334 GIBBON. 



his being a person of rank aggravated the guilt; and 

 relates, without a single expression of disapproval, that 

 the man "was burnt, or rather roasted by a slow fire, 

 every refinement of cruelty being exhausted without 

 altering the steady smile which remained on his coun- 

 tenance." The only remark made on the executioners is 

 of an extenuating nature ; they were, it seems, " zealous 

 to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to 

 the Emperor." The smile of the patient sufferer is 

 termed " a steady and insulting smile ;" and the Chris- 

 tians are sneered at for " the excessive commendations 

 which they lavished on the memory of their hero and 

 martyr." Gibbon's clerical adversaries would have fared 

 much better in their conflict with him had they dwelt 

 rather upon such passages as these, in which he stands 

 self-convicted either of almost incurable prejudice or of 

 bad faith, and not attempted the hopeless act of charging 

 him with ignorance and with false quotation. 



The charge of indecency has often been advanced 

 against Gibbon's * History/ and by none more severely than 

 by a writer who was combating on his side, in one, at 

 least, of his theological controversies, and a writer whose 

 own verses, any more than his familiar conversation, gave 

 him but little right to make this complaint. Porson* de- 

 clares that, " Were the * History' anonymous, he should 

 guess that the shameful obscenities which pervade the 

 whole, but especially the last volumes, were written by 

 some debauchee, who, having, from age or excess, sur- 

 vived the practices of lust, still indulged himself in the 

 luxury of speculation, or exposed the impotent imbecility 



* ' Letters to Archdeacon Travis.' Preface. 



