We may be quite certain that if Gibbon had had our experience, no one would have seen the imperfections of particular sides of his work as we now have it more clearly than he.
Laying aside, therefore, reflexions of this kind as irrelevant and unjust, we may ask whether there are any other faults which may fairly be found with him.

One must admit that there are.

After all, they are not very important.
(1.) Striking as is his account of Justinian's reign, it has two blemishes.

First, the offensive details about the vices of Theodora.
Granting them to be well authenticated, which they are not, it was quite unworthy of the author and his subject to soil his pages with such a _chronique scandaleuse_.

The defence which he sets up in his Memoirs, that he is "justified in painting the manners of the times, and that the vices of Theodora form an essential feature in the reign and character of Justinian," cannot be admitted.