second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work, of the
notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it right to
subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the importance of
the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was struck with
the same errors, the same partiality on certain subjects; but I
had been far from doing adequate justice to the immensity of his
researches, the variety of his knowledge, and above all, to that
truly philosophical discrimination (justesse d'esprit) which
judges the past as it would judge the present; which does not
permit itself to be blinded by the clouds which time gathers
around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing that, under the
toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as in our
councils, men were what they still are, and that events took
place eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our days. I
then felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will always be a
noble work - and that we may correct his errors and combat his
prejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have combined,
if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a manner so
complete, and so well regulated, the necessary qualifications for
a writer of history."

The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through
many parts of his work; he has read his authorities with constant
reference to his pages, and must pronounce his deliberate
judgment, in terms of the highest admiration as to his general
accuracy. Many of his seeming errors are almost inevitable from
the close condensation of his matter. From the immense range of
his history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into a single
sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantine
chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus