from mine. Had he contented himself with the ufe of that ftyle which decency and politenefs have banished from the more liberal part of mankind, I fhould have fmiled, perhaps with fome contempt, but without the leaft mixture of anger or refentment. Every animal employs the note, or cry, or howl, which is peculiar to its fpecies; every man expreffes himself in the dialect the most congenial to his temper and inclination, the mot familiar to the company in which he has lived, and to the authors with whom he is converfant; and while I was difpofed to allow that Mr. Davis had made fome proficiency in Ecclefiaftical ftudies, I fhould have confidered the difference of our language and manners as an unfurmountable bar of feparation between us. Mr. Davis has overleaped that bar, and forces me to contend with him on the very dirty ground which he has chofen for the scene of our combat. He has judged, I know not with how much propriety, that the fupport of a caufe, which would difclaim fuch unworthy affiftance, depended on the ruin of my moral and literary character. The different mifreprefentations, of which he has drawn out the ignominious catalogue, would materially affect my credit as an hiftorian, my reputation as a fcholar, and even my honour and veracity as a gentleman. If I am indeed incapable of understanding what I read, I can no longer claim a place among thofe writers who merit the esteem and confidence of the Public. If I am capable of wilfully perverting what I understand, I no longer deferve to live in the fociety of those men, who confider a ftrict and inviolable adherence to truth, as the foundation of every thing that is virtuous or honourable in human nature. At the fame time, I am not infenfible that his mode of attack has given a tranfient pleasure. to my enemies, and a tranfient uneafinefs to my friends. The fize of his volume, the boldness of his affertions, the acrimony of his ftyle, are contrived with tolerable skill to confound the ignorance and candour of his readers. There are few who will examine the truth or juftice of his accufations; and of those perfons who have been directed by their education to the ftudy of ecclefiaftical antiquity, many will believe, or will affect to believe, that the fuccefs of their champion has been equal to his zeal, and that the Serpent pierced with an hundred wounds lies expiring at his feet. Mr. Davis's book will ceafe to be read (perhaps the grammarians may already reproach me for the use of an improper tenfe); but the oblivion towards which it feems to be haftening, will afford the more ample scope for the artful practice of thofe, who may not fcruple to affirm, or rather to infinuate, that Mr. Gibbon was publickly convicted of falsehood and mifrepresentation; that the evidence produced against him was unanfwerable; and that his filence was the effect and the proof of confcious guilt. Under the hands of a malicious furgeon, the fting of a wafp may continue to fefter and inflame, long after the vexatious little infect has left its venom and its life in the wound.

• The defence of my own honour is undoubtedly the first and prevailing motive which urges me to repel with vigour an unjust and unprovoked attack; and to undertake a tedious vindication, which, after the perpetual repetition of the vainest and most difgufting of the pronouns, will only prove that I am innocent; and that Mr. Davis, in his charge, has very frequently fubfcribed his own condemnation.

And

And yet I may presume to affirm, that the Public have fome interest in this controverfy. They have fome intereft to know whether the writer whom they have honoured with their favour is deferving of their confidence, whether they must content themselves with reading the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a tale amusing enough, or whether they may venture to receive it as a fair and authentic hiftory. The general perfuafion of mankind, that where much has been pofitively afferted, fomething must be true, may contribute to encourage a fecret fufpicion, which would naturally diffuse itself over the whole body of the work. Some of thofe friends who may now tax me with imprudence for taking this public notice of Mr. Davis's book, have perhaps already condemned me for filently acquiefcing under the weight of fuch ferious, fuch direct, and fuch circumftantial imputations.

Mr. Davis, who in the last page of his work appears to have recollected that modefty is an amiable and useful qualification, affirms that his plan required only that he should confult the authors to whom he was directed by my references; and that the judgment of riper years was not fo neceffary to enable him to execute with fuccefs the pious labour to which he had devoted his pen. Perhaps before we feparate, a moment to which I most fervently afpire, Mr. Davis may find that a mature judgment is indispensably requifite for the fuccefsful execution of any work of literature, and more especially of criticifm. Perhaps he will discover, that a young ftudent who hastily confalts an unknown author, on a subject with which he is unacquainted, cannot always be guided by the most accurate reference to the knowledge of the fenfe, as well as to the fight of the paffage which has been quoted by his adverfary. Abundant proofs of thefe maxims will hereafter be fuggefted. For the prefent, I fhall only remark, that it is my intention to purfue in my defence the order, or rather the course, which Mr. Davis has marked out in his Examination; and that I have numbered the feveral articles of my impeachment according to the most natural division of the subject. And now let me proceed on this hoftile march over a dreary and barren defert, where thirst, hunger, and intolerable wearinefs, are much more to be dreaded, than the arrows of the enemy.'

