On the other hand, we must remember that Gibbon's hard and accurate criticism set a good example in one respect.

The fertile fancy of the middle ages had run into wild exaggerations of the number of the primitive martyrs, and their legends had not always been submitted to impartial scrutiny even in the eighteenth century.

We may admit that Gibbon was not without bias of another kind, and that his tone is often very offensive when he seeks to depreciate the evidence of the sufferings of the early confessors.

His computation, which will allow of "an annual consumption of a hundred and fifty martyrs," is nothing short of cynical.

Still he did good service in insisting on chapter and verse and fair historical proof of these frightful stories, before they were admitted.