In a
philosophical sense, therefore, it may be affirmed, that the empire of the
Caesars was _always_ in decline; ceasing to go forward, it could not do
other than retrograde; and even the first _appearances_ of decline can,
with no propriety, be referred to the reign of Commodus. His vices exposed
him to public contempt and assassination; but neither one nor the other
had any effect upon the strength of the empire. Here, therefore, is one
just subject of complaint against Gibbon, that he has dated the declension
of the Roman power from a commencement arbitrarily assumed; another, and a
heavier, is, that he has failed to notice the steps and separate
indications of decline as they arose,--the moments (to speak in the
language of dynamics) through which the decline travelled onwards to its
consummation. It is also a grievous offence as regards the true purposes
of history,--and one which, in a complete exposition of the imperial
history, we should have a right to insist on,--that Gibbon brings forward
only such facts as allow of a scenical treatment, and seems every where,
by the glancing style of his allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance with
that very history which he undertakes to deliver.
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