cafms, of infidels; but we regret it for the fake of Mr. Gibbon, and for the fake of his friends, who may be fwayed by his example, and biaffed by his authority; and we lament that, in a work which in other parts breathes the liberal and manly fpirit of Greece and Rome, the Author fhould defcend to employ against the religion of his country, and its profeffors, the ob lique and infidious artifices of the Gallic fchool, and of Voltaire, its fuperficial mafter. In one paffage, he hints, difrefpectfully, that Chriftianity is the only religion in which the God is the victim;' in another he invidioufly remarks, that the God of Mahomet reigned without an equal, and without a fon!' and in a third, laying afide the mask, ne boldy arraigns the whole body of the clergy:

The influence of two fifter prostitutes, Marozia and Theodora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political and amorous intrigues: the most strenuous of their lovers were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign may have fuggefted to the darker ages the fable of a female pope. The baftard fon, the grandfon and the great-grandfon of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were feated in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen years that the fecond of thefe became the head of the Latin church. His youth and manhood were of a fuitable complexion; and the nations of pilgrims could bear teftimony to the charges that were urged against him in a Roman fynod, and in the prefence of Otho the great. As John XII. had renounced the dress and decencies of his profeffion, the foldier may not perhaps be dishonoured by the wine which he drank, the blood that he fpilt, the flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming and hunting. His open fimony might be the confequence of diftrefs: and his blafphemous invocation of Jupiter and Venus, if it be true, could not poffibly be ferious. But we read with fome furprife, that the worthy grandfon of Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome; that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for proftitution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred the female pilgrims from vifiting the tomb of St. Peter, left, in the devout act, they fhould be vioThe proteftants have dwelt with malicious lated by his fucceffor. pleasure on these characters of anti-chrift; but to a philofophic eye, the vices of the clergy are far lefs dangerous than their virtues.' This paffage, which puts us in mind of the verse in Cato,

"Curfe on his virtues, they've undone his country," betrays the genuine fentiments of Mr. G. which he most commonly endeavours to conceal, under a thin difguife of hypocritical respect. Yet, in juftice to him, we must acknowlege that he feldom lofes an opportunity of extolling the amiable system of morality inculcated in the Gofpel.-Its purity is the frequent fubject of his panegyric; while, with the inconfiftency natural to a man whose opinions are warped by authors far inferior to himself in learning, he too often difgraces his page with ludicrous and obfcene notes. In the tranflations of the paffages

which

which he cites, or to which he refers, Mr. Gibbon is fometimes biaffed by a more laudable partiality, than his antipathy to Revelation. Chalcondyles, in defcribing the countries and cities of the Weft in the year 1402, mentions London, Aovdivn. . . . προέχεσα των εν τη νησῳ ταυτη πασών πολέων, ολβῳ τε και τη αλλη ευδαιμονια εδεμιας των προς έσπέραν λειπομενη. viz. London, furpaffing all other cities in the island, is inferior in wealth and Splendor to no one city in the Weft; which Mr. G. paraphrases in the following words: In populoufnefs and power, in riches and luxury, London, the metropolis of the ifle, may claim a pre-eminence over all the cities of the Weft.'

Secondly, In the arrangement of his work, Mr. Gibbon has not always obferved the exact chronological order. According to Cicero's definition (De Orator. l. ii. c. 15.), he has confidered it as his duty not only to relate events, but to explain their caufes; and in explaining thofe caufes, he has been chiefly attentive to their mutual connection and dependence. For this reafon, there is fometimes an obfcurity in his narrative, which, for the most part, vanishes on a fecond perufal; and a learned reader will readily comprehend the difficulty of arranging, with lucid order, fuch a variety of matter, collected from fources the moft remote; and inftead of reproaching Mr. G. with obfcurities of this kind, which fometimes occur, will rather admire his dexterity in allowing them to occur fo feldom. On this fubject, we prefume to advife the reader to examine occafionally the contents of the feveral volumes, in which the transactions related in the work are stated with great brevity, and accurately diftinguished by their dates. By this method he will gain a clear and complete idea of the narrative, and be enabled to perceive the Author's reafons for deviating from the precife order of time, a minute attention to which has disfigured many valuable histories. In geography, which, as well as chronology, has been called the eye of hiftory, but which is often dim, or otherwise defective, Mr. G. is equally copious and accurate; and almost every page of his work is enlivened by the beauty of geographi cal description, in which he has few equals, and no fuperior. In this particular we have met with one, and but one confiderable error, which we fhall mention. At the mouth of the Adriatic gulf, the fhores of Italy and Epirus incline towards each other. The space between Brundufium and Durazzo, the Roman paffage, is no more than one hundred miles; at the laft ftation of Otranto, it is contracted to fifty; and this narrow diftance had fuggefted to Pyrrhus and Pompey the fublime or extravagant idea of a bridge. But we can affure Mr. G. and our Readers, that the distance, instead of fifty, is not thirty miles; a circumftance that must have occafioned a great difference indeed, in the conftruction of the projected bridge.

