GIBBON, Edward, the celebrated author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and generally considered as forming, with Hume and Robertson, the triumvirate of great English historians, was descended of an ancient but not very distinguished family of the same name in the county of Kent. His grandfather, a merchant and citizen of London, was, under the Tory administration of the last four years of Queen Anne (1710-1714), appointed one of the commissioners of customs, and sat at the same board with Matthew Prior; but the mercantile man seems to have been better qualified for his station than the poet, at least in the opinion of Lord Bolingbroke, who was heard to declare that he had never conversed with a person who understood more clearly than Mr Gibbon the commerce and finances of England. In the year 1716, he was elected one of the directors of the South Sea Company; and, before his acceptance of this fatal office, he had acquired an independent fortune of sixty thousand pounds. But this fortune was overwhelmed in the shipwreck of the year 1720, when the company failed, and the accumulations of thirty years were swallowed up in a single day. Of the use or abuse of the South Sea scheme this is not the place to say any thing; and the question as to the guilt or innocence of Mr Gibbon may also be passed over without remark or discussion. In the first proceedings against the South Sea directors, however, he was one of the few who were taken into custody; and, in the final sentence, the measure of his fine was determined by the total estimate of his means, which he delivered upon oath to the House of Commons. But a sum of ten thousand pounds was afterwards allowed him for his maintenance; and on this foundation, with the skill and credit of which parliament' had not been able to deprive him, he erected the edifice of a new fortune, the greater part of which he prudently secured in the purchase of landed property. He died in his house at Putney, in December 1736, and, by his last will, enriched his two daughters, Catharine and Hester, at the expense of his only son, Edward, the father of the historian, who had married without his consent. This son, who was born in 1707, received the benefit of a liberal education. At Westminster, and afterwards at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he passed through a regular course of academical discipline. He then proceeded on his travels, but without taking a degree; and, on his return to England, he was chosen member of parliament for the borough of Petersfield in 1734, and again for that of Southampton in 1741. In parliament he joined the party which, after a long and fierce contest, finally succeeded in driving Sir Robert Walpole from power; and his son has not concealed that, in the pursuit of an unpopular minister, he gratified a private revenge against the supposed oppressor of his family in the South Sea persecution. This retaliation, however, was entirely misdirected; for Mr Coxe has clearly proved that, so far from stimulating or exasperating the fury of that time, Walpole endeavoured to stem the torrent of parliamentary vengeance, and to turn the sentiments of the house into the safe channel of moderation.

Edward Gibbon, the future historian of the Roman empire in its decline and fall, was born at Putney, in Surrey, on the 27th April, old style, in the year 1737. His mother, Judith Porten,was the youngest daughter of James Porten, a merchant of London; and he was the eldest of five brothers and a sister, all of whom died in infancy. During his early years his constitution was so feeble, and his life so precarious, that, in the baptism of his brothers, his father successively repeated the Christian name of Edward; and to preserve and rear so frail a being, the most tender assiduity was scarcely sufficient. From this anxious and painful duty his mother’s attention was diverted by frequent pregnancy, an exclusive passion for her husband, and the dissipation of the world; but the maternal office was supplied by his maiden aunt, Mrs Catharine Porten, who nursed him with the greatest tenderness, and, during the intervals of convalescence, procured him such instruction as his years and infirm health admitted. After some previous instruction at home, or in a day-school at Putney, he was, at the age of seven, placed under the care of Mr John Kirkby (author of Aιιtomathes, a philosophical romance), who, for about eighteen months, acted as his domestic tutor. In his ninth year (January 1746), during a lucid interval of comparative health, he was sent to a school at Kingston-upon-Thames, which was then kept by Dr Wσoddeson and his assistants; but his studies were still frequently interrupted by sickness; and though, by the common methods of discipline, he purchased some knowledge of Latin syntax, he does not speak with much satisfaction of his proficiency, and, after a real or nominal residence of nearly two years, he was finally recalled by his mother’s death in 1747. After this event, he spent about two years in the rustic solitude of Buriton, to which his father had retired; and there, principally under the eye of his affectionate aunt, he acquired that invincible love of reading which, he declares, he would not exchange for the treasures of India. In 1749, he was sent to Westminster school, then conducted by Dr John Nicol, where, within the space of two more years, he reached the third form; but his application was so frequently interrupted by sickness, or rendered useless by debility, that, by medical advice, he was removed to Bath, whence, after an ineffectual trial of the virtues of its mineral waters, he was transported to Winchester, to the house of a physician. From the latter place he returned unimproved in health to Bath, and at length moved with his father to Buriton and Putney, where he so far recovered, that a short and unsuccessful trial was made to renew his attendance at Westminster school. But his infirmities could not be reconciled with the hours and discipline of a public seminary; and as he was not provided with a domestic tutor, who might have watched the favourable moments, and imperceptibly advanced him in learning, he was obliged to be content with such occasional teachers as the different places of his residence could supply.

