THE LAST THREE VOLUMES OF THE DECLINE AND FALL.
The thousand years between the fifth and the fifteenth century
comprise the middle age, a period which only recently, through utterly
inadequate conceptions of social growth, was wont to be called the
dark ages. That long epoch of travail and growth, during which the old
field of civilisation was broken up and sown afresh with new and
various seed unknown to antiquity, receives now on all hands due
recognition, as being one of the most rich, fertile, and interesting
in the history of man. The all-embracing despotism of Rome was
replaced by the endless local divisions and subdivisions of feudal
tenure. The multiform rites and beliefs of polytheism were replaced by
the single faith and paramount authority of the Catholic Church. The
philosophies of Greece were dethroned, and the scholastic theology
reigned in their stead. The classic tongues crumbled away, and out of
their _débris_ arose the modern idioms of France, Italy, and Spain, to
which were added in Northern Europe the new forms of Teutonic speech.
The fine and useful arts took a new departure; slavery was mitigated
into serfdom; industry and commerce became powers in the world as they
had never been before; the narrow municipal polity of the old world
was in time succeeded by the broader national institutions based on
various forms of representation. Gunpowder, America, and the art of
printing were discovered, and the most civilised portion of mankind
passed insensibly into the modern era.
Such was the wide expanse which spread out before Gibbon when he
resolved to continue his work from the fall of the Western Empire to
the capture of Constantinople. Indeed his glance took in a still wider
field, as he was concerned as much with the decay of Eastern as of
Western Rome, and the long-retarded fall of the former demanded large
attention to the Oriental populations who assaulted the city and
remaining empire of Constantine. So bold an historic enterprise was
never conceived as when, standing on the limit of antiquity in the
fifth century, he determined to pursue in rapid but not hasty survey
the great lines of events for a thousand years, to follow in detail
the really great transactions while discarding the less important,
thereby giving prominence and clearness to what is memorable, and
reproducing on a small scale the flow of time through the ages. It is
to this portion of Gibbon's work that the happy comparison has been
made, that it resembles a magnificent Roman aqueduct spanning over the
chasm which separates the ancient from the modern world. In these
latter volumes he frees himself from the trammels of regular
annalistic narrative, deals with events in broad masses according to
their importance, expanding or contracting his story as occasion
requires; now painting in large panoramic view the events of a few
years, now compressing centuries into brief outline. Many of his
massive chapters afford materials for volumes, and are well worthy of
a fuller treatment than he could give without deranging his plan. But
works of greater detail and narrower compass can never compete with
Gibbon's history, any more than a county map can compete with a map of
England or of Europe.
The variety of the contents of these last three volumes is amazing,
especially when the thoroughness and perfection of the workmanship are
considered. Prolix compilations or sketchy outlines of universal
history have their use and place, but they are removed by many degrees
from the _Decline and Fall_, or rather they belong to another species
of authorship. It is not only that Gibbon combines width and depth,
that the extent of his learning is as wonderful as its accuracy,
though in this respect he has hardly a full rival in literature. The
quality which places him not only in the first rank of historians, but
in a class by himself, and makes him greater than the greatest, lies
in his supreme power of moulding into lucid and coherent unity, the
manifold and rebellious mass of his multitudinous materials, of
coercing his divergent topics into such order that they seem
spontaneously to grow like branches out of one stem, clear and visible
to the mind. There is something truly epic in these latter volumes.
Tribes, nations, and empires are the characters; one after another
they come forth like Homeric heroes, and do their mighty deeds before
the assembled armies. The grand and lofty chapters on Justinian; on
the Arabs; on the Crusades, have a rounded completeness, coupled with
such artistic subordination to the main action, that they read more
like cantos of a great prose poem than the ordinary staple of
historical composition. It may well be questioned whether there is
another instance of such high literary form and finish, coupled with
such vast erudition. And two considerations have to be borne in mind,
which heighten Gibbon's merit in this respect. (1.) Almost the whole
of his subject had been as yet untouched by any preceding writer of
eminence, and he had no stimulus or example from his precursors. He
united thus in himself the two characters of pioneer and artist. (2.)
The barbarous and imperfect nature of the materials with which he
chiefly had to work,--dull inferior writers, whose debased style was
their least defect. A historian who has for his authorities masters of
reason and language such as Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, and Tacitus
is borne up by their genius; apt quotation and translation alone
suffice to produce considerable effects; or in the case of subjects
taken from modern times, weighty state papers, eloquent debates, or
finished memoirs supply ample materials for graphic narrative. But
Gibbon had little but dross to deal with. Yet he has smelted and cast
it into the grand shapes we see.
