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the Church's whole system of theology, and the stories, committed to
writing by the priests, were thus preserved.
The secular tales must have been used in the pulpit for some
time before their systematic collection was undertaken. The zeal for
compiling probably reached its height in the age of Pierre Bercheure,
who died in 1362. To Bercheure, prior of the Benedictine Convent
of St. Eloi at Paris, the collection of Gesta Romanorum' has been
ascribed. A German scholar, however, Herr Österley, who published
in 1872 the result of an investigation of one hundred and sixty-five
manuscripts, asserts that the 'Gesta' were originally compiled towards
the end of the thirteenth century in England, from which country
they were taken to the Continent, there undergoing various altera-
tions. "The popularity of the original 'Gesta,'" says Sir F, Madden,
"not only on the Continent but among the English clergy, appears
to have induced some person, apparently in the reign of Richard
the Second, to undertake a similar compilation in this country. " The
'Anglo-Latin Gesta' is the immediate original of the early English
translation from which the following stories are taken, with slight
verbal changes.
The word Gesta, in medieval Latin, means notable or historic act
or exploit. The Church, drawing all power, consequence, and grace
from Rome, naturally looked back to the Roman empire for historic
examples. In this fact we find the reason of the name. The tales
betray an entire ignorance of history. In one, for example, a statue
is raised to Julius Cæsar twenty-two years after the founding of
Rome; while in another, Socrates, Alexander, and the Emperor Clau-
dius are living together in Rome.


## p. 6263 (#233) ###########################################

GESTA ROMANORUM
6263
P
It is a pleasant picture which such legends bring before our eyes.
The old parish church of England, which with its yards is a common
meeting-place for the people's fairs and wakes, and even for their
beer-brewing; the simple rustics forming the congregation; the ton-
sured head of the priest rising above the pulpit,- a monk from the
neighboring abbey, who earns his brown bread and ale and venison
by endeavors to move the moral sentiments which lie at the root of
the Anglo-Saxon character and beneath the apparent stolidity of each
yokel. Many of the tales are unfit for reproduction in our more
mincing times. The faithlessness of wives-with no reference what-
ever to the faithlessness of husbands-is a favorite theme with these
ancient cenobites.
It is possible, Herr Österley thinks, that the conjecture of Francis
Douce may be true, and the 'Gesta' may after all have been compiled
in Germany. But the bulk of the evidence goes to prove an English
origin. The earliest editions were published at Utrecht and at Co-
logne. The English translation, from the text of the Latin of the
reign of Richard II. , was first printed by Wynkyn de Worde between
1510 and 1515. In 1577 Richard Robinson published a revised edition
of Wynkyn de Worde's. The work became again popular, and between
1648 and 1703 at least eight issues were sold. An English translation
by Charles Swan from the Latin text was first published in 1824, and
reissued under the editorship of Thomas Wright in 1872 as a part of
Bohn's Library.
THEODOSIUS THE EMPEROURE*
TH
HEODOSIUS reigned a wise emperour in the cite of Rome, and
mighty he was of power; the which emperoure had three
doughters. So it liked to this emperour to knowe which of
his doughters loved him best; and then he said to the eldest
doughter, "How much lovest thou me? " "Forsoth," quoth she,
«< more than I do myself. " "Therefore," quoth he, "thou shalt
be heighly advanced;" and married her to a riche and mighty
kyng. Then he came to the second, and said to her, "Doughter,
how muche lovest thou me? " "As muche forsoth," she said, “as
I do myself. " So the emperoure married her to a duke. And
then he said to the third doughter, "How much lovest thou
me? »
"Forsoth," quoth she, "as muche as ye be worthy, and
no more. " Then said the emperoure, "Doughter, since thou
lovest me no more, thou shalt not be married so richely as thy
sisters be. " And then he married her to an earl.
*The story of King Lear and his three daughters.


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6264
GESTA ROMANORUM
After this it happened that the emperour held battle against
the Kyng of Egipt, and the kyng drove the emperour oute of
the empire, in so muche that the emperour had no place to abide
inne. So he wrote lettres ensealed with his ryng to his first
doughter that said that she loved him more than her self, for to
pray her of succoring in that great need, bycause he was put out
of his empire. And when the doughter had red these lettres she
told it to the kyng her husband. Then quoth the kyng, "It is
good that we succor him in his need. I shall," quoth he, "gather
an host and help him in all that I can or may; and that will not
be done withoute great costage. " "Yea," quoth she, "it were
sufficiant if that we would graunt him V knyghtes to be fellow-
ship with him while he is oute of his empire. " And so it was
done indeed; and the doughter wrote again to the fader that
other help might he not have, but V knyghtes of the kynges to
be in his fellowship, at the coste of the kyng her husband.
And when the emperour heard this he was hevy in his hert
and said, "Alas! alas! all my trust was in her; for she said she
loved me more than herself, and therefore I advanced her so
high. "
Then he wrote to the second, that said she loved him as
much as her self. And when she had herd his lettres she shewed
his erand to her husband, and gave him in counsel that he should
find him mete and drink and clothing, honestly as for the state
of such a lord, during tyme of his nede; and when this was
graunted she wrote lettres agein to hir fadir.
The Emperour was hevy with this answere, and said, "Since
my two doughters have thus grieved me, in sooth I shall prove
the third. "
And so he wrote to the third that she loved him as muche as
he was worthy; and prayed her of succor in his nede, and told
her the answere of her two sisters. So the third doughter, when
she considered the mischief of her fader, she told her husbond in
this fourme: "My worshipful lord, do succor me now in this great
nede; my fadir is put out of his empire and his heritage. " Then
spake he, "What were thy will I did thereto ? » "That ye gather
a great host," quoth she, "and help him to fight against his ene-
mys. " "I shall fulfill thy will," said the earl; and gathered a
greate hoste and wente with the emperour at his owne costage to
the battle, and had the victorye, and set the emperour again in
his heritage.


