The flexibility of intellect which can do
justice in quick succession to such diverse subjects is very
extraordinary, and assuredly implies great width of sympathy and large
receptivity of nature.
Having terminated the period of Justinian, Gibbon makes a halt, and
surveys the varied and immense scene through which he will presently
pass in many directions. He rapidly discovers _ten_ main lines, along
which he will advance in succession to his final goal, the conquest
of Constantinople. The two pages at the commencement of the
forty-eighth chapter, in which he sketches out the remainder of his
plan and indicates the topics which he means to treat, are admirable
as a luminous _precis_, and for the powerful grasp which they show of
his immense subject. It lay spread out all before him, visible in
every part to his penetrating eye, and he seems to rejoice in his
conscious strength and ability to undertake the historical conquest on
which he is about to set out. "Nor will this scope of narrative," he
says, "the riches and variety of these materials, be incompatible with
the unity of design and composition.
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