if treated on the principles of criticism which his countryman has applied to the Evangelists, might not be proved a mere mytholographer ...  ‘It is plain’, he says, ’that if absolute among historians’—­and still more absolute apparent agreement—­is necessary to assure us that we possess in their writings credible history, we must renounce all pretence to any such possession.’  The translations from Quinet, Coquerel, and Tholuck are all, in different ways, well worth reading.  The last truly says, ’Strauss came to the study of the Evangelical history with the forgone conclusion that “miracles are impossible;” and where an investigator brings with him an absolute conviction of the guilt of the accused to the examination of his case, we know how even the most innocent may be implicated and condemned out of his own mouth.’  In fact, so strong and various are the proofs of truth and reality in the history of the New Testament, that none would ever have suspected the veracity of the writers, or tried to disprove it, except for the above forgone conclusion—­’that miracles are impossible.’  We also recommend to the reader an ingenious brochure included in the ‘Voices of the Church, in reply to Strauss,’ constructed on the same principle with Whately’s admirable ‘Historic Doubts,’ namely; ’The Fallacy of the Mythical Theory of Dr. Strauss, illustrated from the History of Martin Luther, and from the actual Mohammedan Myths of the Life of Jesus.’  What a subject for the same play of ingenuity would be Dean Swift!  The date, and place of his birth disputed—­whether he was an Englishman or an Irishman—­his incomprehensible relations to Stella and Vanessa, utterly incomprehensible on any hypothesis—­his alleged seduction of one of one, of both, of neither—­his marriage with Stella affirmed, disputed, and still wholly unsettled—­the numberless other incidents in his life full of contradiction and mystery—­and, not least, the eccentricities and inconsistencies of his whole character and conduct!  Why, with a thousandth part of Dr. Strauss’s assumptions, it would be easy to reduce Swift to as fabulous a personage as his own Lemuel Gulliver. +Any apparent discrepancy with either themselves or profane historians is usually sufficient to satisfy Dr. Strauss.  He is ever ready to conclude that the discrepancy is real, and that the profane historians are right.  In adducing some striking instances of the minute accuracy of Luke, only revealed by obscure collateral evidence (historic or numismatic) discovered since, Tholuck remarks, ’What an outcry would have been made had not the specious appearance of error been thus obviated.  Luke calls Gallio proconsul of Achaia:  we should not have expected it, since though Achaia was originally to senatorial province.  Tiberius had changed it into an imperial one, and the title of its governor, therefore, was procurator; now a passage in Suetonius informs us, that Claudius had restored the province to the senate.’  The same Evangelist calls Sergius Paulus governor