1937-10-29 — Page 20

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ON READING GIBBON

NZ will recall how Miss Pinkerton always referred to Dr. Johnson as the immortal lexicographer, thus evincing for that colossal intellect a venera- tion that was combined with dis- crimination. The reader of Gib- bon's "Decline and Fall" may be tempted to speak of "the marmo real historiographer," but the im- pulse will be based on nothing better than the feeling that some show in the presence of good grammar. You can't make fun of Gibbon. He has thought too much, knows too much, is too much a man of the world, to have practiced upon him any office-boy familiarity. Let us leave out the Chapters XV and XVI of the "De- cline and Fall" and be content with the reflection that good work can be spoiled by prejudice.

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There remains the rest of great history, and, wherever one dips into it, there are passages not only majestic, but vigorous and graphic.

The "Decline and Fall" is not intended to be cheerful, and it emphasizes what seems to be hap- pening to-day in 1937. One sees the same endless play of greed and hate, the same childish faith in the violence that only breeds more violence, the same disregard of promises as mere devices in a game.

These things are given new labels now, but they are the same, always futile and destruc- tive After reading forty

fifty pages of the Decline and Fall, telling the doings peror this and Emperor that, after seeing this spectacle of gold and marble, flames and ashes, you feel yourself bogged in universal nightmare as an institution in world affairs, and then, almost hurriedly, you are as thankful as a Roman colonist that has escaped the Goths, to see a quiet hillside with a group of elms at the top. Let us by all means be thankful, and let us remember that the scenes shift quickly, and sometimes when we believe that they will never change.

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when they wrote, for indeed when they spoke on sublunary matters they used a vocabulary very often far from Roman

He is fond of neat periods which sometimes weary, but are usually effective. Always re- member when you are judging Gibbon that his part of the cen- tury turned its toes out in a con ventional manner. You “made a leg" as you powdered your hair: you might be amazed, but in po lite circles you were never flab bergasted. Now, deportment of "and in itself may do little, but when it goes with the power to say something, it may help a good deal. For example, "The mother. of Valentinian was jealous of the power which she was incap- able of exercising," is a pretty good sentence and wastes 30 words. Again, read this passage: "The succession of Constantine established their perpetual re- sidence in the royal city which he had erected on the verge of Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received with each wind the tributary produc- meach

tions of every climate, while the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hostile at- tempts of the barbar- lans.” This is somewhat Palla-

Gibbon must not be blamed for his subject-matter?" He was des- cribing the décomposition of a society from which was slipping its splendour, bit by bit. How well he paints his pictures! The details are innumerable, but, as he leads us on, we are in the midst of what was drama. It has been truly said that Gibbon's style was the right one for the work, he needed a vast tone in speaking of a vast subject. Sa- turated with Latin and Greek, he used the equipment of his age and class; the eighteenth century often paid much more attention to Latin verse than it did to Eng- lish spelling, in the same way that it wore embroidered waist- coats and took few baths.

Gilb bon had to be himself; he was a member of the polite," a chosen

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When one reads Gibbon, gradually perceives that here is the history of the end of a sys- tem, but, as well, of the begin- ning of another one steps from the ancient world to the modern. I know that as a lad in reading medieval history I used to. won- der, "But where are the togas? Romans used to wear them and be conscript fathers and use a sonorous and stately speech, but here are people called Romans fathers and have a speech that is who are not at all conscript

not what Cicero used.” The great and opulent Gibbon show- ed me that societies and civiliza- tions have to develop. After all, it is rather a comfort to read about Gallo-Roman life in the fifth century; it makes "ancient" Rome less mythical. When else- where we read that London open- ed its gates to Theodosius, and that about 369 A. D., he "with a strong hand confined the trem- bling Caledonians to the northern angle of the island," we are gra- tified to reflect that the Caledon- ians tremble no longer in these happier days and now penetrate to the uttermost angles of earth. Through all this, our historiogra- pher wears his bagwig, and his neckcloth is neatly folded.

There is something in Gibbon's narrative that makes the reader marvel He tells us of battles where there are forty, fifty thou- sand and more casualties. The shattered conquered fly in all di- rections, a pall of smoke broods sullenly over their defeat and we are certain that there can't be any more fighting. But if we fondly believe that here is the twilight of the gods, we have but to read a few more pages, and lo, some emperor or caesar or prae- torian prefect, whose name has less and less Latinity as the story goes on, turns up with another large army, equipped and provid- ed and deployed for another ca- tastrophe. This is no exaggera- tion, for Gibbon often in his notes diminishes the figures given by the old writers. Whence came all these soldiers, even if thou- sands of them were barbarians? How could an exhausted land, West or East, support them? One is tempted to believe that the peo- ples had a sincere dislike for peace and preferred to be bang- ed about

As Gibbon proceeds, he never loses his majestic calm. He piles sentence on sentence and, at the foot, writes note after note and gives reference after refer ence until you are fatigued think of his vast reading.” nestness of the periods may some- times weary and the succession of Latin, Low Latin, and barbari names seem almost fantastic, but here is a great piece of prose, as gorgeous and as solid as ever has been seen outside of the Scrip tures. We are to remember that all this is sustained to the last

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