gerness wish that
we may reach the height attained in the older countries. To recur to my
own study again, should we produce a historian or historical writer the
equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, or Macaulay there would be a feeling
of pride in our historical genius which would make itself felt at every
academical and historical gathering. We have something of that sentiment
in regard to Francis Parkman, our most original historian. But it may
be that the historical field of Parkman is too narrow to awaken a
world-wide interest and I suspect that the American who will be
recognized as the equal of Gibbon, Mommsen, Carlyle, or Macaulay must
secure that recognition by writing of some period of European history
better than the Englishman, German, or Frenchman has written of it. He
must do it not only in the way of scientific history, in which in his
field Henry Charles Lea has won so much honor for himself and his
country, but he must bring to bear on his history that quality which has
made the historical writings of Gibbon, Carlyle, and Macaulay
literature.

EDWARD GIBBON

Lecture read at Harvard University, April 6, 1908, and printed in
_Scribner's Magazine_, June, 1909.

EDWARD GIBBON

No English or American lover of history visits Rome without bending
reverent footsteps to the Church of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli. Two visits
are necessary, as on the first you are at once seized by the sacristan,
who can conceive of no other motive for entering this church on the
Capitol Hill than to see the miraculous Bambino--the painted doll
swaddled in gold and silver tissue and "crusted over with magnificent
diamonds, emeralds, and rubies." When you have heard the tale of what
has been called "the oldest medical practitioner in Rome," of his
miraculous cures, of these votive offerings, the imaginary picture you
had conjured up is effaced; and it is better to go away and come a
second time when the sacristan will recognize you and leave you to
yourself. Then you may open your Gibbon's Autobiography and read that it
was the subtle influence of Italy and Rome that determined the choice,
from amongst many contemplated subjects of historical writing, of "The
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." "In my Journal," wrote Gibbon,
"the place and moment of conception are recorded; the 15th of October,
1764, in the close of the evening, as I sat musing in the Church of the
Franciscan friars while they were singing vespers in