ly
offended by a superfine diction lavished on barbarous chiefs and rough
soldiers of the Lower Empire, which almost reproduces the high-flown
rhetoric in which Corneille's and Racine's characters address each
other. Such phrases as the "majesty of the throne," "the dignity of
the purple," the "wisdom of the senate," recur with a rather jarring
monotony, especially when the rest of the narrative is designed to
show that there was no majesty nor dignity nor wisdom involved in the
matter. We feel that the writer was thinking more of his sonorous
sentence than of the real fact. On the other hand, nothing but a want
of candour or taste can lead any one to overlook the rare and great
excellences of Gibbon's style. First of all, it is singularly correct:
a rather common merit now, but not common in his day. But its
sustained vigour and loftiness will always be uncommon; above all its
rapidity and masculine length of stride are quite admirable. When he
takes up his pen to describe a campaign, or any great historic scene,
we feel that we shall have something worthy of the occasion, that we
shall be carried swiftly and grandly through it all, without the
suspicion of a breakdown of any kind being possible. An indefinable
stamp of weightiness is impressed on Gibbon's writing; he has a
baritone manliness which banishes everything small, trivial, or weak.
When he is eloquent (and it should be remembered to his credit that he
never affects eloquence, though he occasionally affects dignity), he
rises without effort into real grandeur. On the whole we may say that
his manner, with certain manifest faults, is not unworthy of his
matter, and the praise is great.

It is not quite easy to give expression to another feeling which is
often excited in reading Gibbon. It is somewhat of this kind, that it
is more fitted to inspire admiration than love or sympathy. Its merits
are so great, the mass of information it contains is so stupendous,
that all competent judges of such work feel bound to praise it.
Whether they like it in the same degree, may be questioned. Among
reading men and educated persons it is not common--such is my
experience--to meet with people who know their Gibbon well. Superior
women do not seem to take to him kindly, even when there is no
impediment on religious grounds. Madame du Deffand, writing to
Walpole, says, "I whisper it to you, but I am not pleased with Mr.
Gibbon's work. It is declamatory, oratorical.... I lay i