English text is chaste, and all licentious passages are left in
the obscurity of a learned language. Le Latin dans ses mots brave
l'honnetete, says the correct Boileau, in a country and idiom more
scrupulous than our own. 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. I am less
flattered by Mr. Porson's high encomium on the style and spirit of
my history, than I am satisfied with his honourable testimony to
my attention, diligence, and accuracy; those humble virtues, which
religious zeal had most audaciously denied. The sweetness of his praise
is tempered by a reasonable mixture of acid. As the book may not
be common in England, I shall transcribe my own character from the
Bibliotheca Historica of Meuselius, a learned and laborious German.
"Summis aevi nostri historicis Gibbonus sine dubio adnumerandus est.
Inter capitolii ruinas stans primum hujus operis scribendi concilium
cepit. Florentissimos vitae annos colligendo et laborando eidem
impendit. Enatum inde monumentum aere perennius, licet passim appareant
sinistre dicta, minus perfecta, veritati non satis consentanea. Videmus
quidem ubique fere studium scrutandi veritatemque scribendi maximum:
tamen sine Tillemontio duce ubi scilicet hujus historia finitur saepius
noster titubat atque hallucinatur. Quod vel maxime fit ubi de rebus
Ecclesiasticis vel de juris prudentia Romana (tom. iv.) tradit, et in
aliis locis. Attamen naevi hujus generis haud impediunt quo minus operis
summam et {Greek} praedare dispositam, delectum rerum sapientissimum,
argutum quoque interdum, dictionemque seu stylum historico aeque ac
philosopho dignissimum, et vix a quoque alio Anglo, Humio ac Robertsono
haud exceptis (praereptum?) vehementer laudemus, atque saeculo nostro
de hujusmodi historia gratulemur. .... Gibbonus adversaries cum in tum
extra patriam nactus est, quia propogationem religionis Christianae,
non, tit vulgo, fieri solet, cut more Theologorum, sed ut Historicum et
Philosophum decet, exposuerat."

The French, Italian, and German translations have been executed with
various success; but, instead of patronizing, I should willingly
suppress such imperfect copies, which injure the character, while they
propagate the name of the author. The first volume had been feebly,
though faithfully, translated into French by M. Le Clerc de Septchenes,
a young gentl