Decedente atque immo potius pereunte ab urbibus
Gallicanis liberalium cultura literarum, etc. (in praefat.
in tom. ii. p. 137),
is the complaint of Gregory himself, which he fully verifies by his own work. His style is equally devoid of elegance and simplicity. In a conspicuous station he still remained a stranger to his own age and country; and in a prolix work (the five last books contain ten years) he has omitted almost everything that posterity desires to learn. I have tediously acquired, by a painful perusal, the right of pronouncing this unfavourable sentence.