gh the nation's pulse is yet beating"; and his
words are still potent in shaping the course of English politics in the way
of justice.

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794)

To understand Burke or Johnson, one must read a multitude of books and be
wary in his judgment; but with Gibbon the task is comparatively easy, for
one has only to consider two books, his _Memoirs_ and the first volume of
his _History_, to understand the author. In his _Memoirs_ we have an
interesting reflection of Gibbon's own personality,--a man who looks with
satisfaction on the material side of things, who seeks always the easiest
path for himself, and avoids life's difficulties and responsibilities. "I
sighed as a lover; but I obeyed as a son," he says, when, to save his
inheritance, he gave up the woman he loved and came home to enjoy the
paternal loaves and fishes. That is suggestive of the man's whole life. His
_History_, on the other hand, is a remarkable work. It was the first in our
language to be written on scientific principles, and with a solid basis of
fact; and the style is the very climax of that classicism which had ruled
England for an entire century. Its combination of historical fact and
literary style makes _The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ the one
thing of Gibbon's life that is "worthy to be remembered."

GIBBON'S HISTORY. For many years Gibbon had meditated, like Milton, upon an
immortal work, and had tried several historical subjects, only to give them
up idly. In his _Journal_ he tells us how his vague resolutions were
brought to a focus:

It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst
the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers
in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of
the city first started to my mind.

Twelve years later, in 1776, Gibbon published the first volume of _The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;_ and the enormous success of the work
encouraged him to go on with the other five volumes, which were published
at intervals during the next twelve years. The History begins with the
reign of Trajan, in A.D. 98, and "builds a straight Roman road" through the
confused histories of thirteen centuries, ending with the fall of the
Byzantine Empire in 1453. The scope of the History is enormous. It includes
not only the decline of the Roman Empire, but such movements as the descent
of the northern barbarians, the spread of Chris