The fourth volume is nearly confined to the reign, or rather epoch, of
Justinian,--a magnificent subject, which he has painted in his
loftiest style of gorgeous narrative. The campaigns of Belisarius and
Narses are related with a clearness and vigour that make us feel that
Gibbon's merits as a military historian have not been quite
sufficiently recognised. He had from the time of his service in the
militia taken continued interest in tactics and all that was connected
with the military art. It was no idle boast when he said that the
captain of the Hampshire grenadiers had not been useless to the
historian of the Roman empire. Military matters perhaps occupy a
somewhat excessive space in his pages. Still, if the operations of
war are to be related, it is highly important that they should be
treated with intelligence, and knowledge how masses of men are moved,
and by a writer to whom the various incidents of the camp, the march,
and the bivouac, are not matters of mere hearsay, but of personal
experience. The campaign of Belisarius in Africa may be quoted as an
example.
"In the seventh year of the reign of Justinian, and about
the time of the summer solstice, the whole fleet of six
hundred ships was ranged in martial pomp before the gardens
of the palace. The patriarch pronounced his benediction, the
emperor signified his last commands, the general's trumpet
gave the signal of departure, and every heart, according to
its fears or wishes, explored with anxious curiosity the
omens of misfortune or success. The first halt was made at
Perintheus, or Heraclea, where Belisarius waited five days
to receive some Thracian horses, a military gift of his
sovereign. From thence the fleet pursued their course
through the midst of the Propontis; but as they struggled to
pass the straits of the Hellespont, an unfavourable wind
detained them four days at Abydos, where the general
exhibited a remarkable lesson of firmness and severity. Two
of the Huns who, in a drunken quarrel, had slain one of
their fellow-soldiers, were instantly shown to the army
suspended on a lofty gibbet. The national dignity was
resented by their countrymen, who disclaimed the servile
laws of the empire and asserted the free privileges of
Scythia, where a small fine was allowed to expiate the
sallies of intemperance and anger. Their complaints were
specious, their clamours were loud, and the Romans were not
averse to the example of disorder and impunity. But the
rising sedition was appeased by the authority and eloquence
of the general, and he represented to the assembled troops
the obligation of justice, the importance of discipline, the
rewards of piety and virtue, and the unpardonable guilt of
murder, which, in his apprehension, was aggravated rather
than excused by the vice of intoxication. In the navigation
from the Hellespont to the Peloponnesus, which the Greeks
after the siege of Troy had performed in four days, the
fleet of Belisarius was guided in their course by his
master-galley, conspicuous in the day by the redness of the
sails, and in the night by torches blazing from the
masthead. It was the duty of the pilots as they steered
between the islands and turned the capes of Malea and
Tænarium to preserve the just order and regular intervals of
such a multitude. As the wind was fair and moderate, their
labours were not unsuccessful, and the troops were safely
disembarked at Methone, on the Messenian coast, to repose
themselves for a while after the fatigues of the sea....
From the port of Methone the pilots steered along the
western coast of Peloponnesus, as far as the island of
Zacynthus, or Zante, before they undertook the voyage (in
their eyes a most arduous voyage) of one hundred leagues
over the Ionian sea. As the fleet was surprised by a calm,
sixteen days were consumed in the slow navigation.... At
length the harbour of Caucana, on the southern side of
Sicily, afforded a secure and hospitable shelter....
Belisarius determined to hasten his operations, and his wise
impatience was seconded by the winds. The fleet lost sight
of Sicily, passed before the island of Malta, discovered the
capes of Africa, ran along the coast with a strong gale from
the north-east, and finally cast anchor at the promontory of
Caput Vada, about five days journey to the south of
Carthage....
"Three months after their departure from Constantinople, the
men and the horses, the arms and the military stores were
safely disembarked, and five soldiers were left as a guard
on each of the ships, which were disposed in the form of a
semicircle. The remainder of the troops occupied a camp on
the seashore, which they fortified, according to ancient
discipline, with a ditch and rampart, and the discovery of a
source of fresh water, while it allayed the thirst, excited
the superstitious confidence of the Romans.... The small
town of Sullecte, one day's journey from the camp, had the
honour of being foremost to open her gates and resume her
ancient allegiance; the larger cities of Leptis and
Adrumetum imitated the example of loyalty as soon as
Belisarius appeared, and he advanced without opposition as
far as Grasse, a palace of the Vandal kings, at the distance
of fifty miles from Carthage. The weary Romans indulged
themselves in the refreshment of shady groves, cool
fountains, and delicious fruits.... In three generations
prosperity and a warm climate had dissolved the hardy virtue
of the Vandals, who insensibly became the most luxurious of
mankind. In their villas and gardens, which might deserve
the Persian name of Paradise, they enjoyed a cool and
elegant repose, and after the daily use of the bath, the
barbarians were seated at a table profusely spread with the
delicacies of the land and sea. Their silken robes, loosely
flowing after the fashion of the Medes, were embroidered
with gold, love and hunting were the labours of their life,
and their vacant hours were amused by pantomimes,
chariot-races, and the music and dances of the theatre.