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GESTA ROMANORUM
6265
And then said the emperour, "Blessed be the hour I gat my
yonest doughter! I loved her lesse than any of the others, and
now in my nede she hath succored me, and the others have failed
me, and therefore after my deth she shall have mine empire. »
And so it was done in dede; for after the deth of the emperour
the youngest doughter reigned in his sted, and ended peacefully.
MORALITE
Dere Frendis, this emperour may be called each woridly man,
the which hath three doughters. The first doughter, that saith,
"I love my fadir more than my self," is the worlde, whom a man
loveth so well that he expendeth all his life about it; but what
tyme he shall be in nede of deth, scarcely if the world will for
all his love give him five knyghtes, scil. v. boards for a coffin to
lay his body inne in the sepulcre. The second doughter, that
loveth her fader as muche as her selfe, is thy wife or thy child-
ren or thy kin, the whiche will haply find thee in thy nede to
the tyme that thou be put in the erthe. And the third doughter,
that loveth thee as muche as thou art worthy, is our Lord God,
whom we love too little. But if we come to him in tyme of oure
nede with a clene hert and mynd, withoute doute we shall have
help of him against the Kyng of Egipt, scil. the Devil; and he
shall set us in our owne heritage, scil. the kyngdome of heven.
Ad quod nos [etc. ].
ANCELMUS THE EMPEROUR*
A
NCELMUS reigned emperour in the cite of Rome, and he
wedded to wife the Kinges doughter of Jerusalem, the
which was a faire woman and long dwelte in his company.
Happing in a certaine evening as he walked after his
supper in a fair green, and thought of all the worlde, and
especially that he had no heir, and how that the Kinge of Naples
strongly therefore noyed [harmed] him each year; and so whenne
it was night he went to bed and took a sleep and dreamed this:
He saw the firmament in its most clearnesse, and more clear
than it was wont to be, and the moon was more pale; and on a
parte of the moon was a faire-colored bird, and beside her stood
* The story of the three caskets in The Merchant of Venice. '


## p. 6266 (#236) ###########################################

6266
GESTA ROMANORUM
two beasts, the which nourished the bird with their heat and
breath. After this came divers beasts and birds flying, and they
sang so sweetly that the emperour was with the song awaked.
Thenne on the morrow the emperoure had great marvel of
his sweven [dream], and called to him divinours [soothsayers]
and lords of all the empire, and saide to them, "Deere frendes,
telleth me what is the interpretation of my sweven, and I shall
reward you; and but if ye do, ye shall be dead. " And then they
saide, "Lord, show to us this dream, and we shall tell thee the
interpretation of it. " And then the emperour told them as is
saide before, from beginning to ending. And then they were
glad, and with a great gladnesse spake to him and saide, “Sir,
this was a good sweven. For the firmament that thou sawe so
clear is the empire, the which henceforth shall be in prosperity;
the pale moon is the empresse.
The little bird is the
faire son whom the empresse shall bryng forth, when time
cometh; the two beasts been riche men and wise men that shall
be obedient to thy childe; the other beasts been other folke, that
never made homage and nowe shall be subject to thy sone; the
birds that sang so sweetly is the empire of Rome, that shall joy
of thy child's birth: and sir, this is the interpretacion of your
dream. "
When the empresse heard this she was glad enough; and soon
she bare a faire sone, and thereof was made much joy. And
when the King of Naples heard that, he thought to himselfe :
"I have longe time holden war against the emperour, and it may
not be but that it will be told to his son, when that he cometh
to his full age, howe that I have fought all my life against his
fader. Yea," thought he, "he is now a child, and it is good that
I procure for peace, that I may have rest of him when he is in
his best and I in my worste. "
So he wrote lettres to the emperour for peace to be had; and
the emperour seeing that he did that more for cause of dread
than of love, he sent him worde again, and saide that he would
make him surety of peace, with condition that he would be in
his servitude and yield him homage all his life, each year.
Thenne the kyng called his counsel and asked of them what was
best to do; and the lordes of his kyngdom saide that it was goode
to follow the emperour in his will:- "In the first ye aske of him
surety of peace; to that we say thus: Thou hast a doughter and
he hath a son; let matrimony be made between them, and so


## p. 6267 (#237) ###########################################

GESTA ROMANORUM
6267
there shall be good sikernesse [sureness]; also it is good to make
him homage and yield him rents. " Thenne the kyng sent word
to the emperour and saide that he would fulfill his will in all
points, and give his doughter to his son in wife, if that it were
pleasing to him.
This answer liked well the emperour. So lettres were made
of this covenaunt; and he made a shippe to be adeyned [pre-
pared], to lead his doughter with a certain of knightes and ladies.
to the emperour to be married with his sone. And whenne they
were in the shippe and hadde far passed from the lande, there
rose up a great horrible tempest, and drowned all that were in
the ship, except the maid. Thenne the maide set all her hope
strongly in God; and at the last the tempest ceased; but then
followed strongly a great whale to devoure this maid. And
whenne she saw that, she muche dreaded; and when the night
come, the maid, dreading that the whale would have swallowed
the ship, smote fire at a stone, and had great plenty of fire; and
as long as the fire lasted the whale durst come not near, but
about cock's crow the mayde, for great vexacion that she had
with the tempest, fell asleep, and in her sleep the fire went out;
and when it was out the whale came nigh and swallowed both
the ship and the mayde. And when the mayde felt that she was
in the womb of a whale, she smote and made great fire, and
grievously wounded the whale with a little knife, in so much
that the whale drew to the land and died; for that is the kind
to draw to the land when he shall die.
And in this time there was an earl named Pirius, and he
walked in his disport by the sea, and afore him he sawe the
whale come toward the land. He gathered great help and
strength of men; and with diverse instruments they smote the
whale in every part of him. And when the damsell heard the
great strokes she cried with an high voice and saide, "Gentle
sirs, have pity on me, for I am the doughter of a king, and a
mayde have been since I was born. " Whenne the earl heard
this he marveled greatly, and opened the whale and took oute
the damsell. Thenne the maide tolde by order how that she was
a kyng's doughter, and how she lost her goods in the sea, and
how she should be married to the son of the emperour. And
when the earl heard these words he was glad, and helde the
maide with him a great while, till tyme that she was well com-
forted; and then he sent her solemnly to the emperour.


