is still distinctly visible; though gradually dismembered
and the broken fragments assuming the form of regular states and
kingdoms, the real relation of those kingdoms to the empire is
maintained and defined; and even when the Roman dominion has shrunk
into little more than the province of Thrace--when the name of Rome,
confined, in Italy, to the walls of the city--yet it is still the
memory, the shade of the Roman greatness, which extends over the wide
sphere into which the historian expands his later narrative; the
whole blends into the unity, and is manifestly essential to the double
catastrophe of his tragic drama.

But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design, are,
though imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration, unless the
details are filled up with correctness and accuracy. No writer has been
more severely tried on this point than Gibbon. He has undergone the
triple scrutiny of theological zeal quickened by just resentment, of
literary emulation, and of that mean and invidious vanity which delights
in detecting errors in writers of established fame. On the result of
the trial, we may be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we
deliver our own judgment.

M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and Germany, as
well as in England, in the most enlightened countries of Europe, Gibbon
is constantly cited as an authority, thus proceeds:--

"I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings of
philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman empire; of
scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of theologians, who have
searched the depths of ecclesiastical history; of writers on law, who
have studied with care the Roman jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who
have occupied themselves with the Arabians and the Koran; of modern
historians, who have entered upon extensive researches touching the
crusades and their influence; each of these writers has remarked and
pointed out, in the 'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire,' some negligences, some false or imperfect views some omissions,
which it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified
some facts combated with advantage some assertions; but in general
they have taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon, as points of
departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the new opinions which
they have advanced."

M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on readi