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OF THE EOMAN EMPIRE 171 alone been the theme of a separate work ; and the absence, or loss, or imperfection of contemporary evidence must be poorly supplied by the doubtful authority of more recent com- pilers. The four last centuries are exempt from the reproach of penury ; and with the Comnenian family the historic muse of Constantinople again revives, but her apparel is gaudy, her motions are without elegance or grace. A succession of priests, or courtiers, treads in each other's footsteps in the same path of servitude and superstition: their views are narrow, their judgment is feeble or corrupt ; and we close the volume of copious barrenness, still ignorant of the causes of events, the characters of the actors, and the manners of the times, which they celebrate or deplore. The observation which has been applied to a man may be extended to a whole people, that the energy of the sword is communicated to the pen ; and it will be found, by experience, that the tone of history will rise or fall with the spirit of the age. From these considerations, I should have abandoned, with- its con- out regret, the Greek slaves and their servile historians, had the revoiu I not reflected that the fate of the Byzantine monarchy isworiV pass! veil/ connected with the most splendid and important revolutions which have changed the state of the world. The space of the lost provinces was immediately replenished with new colonies and rising kingdoms ; the active virtues of peace and war deserted from the vanquished to the victorious nations ; and it is in their origin and conquests, in their religion and government, that we must explore the causes and effects of the decline and fall of the Eastern empire. Nor will this scope of narrative, the riches and variety of these materials, be incompatible with the unity of design and composition. As, in his daily prayers, the Musulman of Fez or Delhi still turns his face towards the temple of Mecca, the historian's eye shall be always fixed on the city of Constantinople. The excursive line may embrace the wilds of Arabia and Tartary, but the circle will be ultimately reduced to the decreasing limit of the Roman monarchy. On this principle, I shall now establish the plan of the last p^n ome two volumes of the present work. The first chapter will con- [quarto] 11 1 1 /^ • volumes tarn, in a regular series, the emperors who reigned at Constanti- nople during a period of six hundred years, from the days of Heraclius to the Latin conquest : a rapid abstract, which may be supported by a genera/ appeal to the order and text of the original historians. In this introduction, I shall confine myself