Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 1 | Page 5

Roman greatness, connects their distant
movements, and measures the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic
history. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on the development of the Roman law,
or even on the details of ecclesiastical history, interpose themselves as resting-places or
divisions between the periods of barbaric invasion. In short, though distracted first by the
two capitals, and afterwards by the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary
felicity of arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As our horizon
expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are forming far beyond the
boundaries of the civilized world - as we follow their successive approach to the
trembling frontier - the compressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; though
gradually dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the form of regular states and
kingdoms, the real relation of those kingdoms to the empire is maintained and defined;
and even when the Roman dominion has shrunk into little more than the province of
Thrace - when the name of Rome, confined, in Italy, to the walls of the city - yet it is still
the memory, the shade of the Roman greatness, which extends over the wide sphere into
which the historian expands his later narrative; the whole blends into the unity, and is

manifestly essential to the double catastrophe of his tragic drama.
But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design, are, though imposing, yet
unworthy claims on our admiration, unless the details are filled up with correctness and
accuracy. No writer has been more severely tried on this point than Gibbon. He has
undergone the triple scrutiny of theological zeal quickened by just resentment, of literary
emulation, and of that mean and invidious vanity which delights in detecting errors in
writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, we may be permitted to summon
competent witnesses before we deliver our own judgment.
M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and Germany, as well as in England,
in the most enlightened countries of Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority,
thus proceeds: -
"I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings of philosophers, who have
treated on the finances of the Roman empire; of scholars, who have investigated the
chronology; of theologians, who have searched the depths of ecclesiastical history; of
writers on law, who have studied with care the Roman jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who
have occupied themselves with the Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians, who
have entered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and their influence; each of
these writers has remarked and pointed out, in the 'History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire,' some negligences, some false or imperfect views some omissions, which
it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified some facts combated with
advantage some assertions; but in general they have taken the researches and the ideas of
Gibbon, as points of departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the new opinions
which they have advanced."
M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading Gibbon's history, and no
authority will have greater weight with those to whom the extent and accuracy of his
historical researches are known: -
"After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing but the interest of a
narrative, always animated, and, notwithstanding its extent and the variety of objects
which it makes to pass before the view, always perspicuous, I entered upon a minute
examination of the details of which it was composed; and the opinion which I then
formed was, I confess, singularly severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which
appeared to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that they had
been written with extreme negligence; in others, I was struck with a certain tinge of
partiality and prejudice, which imparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth
and justice, which the English express by their happy term misrepresentation. Some
imperfect (tronquees) quotations; some passages, omitted unintentionally or designedly
cast a suspicion on the honesty (bonne foi) of the author; and his violation of the first law
of history - increased to my eye by the prolonged attention with which I occupied myself
with every phrase, every note, every reflection - caused me to form upon the whole work,
a judgment far too rigorous. After having finished my labors, I allowed some time to
elapse before I reviewed the whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire
work, of the notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it right to subjoin,

showed me how much I had exaggerated the importance of the reproaches which Gibbon
really deserved; I was