## p. 6268 (#238) ###########################################

6268
GESTA ROMANORUM
whenne he saw her coming, and heard that she had tribulacions
in the sea, he had great compassion for her in his heart, and
saide to her, "Goode damsell, thou hast suffered muche anger for
the love of my son; nevertheless, if that thou be worthy to have
him I shall soon prove. >>>
The emperour had made III. vessells, and the first was of
clean [pure] golde and full of precious stones outwarde, and
within full of dead bones; and it had a superscription in these
words: They that choose me shall find in me that they deserve.
The second vessell was all of clean silver, and full of worms:
and outwarde it had this superscription: They that choose me
shall find in me that nature and kind desireth. And the third
vessell was of lead and within was full of precious stones, and
without was set this scripture [inscription]: They that choose me
shall find in me that God hath disposed. These III. vessells
tooke the emperour and showed the maide, saying, "Lo! deer
damsell, here are three worthy vessellys, and if thou choose
[the] one of these wherein is profit and right to be chosen, then
thou shalt have my son to husband; and if thou choose that that
is not profitable to thee nor to no other, forsooth, thenne thou
shalt not have him. "
Whenne the doughter heard this and saw the three vessells,
she lifted up her eyes to God and saide: "Thou, Lord, that
knowest all things, graunt me thy grace now in the need of this
time, scil. that I may choose at this time, wherethrough [through
which] I may joy the son of the emperour and have him to hus-
band. " Thenne she beheld the first vessell that was so subtly
[cunningly] made, and read the superscription; and thenne she
thought, “What have I deserved for to have so precious a ves-
sell? and though it be never so gay without, I know not how
foul it is within; " so she tolde the emperour that she would by
no way choose that. Thenne she looked to the second, that was
of silver, and read the superscription; and thenne she said,
"My nature and kind asketh but delectation of the flesh, for-
sooth, sir," quoth she; "and I refuse this. " Thenne she looked
to the third, that was of lead, and read the superscription, and
then she saide, "In sooth, God disposed never evil; forsooth, that
which God hath disposed will I take and choose. "
And when the emperour sawe that he saide, "Goode dame-
sell, open now that vessell and see what thou hast found. " And
when it was opened it was full of gold and precious stones.


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GESTA ROMANORUM
6269
And thenne the emperour saide to her again, Damesell, thou
hast wisely chosen and won my son to thine husband. " So the
day was set of their bridal, and great joy was made; and the son
reigned after the decease of the fadir, the which made faire
ende. Ad quod nos perducat! Amen.
MORALITE
«
DEERE frendis, this emperour is the Father of Heaven, the
whiche made man ere he tooke flesh. The empress that con-
ceived was the blessed Virgin, that conceived by the annuncia-
tion of the angel. The firmament was set in his most clearnesse,
scil. the world was lighted in all its parts by the concepcion of
the empress Our Lady.
The little bird that passed from
the side of the moon is our Lord Jesus Christ, that was born at
midnight and lapped [wrapped] in clothes and set in the crib.
The two beasts are the oxen and the asses. The beasts that
come from far parts are the herds [shepherds] to whom the
angels saide, Ecce annuncio vobis gaudium magnum, - "Lo! I
shew you a great joy. " The birds that sang so sweetly are
angels of heaven, that sang Gloria in excelsis Deo. The king
that held such war is mankind, that was contrary to God while
that it was in power of the Devil; but when our Lord Jesus
Christ was born, then mankind inclined to God, and sent for
peace to be had, when he took baptism and saide that he gave
him to God and forsook the Devil. Now the king gave his
doughter to the son of the emperour, scil. each one of us ought
to give to God our soul in matrimony; for he is ready to receive
her to his spouse [etc. ].
HOW AN ANCHORESS WAS TEMPTED BY THE DEVIL
THE
HERE was a woman some time in the world living that sawe
the wretchedness, the sins, and the unstableness that was in
the worlde; therefore she left all the worlde, and wente into
the deserte, and lived there many years with roots and grasse,
and such fruit as she might gete; and dranke water of the welle-
spryng, for othere livelihood had she none. Atte laste, when she
had longe dwelled there in that place, the Devil in likenesse of a
woman, come to this holy woman's place; and when he come there
he knocked at the door. The holy woman come to the door and


## p. 6270 (#240) ###########################################

6270
GESTA ROMANORUM
asked what she would? She saide, "I pray thee, dame, that thou
wilt harbor me this night; for this day is at an end, and I am
afeard that wild beasts should devour me. " The good woman
saide, "For God's love ye are welcome to me; and take such as
God sendeth. " They sat them down together, and the good
woman sat and read saints' lives and other good things, till she
come to this writing, "Every tree that bringeth not forth good
fruit shall be caste downe, and burnt in helle. " "That is sooth,"
saide the Fiend, "and therefore I am adread; for if we lead
oure life alone, therefore we shall have little meed, for when we
dwelle alone we profit none but oure self. Therefore it were
better, me thinketh, to go and dwelle among folke, for to give
example to man and woman dwelling in this worlde. Then shall
we have much meed. " When this was saide they went to reste.
This good woman thought faste in her heart that she might not
sleep nor have no rest, for the thing that the Fiend had said.
Anon this woman arose and saide to the other woman,
"This
night might I have no reste for the words that thou saide yester
even. Therefore I wot never what is best to be done for us. ”
Then the Devil said to her again, "It is best to go forth to profit
to othere that shall be glad of oure coming, for that is much
more worth than to live alone. " Then saide the woman to the
Fiend, "Go we now forthe on oure way, for me thinketh it is not
evil to essay. " And when she should go oute at the door, she
stood still, and said thus, "Now, sweet Lady, Mother of mercy,
and help at all need, now counsell me the beste, and keep me
both body and soule from deadly sin. " When she had said these
words with good heart and with good will, oure Lady come and
laide her hande on her breast, and put her in again, and bade
her that she should abide there, and not be led by falsehood of
oure Enemy. The Fiend anon went away that she saw him no
more there. Then she was full fain that she was kept and not
beguiled of her enemy. Then she said on this wise to oure
Blessed Lady that is full of mercy and goodnesse, "I thanke thee
nowe with all my heart, specially for this keeping and many more
that thou hast done to me oft since; and good Lady, keep me
from henceforward. " Lo! here may men and women see how
ready this good Lady is to help her servants at all their need,
when they call to her for help, that they fall not in sin bestirring
of the wicked enemy the false Fiend.


