tianity, the reorganization
of the European nations, the establishment of the great Eastern Empire, the
rise of Mohammedanism, and the splendor of the Crusades. On the one hand it
lacks philosophical insight, being satisfied with facts without
comprehending the causes; and, as Gibbon seems lacking in ability to
understand spiritual and religious movements, it is utterly inadequate in
its treatment of the tremendous influence of Christianity. On the other
hand, Gibbon's scholarship leaves little to criticise; he read enormously,
sifted his facts out of multitudes of books and records, and then marshaled
them in the imposing array with which we have grown familiar. Moreover, he
is singularly just and discriminating in the use of all documents and
authorities at his command. Hence he has given us the first history in
English that has borne successfully the test of modern research and
scholarship.

The style of the work is as imposing as his great subject. Indeed, with
almost any other subject the sonorous roll of his majestic sentences would
be out of place. While it deserves all the adjectives that have been
applied to it by enthusiastic admirers,--finished, elegant, splendid,
rounded, massive, sonorous, copious, elaborate, ornate, exhaustive,--it
must be confessed, though one whispers the confession, that the style
sometimes obscures our interest in the narrative. As he sifted his facts
from a multitude of sources, so he often hides them again in endless
periods, and one must often sift them out again in order to be quite sure
of even the simple facts. Another drawback is that Gibbon is hopelessly
worldly in his point of view; he loves pageants and crowds rather than
individuals, and he is lacking in enthusiasm and in spiritual insight. The
result is so frankly material at times that one wonders if he is not
reading of forces or machines, rather than of human beings. A little
reading of his History here and there is an excellent thing, leaving one
impressed with the elegant classical style and the scholarship; but a
continued reading is very apt to leave us longing for simplicity, for
naturalness, and, above all, for the glow of enthusiasm which makes the
dead heroes live once more in the written pages.

This judgment, however, must not obscure the fact that the book had a
remarkably large sale; and that this, of itself, is an evidence that
multitudes of readers found it not only erudite, but readable and
interesting.