As he approached his sixteenth year, however, his sufferings entirely ceased. Nature, to use his own words, displayed in his favour her mysterious energies; his constitution became fortified and fixed; and his disorder, instead of gaining strength with his years, and reducing him for [7:10:503]life to the condition of an illiterate cripple, most wonderfully vanished. Encouraged by his unexpected recovery, his father placed him at Esher, in Surrey, in the house of the Reverend Philip Francis, the translator of Horace, who, it was expected, would at least inspire him with a taste for the Latin poets. But this hope was altogether frustrated. Mr Francis preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils; and, amidst the perplexity which this discovery occasioned, young Gibbon was, without further preparation, hurried by his father to Oxford, where, on the 3d of April 1752, he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College.

“I arrived at Oxford,” says Gibbon, “with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a school-boy might have been ashamed.” During the preceding three years, although sickness prevented him from following a regular course of instruction, his fondness for b∞ks had increased, and he was permitted to indulge without restraint his love of desultory reading. But his indiscriminate appetite subsided by degrees into the historical line, and he perused with avidity such books of history as accident threw in his way, gratifying a curiosity of which he could not trace the source, and supplying wants of which he felt the craving without being able to account for his predilections. The assiduous perusal of the Universal History, as the octavo volumes successively appeared, and of a treatise by Hearne, the Ductor Historicus, introduced him to as many of the Greek and Roman historians as were accessible to an English reader. He also devoured Littlebury’s Herodotus, Spelman’s Xenophon, Gordon’s Tacitus, and “a ragged Procopius” which happened to fall in his way; whilst “many crude lumps” of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, Machiavel, Fra Paolo, Bower, and others, were swallowed, if not digested by him; and in the descriptions of India and China, Mexicoand Peru, he found an inexhaustible source of gratification. The continuation of Echard’s Roman History gave him some insight into the reigns of the successors of Constantine; and in Howel’s History of the World he found the Byzantine period exhibited on a larger scale. Mahommed and his Saracens soon fixed his attention; and Simon Ockley, an original in every sense, having opened his eyes to the true character of both, he was led from one book to another, until he had ranged round the whole circle of oriental history. The same insatiable ardour urged him to guess at the French of D’Herbelot, and to endeavour to construe the barbarous Latin of Pococke’s Abulfaragius. The maps of Cellarius and Wells imprinted on his memory the details of ancient geography; from Stranchius he imbibed the elements of chronology; the Tables of Helvicus and Anderson, together with the Annals of Usher and Prideaux, distinguished the connection of events; the systems of Scaliger and Petavius, of Marsham and Newton, which he could seldom study in the originals, formed the subject of frequent meditation; and his sleep was sometimes disturbed by vain attempts to reconcile the Septuagint with the Hebrew computation.

In this strange and eccentric course of desultory reading, young Gibbon, whilst ranging at pleasure through such books as fell in his way, seems to have been unconsciously and instinctively led to that great branch of literature in which he was destined subsequently to attain the highest eminence. But the habits thus formed, whatever influence they may have exerted on his future life, were by no means favourable to the success of his academical pursuits. He was, by his own admission, exceedingly deficient in classical learning; and, in fact, he appears to have been sent to Oxford without either the preparation or the mental training necessary to enable him to reap the advantages of academical instruction. This may probably account for the harshness with which he speaks of the system pursued in the English universities, though it will neither explain nor obviate critical censures, many of which subsequent reform and improvement show to have been but too well founded. He appears to have spent at Magdalen College fourteen months, which he describes as the most idle and unprofitable in his life; but why, even with his habits of irregular application, they were so idle and unprofitable, he has nowhere informed us. Of the indifference of one of his tutors, and the almost total neglect of the other, he appears, indeed, to have had good cause of complaint; but as he admits that he was disposed to gaiety and late hours, the pupil must in justice share the blame with his masters, and cease to complain that he was not taught what he perhaps affected to despise. His objections to the system pursued, however, and his strictures on the silence of the Oxford professors, which is imperfectly supplied by the tutors of the several colleges, and by which the youth are deprived of public instruction, with all the advantages resulting from this species of institution, remain in full force, and are altogether unaffected by the personal circumstances to which we have just alluded.

