n), which now peopled the banks of the Po. In the
court of Duke Borso and his successor, Boyardo Count
Scandiano, was respected as a noble, a soldier, and a
scholar: his vigorous fancy first celebrated the loves and
exploits of the paladin Orlando; and his fame has been
preserved and eclipsed by the brighter glories and
continuation of his work. Ferrara may boast that on classic
ground Ariosto and Tasso lived and sung; that the lines of
the _Orlando Furioso_, the _Gierusalemme Liberata_ were
inscribed in everlasting characters under the eye of the
First and Second Alphonso. In a period of near three
thousand years, five great epic poets have arisen in the
world, and it is a singular prerogative that two of the five
should be claimed as their own by a short age and a petty
state."

It perhaps will be admitted that if the style of these passages is
less elaborate than that of the _Decline and Fall_, the deficiency, if
it is one, is compensated by greater ease and lightness of touch.

It may be interesting to give a specimen of Gibbon's French style. His
command of that language was not inferior to his command of his native
idiom. One might even be inclined to say that his French prose is
controlled by a purer taste than his English prose. The following
excerpt, describing the Battle of Morgarten, will enable the reader to
judge. It is taken from his early unfinished work on the History of
the Swiss Republic, to which reference has already been made (p.
59):--

"Leopold etait parti de Zug vers le milieu de la nuit. Il se
flattait d'occuper sans resistance le defile de Morgarten
qui ne percait qu'avec difficulte entre le lac Aegre et le
pied d'une montagne escarpee. Il marchait a la tete de sa
gendarmerie. Une colonne profonde d'infanterie le suivait de
pres, et les uns et les autres se promettaient une victoire
facile si les paysans osaient se presenter a leur rencontre.
Ils etaient a peine entres dans un chemin rude et etroit, et
qui ne permettait qu'a trois ou quatre de marcher de front,
qu'ils se sentirent accables d'une grele de pierres et de
traits. Rodolphe de Reding, landamman de Schwitz et general
des Confederes, n'avait oublie aucun des avantages que lui
offrit la situation des lieux. Il avait fait couper des
rochers enormes, qui en s'ebranlant des qu'on retirait les