I am not about to write a lengthy criticism on this author's history; a few passages only will be selected as proofs of what I have advanced. "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," vol. 3, oct. chap. 17: In explaining the motives of the Emperors for removing the seat of government from Rome to the East, the author says--"_Rome_ was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which had once acknowleged her supremacy; and _the country of the Cæsars_ was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince, born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts and armies of Asia, and invested with the _purple_ by the legions of Britain." By the author's beginning one part of the sentence with _Rome_, and the other with _the country of the Cæsars_, the reader is led to think two different places are intended, for he has not a suspicion of a tautology; or at least he supposes the author uses _the country of the Cæsars_ in a more extensive sense than _Rome_. He therefore looks back and reads perhaps half a page with a closer attention, and finds that the writer is speaking of the _seat of empire_, and therefore can mean the _city of Rome_ only. After this trouble he is displeased that the author has employed _five words_ to swell and adorn his period. This however is not the only difficulty in understanding the author. Who is the _martial prince_? In the preceding sentence, Dioclesian is mentioned, as withdrawing from Rome; and in the sentence following, Constantine is said to visit Rome but seldom. The reader then is left to collect the author's meaning, by the circumstances of the birth, education and election of this martial prince. If he is possessed of these facts already, he may go on without much trouble. The author's affectation of using _the purple_ for the crown or imperial dignity, is so obvious by numberless repetitions of the word, as to be perfectly ridiculous. "In the choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of Europe and Asia; to curb, _with a powerful arm_, the barbarians who dwelt between the Danube and Tanais; to watch, _with an eye of jealousy_, the conduct of the Persian monarch." Here the members of the sentence in Italics, are altogether superfluous; the author wanted to inform his reader, that Dioclesian designed to curb the barbarians and watch the Persian monarch; for which purpose he chose a favorable situation; but it was wholly immaterial to the subject to relate in what manner or degree, the emperor meant to exert his arm or his jealousy. Nay more, these are circumstances which are not reduceable to any certainty, and of which the writer and the reader can have no precise idea.