ascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of the
historian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of his
work, in which the boundless range, the infinite variety, the, at
first sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate parts,
nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominant
idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the manner
in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to
their moral or political connection; the distinctness with which
he marks his periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill
with which, though advancing on separate parallels of history, he
shows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religious
or civil innovations. However these principles of composition
may demand more than ordinary attention on the part of the
reader, they can alone impress upon the memory the real course,
and the relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly
appreciate the superiority of Gibbon's lucid arrangement, should
attempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals
of Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau.
Both these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological
order; the consequence is, that we are twenty times called upon
to break off, and resume the thread of six or eight wars in
different parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of a
military expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a
siege to a council; and the same page places us in the middle of
a campaign against the barbarians, and in the depths of the
Monophysite controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear
in mind the exact dates but the course of events is ever clear
and distinct; like a skilful general, though his troops advance
from the most remote and opposite quarters, they are constantly