ht have excited more gratitude in
Gibbon than it did. From Constantine to Augustulus Gibbon is able to
put forth all his strength. His style is less superfine, as his matter
becomes more copious; and the more definite cleavage of events brought
about by the separation between the Eastern and Western Empires,
enables him to display the higher qualities which marked him as an
historian.

The merit of his work, it is again necessary to point out, will not be
justly estimated unless the considerations suggested at the beginning
of this chapter be kept in view. We have to remember that his culture
was chiefly French, and that his opinions were those which prevailed
in France in the latter half of the eighteenth century. He was the
friend of Voltaire, Helvetius, and D'Holbach; that is, of men who
regarded the past as one long nightmare of crime, imposture, and
folly, instigated by the selfish machinations of kings and priests. A
strong infusion of the spirit which animated not only Voltaire's
_Essay on Manners_, but certain parts of Hume's _History of England_
might have been expected as a matter of course. It is essentially
absent. Gibbon's private opinions may have been what they will, but he
has approved his high title to the character of an historian by
keeping them well in abeyance. When he turned his eyes to the past and
viewed it with intense gaze, he was absorbed in the spectacle, his
peculiar prejudices were hushed, he thought only of the object before
him and of reproducing it as well as he could. This is not the common
opinion, but, nevertheless, a great deal can be said to support it.

It will be as well to take two concrete tests--his treatment of two
topics which of all others were most likely to betray him into
deviations from historic candour. If he stands these, he may be
admitted to stand any less severe. Let them be his account of Julian,
and his method of dealing with Christianity.

The snare that was spread by Julian's apostasy for the philosophers of
the last century, and their haste to fall into it, are well known.
The spectacle of a philosopher on the throne who proclaimed
toleration, and contempt for Christianity, was too tempting and too
useful controversially to allow of much circumspection in handling it.
The odious comparisons it offered were so exactly what was wanted for
depreciating the Most Christian king and his courtly Church, that all
further inquiry into the apostate's merits seemed use