This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The 2. Ed. - London, W. Strahan 1776-1788 (ed. 1781)