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THE DECLINE AND FALL.* ON the day, or rather night, of June 27th, 17$7, between the hours of eleven and twelve, Gibbon wrote the last lines of his monumental history in a summer-house in his garden. Twenty years had passed since the historian, " musing amidst the ruins of the Capitel," first determined to write the decline and fall of Rome,—twenty years of rewarded toil and secure achievement. Well. might he congratulate himself • on that night in June : if his solitude had lest the noblest companion, he had won the esteem not only of -himself but of his con- temporaries, and he was - confident that posterity would subscribe to the opinion of his friends. His confidence was amply.justified, and Edward Gibbon still keeps his place at the head of English historians, with, only such giants as Thucydides and Tacitus on the wider field of the world to dispute his supremacy..
Gibbon, then, deserves all the honour that can be paid him, and of all tributes none is more just nor more lofty than the new edition which Mr. Bury has just. published. As .Gibbon represents the old method of writing history, Mr. Bury repre- sents the new. Where Gibbon (Thrilled, Mr. Bury knows, basing his knowledge upon documents of whose existence Gibbon was naturally ignorant. But true as Mr. Bury is to his own craft, he is too fine a scholar, too sane a critic of letters, to do less than justice to Gibbon's splendid triumph. While he supplements and corrects where it is necessary, be never makes his correction in the spirit of the pedagogue. The student will find in this new edition all the help he requires in the elucidation of his author : he is referred to the latest authorities, he may look at Gibbon's periods. in the dry light of German scholarship, but he will not cease to thank the editor who has performed a delicate task without one touch of pedantry, without one whisper of dispraise. '
Mr. Bury, indeed, has rendered Gibbon- the most practical homage. He has reviewed his work friorn the standpoint of a scientific historian, and he frankly declares of The Decline and Fall that " its accuracy is amazing." Moreover, he supports his conviction by a remarkable reticence. Look at his notes, and you will see at once with how gentle and sparing a hand he castigates his author. Gibbon, of course, had his faults, some of which he acknowledged. He een- fesses that his treatment of the earlier Emperors, from Cominodus to Severus, is scanty and superficial; others have pointed out with perfect . justice that a lack of knowledge weakened his interest in the Byzantine period. Yet when these insignificant faults are admitted, how admirable is the work that remains ! Mr. Bury puts the case with truth and generosity. "That Gibbon is behind in many details," he writes, " and in some department? of importance, simply signifies that we and our fathers have not lived in an absolutely incompetent world. But in the main things he is still our master, above and beyond ' date: It is needless to dwell on the obvious qualities which secure to him immunity from the common lot of historical writers,—such as the bold and certain measure of his progress through the ages; his accurate vision, and his tact in managing perspective ; his discreet reserves of judgment and timely scepticism : the im- mortal affectation of his unique manner. By virtue of these superiorities he can defy the danger with which the activity of successors must always threaten the worthies of the past." When did one historian pay a higher tribute to another? And the tribute is the higher when we remember that it is paid by the new fashion to the old.
" The bold and certain measure of his progress through the ages,"—that is and will 'always remain Gibbon's supreme virtue He used the map of the world as other writers might handle the ground-plan of a village; he writes of peoples and countries with the simple assurance which might astonish us in a specialised biography. His history covers more than a thousand years, and though the point of view is always the same, though the habit of generalisation is constant and imperative, the his torian's opinions are never superficial, his conclusions are never summary. He works upon a vast canvas, and does not
• The Riatoq of Ole Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward Gibbon. Edited by J. B.Bury, MA. 7 vols. London : Methuen and Co. [12 2s.]
decline from the ideal of portraiture ; in a limitless mass of details he never misses the broad effect of truth. His knowledge of life is as astonishing as his knowledge of facts, and though he devoted many years to secluded study, he always came out into the world with profit to his history. Most true it was that "the Captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire," and not one of the hours was lost which he squandered upon the race meetings of Stockbridge or the noisy dinners of his regiment. But what confers upon his history its greatest distinction is the personal interpretation which he gives to every event in his chronicle. He sees all things through his own eye ; he even compels the records to his own vision. Whatever be the result of modern researches, we shall never again consider the decline and fall of the Empire save through the Medium of Gibbon's brain. We contemplate the greatest enormities with a touch of his own cynicism. When Sheridan, attacking Warren Hastings, quoted the unparalleled atrocities of the great history, then recently published, Gibbon felt a very natural pride. Yet never in the long course of his narrative is he moved to an excess of statement by the satirist's seva indignatio. Throughout his life he was pursued by what he calls " the same blind and boyish taste for exotic history," but he did not ask of his exotic history more than it could give him. So he is never sur- prised; not even Commodus nor Elagabalus can excite him to wonder or reprobation. In his own phrase, he regarded history as "little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind." Nor with this opinion could he have chosen a finer subject for his art.
And with his cynicism irony goes hand in hand. He said of himself, " Wit I have none," and for once this stern critic of his own talent was mistaken. Without wit there is no irony, and irony was in Gibbon's blood. It is as con- spicuous in his Autobiography as in his masterpiece,—an irony subtler than Voltaire's, sustained at a level unique and unsurpassed. Nor was he unconscious of his great gift; he freely acknowledges it and explains its source. " From the Provincial Letters of Pascal," he wrote, " I learned to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity." And his irony gives the key to his style, which is enough of itself to make his work immortal. Whence came it P Not from Cicero, whom perhaps he overrated, nor from Voltaire, to whom he did less than justice. Its pomposity was, in a sense, of the time, and maybe he owed an unconscious debt to Samuel Johnson, whose habit of sounding antithesis he shared. Montesquien, too, was an influence upon him, and of Pascal we have already spoken. But when we have mentioned half a dozen names we return to Gibbon himself, and learn that he was the fashioner of his own armoury. He shall tell the story in his own words. " The style of a man," said he, " should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation : three times did I compose the third chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace." This passage simplifies his style, which might otherwise bewilder us into despair. At first sight it appears before all things elaborate and mannered; a little familiarity and reflection prove to us its consummate ease. A brief acquaint- ance with Gibbon's prose might suggest that it lacked suppleness. To read continuously a hundred pages is to admit that no writer ever commanded a suppler instrument. The truth is that a periwig best suited Gibbon's locks, and that as he put it on without an effort, so he wore it without a grimace. He was by nature stately and aristo- cratic; therefore he wrote after a stately and aristocratic manner; but his style was no more difficult to him than was the manner which he used towards his friends and intimates. When others affect the grandiose diction of Gibbon, they are wont to fail, because they lack his grandiosity of tempera- ment; of him it may be said that what began as a manner ended as a sincere, inevitable style.
Fortunate in his genius, he was fortunate in his career. He found the work which best suited him, and he performed it with a success that was a lifelong satisfaction. Again and again he refers to the happiness of his situation. He was rich enough to write at his ease, he was not rich enough to dispense with the pleasure of toil ; and as literature conferred its highest boon upon him, so he always fervently championed the dignity of literature. "I am disgusted with the affectation of men of letters," he wrote, " who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow Twenty happy years have been animated by the labours of my History; and its success has given me a name, a rank, a character, in the world, to which I should not otherwise have been entitled." Few men of letters may make that proud boast; there is no man of letters who should not aim at Gibbon's legitimate enthusiasm. And as we respect his loyalty to his craft, so we can never turn to The Decline and Fall without a pleased admiration, which is equal whether we read the incomparable sketch of Julian, or wonder at the sense of proportion that . can sketch the Huns or paint the Germans in a dozen pages. Nor do we ever expect to consult Gibbon in a better edition than this of Mr. Bury's, for which our thanks are due to editor and publisher alike.
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