were, upon the Roman historian that plan which Polybius announces as the
subject of his history, the means and the manner by which the whole
world became subject to the Roman sway. How different the complicated
politics of the European kingdoms! Every national history, to be
complete, must, in a certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is
no knowing to how remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most
domestic events; from a country, how apparently disconnected, may
originate the impulse which gives its direction to the whole course of
affairs.

In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places Rome as the cardinal
point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which they bear constant
reference; yet how immeasurable the space over which those inquiries
range; how complicated, how confused, how apparently inextricable the
ca-\nuses which tend to the decline of the Roman empire! how countless
the nations which swarm forth, in mingling and indistinct hordes,
constantly changing the geographical limits--incessantly confounding the
natural boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state
of the world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical
adventurer than the chaos of Milton--to be in a state of irreclaimable
disorder, best described in the language of the poet:--

--"A dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,

And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand."

We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall comprehend
this period of social disorganization, must be 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 comm