"In a march of twelve days the vigilance of Belisarius was
constantly awake and active against his unseen enemies, by
whom in every place and at every hour he might be suddenly
attacked. An officer of confidence and merit, John the
Armenian, led the vanguard of three hundred horse. Six
hundred Massagetæ covered at a certain distance the left
flank, and the whole fleet, steering along the coast, seldom
lost sight of the army, which moved each day about twelve
miles, and lodged in the evening in strong camps or in
friendly towns. The near approach of the Romans to Carthage
filled the mind of Gelimer with anxiety and terror....
"Yet the authority and promises of Gelimer collected a
formidable army, and his plans were concerted with some
degree of military skill. An order was despatched to his
brother Ammatas to collect all the forces of Carthage, and
to encounter the van of the Roman army at the distance of
ten miles from the city: his nephew Gibamund with two
thousand horse was destined to attack their left, when the
monarch himself, who silently followed, should charge their
rear in a situation which excluded them from the aid and
even the view of their fleet. But the rashness of Ammatas
was fatal to himself and his country. He anticipated the
hour of attack, outstripped his tardy followers, and was
pierced with a mortal wound, after he had slain with his own
hand twelve of his boldest antagonists. His Vandals fled to
Carthage: the highway, almost ten miles, was strewed with
dead bodies, and it seemed incredible that such multitudes
could be slaughtered by the swords of three hundred Romans.
The nephew of Gelimer was defeated after a slight combat by
the six hundred Massagetæ; they did not equal the third part
of his numbers, but each Scythian was fired by the example
of his chief, who gloriously exercised the privilege of his
family by riding foremost and alone to shoot the first arrow
against the enemy. In the meantime Gelimer himself, ignorant
of the event, and misguided by the windings of the hills,
inadvertently passed the Roman army and reached the scene of
action where Ammatas had fallen. He wept the fate of his
brother and of Carthage, charged with irresistible fury the
advancing squadrons, and might have pursued and perhaps
decided the victory, if he had not wasted those inestimable
moments in the discharge of a vain though pious duty to the
dead. While his spirit was broken by this mournful office,
he heard the trumpet of Belisarius, who, leaving Antonina
and his infantry in the camp, pressed forward with his
guards and the remainder of the cavalry to rally his flying
troops, and to restore the fortune of the day. Much room
could not be found in this disorderly battle for the talents
of a general; but the king fled before the hero, and the
Vandals, accustomed only to a Moorish enemy, were incapable
of withstanding the arms and the discipline of the
Romans....
"As soon as the tumult had subsided, the several parts of
the army informed each other of the accidents of the day,
and Belisarius pitched his camp on the field of victory, to
which the tenth milestone from Carthage had applied the
Latin appellation of _Decimus_. From a wise suspicion of the
stratagems and resources of the Vandals, he marched the next
day in the order of battle; halted in the evening before the
gates of Carthage, and allowed a night of repose, that he
might not, in darkness and disorder, expose the city to the
licence of the soldiers, or the soldiers themselves to the
secret ambush of the city. But as the fears of Belisarius
were the result of calm and intrepid reason, he was soon
satisfied that he might confide without danger in the
peaceful and friendly aspect of the capital. Carthage blazed
with innumerable torches, the signal of the public joy; the
chain was removed that guarded the entrance of the port, the
gates were thrown open, and the people with acclamations of
gratitude hailed and invited their Roman deliverers. The
defeat of the Vandals and the freedom of Africa were
announced to the city on the eve of St. Cyprian, when the
churches were already adorned and illuminated for the
festival of the martyr whom three centuries of superstition
had almost raised to a local deity.... One awful hour
reversed the fortunes of the contending parties. The
suppliant Vandals, who had so lately indulged the vices of
conquerors, sought an humble refuge in the sanctuary of the
church; while the merchants of the east were delivered from
the deepest dungeon of the palace by their affrighted
keeper, who implored the protection of his captives, and
showed them through an aperture in the wall the sails of the
Roman fleet. After their separation from the army, the naval
commanders had proceeded with slow caution along the coast,
till they reached the Hermæan promontory, and obtained the
first intelligence of the victory of Belisarius. Faithful to
his instructions, they would have cast anchor about twenty
miles from Carthage, if the more skilful had not represented
the perils of the shore and the signs of an impending
tempest. Still ignorant of the revolution, they declined
however the rash attempt of forcing the chain of the port,
and the adjacent harbour and suburb of Mandracium were
insulted only by the rapine of a private officer, who
disobeyed and deserted his leaders. But the imperial fleet,
advancing with a fair wind, steered through the narrow
entrance of the Goletta and occupied the deep and capacious
lake of Tunis, a secure station about five miles from the
