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Excerpt from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 7 of 12 In a remote folitude, vanity may {till whifper in my ear, that my readers, perhaps, may enquire, whether, in the conclufion of the pnefent work, I am now taking an everlafiing farewell. They ihall hear all that I know myfelf, all that I could reveal to the molt intia mate friend. The motives of action or filence are now equally balanced; nor can I pro nounce in my molt fecret thoughts, on which fide the fcale will preponderate. I cannot di'emble that' Six ample Quartos mutt have tried, and may have exhaufted, the indulgence of the public; that in the repetition of fimilar attempts, a fuccefsful author has much more to lofe than he can hope to gain; that I am now defcending into the vale of years; and that the molt refpeé'table of my countrymen, the men whom I afpire to imitate, have refigned the pen of hiftory about the fame period of their lives. Yet I confider that the annals of ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interefiing fubjeéts; that I am fiill po'efi'ed of health and leifure; that by the practice of writing, fome {kill and facility mull. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.