far too little, to that side of events which
does not strike the visual sense. He rarely generalises or sums up a
widely-scattered mass of facts into pregnant synthetic views. But
possibly he owes some of the permanence of his fame to this very
defect. As soon as ever a writer begins to support a thesis, to prove
a point, he runs imminent danger of one-sidedness and partiality in
his presentation of events. Gibbon's faithful transcript of the past
has neither the merit nor the drawback of generalisation, and he has
come in consequence to be regarded as a common mine of authentic facts
to which all speculators can resort.

The first volume, which was received with such warm acclamation, is
inferior to those that followed. He seems to have been partly aware of
this himself, and speaks of the "concise and superficial narrative
from Commodus to Alexander." But the whole volume lacks the grasp and
easy mastery which distinguish its successors. No doubt the
subject-matter was comparatively meagre and ungrateful. The century
between Commodus and Diocletian was one long spasm of anarchy and
violence, which was, as Niebuhr said, incapable of historical
treatment. The obscure confusion of the age is aggravated into almost
complete darkness by the wretched materials which alone have survived,
and the attempt to found a dignified narrative on such scanty and
imperfect authorities was hardly wise. Gibbon would have shown a
greater sense of historic proportion if he had passed over this period
with a few bold strokes, and summed up with brevity such general
results as may be fairly deduced. We may say of the first volume that
it was tentative in every way. In it the author not only sounded his
public, but he was also trying his instrument, running over the keys
in preparatory search for the right note. He strikes it full and clear
in the two final chapters on the Early Church; these, whatever
objections may be made against them on other grounds, are the real
commencement of the Decline and Fall.

From this point onwards he marches with the steady and measured tramp
of a Roman legion. His materials improve both in number and quality.
The fourth century, though a period of frightful anarchy and disaster
if compared to a settled epoch, is a period of relative peace and
order when compared to the third century. The fifth was calamitous
beyond example; but ecclesiastical history comes to the support of
secular history in a way which mig