usually are.
In the breaking up of old modes of belief, as Mill has said, "the most
strong-minded and discerning, next to those who head the movement, are
generally those who bring up the rear." The energy of his mind and
character was quite exceptional, and if we reflect that he only
reigned sixteen months, and died in his thirty-second year, we must
admit that the mark he has left in history is very surprising. He and
his policy are now discussed with entire calm by inquirers of all
schools, and sincere Christians like Neander and Dean Milman are as
little disposed to attack him with acrimony, as those of a different
way of thought are inclined to make him a subject of unlimited
panegyric.

Through this difficult subject Gibbon has found his way with a
prudence and true insight which extorted admiration, even in his own
day. His account of Julian is essentially a modern account. The
influence of his private opinions can hardly be traced in the
brilliant chapters that he has devoted to the Apostate. He sees
through Julian's weaknesses in a way in which Voltaire never saw or
cared to see. His pitiful superstition, his huge vanity, his weak
affectation are brought out with an incisive clearness and subtle
penetration into character which Gibbon was not always so ready to
display. At the same time he does full justice to Julian's real
merits. And this is perhaps the most striking evidence of his
penetration. An error on the side of injustice to Julian is very
natural in a man who, having renounced allegiance to Christianity, yet
fully realises the futility of attempting to arrest it in the fourth
century. A certain intellectual disdain for the reactionary emperor is
difficult to avoid. Gibbon surmounts it completely, and he does so,
not in consequence of a general conception of the reactionary spirit,
as a constantly emerging element in society, but by sheer historical
insight, clear vision of the fact before him. It may be added that
nowhere is Gibbon's command of vivid narrative seen to greater
advantage than in the chapters that he has devoted to Julian. The
daring march from Gaul to Illyricum is told with immense spirit; but
the account of Julian's final campaign and death in Persia is still
better, and can hardly be surpassed. It has every merit of clearness
and rapidity, yet is full of dignity, which culminates in this fine
passage referring to the night before the emperor received his mortal
wound.

"While