escaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the whole
substance of the passage from which they are taken. His limits,
at times, compel him to sketch; where that is the case, it is not
fair to expect the full details of the finished picture. At
times he can only deal with important results; and in his account
of a war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover that
the events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign,
occupy several years. But this admirable skill in selecting and
giving prominence to the points which are of real weight and
importance - this distribution of light and shade - though
perhaps it may occasionally betray him into vague and imperfect
statements, is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbon's
historic manner. It is the more striking, when we pass from the
works of his chief authorities, where, after laboring through
long, minute, and wearisome descriptions of the accessary and
subordinate circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguished
sentence, which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue,
contains the great moral and political result.

Gibbon's method of arrangement, though on the whole most
favorable to the clear comprehension of the events, leads
likewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in
one part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are to
form, depends on the accurate balance of statements in remote
parts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct and modify
opinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, on
the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect
contradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized the
whole result to truth and probability; the general impression is
almost invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have