4TO.
We are happy to have it in our power thus early to congratulate the
public upon the final accomplishment of a work, that must constitute one
of the greatest ornaments of the present age. We have now before us, in
one view, and described by the uniform pencil of one historian, the
stupendous and instructive object of the gradual decline of the greatest
empire; circumscribed by degrees within the narrow walls of a single
city; and at length, after the various revolutions of thirteen
centuries, totally swallowed up in the empire of the Turks. Of this
term, the events of more than nine hundred years are described in that
part of our author that now lies before us. It cannot therefore be
expected, that in the narrow limits we have prescribed to ourselves, we
should enter into a regular synopsis of the performance, chapter by
chapter, after the laudable example of our more laborious brother
reviewers. We will pay our readers the compliment, however unauthorised
by the venerable seal of custom, of supposing them already informed,
that Anastasius succeeded Zeno, and Justin Anastasius; that Justinian
published the celebrated code that is called by his name; and that his
generals, Belisarius and Narses, were almost constantly victorious over
the Barbarians, and restored, for a moment, the expiring lustre of the
empire.
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