"I picked up Whitaker's criticism on Gibbon. Pointless spite, with here and there a just remark. It would be strange if in so large a work as Gibbon's there were nothing open to just remark. How utterly all the attacks on his History are forgotten! this of Whitaker; Randolph's; Chelsum's; Davies's; that stupid beast Joseph Milner's; even Watson's. And still the book, with all its great faults of substance and style, retains, and will retain, its place in our literature; and this though it is offensive to the religious feeling of the country, and really most unfair where religion is concerned."
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Politicians from EnglandHistorians from EnglandAcademics from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandMonarchists
Original Language: English
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Sources
Thomas Macaulay, journal entry (9 October 1850), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), pp. 284–285
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon
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Edward Gibbon
1737 – 1794
englischer Historiker und Schriftsteller
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