capital. No sooner was Belisarius informed of the arrival
than he despatched orders that the greatest part of the
mariners should be immediately landed to join the triumph
and to swell the apparent numbers of the Romans. Before he
allowed them to enter the gates of Carthage he exhorted
them, in a discourse worthy of himself and the occasion, not
to disgrace the glory of their arms, and to remember that
the Vandals had been the tyrants, but that _they_ were the
deliverers of the Africans, who must now be respected as the
voluntary and affectionate subjects of their common
sovereign. The Romans marched through the street in close
ranks, prepared for battle if an enemy had appeared; the
strict order maintained by their general imprinted on their
minds the duty of obedience; and in an age in which custom
and impunity almost sanctified the abuse of conquest, the
genius of one man repressed the passions of a victorious
army. The voice of menace and complaint was silent, the
trade of Carthage was not interrupted; while Africa changed
her master and her government, the shops continued open and
busy; and the soldiers, after sufficient guards had been
posted, modestly departed to the houses which had been
allotted for their reception. Belisarius fixed his residence
in the palace, seated himself on the throne of Genseric,
accepted and distributed the barbaric spoil, granted their
lives to the suppliant Vandals, and laboured to restore the
damage which the suburb of Mandracium had sustained in the
preceding night. At supper he entertained his principal
officers with the form and magnificence of a royal banquet.
The victor was respectfully served by the captive officers
of the household, and in the moments of festivity, when the
impartial spectators applauded the fortune and merit of
Belisarius, his envious flatterers secretly shed their venom
on every word and gesture which might alarm the suspicions
of a jealous monarch. One day was given to these pompous
scenes, which may not be despised as useless if they
attracted the popular veneration; but the active mind of
Belisarius, which in the pride of victory could suppose
defeat, had already resolved that the Roman empire in Africa
should not depend on the chance of arms or the favour of the
people. The fortifications of Carthage had alone been
excepted from the general proscription; but in the reign of
ninety-five years they were suffered to decay by the
thoughtless and indolent Vandals. A wiser conqueror restored
with incredible despatch the walls and ditches of the city.
His liberality encouraged the workmen; the soldiers, the
mariners, and the citizens vied with each other in the
salutary labour; and Gelimer, who had feared to trust his
person in an open town, beheld with astonishment and
despair the rising strength of an impregnable fortress."
But we have hardly finished admiring the brilliant picture of the
conquest of Africa and Italy, before Gibbon gives us further proofs of
his many-sided culture and catholicity of mind. His famous chapter on
the Roman law has been accepted by the most fastidious experts of an
esoteric science as a masterpiece of knowledge, condensation, and
lucidity. It has actually been received as a textbook in some of the
continental universities, published separately with notes and
illustrations. When we consider the neglect of Roman jurisprudence in
England till quite recent times, and its severe study on the
Continent, we shall better appreciate the mental grasp and vigour
which enabled an unprofessional Englishman in the last century to
produce such a dissertation. A little further on (chapter forty-seven)
the history of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and the controversies
that sprang up around it, are discussed with a subtlety worthy of a
scientific theologian. It is perhaps the first attempt towards a
philosophical history of dogma, less patient and minute than the works
of the specialists of modern Germany on the same subject, but for
spirit, clearness, and breadth it is superior to those profound but
somewhat barbarous writers. The flexibility of intellect which can do
justice in quick succession to such diverse subjects is very
extraordinary, and assuredly implies great width of sympathy and large
receptivity of nature.
Having terminated the period of Justinian, Gibbon makes a halt, and
surveys the varied and immense scene through which he will presently
pass in many directions. He rapidly discovers _ten_ main lines, along
which he will advance in succession to his final goal, the conquest
of Constantinople. The two pages at the commencement of the
forty-eighth chapter, in which he sketches out the remainder of his
plan and indicates the topics which he means to treat, are admirable
as a luminous _précis_, and for the powerful grasp which they show of
his immense subject. It lay spread out all before him, visible in
every part to his penetrating eye, and he seems to rejoice in his
conscious strength and ability to undertake the historical conquest on
which he is about to set out. "Nor will this scope of narrative," he
says, "the riches and variety of these materials, be incompatible with
the unity of design and composition. As in his daily prayers the
Mussulman of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of
Mecca, the historian's eye will always be fixed on the city of
Constantinople." Then follows the catalogue of nations and empires
whose fortunes he means to sing. A grander vision, a more majestic
procession, never swept before the mind's eye of poet or historian.
