At the "flexible age of sixteen he soon learned to endure, and gradually to adopt," foreign manners.

French became the language in which he spontaneously thought; "his views were enlarged, and his prejudices were corrected." In one particular he cannot be complimented on the effect of his continental education, when he congratulates himself "that his taste for the French theatre had abated his idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of Englishmen." Still it is well to be rid of idolatry and bigotry even with regard to Shakespeare.

We must remember that the insular prejudices from which Gibbon rejoiced to be free were very different in their intensity and narrowness from anything of the kind which exists now.

The mixed hatred and contempt for foreigners which prevailed in his day, were enough to excite disgust in any liberal mind.
The lucid order and admirable literary form of Gibbon's great work are qualities which can escape no observant reader.

But they are qualities which are not common in English books.