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fay that he Jlabbed Csefar, the fadl is related circumftantially ; 

 an addition is made of the mode in which the a(fl was accom- 

 plifhed. But when we fay that Brutus rriurderld Csefar, our 

 aflertion goes beyond the fa(fl, and we pronounce an opinion 

 on the criminality of Brutus. Words of the firft and fecond 

 clafs form the proper langviage of hiftorical narrative ; words 

 of the laft by their reflex or fecondary fignifications are the 

 language of the writer's charadter. Hence the. greater the fim- 

 plicity of ftyle, the more proper for an hiftorian ; and, on the 

 other hand, the more vain the hiftorian, the greater his fond- 

 nefs for difplaying himfelf and putting forward his own 

 opinions, the more faulty is his ftyle. On this ground it is 

 that the ftyle of Mr, Gibbon as an hiftorian is extremely 

 unfit for imitation : his work is much more an hiftory of his 

 own mind and opinions than of the decline and fall of the 

 Roman empire. 



Were it pofllble for the human mind to divert itfelf in 

 an inftant of the paffion to which it had immediately before 

 been fubjedl, and to view every thing which comes before it 

 as wholly new and perfedlly fingular in its nature, ftill an 

 author would have fome ftyle of thought arifing from a pre- 

 diledlion for certain modes of confidering his fubjecfls, founded 

 on the peculiarity of his natural underftanding, his education 

 and intellecftual habits. But as many of the objedls are not 

 new, what at the prcfent time occurs will coincide with or 

 be judged of by what has formerly been thought on the fame 

 fubjeds, or on fuch others as are by fome of their nume- 

 rous 



