist, "by the wisdom of God, that the sight of the Prince was at that time much affected by a complaint of the eyes, but at the moment that the Bishop of Cherson laid his hands upon him, when he had risen up out of the bath of regeneration, Vladimir suddenly received not only spiritual illumination, but also the bodily sight of his eyes, and cried out, 'Now I have seen the true God!'

Greetings over, the stodgy annalist continued.

Raleigh, when he wrote the "History of the World" in prison, gave hints by which subsequent and less obsolete annalists have wisely profited.

It is possible that the contemporary annalists may have here mentioned Celts alone, and that it was the historical speculation of the age of Caesar and Augustus that first induced the redactors of these Fasti to treat them as "Germans."

He also shows how inaccurate McClung's "sketches" arefor McClung was like a host of other early western annalists, preserving some valuable facts in a good deal of rubbish, and having very little appreciation indeed of the necessity of so much as approximate accuracy.