## p. 6270 (#241) ###########################################



## p. 6270 (#242) ###########################################


EDWARD GIBBON.


## p. 6270 (#243) ###########################################

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## p. 6270 (#244) ###########################################


EDWARD GIBBON


## p. 6271 (#245) ###########################################

6271
EDWARD GIBBON
(1737-1794)
BY W. E. H. LECKY
HE history of Gibbon has been described by John Stuart Mill
as the only eighteenth-century history that has withstood.
nineteenth-century criticism; and whatever objections mod-
ern critics may bring against some of its parts, the substantial justice
of this verdict will scarcely be contested. No other history of that
century has been so often reprinted, annotated, and discussed, or
remains to the present day a capital authority on the great period of
which it treats. As a composition it stands unchallenged and con-
spicuous among the masterpieces of English literature, while as a
history it covers a space of more than twelve hundred years, includ-
ing some of the most momentous events in the annals of mankind.
Gibbon was born at Putney, Surrey, April 27th, 1737. Though his
father was a member of Parliament and the owner of a moderate
competence, the author of this great work was essentially a self-
educated man. Weak health and almost constant illness in early boy-
hood broke up his school life, which appears to have been fitfully
and most imperfectly conducted,-withdrew him from boyish games,
but also gave him, as it has given to many other shy and sedentary
boys, an early and inveterate passion for reading. His reading, how-
ever, was very unlike that of an ordinary boy. He has given a
graphic picture of the ardor with which, when he was only fourteen,
he flung himself into serious but unguided study; which was at first
purely desultory, but gradually contracted into historic lines, and
soon concentrated itself mainly on that Oriental history which he
was one day so brilliantly to illuminate. "Before I was sixteen," he
says, "I had exhausted all that could be learned in English of the
Arabs and Persians, the Tartars and Turks; and the same ardor led
me to guess at the French of D'Herbelot, and to construe the bar-
barous Latin of Pocock's 'Abulfaragius. › »
His health however gradually improved, and when he entered
Magdalen College, Oxford, it might have been expected that a new
period of intellectual development would have begun; but Oxford had
at this time sunk to the lowest depth of stagnation, and to Gibbon
it proved extremely uncongenial. He complained that he found no
guidance, no stimulus, and no discipline, and that the fourteen


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6272
EDWARD GIBBON
months he spent there were the most idle and unprofitable of his life.
They were very unexpectedly cut short by his conversion to the
Roman Catholic faith, which he formally adopted at the age of six-
teen.
This conversion is, on the whole, the most surprising incident of
his calm and uneventful life. The tendencies of the time, both in
England and on the Continent, were in a wholly different direction.
The more spiritual and emotional natures were now passing into
the religious revival of Wesley and Whitefield, which was slowly
transforming the character of the Anglican Church and laying the
foundations of the great Evangelical party.
In other quarters the
predominant tendencies were towards unbelief, skepticism, or indif-
ference. Nature seldom formed a more skeptical intellect than that
of Gibbon, and he was utterly without the spiritual insight, or spiritual
cravings, or overmastering enthusiasms, that produce and explain most
religious changes. Nor was he in the least drawn towards Catholi-
cism on its æsthetic side. He had never come in contact with its
worship or its professors; and to his unimaginative, unimpassioned,
and profoundly intellectual temperament, no ideal type could be
more uncongenial than that of the saint. He had however from early
youth been keenly interested in theological controversies. He argued,
like Lardner and Paley, that miracles are the Divine attestation of
orthodoxy. Middleton convinced him that unless the Patristic writers
were wholly undeserving of credit, the gift of miracles continued in
the Church during the fourth and fifth centuries; and he was unable
to resist the conclusion that during that period many of the leading
doctrines of Catholicism had passed into the Church. The writings
of the Jesuit Parsons, and still more the writings of Bossuet, com-
pleted the work which Middleton had begun. Having arrived at this
conclusion, Gibbon acted on it with characteristic honesty, and was
received into the Church on the 8th of June, 1753.
The English universities were at this time purely Anglican bodies,
and the conversion of Gibbon excluded him from Oxford. His father
judiciously sent him to Lausanne to study with a Swiss pastor named
Pavilliard, with whom he spent five happy and profitable years. The
theological episode was soon terminated. Partly under the influence
of his teacher, but much more through his own reading and reflec-
tions, he soon disentangled the purely intellectual ties that bound him
to the Church of Rome; and on Christmas Day, 1754, he received the
sacrament in the Protestant church of Lausanne.
His residence at Lausanne was very useful to him. He had access
to books in abundance, and his tutor, who was a man of great good
sense and amiability but of no remarkable capacity, very judiciously
left his industrious pupil to pursue his studies in his own way.


