The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1894-01-26
A NOTABLE CENTENNIAL.
One Hundredth Anniversary of the Death
of the Worlds Greatest Historian.

bOuIy Ol6 VI but SICdUCoG lioUOilethS bhO
world has ever known lay dying in Lon
don after painful surgical operation.
On the 10Th of January, 1894, Edward
Gibbon breathed his last at the compar-
atively early age of ST. Gibbon Is known
best and to many solely because of his
"Decline and Fall of the Roman En-
pre-" but this wonderful historical work
was no greater evidence of genius in the
minds of many than the piquant anto-
biography which he left, though, unhap-
PLY, this sketch is not so much read
these later years as it should be.
Gibhon was sickly child, and good
ly portion of the early pages OF his auto
biography is taken up with quaint de-
scriptions of his youthful battlings with
physical weakness. To his aunt, Cath
crime Porten, he tells us, he owed much
during those years of infrmity, for his
mother between her own infrmities and
occasional plunges into fashionable life,
found little time to care for her chill
dren. Possibly it was because of this
neglect that the future historians five
brothers and one sister all died before
passing childhood. Although Edward
Gibbons health was not good when he
was child, his mentality was strong,
but until he was he was taught at
home by his aunt and a private tutor.
1t was during "lucid interval of COM
parative health" that he was sent to
school, but his physical strength did not
continue, and upon his mothers death
fo1 ha 40 yo1, homo
His twelfth year, he says, Il shall note
as the most propitious to the growth of
my intellectual stature" He was then
living with his maternal grandfather,
who possessed a 'tolerable library" in
which the boy 'turned over many Eng
fish pages of poetry and romance, of his
tory and travels. Where title attracted
my eye," he continues, without fear or
awe snatched it from the shelf"
All through his childish years he con-
tinued to read everything that he saw
and liked, and after several unsuccessful
attempts to educate him at schools and
under tutors he was prematurely sent
to Oxford when but Is or 16 years of
age. He didn't graduate. His desultory
reading had not fitted him for the uni
versity, and he didn't like it. Neither did
the university like him, and he was
obliged to leave after IA months of stu
dent life. A little later he turned Ro-
man Catholic, to the great dismay of his
father, who forthwith deported his son
to Lausanne, in Switzerland, where his
instruction, undertaken by Calvinistic
minister named Pavilliard, proceeded in
orderly fashion, and where in two years
young Gibbon returned to Protestant
ism. Later, as is well known, his no.
tions of religion underwent another rad
ical change.
1t was at Lausanne that Gibbon had
his love affair with Susan Curchod, aft
erward Nine. Necker and the mother of
the famous French wit and writer, Mime.
de Stael. The story as told by others is
to the effect that he got On his knees to
the lady and because he was so fat could
not get up again, while she was so
amused at his undignifed plight that
she laughed in his face. He says in his
autobiography, however, that his father
broke off the match. He thought he had
"good reason to indulge in" his ''dream
of felicity, but on my return to England"
he continues. 81 soon discovered that
my father would not hear of this strange |
alliance, and that without his consent l |
was myself destitute and helpless. After
q painful struggle yielded to my fate.
I sighed as lover; obeyed as son."
Many chroniclers have preferred to |
accept the other version of Gibbons ro
though the episode took place
when he was but 90 and probably be-
fore the obesity that distinguished his
later years came upon him. George
Coleman, the younger, a versifer little
read nowadays, wrote the story in
rhyme. give here few of his lines:
watched her features while they
glowed
Till passion burst his puffy bosom's bound,
And rescuing his cushion from its load
Flounced on his knees, appearing like round
Large fillet of hot veal, just tumbled to the
ground.
And Agnes at the sight was SO convulsed
That tears of laughter trickled down her face.
Eudoxus felt his folly and disgrace,
Looked sheepish, nettled, wished himself
away,
And thrice he tried to quit his kneeling place,
But fat and corpulency seemed to say,
Here's petitioner that must forever pray"
Gibbon never married. His first book
vas in French, published in 1851. 1t
vas in 1879 that he began writing 1.-The
Decline and FALL" though he conceived
he idea in 1894. The work was complet-
d in 1887. ION the day, or rather the
hight" he says, "of the 9th of June, be-
ween the hours of II and 10, wrote
he last lines of the last page in sum-
ner house in my garden" This was in
to which place he had retired
md where he had bought a mansion
lie was then so.
Gibbon was a member of parliament
rom 1774 to 1910 from Liskeard, and
rom 1850 to 1889 from Huntington. He
vas also member of the board of trade
which was abolished when Lord North's
ministry failed, and it was the loss of
is board of trade salary that determined
he historian to return TO Lausanne, l
where he could live more cheaply than
n London, for the completion of his
york. II