termination is three centuries before he was born. Milman spoke of "the
amplitude, the magnificence, and the harmony of Gibbon's design,"[53]
and Bury writes, "If we take into account the vast range of his work,
his accuracy is amazing."[54] Men have wondered and will long wonder at
the brain with such a grasp and with the power to execute skillfully so
mighty a conception. "The public is seldom wrong" in their judgment of a
book, wrote Gibbon in his Autobiography,[55] and, if that be true at the
time of actual publication to which Gibbon intended to apply the remark,
how much truer it is in the long run of years. "The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire" has had a life of over one hundred and thirty years,
and there is no indication that it will not endure as long as any
interest is taken in the study of history. "I have never presumed to
accept a place in the triumvirate of British historians," said Gibbon,
referring to Hume and Robertson. But in our day Hume and Robertson
gather dust on the shelf, while Gibbon is continually studied by
students and read by serious men.

A work covering Gibbon's vast range of time would have been impossible
for Thucydides or Tacitus. Historical skepticism had not been fully
enough developed. There had not been a sufficient sifting and criticism
of historical materials for a master's work of synthesis. And it is
probable that Thucydides lacked a model. Tacitus could indeed have drawn
inspiration from the Greek, while Gibbon had lessons from both, showing
a profound study of Tacitus and a thorough acquaintance with Thucydides.

If circumstances then made it impossible for the Greek or the Roman to
attempt history on the grand scale of Gibbon, could Gibbon have written
contemporary history with accuracy and impartiality equal to his great
predecessors? This is one of those delightful questions that may be ever
discussed and never resolved. When twenty-three years old, arguing
against the desire of his father that he should go into Parliament,
Gibbon assigned, as one of the reasons, that he lacked "necessary
prejudices of party and of nation";[56] and when in middle life he
embraced the fortunate opportunity of becoming a member of the House of
Commons, he thus summed up his experience, "The eight sessions that I
sat in Parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most
essential virtue of an historian."[57] At the end of this political
career, Gibbon, in a private letter to