And the practical execution is worthy of the initial inspiration.
After a rapid and condensed narrative of Byzantine history till the
end of the twelfth century, he takes up the brilliant theme of Mahomet
and his successors. A few pages on the climate and physical features
of Arabia fittingly introduce the subject. And it may be noted in
passing that Gibbon's attention to geography, and his skill and taste
for geographical description, are remarkable among his many gifts. He
was as diligent a student of maps and travels as of historical
records, and seems to have had a rare faculty of realising in
imagination scenes and countries of which he had only read. In three
chapters, glowing with oriental colour and rapid as a charge of Arab
horse, he tells the story of the prophet and the Saracen empire. Then
the Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Russians appear on the scene, to be
soon followed by the Normans, and their short but brilliant dominion
in Southern Italy. But now the Seljukian Turks are emerging from the
depths of Asia, taking the place of the degenerate Saracens, invading
the Eastern empire and conquering Jerusalem. The two waves of hostile
fanaticism soon meet in the Crusades. The piratical seizure of
Constantinople by the Latins brings in view the French and Venetians,
the family of Courtenay and its pleasant digression. Then comes the
slow agony of the restored Greek empire. Threatened by the Moguls, it
is invaded and dismembered by the Ottoman Turks. Constantinople seems
ready to fall into their hands. But the timely diversion of Tamerlane
produces a respite of half a century. Nothing can be more artistic
than Gibbon's management of his subject as he approaches its
termination. He, who is such a master of swift narrative, at this
point introduces artful pauses, _suspensions_ of the final
catastrophe, which heighten our interest in the fate which is hanging
over the city of Constantine. In 1425 the victorious Turks have
conquered all the Greek empire save the capital. Amurath II. besieged
it for two months, and was only prevented from taking it by a domestic
revolt in Asia Minor. At the end of his sixty-fifth chapter Gibbon
leaves Constantinople hanging on the brink of destruction, and paints
in glowing colours the military virtues of its deadly enemies, the
Ottomans. Then he interposes one of his most finished chapters, of
miscellaneous contents, but terminating in the grand and impressive
pages on the revival of learning in Italy. There we read of the
"curiosity and emulation of the Latins," of the zeal of Petrarch and
the success of Boccace in Greek studies, of Leontius, Pilatus,
Bessarion, and Lascaris. A glow of sober enthusiasm warms the great
scholar as he paints the early light of that happy dawn. He admits
that the "arms of the Turks pressed the flight of the Muses" from
Greece to Italy. But he "trembles at the thought that Greece might
have been overwhelmed with her schools and libraries, before Europe
had emerged from the deluge of barbarism, and that the seeds of
science might have been scattered on the winds, before the Italian
soil was prepared for their cultivation." In one of the most perfect
sentences to be found in English prose he thus describes the Greek
tongue: "In their lowest depths of servitude and depression, the
subjects of the Byzantine throne were still possessed of a golden key
that could unlock the treasures of antiquity, of a musical and
prolific language that gives a soul to the objects of sense and a body
to the abstractions of philosophy." Meanwhile we are made to feel that
the subjects of the Byzantine throne, with their musical speech, that
Constantinople with her libraries and schools, will all soon fall a
prey to the ravening and barbarous Turk. This brightening light of the
Western sky contending with the baleful gloom which is settling down
over the East, is one of the most happy contrasts in historical
literature. Then comes the end, the preparations and skill of the
savage invader, the futile but heroic defence, the overwhelming ruin
which struck down the Cross and erected the Crescent over the city of
Constantine the Great.
It is one of the many proofs of Gibbon's artistic instinct that he did
not end with this great catastrophe. On the contrary, he adds three
more chapters. His fine tact warned him that the tumult and thunder of
the final ruin must not be the last sounds to strike the ear. A
resolution of the discord was needed; a soft chorale should follow the
din and lead to a mellow _adagio_ close. And this he does with supreme
skill. With ill-suppressed disgust, he turns from New to Old Home.
"Constantinople no longer appertains to the Roman historian--nor shall
I enumerate the civil and religious edifices that were profaned or
erected by its Turkish masters." Amid the decayed temples and
mutilated beauty of the Eternal City, he moves down to a melodious and
pathetic conclusion--piously visits the remaining fragments of ancient
splendour and art, deplores and describes the ravages wrought by time,
and still more by man, and recurring once again to the scene of his
first inspiration, bids farewell to the Roman empire among the ruins
of the Capitol.
