Depopulation, decay of agriculture, fiscal oppression, the general prostration begotten of despotism--all these sources of the great collapse may be traced in his text, or his wonderful notes, hinted very often with a flashing insight which anticipates the most recent inquiries into the subject.

But these considerations are not brought together to a luminous point, nor made to yield clear and tangible results.

They lie scattered, isolated, and barren over three volumes, and are easily overlooked.

One may say that generalised and synthetic views are conspicuous by their absence in Gibbon.
But what of that?
These reflections, even if they be well founded, hardly dim the majesty of the _Decline and Fall_.

The book is such a marvel of knowledge at once wide and minute, that even now, after numbers of labourers have gone over the same ground, with only special objects in view, small segments of the great circle which Gibbon fills alone, his word is still one of the weightiest that can be quoted.
Modern research has unquestionably opened out points of view to which he did not attain.