of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century.  The best praise that can be given to this View is, that students have since used it as the most excellent summary of that kind existing.  Of the history itself it may be said that, while it is greatly wanting in historic material in the interest of the narrative and the splendor of the pageantry of the imperial court, it marked a new era in historical delineations.

HISTORY OF AMERICA.—­In 1777 appeared the first eight books of his History of America, to which, in 1778, he appended additions and corrections.  The concluding books, the ninth and tenth, did not appear until 1796, when, three years after his death, they were issued by his son.  As a connected narrative of so great an event in the world’s history as the discovery of America, it stood quite alone.  If, since that time, far better and fuller histories have appeared, we should not withhold our meed of praise from this excellent forerunner of them all.  One great defect of this and the preceding work was his want of knowledge of the German and Spanish historians, and of the original papers then locked up in the archives of Simancas; later access to which has given such great value to the researches of Irving and Prescott and Sterling.  Besides, Robertson lacked the life-giving power which is the property of true genius.  His characters are automata gorgeously arrayed, but without breath; his style is fluent and sometimes sparkling, but in all respects he has been superseded, and his works remain only as curious representatives of the age to the literary student.  One other work remains to be mentioned, and that is his Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India, and the Progress of Trade with that Country Prior to the Discovery of the Passage to it by the Cape of Good Hope.  This is chiefly of value as it indicates the interest felt in England at the rise of the English Empire in India; but for real facts it has no value at all.

GIBBON.—­Last in order of time, though far superior as an historian to Hume and Robertson, stands Edward Gibbon, the greatest historian England has produced, whether we regard the dignity of his style—­antithetic and sonorous; the range of his subject—­the history of a thousand years; the astonishing fidelity of his research in every department which contains historic materials; or the symmetry and completeness of his colossal work.

Like Hume, he has left us a sketch of his own life and labors, simple and dispassionate, from which it appears that he was born in London on the 27th of April, 1737; and, being of a good family, he had every advantage of education.  Passing a short time at the University of Oxford, he stands in a small minority of those who can find no good in their Alma Mater.  “To the University of Oxford,” he says, “I acknowledge no obligation, and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing