2

THE DECLINE AND FAI L

CHAP.

XLY11I.

tier thread would be spun through many a vo-lume, nor would the patient reader find an ade-quate reward of instruction or amusement. Atevery step as we sink deeper in the decline andfall of the eastern empire, the annals of eachsucceeding reign would impose a more ungrate-ful and melancholy task. These annals mustcontinue to repeat a tedious and uniform taleof weakness and misery; the natural connec-tion of causes and events would be broken byfrequent and hasty transitions, and a minuteaccumulation of circumstances must destroy thelight and effect of those general pictures whichcompose the use and ornament of a remote his-tory. From the time of Heraclius, the Byzan-tine theatre is contracted and darkened : theline of empire, which had been defined by thelaws of Justinian and the arms of Belisarius ,recedes on all sides from our view : the Romanname, the proper subject of our inquiries, isreduced to a narrow corner of Europe , to thelonely suburbs of Constantinople ; and the fateof the Greek empire has been compared to thatof the Rhine , which loses itself in the sands,before its waters can mingle with the ocean.The scale of dominion is diminished to ourview by the distance of time and place: nor isthe loss of external splendour compensated bythe nobler gifts of virtue and genius. In thelast moments of her decay, Constantinople wasdoubtless more opulent and populous thanAthens at her most flourishing era when ascanty sum of six thousand talents, or twelvehundred thousand pounds sterling, was pos-