redible despatch the walls and ditches of the city.
His liberality encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the
mariners, and the citizens vied with each other in the
salutary labour; and Gelimer, who had feared to trust his
person in an open town, beheld with astonishment and
despair the rising strength of an impregnable fortress."

But we have hardly finished admiring the brilliant picture of the
conquest of Africa and Italy, before Gibbon gives us further proofs of
his many-sided culture and catholicity of mind. His famous chapter on
the Roman law has been accepted by the most fastidious experts of an
esoteric science as a masterpiece of knowledge, condensation, and
lucidity. It has actually been received as a textbook in some of the
continental universities, published separately with notes and
illustrations. When we consider the neglect of Roman jurisprudence in
England till quite recent times, and its severe study on the
Continent, we shall better appreciate the mental grasp and vigour
which enabled an unprofessional Englishman in the last century to
produce such a dissertation. A little further on (chapter forty-seven)
the history of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and the controversies
that sprang up around it, are discussed with a subtlety worthy of a
scientific theologian. It is perhaps the first attempt towards a
philosophical history of dogma, less patient and minute than the works
of the specialists of modern Germany on the same subject, but for
spirit, clearness, and breadth it is superior to those profound but
somewhat barbarous writers. The flexibility of intellect which can do
justice in quick succession to such diverse subjects is very
extraordinary, and assuredly implies great width of sympathy and large
receptivity of nature.

Having terminated the period of Justinian, Gibbon makes a halt, and
surveys the varied and immense scene through which he will presently
pass in many directions. He rapidly discovers _ten_ main lines, along
which he will advance in succession to his final goal, the conquest
of Constantinople. The two pages at the commencement of the
forty-eighth chapter, in which he sketches out the remainder of his
plan and indicates the topics which he means to treat, are admirable
as a luminous _precis_, and for the powerful grasp which they show of
his immense subject. It lay spread out all before him, visible in
every part to his penetrating eye, and he seems to rej