## p. 6273 (#247) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6273
"Hiving wisdom with each studious year,” as Byron so truly says,
he speedily amassed a store of learning which has seldom been
equaled. His insatiable love of knowledge, his rare capacity for con-
centrated, accurate, and fruitful study, guided by a singularly sure
and masculine judgment, soon made him, in the true sense of the
word, one of the best scholars of his time. His learning, however, was
not altogether of the kind that may be found in a great university
professor. Though the classical languages became familiar to him, he
never acquired or greatly valued the minute and finished scholarship
which is the boast of the chief English schools; and careful students
have observed that in following Greek books he must have very largely
used the Latin translations. Perhaps in his capacity of historian this
deficiency was rather an advantage than the reverse. It saved him
from the exaggerated value of classical form, and from the neglect of
the more corrupt literatures, to which English scholars have been often
prone. Gibbon always valued books mainly for what they contained,
and he had early learned the lesson which all good historians should
learn that some of his most valuable materials will be found in lit-
eratures that have no artistic merit; in writers who, without theory
and almost without criticism, simply relate the facts which they have
seen, and express in unsophisticated language the beliefs and impres-
sions of their time.
Lausanne and not Oxford was the real birthplace of his intellect,
and he returned from it almost a foreigner. French had become as
familiar to him as his own tongue; and his first book, a somewhat
superficial essay on the study of literature, was published in the
French language. The noble contemporary French literature filled
him with delight, and he found on the borders of the Lake of Geneva
a highly cultivated society to which he was soon introduced, and
which probably gave him more real pleasure than any in which
he afterwards moved. With Voltaire himself he had some slight
acquaintance, and he at one time looked on him with profound ad-
miration; though fuller knowledge made him sensible of the flaws
in that splendid intellect. I am here concerned with the life of Gib-
bon only in as far as it discloses the influences that contributed to
his master work, and among these influences the foreign element
holds a prominent place. There was little in Gibbon that was dis-
tinctively English; his mind was essentially cosmopolitan. His tastes,
ideals, and modes of thought and feeling turned instinctively to the
Continent.
In one respect this foreign type was of great advantage to his work,
Gibbon excels all other English historians in symmetry, proportion,
perspective, and arrangement, which are also the pre-eminent and
characteristic merits of the best French literature. We find in his
writing nothing of the great miscalculations of space that were made
XI-393


## p. 6274 (#248) ###########################################

6274
EDWARD GIBBON
by such writers as Macaulay and Buckle; nothing of the awkward
repetitions, the confused arrangement, the semi-detached and dis-
jointed episodes that mar the beauty of many other histories of no
small merit. Vast and multifarious as are the subjects which he
has treated, his work is a great whole, admirably woven in all its
parts. On the other hand, his foreign taste may perhaps be seen in
his neglect of the Saxon element, which is the most vigorous and
homely element in English prose. Probably in no other English
writer does the Latin element so entirely predominate. Gibbon never
wrote an unmeaning and very seldom an obscure sentence; he could
always paint with sustained and stately eloquence an illustrious char-
acter or a splendid scene: but he was wholly wanting in the grace of
simplicity, and a monotony of glitter and of mannerism is the great
defect of his style. He possessed, to a degree which even Tacitus
and Bacon had hardly surpassed, the supreme literary gift of conden-
sation, and it gives an admirable force and vividness to his nar-
rative; but it is sometimes carried to excess. Not unfrequently it
is attained by an excessive allusiveness, and a wide knowledge of
the subject needed to enable the reader to perceive the full im-
port and meaning conveyed or hinted at by a mere turn of phrase.
But though his style is artificial and pedantic, and greatly wanting
in flexibility, it has a rare power of clinging to the memory, and it
has profoundly influenced English prose. That excellent judge Car-
dinal Newman has said of Gibbon, "I seem to trace his vigorous
condensation and peculiar rhythm at every turn in the literature
of the present day. "
It is not necessary to relate here in any detail the later events of
the life of Gibbon. There was his enlistment as captain in the
Hampshire militia. It involved two and a half years of active serv-
ice, extending from May 1760 to December 1762; and as Gibbon
afterwards acknowledged, if it interrupted his studies and brought
him into very uncongenial duties and societies, it at least greatly en-
larged his acquaintance with English life, and also gave him a
knowledge of the rudiments of military science, which was not with-
out its use to the historian of so many battles. There was a long
journey, lasting for two years and five months, in France and Italy,
which greatly confirmed his foreign tendencies. In Paris he moved
familiarly in some of the best French literary society; and in Rome,
as he tells us in a well-known passage, while he sat "musing amidst
the ruins of the Capitol while the barefooted friars were singing
vespers in the Temple of Jupiter" (which is now the Church of the
Ara Cœli), on October 15th, 1764,- he first conceived the idea of
writing the history of the decline and fall of Rome.
—
There was also that very curious episode in his life, lasting from
1774 to 1782,- his appearance in the House of Commons. He had