We have hitherto spoken in terms of warm, though perhaps not excessive
eulogy of this great work. But praise would lack the force of
moderation and equipoise, if allusion were not made to some of its
defects. The pervading defect of it all has been already referred to
in a preceding chapter--an inadequate conception of society as an
organism, living and growing, like other organisms, according to
special laws of its own. In these brilliant volumes on the Middle
Ages, the special problems which that period suggests are not stated,
far less solved; they are not even suspected. The feudal polity, the
Catholic Church, the theocratic supremacy of the Popes, considered as
institutions which the historian is called upon to estimate and judge;
the gradual dissolution of both feudalism and Catholicism, brought
about by the spread of industry in the temporal order and of science
in the spiritual order, are not even referred to. Many more topics
might be added to this list of weighty omissions. It would be needless
to say that no blame attaches to Gibbon for neglecting views of
history which had not emerged in his time, if there were not persons
who, forgetting the slow progress of knowledge, are apt to ascribe the
defects of a book to incompetence in its author. If Gibbon's
conception of the Middle Ages seems to us inadequate now, it is
because since his time our conceptions of society in that and in all
periods have been much enlarged. We may be quite certain that if
Gibbon had had our experience, no one would have seen the
imperfections of particular sides of his work as we now have it more
clearly than he.
Laying aside, therefore, reflexions of this kind as irrelevant and
unjust, we may ask whether there are any other faults which may fairly
be found with him. One must admit that there are. After all, they are
not very important.
(1.) Striking as is his account of Justinian's reign, it has two
blemishes. First, the offensive details about the vices of Theodora.
Granting them to be well authenticated, which they are not, it was
quite unworthy of the author and his subject to soil his pages with
such a _chronique scandaleuse_. The defence which he sets up in his
Memoirs, that he is "justified in painting the manners of the times,
and that the vices of Theodora form an essential feature in the reign
and character of Justinian," cannot be admitted. First, we are not
sure that the vices existed, and were not the impure inventions of a
malignant calumniator. Secondly, Gibbon is far from painting the
manners of the time as a moralist or an historian; he paints them with
a zest for pruriency worthy of Bayle or Brantome. It was an occasion
for a wise scepticism to register grave doubts as to the infamous
stories of Procopius. A rehabilitation of Theodora is not a theme
calculated to provoke enthusiasm, and is impossible besides from the
entire want of adequate evidence. But a thoughtful writer would not
have lost his time, if he referred to the subject at all, in pointing
out the moral improbability of the current accounts. He might have
dwelt on the _unsupported_ testimony of the only witness, the
unscrupulous Procopius, whom Gibbon himself convicts on another
subject of flagrant mendacity. But he would have been especially slow
to believe that a woman who had led the life of incredible profligacy
he has described, would, in consequence of "some vision either of
sleep or fancy," in which future exaltation was promised to her,
assume "like a skilful actress, a more decent character, relieve her
poverty by the laudable industry of spinning wool, and affect a life
of chastity and solitude in a small house, which she afterwards
changed into a magnificent temple." Magdalens have been converted, no
doubt, from immoral living, but not by considerations of astute
prudence suggested by day-dreams of imperial greatness. Gibbon might
have thought of the case of Madame de Maintenon, and how her
reputation fared in the hands of the vindictive courtiers of
Versailles; how a woman, cold as ice and pure as snow, was freely
charged with the most abhorrent vices without an atom of foundation.
But the truth probably is that he never thought of the subject
seriously at all, and that, yielding to a regrettable inclination, he
copied his licentious Greek notes with little reluctance.
(2.) The character of Belisarius, enigmatical enough in itself, is
made by him more enigmatical still. He concludes the forty-first
chapter, in which the great deeds of the conqueror of Italy and
Africa, and the ingratitude with which Justinian rewarded his
services, are set forth in strong contrast, with the inept remark that
"Belisarius appears to be either below or above the character of a
MAN." The grounds of the apparent meekness with which Belisarius
supported his repeated disgraces cannot now be ascertained: but the
motives of Justinian's conduct are not so difficult to find. As Finlay
points out in his thoughtful history of Greece, Belisarius must have
been a peculator on a large and dangerous scale. "Though he refused
the Gothic throne and the empire of the West, he did not despise nor
neglect wealth: he accumulated riches which could not have been
acquired by any commander-in-chief amidst the wars and famines of the
period, without rendering the military and civil administration
subservient to his pecuniary profit. On his return from Italy he lived
at Constantinople in almost regal splendour, and maintained a body of
7,000 cavalry attached to his household. In an empire where
confiscation was an ordinary financial resource, and under a sovereign
whose situation rendered jealousy only common prudence, it is not
surprising that the wealth of Belisarius excited the imperial
cupidity, and induced Justinian to seize great part of it" (_Greece
under the Romans_, chap. 3). There is shrewd insight in this, and
though we may regret that we cannot attain to more, it is better than
leaving the subject with an unmeaning paradox.
