PREFACE. T is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the variety, or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken to treat; fince the merit of the choice would ferve to render the weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still lefs excufable. But as I have prefumed to lay before the Public a first volume only' of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it will perhaps be expected that I should explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general plan. I on The memorable series of revolutions, which, in the course of about thirteen centuries, gradually undermined, and at length destroyed, the folid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be divided into the three following periods: The first volume of the quarto, which is now contained in the two first volumes of the octavo, edition. I. The A 2 |