On

On the fubject of geography, we cannot omit recommending to the perufal of our Readers, Mr. Gibbon's admirable defcription of Arabia (vol. v. p. 170, & feqq.), in which, however, we difapprove the expreffions, The fides of the triangle are gradually enlarged; and, The entire furface of the peninfula exceeds in a four-fold proportion that of Germany or France.' For the first we would fubftitute these words; Toward the base, the furface of the triangle widens.' In the fecond paffage, the phraseology is uncouth, and the thought ambiguous; for the furface of Germany is confiderably larger than that of France, exceeding it precifely by one fixth; fo that if Germany be divided into fix equal parts, five of these parts will be exactly equal to the furface of France.

We now proceed, Thirdly, to confider the style of our Hiftorian; a fubject on which much has been faid, and much has been written, and concerning which each individual will decide according to the company that he keeps, and the books that he reads; and of which, therefore, fimilar judgments cannot be expected, fince the principles of judging are not the fame. To those who have confined their ftudies chiefly to their vernacular idiom, or who feldom carry their literary researches beyond the limits of the English tongue, Mr. Gibbon's compofition and imagery, though in general they will excite and captivate attention, muft often appear uncouth and affected, and fometimes prove obfcure and unintelligible. To thofe, on the other hand, whofe minds have been early invigorated by the converse of Greece and Rome, and whofe congenial feelings have led them to maintain an habitual intercourfe with their fift and beft inftructors, the elegant artifice of elaborate compofition, which perplexes fuperficial vanity, and bewilders vulgar ignorance, will appear with brighter and more alluring charms, when arrayed in an English garb. To fuch advantages should the critics add a familiar acquaintance with the more refined languages of modern Europe, and have culled the flowers of France, and imbibed the perfumes of Italy, they will be ftill more delighted with an author who pours from his horn of plenty the treasures of diftant ages, and remote countries; whose images are borrowed fometimes from the Gothic tournaments, and sometimes from the games of Greece; and whofe fancy has been ennobled by the fublimity of Homer, and enriched by the luxuriance of Ariofto.

It forms no inconfiderable prejudice in favour of Mr. Gibbon's ftyle, that it has fo long excited, and fo long detained, criticism. Had it poffeffed no other characteristic but that of fingularity, it must naturally, as soon as the first glofs of novelty was worn off, have been regarded with inattention, and its merits or defe&s must have gradually funk into oblivion. But

1

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on each fucceffive publication, the ftyle has been the perpetual, and ftill louder theme, and as highly extolled by his partizans, as decried by his detractors. For the fake, therefore, of those among our Readers who are lefs converfant in matters of philology, we fhall confider it more particularly under the twofold objection: 1. Artificial and pompous; 2. Óbfcure and incorrect.

