324 GIBBON. 



But great vices also fell to liis share. Has tantas viri 

 virtutes ingentia vitia rcquabant. (Liv. xxi. cli. 4.) He 

 never attained, with all his practice, the first quality of 

 the historical style, and which goes deeper than the 

 mere manner, the power of narrative. The story does 

 not flow smoothly along; its course is interrupted; it 

 wants unity, being broken down into fragments. It is 

 almost as much argumentative as narrative. But above 

 all it fails in the very first quality of narrative ; it does 

 not assume the ignorance of the reader and relate things 



C-J O 



in their order, proceeding from what has been told or ex- 

 plained to what remains undisclosed. Now this is the most 

 essential quality of all didactic compositions, and for the 

 present purpose every work is didactic. Whether a 

 science is to be unfolded, or an argument to be enforced, 

 or a story to be told, nothing should be anticipated, no- 

 thing assumed to be known before it has been propounded. 

 Now Gibbon constantly seems to assume that his reader 

 knows the subject, and continually alludes to what lias 

 yet to be brought before him. It is a part of this defect* 

 indeed it is the main cause of this defect, that he is 

 generally observing upon matters rather than plainly 

 recounting them. Numberless instances might be given 

 of these anticipations and assumptions ; not a few of his 

 leaving out the facts and losing himself in the remarks. 

 One or two may suffice rather as explaining than as 

 proving those positions, to which all Gibbon's readers 

 must assent. There is nothing more elaborate than his 

 history of Alexander Severus; yet two references are 

 made to his death, and one of them is made the subject 

 of a general inference, at a considerable distance from the 

 account of his murder, afterwards given (chap. VII.) ; 



