168 Review. 



if we possessed no other materials for the purpose, one 

 might construct a successful defence of the knowledge 

 of the Romans in the time of Vespasian. — How much ■ 

 do we feel for Tacitus, the manly and the energetic 

 Tacitus, whan he seriously tells us, in his Annals, that 

 1 in the Consulship of Paulus Fabius, and Lucius Vi- 

 tellius, after a long vicissitude of ages, the Phoenix 

 arrived in Egypt ; ' when he goes on to collect together 

 the most extravagant stories relative to the life and the 

 habits of this miraculous bird : some of which, indeed, 

 his judgment leads him to reject ; observing, ' that in 

 the account of the Phoenix there is no doubt a mixture 

 of fable ;' ' but that this bird (says the great historian), 

 from time to time, appeared in Egypt, seems to be a 

 point sufficiently ascertained.' It is to be regretted, 

 that on other subjects, relative to natural history, the 

 Roman historian has exhibited some marks of his credu- 

 lity ; I will not willingly say, of his ignorance*. Indeed, 

 few are the writers of civil history who have not sullied 

 their works, when they have had occasion to treat of, 

 or touch upon, points of natural history. With great 

 pleasure, however, do I mention, as an exception to this 

 position, the vast work of Mr. Gibbon on the Decline 

 and Fall of the Roman Empire : a work from which 

 even the student of natural history may collect many 

 facts and much information ; and this, too, so correctly 

 and so cautiously related, that I do not recollect a single 

 instance in which the fidelity of Gibbon, as a naturalist, 

 can be called in question. How unlike his friend Dr. 

 Robertson, who, with stronger and with better lights to 



" * See the Germania of Tacitus. 



