No modern historian has been the subject of so much critical comment as Gibbon. I do not know how it will compare in volume with either of the similar examinations of Thucydides and Tacitus; but the criticism is of a different sort. The only guarantee of the honesty of Tacitus, wrote Sainte-Beuve, is Tacitus himself;[69] and a like remark will apply to Thucydides. But a fierce light beats on Gibbon. His voluminous notes furnish the critics the materials on which he built his history, which, in the case of the ancient historians, must be largely a matter of conjecture. With all the searching examination of “The Decline and Fall,” it is surprising how few errors have been found and, of the errors which have been noted, how few are really important. Guizot, Milman, Dr. Smith, Cotter Morison, Bury, and a number of lesser lights have raked his text and his notes with few momentous results. We have, writes Bury, improved methods over Gibbon and “much new material of various kinds,” but “Gibbon’s historical sense kept him constantly right in dealing with his sources”; [p129] and “in the main things he is still our master.”[70] The man is generally reflected in his book. That Gibbon has been weighed and not found wanting is because he was as honest and truthful as any man who ever wrote history. The autobiographies and letters exhibit to us a transparent man, which indeed some of the personal allusions in the history might have foreshadowed. “I have often fluctuated and shall tamely follow the Colbert Ms.,” he wrote, where the authenticity of a book was in question.[71] In another case “the scarcity of facts and the uncertainty of dates” opposed his attempt to describe the first invasion of Italy by Alaric.[72] In the beginning of the famous Chapter XLIV which is “admired by jurists as a brief and brilliant exposition of the principles of Roman law,”[73] Gibbon wrote, “Attached to no party, interested only for the truth and candor of history, and directed by the most temperate and skillful guides, I enter with just diffidence on the subject of civil law.”[74] In speaking of the state of Britain between 409 and 449, he said, “I owe it to myself and to historic truth to declare that some circumstances in this paragraph are founded only on conjecture and analogy.”[75] Throughout his whole work the scarcity of materials forces Gibbon to the frequent use of conjecture, but I believe that for the most part his conjectures seem reasonable to the critics. Impressed with the correctness of his account of the Eastern empire a student of the subject once told me that Gibbon certainly possessed the power of wise divination.
Gibbon’s striving after precision and accuracy is shown in some marginal corrections he made in his own printed copy of “The Decline and Fall.” On the first page in his first [p130] printed edition and as it now stands, he said, “To deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall: a revolution which will ever be remembered and is still felt by the nations of the earth.” For this the following is substituted: “To prosecute the decline and fall of the empire of Rome: of whose language, religion, and laws the impression will be long preserved in our own and the neighboring countries of Europe.” He thus explains the change: “Mr. Hume told me that, in correcting his history, he always labored to reduce superlatives and soften positives. Have Asia and Africa, from Japan to Morocco, any feeling or memory of the Roman Empire?”
On page 6, Bury’s edition, the text is, “The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan.” We can imagine that Gibbon reflected, What evidence have I that Trajan had read these poets and historians? Therefore he made this change: “Late generations and far distant climates may impute their calamities to the immortal author of the Iliad. The spirit of Alexander was inflamed by the praises of Achilles; and succeeding heroes have been ambitious to tread in the footsteps of Alexander. Like him, the Emperor Trajan aspired to the conquest of the East.”[76]
The “advertisement” to the first octavo edition published in 1783 is an instance of Gibbon’s truthfulness. He wrote, “Some alterations and improvements had presented themselves to my mind, but I was unwilling to injure or offend the purchasers of the preceding editions.” Then he seems to reflect that this is not quite the whole truth and adds, “Perhaps I may stand excused if, amidst the avocations of a busy winter, I have preferred the pleasures of [p131] composition and study to the minute diligence of revising a former publication.”[77]
The severest criticism that Gibbon has received is on his famous chapters XV and XVI which conclude his first volume in the original quarto edition of 1776. We may disregard the flood of contemporary criticism from certain people who were excited by what they deemed an attack on the Christian religion. Dean Milman, who objected seriously to much in these chapters, consulted these various answers to Gibbon on the first appearance of his work with, according to his own confession, little profit.[78] “Against his celebrated fifteenth and sixteenth chapters,” wrote Buckle, “all the devices of controversy have been exhausted; but the only result has been, that while the fame of the historian is untarnished, the attacks of his enemies are falling into complete oblivion. The work of Gibbon remains; but who is there who feels any interest in what was written against him?”[79] During the last generation, however, criticism has taken another form and scientific men now do not exactly share Buckle’s gleeful opinion. Both Bury and Cotter Morison state or imply that well-grounded exceptions may be taken to Gibbon’s treatment of the early Christian church. He ignored some facts; his combination of others, his inferences, his opinions are not fair and unprejudiced. A further grave objection may be made to the tone of these two chapters: sarcasm pervades them and the Gibbon sneer has become an apt characterization.
