Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 | Page 4

limited themselves to a single period, or at 'east to the contracted
sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the Barbarians trespassed within the Grecian
boundary, or were necessarily mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into
the pale of Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon, excepting in the Persian
inroad of the latter, Greece was the world. Natural unity confined their narrative almost to
chronological order, the episodes were of rare occurrence and extremely brief. To the
Roman historians the course was equally clear and defined. Rome was their centre of
unity; and the uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread around,
the regularity with which their civil polity expanded, forced, as it were, upon the Roman
historian that plan which Polybius announces as the subject of his history, the means and
the manner by which the whole world became subject to the Roman sway. How different
the complicated politics of the European kingdoms! Every national history, to be
complete, must, in a certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing to how
remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most domestic events; from a country,
how apparently disconnected, may originate the impulse which gives its direction to the
whole course of affairs.
In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places Rome as the cardinal point from
which his inquiries diverge, and to which they bear constant reference; yet how
immeasurable the space over which those inquiries range; how complicated, how
confused, how apparently inextricable the causes which tend to the decline of the Roman
empire! how countless the nations which swarm forth, in mingling and indistinct hordes,
constantly changing the geographical limits - incessantly confounding the natural
boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of the world, seems to offer
no more secure footing to an historical adventurer than the chaos of Milton - to be in a
state of irreclaimable disorder, best described in the language of the poet: -
- "A dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth,
and height,

And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."
We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall comprehend this period of
social disorganization, must be ascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of
the historian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of his work, in which the boundless
range, the infinite variety, the, at first sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate
parts, nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominant idea, that Gibbon is
unrivalled. We cannot but admire the manner in which he masses his materials, and
arranges his facts in successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to their
moral or political connection; the distinctness with which he marks his periods of
gradually increasing decay; and the skill with which, though advancing on separate
parallels of history, he shows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religious
or civil innovations. However these principles of composition may demand more than
ordinary attention on the part of the reader, they can alone impress upon the memory the
real course, and the relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly appreciate
the superiority of Gibbon's lucid arrangement, should attempt to make his way through
the regular but wearisome annals of Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le
Beau. Both these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological order; the consequence
is, that we are twenty times called upon to break off, and resume the thread of six or eight
wars in different parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of a military expedition
for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a siege to a council; and the same page places us
in the middle of a campaign against the barbarians, and in the depths of the Monophysite
controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind the exact dates but the course
of events is ever clear and distinct; like a skilful general, though his troops advance from
the most remote and opposite quarters, they are constantly bearing down and
concentrating themselves on one point - that which is still occupied by the name, and by
the waning power of Rome. Whether he traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads
from the shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the successive hosts of
barbarians - though one wave has hardly burst and discharged itself, before another
swells up and approaches - all is made to flow in the same direction, and the impression
which each makes upon the tottering fabric of the