[345] [The first three volumes of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, contrary to the author's expectation, did not escape criticism and remonstrance. The Rev. David Chetsum (in 1772 and (enlarged) 1778) published _An Examination of, etc._, and Henry Edward Davis, in 1778, _Remarks on_ the memorable Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters. Gibbon replied by a _Vindication_, issued in 1779. Another adversary was Archdeacon George Travis, who, in his _Letter_, defended the authenticity of the text on "Three Heavenly Witnesses" (1 _John_ v. 7), which Gibbon was at pains to deny (ch. xxxvii. note 120). Among other critics and assailants were Joseph Milner, Joseph Priestley, and Richard Watson afterwards Bishop of Llandaff. (For Porson's estimate of Gibbon, see preface to _Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis, etc._, 1790.)] [kv] _In sleep upon one pillow_----.--[MS.] [346] [There is no reason to suppose that this is to be taken ironically. He is not certain whether the "secrets of all hearts shall be revealed," or whether all secrets shall be kept in the silence of universal slumber; but he looks to the possibility of a judgment to come. He is speaking for mankind generally, and is not concerned with his own beliefs or disbeliefs.] [347] {284} [The poet would follow in the wake of the clouds. He must pierce them, and bend his steps to the region of their growth, the mountain-top, where earth begets and air brings forth the vapours. Another interpretation is that the Alps must be pierced in order to attain the great and ever-ascending regions of the mountain-tops ("greater and greater as we proceed"). In the next stanza he pictures himself looking down from the summit of the Alps on Italy, the goal of his pilgrimage.] [348] [The Roman Empire engulfed and comprehended the great empires of the past--the Persian, the Carthaginian, the Greek. It fell, and kingdoms such as the Gothic (A.D. 493-554), the Lombardic (A.D. 568-774) rose out of its ashes, and in their turn decayed and passed away.] [349] {285} [The task imposed upon his soul, which dominates every other instinct, is the concealment of any and every emotion--"love, or hate, or aught," not the concealment of the particular emotion "love or hate," which may or may not be the "master-spirit" of his thought. He is anxious to conceal his feelings, not to keep the world in the dark as to the supreme feeling which holds the rest subject.] [kw] _They are but as a self-deceiving wile_.-[MS. erased.] [kx] _The shadows of the things that pass along_.--[MS.] [ky] {286} _Fame is the dream of boyhood--I am not_ _So young as to regard the frown or smile_ _Of crowds as making an immortal lot_.--[MS. (lines 6, 7 erased).] [350] [Compare Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 66, 67-- "For the mutable, rank-scented many, let them Regard me as I do not flatter."] [351] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 54-57--