It may be said generally that Gibbon has not done justice to the
services rendered to Europe by the Byzantine empire. In his crowded
forty-eighth chapter, which is devoted to the subject, he passes over
events and characters with such speed that his history in this part
becomes little more than a chronicle, vivid indeed, but barren of
thoughtful political views. His account of the Isaurian period may be
instanced among others as an example of defective treatment. If we
turn to the judicious Finlay, we see what an immense but generally
unacknowledged debt Europe owes to the Greek empire. The saving of
Christendom from Mohammedan conquest is too easily attributed to the
genius of Charles Martel and his brave Franks. The victory at Tours
was important no doubt, but almost a century previously the followers
of the prophet had been checked by Heraclius; and their memorable
repulse before Constantinople under the Isaurian Leo was the real
barrier opposed to their conquest of the West. It requires but little
reflection to see that without this brave resistance to the Moslem
invasion, the course of mediæval history would have been completely
changed. Next in time, but hardly second in value to the services of
the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, must be reckoned the services of
the Byzantine emperors in repelling the barbarians. Such an important
consideration as this should hardly have escaped Gibbon.
Gibbon's account of Charlemagne is strangely inadequate. It is perhaps
the only instance in his work where he has failed to appreciate a
truly great man, and the failure is the more deplorable as it concerns
one of the greatest men who have ever lived. He did not realise the
greatness of the man, of his age, or of his work. Properly
considered, the eighth century is the most important and memorable
which Europe has ever seen. During its course the geographical limits,
the ecclesiastical polity, and the feudal system within and under
which our western group of nations was destined to live for five or
six centuries, were provisionally settled and determined. The
wonderful house of the Carolings, which produced no less than five
successive rulers of genius (of whom two had extraordinary genius,
Charles Martel and Charlemagne), were the human instruments of this
great work. The Frankish Monarchy was hastening to ruin when they
saved it. Saxons in the East and Saracens in the South were on the
point of extinguishing the few surviving embers of civilisation which
still existed. The Bishop of Rome was ready to fall a prey to the
Lombards, and the progressive papacy of Hildebrand and Innocent ran
imminent risk of being extirpated at its root. Charles and his
ancestors prevented these evils. Of course it is open to any one to
say that there were no evils threatening, that Mohammedanism is as
good as Christianity, that the Papacy was a monstrous calamity, that
to have allowed Eastern Germany to remain pagan and barbarous would
have done no harm. The question cannot be discussed here. But every
law of historic equity compels us to admit that whether the result was
good or bad, the genius of men who could leave such lasting
impressions on the world as the Carolings did, must have been
exceptionally great. And this is what Gibbon has not seen; he has not
seen that, whether their work was good or bad in the issue, it was
colossal. His tone in reference to Charlemagne is unworthy to a
degree. "Without injustice to his fame, I may discern some blemishes
in the sanctity and greatness of the restorer of the Western Empire.
Of his moral virtues, chastity was not the most conspicuous." This
from the pen of Gibbon seems hardly serious. Again: "I touch with
reverence the laws of Charlemagne, so highly applauded by a
respectable judge. They compose not a system, but a series of
occasional and minute edicts, for the correction of abuses, the
reformation of manners, the economy of his farms, the care of his
poultry, and even the sale of his eggs." And yet Gibbon had read the
Capitularies. The struggle and care of the hero to master in some
degree the wide welter of barbarism surging around him, he never
recognised. It is a spot on Gibbon's fame.
Dean Milman considers that Gibbon's account of the Crusades is the
least accurate and satisfactory chapter in his history, and "that he
has here failed in that lucid arrangement which in general gives
perspicuity to his most condensed and crowded narratives." This blame
seems to be fully merited, if restricted to the second of the two
chapters which Gibbon has devoted to the Crusades. The fifty-eighth
chapter, in which he treats of the First Crusade, leaves nothing to be
desired. It is not one of his best chapters, though it is quite up to
his usually high level. But the fifty-ninth chapter, it must be owned,
is not only weak, but what is unexampled elsewhere in him, confused
and badly written. It is not, as in the case of Charlemagne, a
question of imperfect appreciation of a great man or epoch; it is a
matter of careless and slovenly presentation of a period which he had
evidently mastered with his habitual thoroughness, but, owing to the
rapidity with which he composed his last volume, he did not do full
justice to it. He says significantly in his Memoirs, that "he wished
that a pause, an interval, had been allowed for a serious revisal" of
the last three volumes, and there can be little doubt that this
chapter was one of the sources of his regrets. It is in fact a mere
tangle. The Second and the Third Crusades are so jumbled together,
that it is only a reader who knows the subject very well who can find
his way through the labyrinth. Gibbon seems at this point, a thing
very unusual with him, to have become impatient with his subject, and
to have wished to hurry over it. "A brief parallel," he says, "may
save the repetition of a tedious narrative." The result of this
expeditious method has been far from happy. It is the only occasion
where Gibbon has failed in his usual high finish and admirable
literary form.
