"The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the Romans."
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Published in six volumes: vol. I in 1776; vols. II and III, 1781; vols. IV, V, and VI, 1788-1789. At least 36 entries in ESTC (1776, 1781, 1782, 1783, 1784, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1797).<br>
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See <u>The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward Gibbon, Esq; Volume the First.</u> (London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand, 1776). &lt;<a href="http://estc.bl.uk/T78356">Link to ESTC</a>&gt;<br>
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Searching in  Edward Gibbon, <u>The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, </u>ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols.