of fome political Ithuriel. Abfolute unqualified diftruft of the monarch is the characteristic of the new conftitution of France.' -- It is also a juft remark that, in her general plan of government, England adapts her political provifions to the nature and paffions of men as they actually are, while France appears to confider them only, or chiefly, as they ought to be. Many of the obfervations on Mr. Burke's work are judicious; they are fometimes, we have faid, the subsequent information acquired at a future period by men who have learned to correct their errors: they are, in a few inftances, a little too eager; and, like the observations of Mr. Burke, occafionally intemperate. The last Effay is on the teft laws, a subject also which has occurred to us fo repeatedly, that arguments or language can fcarcely any longer fupply novelty. The principal part of this Effay confifts in an anfwer to a pamphlet entitled a Review of the Cafe of the Proteftant Diffenters,' afcribed to the bishop of St. David's, and a fhort account of the fate of the different applications to parliament for a repeal of the teft acts. Many of Mr. Belfham's obfervations are undoubtedly fhrewd and correct; but, on the whole, he has not greatly altered the state of the queftion. If we admit, for a moment, that the teft laws were originally defigned to preclude the papifts only, and involved the diffenters by accident, it does not follow that, when the fears of popery are abolished, the test acts are unneceffary. During the whole of this conteft, the violence of innovation, the eagernefs of zealots in purfuit of vifionary improvements and democratical equality, have appeared in the works of the diffenters. We fhould not, indeed be afraid of trusting to the cool decifions of the more moderate and enlightened of this clafs, for we know that many of them poffefs much temper, moderation, and knowledge; but in former times the eager crowd has repreffed the calmer attempts of men of this defcription, and against their wild attempts we wish the prefent barrier to remain. It would not be difficult to reply to many of our author's arguments; but it would often be to repeat what has been already faid, and would extend our account of this ex-cellent volume, which we need not stay again to commend, to an inconvenient bulk. Gibbon's Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in Vols. IV. V. and VI. Quarto, reviewed. By the Rev. John Whitaker, B. D. 8vo. 45. Boards. Murray. 1791. WE are placed in a new as well as a peculiarly nice and delicate fituation;-to give our opinion on the work of a Reviewer, who has trodden the fame path with ourselves, who has furveyed the fame objects, in a different light, or decorated L 4 corated with an adventitious colouring. If thefe articles had continued in their first fituation; if the author had been ftill the phantom, the unembodied form, which at its stated period starts forth to utter his literary decrees, we ought not to have interfered, even with the minuteft hint. When he comes forward as an individual, he is amenable to the laws by which his own decifions have been dictated: the judge defcends from the bench, and becomes in turn the culprit. Our author begins with an elegant, picturefque defcription of the progrefs of hiftory, tracing its fkeleton-like appearance, in the meagre chronicles, to the fkeleton filled with mufcles in their fucceffors, who feize the most interesting and animated fcenes for their more particular narratives; and to this mufcular body, actuated with nerves, animated with blood, and bearing the bloom of health on its cheek.'-Such, he tells, are fome of the best hiftories written by the last generation.' Here had hißorical compofition relled, it would have answered all the ufeful, and all the elegant, purposes of life. But the activity of the human mind, is always on the wing. The fpirit of improvement is ever pufhing forward. And there is a degree. of improvement beyond this, which may fhed a greater warmth of colouring over the piece, give it a deeper intereft with the affections of the furveyor, and fo reach the full point of historical perfection. But alas! man can easily imagine, what he can never execute. The fancy can fee a perfection, and the judgment can recommend it; but the hand cannot attain to it. Whether this be the cafe with the prefent idea of historical perfection, I know not; but it is certain, I think, that it has never been attained hitherto. Hiftory, indeed, having once advanced to the third ftage of improvement, cannot but ftrain to reach the fourth and laft. Then it lays itfelf out in a fplendour of imagery, a frequency of reflections, and a refinement of language; and thus makes the narrative more striking, by its additional vivacity and vigour. But it is melancholy to obferve, that in proportion as we thus advance in the ornamental parts of historical writing, we are receding from the folid and the neceffary; we lose in veracity what we gain in embellishments; and the authenticity of the narra tion fades and finks away, in the luftre of the philofophy furrounding it. The mind of the writer, bent upon the beautiful and fublime in history, does not condescend to perform the task of accuracy, and to ftoop to the drudgery of faithfulness. The mirror is finely polifhed and elegantly decorated; but it no longer reflects the real features of the times. The fun fhines out, indeed, with a ftriking effulgence; but it is an effulgence of glare, and not a radiation of usefulnefs. Such hiftorians as thefe, we may venture to pronounce, are Tacitus among the ancients, most of our best hiftorians hiftorians in the prefent generation, and Mr. Gibbon at the head of them. And these prefent us with the skeleton of history, not merely clothed with muscles, animated with life, and bearing the bloom of health upon its cheek; but, inftead of carrying a higher Alush of health upon its cheek, and shewing a brighter beam of life in its eyes, rubbed with Spanish wool, painted with French fard, and exhibiting the fire of falsehood and wantonnefs in its eyes.' In fhort, to Livy and the more modern hiftorians of the laft century' are Tacitus and Gibbon offered up as an expiatory facrifice all thefe ornaments are defigned only to decorate the victims, and to conclude this piacular ceremony with due decorum. But they are facrificed without a proper trial, and condemned without fufficient evidence. Tacitus is unfaithful, because the speech of Tiberius is different from that found at Lyons, engraved on two brafs plates, difcovered in 1528. We believe no reader of history ever confidered the fpeeches inferted by hiftorians as authentic: it was known that they were ufually the compofitions of the author, and that recorded by Tacitus was not calculated to deceive. It was wholly in the style of the hiftory. The speech found engraved on the brafs plates is a great curiofity; but its æra fhould first be fixed, its authenticity afcertained, and the certainty that Tacitus might