Francis Parkman admitted that he was a reverent agnostic, and if Gibbon had been a reverent free-thinker these two chapters would have been far different in tone. Lecky [p132] regarded the Christian church as a great institution worthy of reverence and respect although he stated the central thesis of Gibbon with emphasis just as great. Of the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, Lecky wrote, “it may be boldly asserted that the assumption of a moral or intellectual miracle is utterly gratuitous. Never before was a religious transformation so manifestly inevitable.”[80] Gibbon’s sneering tone was a characteristic of his time. There existed during the latter part of the eighteenth century, wrote Sir James Mackintosh, “an unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity against Christianity.” But Gibbon’s private defense is entitled to consideration as placing him in a better light. “The primitive church, which I have treated with some freedom,” he wrote to Lord Sheffield in 1791, “was itself at that time an innovation, and I was attached to the old Pagan establishment.”[81] “Had I believed,” he said in his Autobiography, “that the majority of English readers were so fondly attached to the name and shadow of Christianity, had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might perhaps have softened the two invidious chapters.”[82]
On the other hand Gibbon’s treatment of Julian the Apostate is in accordance with the best modern standard. It might have been supposed that a quasi-Pagan, as he avowed himself, would have emphasized Julian’s virtues and ignored his weaknesses as did Voltaire, who invested him with all the good qualities of Trajan, Cato, and Julius Cæsar, without their defects.[83] Robertson indeed feared that he might fail in this part of the history;[84] but Gibbon weighed Julian in the balance, duly estimating his strength and his [p133] weakness, with the result that he has given a clear and just account in his best and most dignified style.[85]
Gibbon’s treatment of Theodora, the wife of Justinian, is certainly open to objection. Without proper sifting and a reasonable skepticism, he has incorporated into his narrative the questionable account with all its salacious details which Procopius gives in his Secret History, Gibbon’s love of a scandalous tale getting the better of his historical criticism. He has not neglected to urge a defense. “I am justified,” he wrote, “in painting the manners of the times; the vices of Theodora form an essential feature in the reign and character of Justinian…. My English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a learned language.”[86] This explanation satisfies neither Cotter Morison nor Bury, nor would it hold for a moment as a justification of a historian of our own day. Gibbon is really so scientific, so much like a late nineteenth-century man, that we do right to subject him to our present-day rigid tests.
There has been much discussion about Gibbon’s style, which we all know is pompous and Latinized. On a long reading his rounded and sonorous periods become wearisome, and one wishes that occasionally a sentence would terminate with a small word, even a preposition. One feels as did Dickens after walking for an hour or two about the handsome but “distractingly regular” city of Philadelphia. “I felt,” he wrote, “that I would have given the world for a crooked street.”[87] Despite the pomposity, Gibbon’s style is correct, and the exact use of words is a marvel. It is rare, I think, that any substitution or change of words will improve upon the precision of the text. His [p134] compression and selection of salient points are remarkable. Amid some commonplace philosophy he frequently rises to a generalization as brilliant as it is truthful. Then, too, one is impressed with the dignity of history; one feels that Gibbon looked upon his work as very serious, and thought with Thucydides, “My history is an everlasting possession, not a prize composition which is heard and forgotten.”
To a writer of history few things are more interesting than a great historian’s autobiographical remarks which relate to the composition of his work. “Had I been more indigent or more wealthy,” wrote Gibbon in his Autobiography, “I should not have possessed the leisure or the perseverance to prepare and execute my voluminous history.”[88] “Notwithstanding the hurry of business and pleasure,” he wrote from London in 1778, “I steal some moments for the Roman Empire.”[89] Between the writing of the first three and the last three volumes, he took a rest of “near a twelvemonth” and gave expression to a thought which may be echoed by every studious writer, “Yet in the luxury of freedom, I began to wish for the daily task, the active pursuit which gave a value to every book and an object to every inquiry.”[90] Every one who has written a historical book will sympathize with the following expression of personal experience as he approached the completion of “The Decline and Fall”: “Let no man who builds a house or writes a book presume to say when he will have finished. When he imagines that he is drawing near to his journey’s end, Alps rise on Alps, and he continually finds something to add and something to correct.”[91]