Gibbon's style was at one period somewhat of a party question. Good
Christians felt a scruple in discerning any merits in the style of a
writer who had treated the martyrs of the early Church with so little
ceremony and generosity. On the other hand, those whose opinions
approached more or less to his, expatiated on the splendour and
majesty of his diction. Archbishop Whately went out of his way in a
note to his _Logic_ to make a keen thrust at an author whom it was
well to depreciate whenever occasion served. "His way of writing," he
says, "reminds one of those persons who never dare look you full in
the face." Such criticisms are out of date now. The faults of Gibbon's
style are obvious enough, and its compensatory merits are not far to
seek. No one can overlook its frequent tumidity and constant want of
terseness. It lacks suppleness, ease, variety. It is not often
distinguished by happy selection of epithet, and seems to ignore all
delicacy of _nuance_. A prevailing grandiloquence, which easily slides
into pomposity, is its greatest blemish. The acute Porson saw this and
expressed it admirably. In the preface to his letters to Archdeacon
Travis, he says of Gibbon, "Though his style is in general correct and
elegant, he sometimes 'draws out the thread of his verbosity finer
than the staple of his argument.' In endeavouring to avoid vulgar
terms he too frequently dignifies trifles, and clothes common thoughts
in a splendid dress that would be rich enough for the noblest ideas.
In short we are too often reminded of that great man, Mr. Prig, the
auctioneer, whose manner was so inimitably fine that he had as much to
say on a ribbon as on a Raphael." It seems as if Gibbon had taken the
stilted tone of the old French tragedy for his model, rather than the
crisp and nervous prose of the best French writers. We are constantly
offended by a superfine diction lavished on barbarous chiefs and rough
soldiers of the Lower Empire, which almost reproduces the high-flown
rhetoric in which Corneille's and Racine's characters address each
other. Such phrases as the "majesty of the throne," "the dignity of
the purple," the "wisdom of the senate," recur with a rather jarring
monotony, especially when the rest of the narrative is designed to
show that there was no majesty nor dignity nor wisdom involved in the
matter. We feel that the writer was thinking more of his sonorous
sentence than of the real fact. On the other hand, nothing but a want
of candour or taste can lead any one to overlook the rare and great
excellences of Gibbon's style. First of all, it is singularly correct:
a rather common merit now, but not common in his day. But its
sustained vigour and loftiness will always be uncommon; above all its
rapidity and masculine length of stride are quite admirable. When he
takes up his pen to describe a campaign, or any great historic scene,
we feel that we shall have something worthy of the occasion, that we
shall be carried swiftly and grandly through it all, without the
suspicion of a breakdown of any kind being possible. An indefinable
stamp of weightiness is impressed on Gibbon's writing; he has a
baritone manliness which banishes everything small, trivial, or weak.
When he is eloquent (and it should be remembered to his credit that he
never affects eloquence, though he occasionally affects dignity), he
rises without effort into real grandeur. On the whole we may say that
his manner, with certain manifest faults, is not unworthy of his
matter, and the praise is great.
It is not quite easy to give expression to another feeling which is
often excited in reading Gibbon. It is somewhat of this kind, that it
is more fitted to inspire admiration than love or sympathy. Its merits
are so great, the mass of information it contains is so stupendous,
that all competent judges of such work feel bound to praise it.
Whether they like it in the same degree, may be questioned. Among
reading men and educated persons it is not common--such is my
experience--to meet with people who know their Gibbon well. Superior
women do not seem to take to him kindly, even when there is no
impediment on religious grounds. Madame du Deffand, writing to
Walpole, says, "I whisper it to you, but I am not pleased with Mr.
Gibbon's work. It is declamatory, oratorical.... I lay it aside
without regret, and it requires an effort to take it up again."
Another of Walpole's correspondents, the Countess of Ossory, seems to
have made similar strictures. If we admit that women are less capable
than masculine scholars of doing justice to the strong side of Gibbon,
we may also acknowledge that they are better fitted than men to
appreciate and to be shocked by his defective side, which is a
prevailing want of moral elevation and nobility of sentiment. His
cheek rarely flushes in enthusiasm for a good cause. The tragedy of
human life never seems to touch him, no glimpse of the infinite ever
calms and raises the reader of his pages. Like nearly all the men of
his day, he was of the earth earthy, and it is impossible to get over
the fact.