Gibbon’s one brush with science fiction

Gibbon explains that the horribly ominous comet of Justinian’s reign was really just the fifth of the seven recorded returns of a comet with a period of 575 years. He links all it with known sightings in 1767 BC, 1193 BC, 618 BC, 44 BC (after the death of Julius Caesar), and then in the years 531, 1106, and 1680 (on the latter occasion “presented to the eyes of an enlightened age”).

And then this:

“At the eight period, in the year two thousand two hundred and fifty-five, their calculations may perhaps be verified by the astronomers of some future capital in the Siberian or American wilderness.”