'His method and manner and his splendid assurance may no longer be the models by which modern English historians work,' writes C. V. Wedgwood of the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 'but he remains the presiding genius of our historical literature. The union of erudition and style which he achieved is still the ideal of the English tradition.' No one has better right to convey the quintessence of Gibbon than Dr Wedgwood, for by general consent she is herself in the great tradition of English historical writers. Dr Wedgwood was brought up on Gibbon, whose work is her constant companion: but her study does more than show the qualities of a great historian. It shows the many points at which Gibbon touched the life of his own time. It is a direction in which Dr Wedgwood and her subject are at one.