## p. 6275 (#249) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6275
declined an offer of his father's to purchase a seat for him in 1760;
and fourteen years later, when his father was dead, when his own
circumstances were considerably contracted, he received and accepted
at the hands of a family connection the offer of a seat. His Parlia-
mentary career was entirely undistinguished, and he never even
opened his mouth in debate,—a fact which was not forgotten when
very recently another historian was candidate for a seat in Parlia-
ment. In truth, this somewhat shy and reserved scholar, with his
fastidious taste, his eminently judicial mind, and his highly condensed
and elaborate style, was singularly unfit for the rough work of Par-
liamentary discussion. No one can read his books without perceiving
that his English was not that of a debater; and he has candidly
admitted that he entered Parliament without public spirit or serious
interest in politics, and that he valued it chiefly as leading to an
office which might restore the fortune which the extravagance of his
father had greatly impaired. His only real public service was the
composition in French of a reply to the French manifesto which was
issued at the beginning of the war of 1778. He voted steadily and
placidly as a Tory, and it is not probable that in doing so he did any
violence to his opinions. Like Hume, he shrank with an instinctive
dislike from all popular agitations, from all turbulence, passion, exag-
geration, and enthusiasm; and a temperate and well-ordered despotism
was evidently his ideal. He showed it in the well-known passage in
which he extols the benevolent despotism of the Antonines as with-
out exception the happiest period in the history of mankind, and in
the unmixed horror with which he looked upon the French Revolu-
tion that broke up the old landmarks of Europe. For three years he
held an office in the Board of Trade, which added considerably to his
income without adding greatly to his labors, and he supported stead-
ily the American policy of Lord North and the Coalition ministry of
North and Fox; but the loss of his office and the retirement of North
soon drove him from Parliament, and he shortly after took up his
residence at Lausanne.
But before this time a considerable part of his great work had been
accomplished. The first quarto volume of the 'Decline and Fall' ap-
peared in February 1776. As is usually the case with historical works,
it occupied a much longer period than its successors, and was the
fruit of about ten years of labor. It passed rapidly through three
editions, received the enthusiastic eulogy of Hume and Robertson,
and was no doubt greatly assisted in its circulation by the storm
of controversy that arose about his Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters.
In April 1781 two more volumes appeared, and the three concluding
volumes were published together on the 8th of May, 1788, being the
fifty-first birthday of the author.


## p. 6276 (#250) ###########################################

6276
EDWARD GIBBON
A work of such magnitude, dealing with so vast a variety of sub-
jects, was certain to exhibit some flaws. The controversy at first
turned mainly upon its religious tendency. The complete skepticism
of the author, his aversion to the ecclesiastical type which dominated
in the period of which he wrote, and his unalterable conviction that
Christianity, by diverting the strength and enthusiasm of the Empire
from civic into ascetic and ecclesiastical channels, was a main cause
of the downfall of the Empire and of the triumph of barbarism, gave
him a bias which it was impossible to overlook. On no other subject
is his irony more bitter or his contempt so manifestly displayed. Few
good critics will deny that the growth of the ascetic spirit had a
large part in corroding and enfeebling the civic virtues of the Empire;
but the part which it played was that of intensifying a disease that
had already begun, and Gibbon, while exaggerating the amount of
the evil, has very imperfectly described the great services rendered
even by a monastic Church in laying the basis of another civilization
and in mitigating the calamities of the barbarian invasion. The
causes he has given of the spread of Christianity in the Fifteenth
Chapter were for the most part true causes, but there were others of
which he was wholly insensible. The strong moral enthusiasms that
transform the character and inspire or accelerate all great religious
changes lay wholly beyond the sphere of his realizations. His lan-
guage about the Christian martyrs is the most repulsive portion of
his work; and his comparison of the sufferings caused by pagan and
Christian persecutions is greatly vitiated by the fact that he only
takes account of the number of deaths, and lays no stress on the pro-
fuse employment of atrocious tortures, which was one of the most
distinct features of the pagan persecutions. At the same time, though
Gibbon displays in this field a manifest and a distorting bias, he
never, like some of his French contemporaries, sinks into the mere
partisan, awarding to one side unqualified eulogy and to the other
unqualified contempt. Let the reader who doubts this examine and
compare his masterly portraits of Julian and of Athanasius, and he
will perceive how clearly the great historian could recognize weak-
nesses in the characters by which he was most attracted, and ele-
ments of true greatness in those by which he was most repelled. A
modern writer, in treating of the history of religions, would have
given a larger space to comparative religion, and to the gradual, un-
conscious, and spontaneous growth of myths in the twilight periods of
the human mind. These however were subjects which were scarcely
known in the days of Gibbon, and he cannot be blamed for not hav-
ing discussed them.
Another class of objections which has been brought against him is
that he is weak upon the philosophical side, and deals with history


## p. 6277 (#251) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6277
mainly as a mere chronicle of events, and not as a chain of causes
and consequences, a series of problems to be solved, a gradual evolu-
tion which it is the task of the historian to explain. Coleridge, who
detested Gibbon and spoke of him with gross injustice, has put this
objection in the strongest form. He accuses him of having reduced
history to a mere collection of splendid anecdotes; of noting nothing
but what may produce an effect; of skipping from eminence to emi-
nence without ever taking his readers through the valleys between; of
having never made a single philosophical attempt to fathom the ulti-
mate causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which is
the very subject of his history. That such charges are grossly exag-
gerated will be apparent to any one who will carefully read the Sec-
ond and Third Chapters, describing the state and tendencies of the
Empire under the Antonines; or the chapters devoted to the rise and
character of the barbarians, to the spread of Christianity, to the influ-
ence of monasticism, to the jurisprudence of the republic and of the
Empire; nor would it be difficult to collect many acute and profound
philosophical remarks from other portions of the history. Still, it
may be admitted that the philosophical side is not its strongest part.
Social and economical changes are sometimes inadequately exam-
ined and explained, and we often desire fuller information about the
manners and life of the masses of the people. As far as concerns
the age of the Antonines, this want has been amply supplied by the
great work of Friedländer.
History, like many other things in our generation, has fallen
largely into the hands of specialists; and it is inevitable that men
who have devoted their lives to a minute examination of short
periods should be able to detect some deficiencies and errors in a
writer who traversed a period of more than twelve hundred years.
Many generations of scholars have arisen since Gibbon; many new
sources of knowledge have become available, and archæology espe-
cially has thrown a flood of new light on some of the subjects he
treated. Though his knowledge and his narrative are on the whole
admirably sustained, there are periods which he knew less well and
treated less fully than others. His account of the Crusades is gener-
ally acknowledged to be one of the most conspicuous of these, and
within the last few years there has arisen a school of historians who
protest against the low opinion of the Byzantine Empire which was
held by Gibbon, and was almost universal among scholars till the
present generation. That these writers have brought into relief cer-
tain merits of the Lower Empire which Gibbon had neglected, will
not be denied; but it is perhaps too early to decide whether the re-
action has not, like most reactions, been carried to extravagance, and
whether in its general features the estimate of Gibbon is not nearer
the truth than some of those which are now put forward to replace it.