As few of our Readers can be fuppofed to be intimately ac-, quainted with the writings of Eufebius, Lactantius, Jerom, Juftin Martyr, Tertullian, &c. we shall pafs over what Mr. Gibbon advances in his own vindication, with regard to the paffages referred to in thefe writers; we cannot however deny ourfelves the pleasure of placing before our Readers the very manly and fatisfactory answer of Mr. Gibbon to the charges brought against him by Mr. Davis, respecting his mode of quo

tation.

Mr. Davis, in the Introduction to his Examination (fce our Review for September laft), tells us, that the Hiftorian fometimes mentions the Author only, perhaps the book, and often leaves the Reader the toil of finding out, or rather gueffing at the paffage; that by this policy, he has an opportunity of in

2

dulging

dulging his wit and his fpleen, in fathering the abfurdest opinions on the moft venerable writers of antiquity; that on examining his references, when they are to be traced, we often find him fupporting his caufe by manifeft falfification, and perpetually affuming to himself the ftrange privilege of inferting in his text what the Writers referred to give him no right to advance on their authority.

Now hear Mr. Gibbon's reply. Such, fays he, is the ftile of Mr. Davis; who in another place mentions this mode of quotation, as a good artifice to escape detection; and applauds, with an agreeable irony, his own labours in turning over a few pages of the Theodofian Code.

'I fhall not defcend to animadvert on the rude and illiberal ftrain of this paffage, and I will frankly own that my indignation is loft in aftonishment. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of my History are illuftrated by three hundred and eighty three notes; and the nakedness of a few notes, which are not accompanied by any quota. tion, is amply compensated by a much greater number, which contain two, three, or perhaps four diftinct references; fo that upon the whole my stock of quotations which fupport and justify my facts cannot amount to lefs than eight hundred or a thousand. As I had often felt the inconvenience of the loofe and general method of quoting which is fo falfely imputed to me, I have carefully diftinguished the books, the chapters, the fections, the pages of the authors to whom I referred, with a degree of accuracy and attention, which might claim fome gratitude, as it has feldom been fo regularly practifed by any hiftorical writers. And here I must confefs fome obligation to Mr. Davis, who, by ftaking my credit and his own on a circumftance fo obvious and palpable, has given me fo early an opportunity of fubmitting the merits of our caufe, or at least of our characters, to the judgment of the Public. Hereafter, when I am fummoned to defend myself against the imputation of mifquoting the text, or misrepresenting the fenfe of a Greek or Latin author, it will not be in my power to communicate the knowledge of the languages, or the poffeffion of the books, to thofe readers who may be deftitute either of one or of the other, and the part which they are obliged to take between affertions equally strong and peremptory, may fometimes be attended with doubt and hesitation. But in the prefent inftance, every reader who will give himself the trouble of confulting the first volume of my history, is a competent judge of the question. I exhort, I folicit him to run his eye down the columns of Notes, and to count how many of the quotations are minute and particular, how few are vague and general. When he has fatified himself by this eafy computation, there is a word which may naturally fuggeft itfelf; an epithet, which I fhould be forry either to deferve or ufe; the boldness of Mr. Davis's affertion, and the confidence of my appeal will tempt, nay, perhaps, will force him to apply that epithet either to one or to the other of the adverse parties.

• I have confeffed that a critical eye may discover some loofe and general references; but as they bear a very inconfiderable proportion to the whole mafs, they cannot fupport, or even excufe a falfe and ungenerous

5

ungenerous accufation, which must reflect dishonour either on the object or on the author of it. If the examples in which I have occafionally deviated from my ordinary practice were specified and examined, I am perfuaded that they might always be fairly attributed to fome one of the following reafons. 1. In fome rare inftances, which I have never attempted to conceal, I have been obliged to adopt quo. tations which were expreffed with lefs accuracy than I could have wished. 2. I may have accidentally recollected the fenfe of a paffage which I had formerly read, without being able to find the place, or even to transcribe from memory the precife words. 3. The whole tract (as in a remarkable inftance of the fecond Apology of Juftin Martyr) was fo fhort, that a more particular defcription was not required. 4. The form of the compofition fupplied the want of a local reference; the preceding mention of the year fixed the paffage of the annalist, and the reader was guided to the proper fpot in the commentaries of Grotius, Valefius or Godefroy, by the more accurate citation of their original author. 5. The idea which I was defirous of communicating to the reader, was fometimes the general result of the author or treatise that I had quoted; nor was it poffible to confine, within the narrow limits of a particular reference, the fenfe or fpirit which was mingled with the whole mafs. Thefe motives are either laudable or at least innocent. In two of these exceptions my ordinary mode of citation was fuperfluous; in the other three it was impracticable.