That it is artificial, no one will deny, who knows that grammar is an art, that rhetoric is an art, and that compofition, particularly the hiftorical, is a very complicated art, requiring the knowlege of thefe, and many other requifites. But that Mr. Gibbon's ftyle is artificial in a degree beyond what the genius of the English language admits, is a pofition that we cannot allow. Though richer in its imagery, it is lefs intricate in its ftructure, than the compofition of Sir Walter Raleigh, and other writers of the age of Queen Elizabeth, which have been confidered, with fome propriety, as the ftandards of genuine English turn of fentiment and expreffion, with respect to compofitions of this kind. After that period (with fome exception in favour of Clarendon, the follower of Raleigh), an inundation of barbarisms overflowed the land; the jargon of foreign harlots, of fcribbling ladies, and of lords equally effeminate, formed the model for fervile imitation; and the dignity and purity of our tongue were alike profaned by the wits and Aatterers of a corrupt court. The genius of Dryden, which raised his head above the stream, was unable to ftem its force: the impetuous torrent carried him along; and while one part of his works do honour to the man, the far greater portion atteft the depraved tafte of the age.

The reign of Queen Anne was a continual conflict of parties. Ingenious men proftituted their talents to the service of faction, and employed their pens in tranfient and temporary compofition, which would have been speedily condemned to obfcurity, had they not furnished the arguments, and formed the language, of ftili fubfifting parties; arguments and language which have been re-echoed ever fince that reign, without addition and without improvement. Such a bufy and turbulent period, when letters, as an engine of policy, opened the road to preferment, was extremely unfavourable to the writers of hiftory, which, as Cicero (De Orator. 1. ii.) obferves, requires long, prepared, and uninterrupted leifure. The literary induftry of the times, when free from the purposes of party, evaporated in agreeable verfes and fprightly mifcellanies. Its higheft effort was the periodical effay, which being dignified by men of uncommon genius and diftinguifhed virtue, has been long regarded as the beft fpecimen of English purity. Yet the language, even of Addifon, is too feeble and familiar, and defcends too often into colloquial idioms, to be admitted as a model for any fpecies of hif tory, much lefs for that which, defcribing the revolutions of

the greatest empire of the world, afpires to emulate the majesty of the fubject in the loftinefs of its compofition. This was the noble ambition of the hiftorians of Greece and Rome, from the elegant Herodotus and the elaborate Thucydides, to the flowery Livy, and the ardent though fententious Tacitus. The generous flame, kindled in the free nations of antiquity, was caught by the republics of modern Italy; it has blazed forth in England during the prefent age; and, while the eye of philofophy was dim, and the wing of poetry flagged, the pen of history has maintained and increased the literary fame of our country.

That Mr. Gibbon's ftyle is often obfcure, and frequently incorrect, we allow; but it is in the fame fenfe, and for fimilar reasons, that the ftyle of Tacitus or Plato fometimes labours under thefe defects. A writer, ambitious always to please, muft fometimes offend; and the ungrateful reader forgets ten obligations, and remembers one difappointment. By an attentive obferver, Mr. G.'s obfcurity and incorrectness will be traced to two fources; I. His love of variety, which engages him, in order to avoid the frequent repetition of the fame names of perfons and of things, to employ too lavishly the figure called circumlocution. In the perplexity of doubt, the reader, we acknowlege, is fometimes tempted to exclaim with Swift, "I much prefer the plain Billingfgate way of calling names, which would fave much time that is loft, and prevent much obfcurity that is occafioned by round-about circumlocution." II. His ftudied attention to unvaried elegance, which has induced him frequently to employ turns of expreffion, which, however forcible, beautiful, and harmonious they may appear, are not fufficiently juftified by the practice of English claffics, nor fufficiently conformable to the genius, or rather the caprice, of the English language. For the fake fometimes of analogy, but more frequently of elevation or harmony, he rejects the common expreffion, which naturally prefented itself, and fubftitutes one more excellent perhaps, but lefs intelligible, because lefs familiar. Of thefe obfcurities and defects, which are numerous in so vaft a work, we forbear the invidious task of culling examples, which would be exaggerating deformity, and accumulating in a narrow span the widely-fcattered blemishes of fix ponderous quartos. For any useful purpose, it is fufficient to point out the fources whence these imperfections flow;-imperfections that, after all, but faintly disfigure a work, at which (though philofophers have approved it, and Europe admired it) collegians have fneered, and critics have fnarled, but which the ferious Chriftian alone is juftly entitled to treat with indignation.

ART.