## p. 6278 (#252) ###########################################

6278
EDWARD GIBBON
Much must no doubt be added to the work of Gibbon in order to
bring it up to the level of our present knowledge; but there is no
sign that any single work is likely to supersede it or to render it use-
less to the student; nor does its survival depend only or even mainly
on its great literary qualities, which have made it one of the classics
of the language. In some of these qualities Hume was the equal of
Gibbon and in others his superior, and he brought to his history a
more penetrating and philosophical intellect and an equally calm and
unenthusiastic nature; but the study which Hume bestowed on his
subject was so superficial and his statements were often so inaccu-
rate, that his work is now never quoted as an authority. With Gibbon
it is quite otherwise. His marvelous industry, his almost unrivaled
accuracy of detail, his sincere love of truth, his rare discrimination
and insight in weighing testimony and in judging character, have
given him a secure place among the greatest historians of the world.
His life lasted only fifty-six years; he died in London on January
15th, 1794. With a single exception his history is his only work of real
importance. That exception is his admirable autobiography. Gibbon
left behind him six distinct sketches, which his friend Lord Sheffield
put together with singular skill. It is one of the best specimens of
self-portraiture in the language, reflecting with pellucid clearness both
the life and character, the merits and defects, of its author.
He was
certainly neither a hero nor a saint; nor did he possess the moral
and intellectual qualities that dominate in the great conflicts of life,
sway the passions of men, appeal powerfully to the imagination, or
dazzle and impress in social intercourse. He was a little slow, a little
pompous, a little affected and pedantic. In the general type of his
mind and character he bore much more resemblance to Hume, Adam
Smith, or Reynolds, than to Johnson or Burke. A reserved scholar,
who was rather proud of being a man of the world; a confirmed
bachelor, much wedded to his comforts though caring nothing for lux-
ury, he was eminently moderate in his ambitions, and there was not
a trace of passion or enthusiasm in his nature. Such a man was not
likely to inspire any strong devotion. But his temper was most
kindly, equable, and contented; he was a steady friend, and he ap-
pears to have been always liked and honored in the cultivated and
uncontentious society in which he delighted. His life was not a great
one, but it was in all essentials blameless and happy. He found the
work which was most congenial to him. He pursued it with admi-
rable industry and with brilliant success, and he left behind him a
book which is not likely to be forgotten while the English language
endures.
век бику


## p. 6279 (#253) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6279
ZENOBIA
-
URELIAN had no sooner secured the person and provinces of
A Tetricus, than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the cele-
brated queen of Palmyra and the East. Modern Europe has
produced several illustrious women who have sustained with glory
the weight of empire nor is our own age destitute of such dis-
tinguished characters. But if we except the doubtful achieve-
ments of Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose
superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on
her sex by the climate and manners of Asia. She claimed her
descent from the Macedonian kings of Egypt, equaled in beauty
her ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity
and valor. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the
most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in
speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth
were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled
with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness.
Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understand-
ing was strengthened and adorned by study. She was not igno-
rant of the Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the
Greek, the Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn
up for her own use an epitome of Oriental history, and familiarly
compared the beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of
the sublime Longinus.
This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, who,
from a private station, raised himself to the dominion of the
East. She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In
the intervals of war, Odenathus passionately delighted in the ex-
ercise of hunting; he pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the
desert, lions, panthers, and bears; and the ardor of Zenobia in
that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had
inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a covered
carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military habit, and
sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of the
troops. The success of Odenathus was in a great measure as-
cribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their splen-
did victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued as
far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundations of their united
fame and power. The armies which they commanded, and the


## p. 6280 (#254) ###########################################

6280
EDWARD GIBBON
provinces which they had saved, acknowledged not any other sov-
ereigns than their invincible chiefs. The Senate and people of
Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive em-
peror, and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odena-
thus for his legitimate colleague.
After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of
Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in
Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic trea-
son; and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or at
least the occasion, of his death. His nephew Mæonius presumed
to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and though admon-
ished of his error, repeated the same insolence. As a monarch
and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked, took away his
horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised.
the rash youth by a short confinement. The offense was soon for-
got, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a
few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a
great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of
Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper, was killed
with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasure of
revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume
the title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to
the memory of her husband.
With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immedi-
ately filled the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels
Palmyra, Syria, and the East, above five years. By the death of
Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the Senate had
granted him only as a personal distinction; but his martial
widow, disdaining both the Senate and Gallienus, obliged one of
the Roman generals who was sent against her to retreat into
Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation. Instead of
the little passions which so frequently perplex a female reign, the
steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the most judicious
maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon, she could calm
her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she could impose
silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was accused of
avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared magnificent
and liberal. The neighboring States of Arabia, Armenia, and
Persia dreaded her enmity and solicited her alliance. To the
dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the Euphrates to
the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the inheritance of her


