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. First, we are not
sure that the vices existed, and were not the impure inventions of a
malignant calumniator. Secondly, Gibbon is far from painting the
manners of the time as a moralist or an historian; he paints them with
a zest for pruriency worthy of Bayle or Brantome.
Pages:
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243