which bears that lofty name, appropriated to itself with unsparing hand whatever formed the brightest glories of other nations, until it rose into a mag nificence both sublime and gigantic; and when such a structure is seen fallen and decayed, there is a grandeur in the ruins that is irresistibly impressive and absorbing. It is Rome draped in the hallowed light of all her departed glory that Gibbon depicts to us with his graphic pen. It was, as he tells us himself, while he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, covered with the evening shades of an Italian autumn, and listening to the Friars chanting their vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that he con ceived the purpose of his work; and as if imbued! with the spirit of the exciting scene before him, hơɑ has quickened into life the Forum and the Trium phal Arch, and made them tell their stories of the greatness which once ennobled the generations of antiquity. And then, when he has depicted to us these scenes of decayed splendor till we long ford something fresh and new, he leads us away, evok ing from the fragments of the dilapidated empire, nations and institutions wearing the form and breathing the spirit of later ages. But although he

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is thus the historian of both the ancient and mo dern worlds, he is not oppressed by the vastness of his plan, or embarrassed or confused by the diversity and magnitude of his materials. Under his po tent wand they all settle down into their appropri ate places, and assume a finished symmetry, till we have a work before us (which, notwithstanding the blemishes of a style at times so stately as to be al most turgid, has placed the author on a pedestal among historians, from which he is not to be shaken. IIS But, as if animated with the cunning of "that old serpent which deceiveth the nations," he has sol constructed the whole, as to make it a running di bel on Christianity. An opportunity for "sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer" seldom escapes/ him. But his sneers are comparatively harmless.d Neither is it his direct and open attacks on the truths of Christianity that we should chiefly dread. When he has dared to come out and show himself, he has been met and overthrown. The chief danger! from Gibbon is of a different kind."Dan," says the

Patriarch, shall be a serpent by the wayside, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse's heels, sou that his rider shall fall backwards." And the lan

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guage is strikingly descriptive of the subtilty and treachery which distinguish Gibbon as an infidel writer. He has planted himself on one of the great highways of knowledge, and like "an adder in the path," he hides his venomous designs from the unwary traveller. All historians have facilities pecu, liar to themselves for misleading their readers; and Gibbon has availed himself of them to the fullest extent. With the artfulness of which he is an ac complished master, and which it sometimes requires great care and study to detect, he places facts in such aspects and relations as must lead to conclu sions directly at variance with truth and justice. While he would only seem to be giving harmony and continuity to his narrative, he often contrives to clothe the corrupt and scandalous institutions of Pa ganism in aspects so attractive that we almost grieve to part with them, lest we should bury in their grave whatever forms the grace and the grandeur of the world's best days; while the debasing and gross sensuality which accompanied them, is either palliated or studiously kept out of view When he describes the progress of Mahomet, it is done with a vividness and an exultation, that might

incline the minds of his ardent readers to join in chanting a triumph to that chief among impostors; while the deceit, violence, and blood, by which the Koran was spread, receive scarce a passing censure. But when he describes the progress and fruits of the Gospel among the nations, his pencil seems to have been dipped in the coldness and deadness of the sepulchre. Whatever may be the other systems of faith and forms of worship which he recommends or embellishes, Christianity is held up as having Scarce a redeeming a redeeming quality to atone for the wrongs he imputes to it. With an avidity which he cannot conceal, he recites and parades the errors and faults of Christians, showing that he gloried in their shame; but their noble examples of faith and patience when they either died martyrs to the truth, or spread streams of salvation through a lost and suffering world, awaken no sentiment of admiration; of if at times he is compelled by the force of truth to sn speak of their illustrious deeds, he doles out his reluctant and scanty commendations, grudgingly a miser would part with his gold, impatient till he can close his hand and give no more.

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Nor is this all: painful as it is to

expose

dishon

Nesty and bad faith in a writer of Gibbon's powerful mind, when we find him framing such mysteries of iniquity, such insidious attacks on Christianity; with what abhorrence of the man must we contemplate him, when we see him descending to the low mire of obscenity. True indeed, shame forbade him to translate his disgusting pictures of sensuality into ahis own language, and to interweave them with the Estext of his pages. But his evident relish for them

was so great that he could not part with them; and the shape and the place in which he has left them serve to show the deep art with which he has con¿ trived to make even this portion of his work the more dangerous and hurtful. "It is no apology for this insult upon the public morals" as has been well bobserved, “an insult of many years continuance, ethat the poison was confined to his notes, and enveloped in the cover of a dead and difficult lan@guage. It did more mischief than his Infidelity. It addresses itself to the imagination and the passions of an age which needed not to be inflamed by intellectual incentives to the youth of our great schools and universities, who, captivated by the seductive charms of his text, would be further at

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