Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 2.djvu/45

OF JAVA. 51 hero of the piece, that there is no ostensible or re- sponsible author, no individual who claims the merit of the intellectual execution, no more than there is one who claims merit for the workmanship of the rude plough or harrow with which the rice field is tilled. The execution of an historical composi- tion is, in fact, considered as a mechanical process, and intrusted to any one who has dexterity and practice enough to string together verses, — to make rhymes by the hundred, — whose memory can fur- nish him with the usual routine of similes and me- taphors ; and, finally, who is master of a tolerably easy and distinct hand-writing. I have in my possession the original of the history of the Sultan Mangkubumi, composed in the manner I have mentioned ; and a prince of Djojocarta had the complaisance to furnish myself with a circumstan- tial narrative of political and military transactions, in which I had a share. There are some facts, to be sure, which are cor- roborated by these peculiar circumstances under which the narrative of them is composed, and which afford the best and most unquestionable il- lustrations of the character of the people who are the subjects of them. When facts are unconscious- ly adduced, as often happens, unfavourable to the national character, or to those in power, we may consider them conclusive. Tracts on law and ethics are most frequently