We feel that the writer was thinking more of his sonorous sentence than of the real fact.

On the other hand, nothing but a want of candour or taste can lead any one to overlook the rare and great excellences of Gibbon's style.

First of all, it is singularly correct: a rather common merit now, but not common in his day.

But its sustained vigour and loftiness will always be uncommon; above all its rapidity and masculine length of stride are quite admirable.

When he takes up his pen to describe a campaign, or any great historic scene, we feel that we shall have something worthy of the occasion, that we shall be carried swiftly and grandly through it all, without the suspicion of a breakdown of any kind being possible.