## p. 6281 (#255) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6281
ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of Egypt. The Em-
peror Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was content that
while he pursued the Gothic war, she should assert the dignity of
the Empire in the East. The conduct however of Zenobia was
attended with some ambiguity, nor is it unlikely that she had
conceived the design of erecting an independent and hostile mon-
archy. She blended with the popular manners of Roman princes
the stately pomp of the courts of Asia, and exacted from her sub-
jects the same adoration that was paid to the successors of Cyrus.
She bestowed on her three sons a Latin education, and often
showed them to the troops adorned with the imperial purple.
For herself she reserved the diadem, with the splendid but doubt-
ful title of Queen of the East.
When Aurelian passed over into Asia against an adversary
whose sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his
presence restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already
shaken by the arms and intrigues of Zenobia. Advancing at the
head of his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and
was admitted into Tyana, after an obstinate siege, by the help
of a perfidious citizen. The generous though fierce temper of
Aurelian abandoned the traitor to the rage of the soldiers: a
superstitious reverence induced him to treat with lenity the coun-
trymen of Apollonius the philosopher. Antioch was deserted on
his approach, till the Emperor, by his salutary edicts, recalled the
fugitives, and granted a general pardon to all who from neces-
sity rather than choice had been engaged in the service of the
Palmyrenian Queen. The unexpected mildness of such a conduct
reconciled the minds of the Syrians, and as far as the gates of
Emesa the wishes of the people seconded the terror of his arms.
Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation, had she indo-
lently permitted the Emperor of the West to approach within a
hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided
in two great battles, so similar in almost every circumstance
that we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by
observing that the first was fought near Antioch and the second
near Emesa. In both the Queen of Palmyra animated the armies
by her presence, and devolved the execution of her orders on
Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the
conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted
for the most part of light archers, and of heavy cavalry clothed
in complete steel. The Moorish and Illyrian horse of Aurelian


## p. 6282 (#256) ###########################################

6282
EDWARD GIBBON
were unable to sustain the ponderous charge of their antagonists.
They fled in real or affected disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians
in a laborious pursuit, harassed them by a desultory combat, and
at length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of
cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when they had
exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against a
closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the
legions. Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were
usually stationed on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had
been severely tried in the Alemannic war. After the defeat of
Emesa, Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army.
ar as the frontier of Egypt, the nations subject to her empire
had joined the standard of the conqueror, who detached Probus,
the bravest of his generals, to possess himself of the Egyptian
provinces. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of
Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made
every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with the
intrepidity of a heroine, that the last moment of her reign and
of her life should be the same.
Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few cultivated spots rise
like islands out of the sandy ocean. Even the name of Tadmor,
or Palmyra, by its signification in the Syriac as well as in the
Latin language, denoted the multitude of palm-trees which
afforded shade and verdure to that temperate region. The air
was pure, and the soil, watered by some invaluable springs, was
capable of producing fruits as well as corn. A place possessed
of such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient dis-
tance between the Gulf of Persia and the Mediterranean,* was
soon frequented by the caravans which conveyed to the nations
of Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India.
Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent
city, and connecting the Roman and the Parthian monarchies
by the mutual benefits of commerce, was suffered to observe a
humble neutrality, till at length after the victories of Trajan
the little republic sunk into the bosom of Rome, and flourished
more than one hundred and fifty years in the subordinate though
honorable rank of a colony. It was during that peaceful period,
if we may judge from a few remaining inscriptions, that the
wealthy Palmyrenians constructed those temples, palaces, and
* Five hundred and thirty-seven miles from Seleucia, two hundred and
three from the nearest coast of Syria, according to Pliny.


## p. 6283 (#257) ###########################################

EDWARD GIBBON
6283
porticos of Grecian architecture whose ruins, scattered over an
extent of several miles, have deserved the curiosity of our travel-
ers. The elevation of Odenathus and Zenobia appeared to reflect
new splendor on their country, and Palmyra for a while stood
forth the rival of Rome: but the competition was fatal, and ages
of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory.
In his march over the sandy desert between Emesa and Pal-
myra, the Emperor Aurelian was perpetually harassed by the
Arabs; nor could he always defend his army, and especially his
baggage, from those flying troops of active and daring robbers
who watched the moment of surprise and eluded the slow pur-
suit of the legions. The siege of Palmyra was an object far
more difficult and important, and the Emperor, who with inces-
sant vigor pressed the attacks in person, was himself wounded
with a dart. "The Roman people," says Aurelian, in an original
letter, "speak with contempt of the war which I am waging
against a woman. They a ignorant both of the character and
of the power of Zenobia. It is impossible to enumerate her war-
like preparations of stones, of arrows, and of every species of
missile weapons. Every part of the walls is provided with two
or three balista, and artificial fires are thrown from her military
engines. The fear of punishment has armed her with a desperate
courage. Yet still I trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who
have hitherto been favorable to all my undertakings. " Doubtful,
however, of the protection of the gods and of the event of the
siege, Aurelian judged it more prudent to offer terms of an ad-
vantageous capitulation: to the Queen, a splendid retreat; to the
citizens, their ancient privileges. His proposals were obstinately
rejected, and the refusal was accompanied with insult.
The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope that in a
very short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass
the desert, and by the reasonable expectation that the kings of
the East, and particularly the Persian monarch, would arm in the
defense of their most natural ally. But fortune and the persever-
ance of Aurelian overcame every obstacle. The death of Sapor,
which happened about this time, distracted the counsels of Persia,
and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to relieve Palmyra
were easily intercepted either by the arms or the liberality of
the Emperor. From every part of Syria a regular succession of
convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was increased by the
return of Probus with his victorious troops from the conquest of


## p. 6284 (#258) ###########################################

6284
EDWARD GIBBON
Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly. She mounted
the fleetest of her dromedaries, and had already reached the banks
of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from Palmyra, when she was
overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian's light horse, seized, and
brought back a captive to the feet of the Emperor. Her capital
soon afterwards surrendered, and was treated with unexpected
lenity. The arms, horses, and camels, with an immense treasure
of gold, silver, silk, and precious stones, were all delivered to the
conqueror, who, leaving only a garrison of six hundred archers,
returned to Emesa and employed some time in the distribution
of rewards and punishments at the end of so memorable a war,
which restored to the obedience of Rome those provinces that had
renounced their allegiance since the captivity of Valerian.
When the Syrian Queen was brought into the presence of
Aurelian he sternly asked her, How she had presumed to rise in
arms against the emperors of Rome! The answer of Zenobia was
a prudent mixture of respect and firmness: "Because I disdained
to consider as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You
alone I acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign. ”
as female fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady
or consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour
of trial; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers, who
called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous
despair of Cleopatra which she had proposed as her model, and
ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her
friends.