“Yet, upon the whole, the HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL seems to have struck root, both at home and abroad, and may, perhaps, a hundred years hence still continue to be abused.” So Gibbon wrote in the calm confidence of immortality¹; and let us confirm him in his own opinion of his book by showing, in the first place, that it has one quality of permanence — it still excites abuse. Few people can read the whole of the DECLINE AND FALL without admitting that some chapters have glided² away without leaving a trace; that many pages are no more than a concussion³ of sonorous⁴ sounds; and that innumerable figures have passed across the stage without printing even their names upon our memories. We seem, for hours on end, mounted on a celestial⁵ rocking-horse which, as it gently sways up and down, remains⁶ rooted to a single spot. In the soporific idleness thus induced we recall with regret the vivid partisanship⁷ of Macaulay, the fitful and violent poetry of Carlyle. We suspect that the vast fame with which the great historian is surrounded is one of those vague diffusions of acquiescence⁹ which gather when people are too busy, too lazy or too timid to see things for themselves. And to justify¹⁰ this suspicion it is easy to gather pomposities of diction — the Church has become “the sacred edifice¹¹”; and sentences so stereotyped¹² that they chime like bells —“destroyed the confidence” must be followed by “and excited the resentment”; while characters are daubed in with single

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