His pitiful superstition, his huge vanity, his weak affectation are brought out with an incisive clearness and subtle penetration into character which Gibbon was not always so ready to display.

At the same time he does full justice to Julian's real merits.

And this is perhaps the most striking evidence of his penetration.

An error on the side of injustice to Julian is very natural in a man who, having renounced allegiance to Christianity, yet fully realises the futility of attempting to arrest it in the fourth century.

A certain intellectual disdain for the reactionary emperor is difficult to avoid.