have had it before him, established, before the hiftorian can be accused of unfaithfulness. These are circumstances too trifling for our author: the brafs plates are the cæftus of Entellus, and the hiftorian is laid in the duft. That in the progreffive improvement of the human mind, each science and every kind of compofition fhould be also improved, will not appear furprifing. It is only neceffary to enquire, whether the fuperadded ornaments of history are unfuitable to the fubject; whether the capital is improperly adapted to the fhaft, or its minuter decorations inconfiftent with the ufe for which the column is defigned. If examined in this way, our author's cenfure will appear to be mifapplied, In relating the actions of men, the philofophy of the human mind is no unfuitable assistant; in tracing events to their causes, actions to motives, or estimating, by the latter, the degree of credibility due to accounts of events in the works of former authors, philofophy is a neceffary guide. In an investigatton of the nature and power of the machine, would an artist disregard all knowledge of the mechanical powers? But to this philofophy, unfaithfulness has been added: is there then any neceffary connection between them? Is it not more pro bable, that the philosophical historian will be accurate than one unable to examine the fubject in the nicer fcale of metaphyfical investigation? Or will an author of this class have more temptations temptations to corrupt a record, or mifquote from the annalift? If we examine, however, the proofs of unfaithfulness, they are fo trivial as to raise a fmile. Tacitus did not know probably of the existence of the recorded fpeech, and, in the tyle of his æra, has framed one, confeffedly better than Tiberius could have made in reality he has acted injudiciously by attributing a well-connected, judicious, and appofite speech, to a man whom he defcribes as of flow understanding. The fpeech he knew would be confidered as his own, and he was not bound by the ftricter rules of the drama. The particular accufation here adduced against Mr. Gibbon is more trivial. He had defcribed, in chap. v. note 5, p. xvii. the Prætorian camp on the broad fummit of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. But it was not, our author tells us, on reviewing his authorities; it was not on the broad fummit, but on a projecting point of the Viminal hill. Philofophical hiftorians, who think they reft on a broad fummit, fhould be cautious, for the projecting point is not fufficient: the anti-philofophers will hurl them from the rock, and they will raife their heads no more. This, however, is not the whole: all Mr. Travis', all Mr. Davis' detections are brought in to fwell the lift of offences, without one hint to tell the reader, that these authors, equally violent against the modern Tacitus, have looked through microfcopes, and fwelled errors to faults, seen spots scarcely vi fible, and imagined errors which would not even fully the brilliancy of the most attentive hiftorian. We muft, indeed, admit that Mr. Gibbon has fometimes erred in his quotations, and has occafionally mifreprefented his originals; but thefe are the unavoidable incuriæ in a long work; and we believe the inftances to be very few, for we have followed him minutely through many a weary and tedious path, with fcarcely any difappointment. We can, however, inform fome critics, that the fubftance of the obfervation will not always appear in the ifolated paffage; but the context, the spirit, and the design of the original must be confidered. This was the fource of fome of Mr. Davis' errors, and we have some reason to think it has occafioned mistakes in other annotators. One great objection which Mr. Whitaker makes to the hiftory of Mr. Gibbon is, that having undertaken to write the Hiftory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' many parts of his narrative defcribe the empire in a state of fufficient vigour and permanency; fome even speak of it as flourishing, and progreffive in fame and in power; befides, that the adventitious hiftories of different nations are scarcely, if at all, con nected with the principal ftory. This objection appears in many different pages, expanded in different forms, and ex 5 prefied preffed in the varied tones of remark, animadverfion, cenfure, and reproof. We may admit, that the narrative is too often broken, that the episodes are not always in due fubordination to the chief defign, and that, for a time, every thing, except the fate of Rome, is apparently in the hiftorian's eye. So far as this conduct militates against the rules of tafte, and of the arrangement of hiftorical compofition, we deem it an error; but few readers, we believe, would object to facrificing the affected refinement of critic rules, to the extenfive and varied entertainment which these adventitious hiftories afford. They are perhaps too copious, but are they unneceffary? Is it not of importance how each petty barbarous ftate acquired confequence enough to undermine the fabric of ages, a power for a time invincible, the fole undifputed monarch of the world? Even thofe which could not fucceed wafted the vital energy in refiftance, carried the force of the empire to the extremities, and left the center a prey to faction, the contefts for power, or for the imperial throne. While thefe caufes contributed to the fall of Rome, the history of the contending states was not unfuitable. What fhall we fay to the former part of the objection? It appears at first formidable, but, in the lapfe of time, which has intervened between the first crude publication and the prefent corrected one, it is a little furprising that our author fhould not have found it less stable than it at first appeared. An em pire cannot fall like a heavy body, with an uniform or an aceelerated velocity. In a feries of ages, a warlike general, or an able monarch, will for a time preferve it; but is not this era to be included in its fall, or muft the history be mutilated by felecting the flourishing reign from the reft, in order to bring the fall within the calculation of a mathematical problem, and to afcertain its ratio? "Might not various inftances illuftrate the futility of this observation? Do we not call it an ebbing tide, though a folitary wave may occafionally rife far above its preceffor? Is not the fap faid to be afcending in the vine, though in many fucceeding days it does not reach the height to which, in a favourable moment, it before attained? We know not what kind of a history would have refulted from fuch a rigorous adherence to rules; but we have little reason to think that the author would have attained the eminence of Mr. Gibbon. In the more particular objections, Mr. Whitaker is fometimes correct; but more often petulant, captious, and unreafonable: we fhall felect a few inftances. The hiftory in this chapter (the third of the new volumes) carries a peculiar air of obfcurity with it. It is very frequently unintelligible |