In quoting a comparifon which Tertullian had ufed to exprefs the rapid increase of the Marcionites, I exprefsly declared that I was obliged to quote it from memory *. If I have been guilty of comparing them to bees, inttead of wafps, I can however moit fincerely difclaim the fagacious fufpicion of Mr. Davis t. who imagines that I was tempted to amend the fimile of Tertullian from an improper partiality for thofe odious Heretics.

A refcript of Diocletian, which declared the old law (not an old law ), had been alleged by me on the refpectable authority of FraPaolo. The Examiner, who thinks that he has turned over the pages of the Theodofian Códe, informs his reader that it may be found, 1. vi. tit. xxiv. leg. 8.; he will be fuprifed to learn that this refcript could not be found in a code where it does not exift, but that it may diftinctly be read in the fame number, the fame title, and the fame book of the CODE OF JUSTINIAN. He who is fevere should at least be just yet I fhould probably have difdained this minute animadverfion, unless it had ferved to difplay the general ignorance of the critic in the History of the Roman Jurifprudence. If Mr. Davis had not

been an abfolute ftranger, the most treacherous guide could not have perfuaded that a refcript of Diocletian was to be found in the Theodofian Code, which was defigned only to preferve the laws of Conftantine and his fucceffors. Compendiofam (fays Theodofius him felf) Divalium Conftitutionum fcientiam, ex D. Conflantini tem

Gibbon's Hiftory, p. 551. I fhall ufually refer to the third edi tion, unless there are any various readings.

+ Davis, p. 144. REV. Feb. 1779.

Gibbon, p. 593.

I

Davis, p. 230.

poribus

poribus roboramus, (Novell. ad calcem Cod. Theod. 1. i. tit. R leg. i.)'

We fhall now lay before our Readers part of what Mr. Gibbon has advanced on the fubject of Plagiarism, as another specimen of the manly and liberal manner in which he vindicates his reputation as an hiftorian and a fcholar.

Mr. Davis (fee our Review for September laft), tells us, that were he to restore to Middleton, Barbeyrac, Dodwell, Mofheim, and Dupin, the paffages which Mr. Gibbon has purloined, he would appear as naked as the proud and gaudy daw in the fable, when each bird had plucked away his own plume; and that there would scarce be a single sentence left for him to boast of as his own, in his two famous chapters, which were to give the death wound to Chriftianity.

Befides the ideas (fays Mr. Gibbon in his reply to the charge of Plagiarifm) which may be fuggefted by the study of the most learned and ingenious of the moderns, the hiftorian may be indebted to them for the occafional communication of fome paffages of the ancients, which might otherwife have efcaped his knowledge or his memory. In the confideration of any extenfive fubject, none will pretend to have read all that has been written, or to recollect all that they have read: nor is there any difgrace in recurring to the writers who have profeffedly treated any questions, which in the courfe of a long narrative we are called upon to mention in a flight and incidental manner. If I touch upon the obfcure and fanciful theology of the Gnoftics, I can accept without a blufh the affiftance of the candid Beaufobre; and when, amidit the fury of contending parties, I trace the progress of ecclefiaftical dominion, I am not ashamed to confefs myfelf the grateful disciple of the impartial Mofheim. In the next Volume of my History, the Reader and the Critic must prepare themfelves to fee me make a ftill more liberal ufe of the labours of thofe indefatigable workmen who have dug deep into the mine of antiquity. The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries are far more voluminous than their predeceffors; the writings of Jerom, of Auguftin, of Chryfoftom, &c. cover the walls of our libraries. The fmalleft part is of the hiftorical kind: yet the treatises which feem the leaft to invite the curiofity of the reader, frequently conceal very ufeful hints, or very valuable facts. The polemic who involves. himself and his antagonists in a cloud of argumentation, fometimes relates the origin and progrefs of the herefy which he confutes; and the preacher who declaims against the luxury, defcribes the manners, of the age; and feasonably introduces the mention of fome public calamity, that he may afcribe it to the juftice of offended. Heaven. It would furely be unreasonable to expect that the historian fhould perufe enormous volumes, with the uncertain hope of extracting a few interefting lines, or that he should facrifice whole days to the momentary amufement of his Reader. Fortunately for us both, the diligence of ecclefiaftical critics has facilitated our inquiries: the compilations of Tillemont might alone be confidered as an immenfe repertory of truth and fable, of almost all that the Fathers have pre

ferved,.