When Gibbon first left Magdalen College, during the long recess between the Trinity and Michaelmas terms, his taste for reading, as he informs us, began whimsically enough to revive, and, “unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, and unskilled in the arts of composition, he resolved to write a book.” The title of this first essay, The Age of Sesostris, was perhaps suggested by Voltaire’s Age of Louis XIV.; and, what is deserving of remark, its object was not to narrate the exploits of the conqueror of Asia, but to investigate the probable date of his life and reign. On his return to Oxford, however, he abandoned this project, and the sheets he had written were afterwards committed to the flames. By the negligence of his second tutor he was now left entirely to himself, and, from want of experience, advice, and occupation, he was betrayed into culpable improprieties of conduct, ill-chosen company, late hours, and inconsiderate expense. In his peculiar frame of mind, indeed, there appears to have been originally interwoven no inconsiderable share of juvenile arrogance and presumption. Whilst his debts were growing, his studies neglected, and his frequent absences from his college visible and scandalous, the blind activity of idleness urged him into the perilous mazes of controversy, and, at the age of sixteen, he contrived to bewilder himself amidst the errors of the church of Rome.

The bold criticism of Middleton’s Free Inquiry appears to have given the first shock to his Protestantism; and whilst he hovered as it were on the very verge of infidelity, the perusal of Bossuet’s Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine, and his History of the Protestant Variations, seem to have recalled him from the region of doubt, and led him to seek repose in the bosom of an infallible church. These works, says he, “achieved my conversion, and I surely fell by a noble hand.” In this fall, however, Parsons the Jesuit appears to have had a considerable share; for, in another part of his Memoirs, he imputes his conversion principally to that vigorous writer, who, in his opinion, had urged all the best arguments in favour of the Roman Catholic religion. But be this as it may, he had no sooner settled his new religion than he resolved to profess himself a Catholic; and, accordingly, on the 8th of June 1753, he solemnly abjured the errors of heresy before a Catholic priest in London, and immediately announced the event to his father in an elaborate controversial epistle, approved by his .spiritual director. His father, though neither a bigot nor a philosopher, was astonished at his apostacy from the religion of his country; and having, in the first [7:10:504]sally of passion, divulged a secret which prudence might have suppressed, thus shut the gates of Magdalen College against the return of his son. At an advanced age, when he had learned to treat all religions with equal indifference, Gibbon, reviewing this event of his life, speaks of it with an indulgent tenderness, which will perhaps be acknowledged as more natural than just; he avows himself proud of an honest sacrifice of interest to conscience; and he declares that he can never blush if his tender mind was entangled in the sophistry which had seduced the manly understandings of Chillingworth and Bayle. The resemblance, however, is closer in the transition which they afterwards made from superstition to scepticism; from that state of mind which believes against reason, to its opposite extreme, which attacks the foundations of reason itself, and seeks to inculcate a belief that there is no belief. “To my present feelings,” says Gibbon, “it seems incredible that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation.”

Finding it necessary to form a new plan of education, and also to devise a method which, if possible, might effect the cure of his spiritual malady, his father, after much consideration, determined to fix him, during some years, at Lausanne, in Switzerland; and there he was accordingly established, with a very moderate allowance, under the care of Μ. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister of that place. In as far as regards the instructor and guide thus selected, a more fortunate choice could scarcely have been made. From the testimony of his pupil, and the still more conclusive evidence of his own correspondence with the elder Mr Gibbon, Μ. Pavilliard appears to have been a man of singular good sense, temper, and knowledge of the human mind; and in the method of instruction which he adopted for the double purpose of advancing the intellectual improvement and correcting the religious aberration of his pupil, he evinced a refinement and delicacy of judgment which it is much more easy to admire than to imitate, At first, however, Μ. Pavilliard had a twofold obstacle to contend with; he could not speak English, and as Mr Gibbon did not understand French, some time necessarily elapsed before he could even attempt to carry into effect the instructions he had received. But when, by mutual industry, this difficulty had been in part removed, Μ. Pavilliard lost no time in endeavouring, by considerate and judicious kindness, to secure the attachment of his pupil; and having accomplished this object, he then directed his studies according to a regular plan, and placed within his own reach such means of information as seemed best calculated to remove the errors into which he had fallen. “My obligations to the lessons of Μ. Pavilliard,” says the historian in his Memoirs, “gratitude will not suffer me to forget; he was endowed with a clear head and a warm heart; his innate benevolence had assuaged the spirit of his church; he was rational because he was moderate; in the course of his studies he had acquired a just, though superficial knowledge of most branches of literature; and he laboured with assiduous patience to know the character, gain the affection, and open the mind of his English pupil. As soon as we began to understand each other, he gently led me, from a blind and undistinguishing love of reading, into the path of instruction. I consented with pleasure that a portion of the morning hours should be consecrated to a plan of modem history and geography, and to the critical perusal of the French and Latin classics; and at each step I felt myself invigorated by the habits of application and method. His prudence repressed and dissembled some youthful sallies; and as soon as I was confirmed in habits of industry and temperance, he gave the reins into my own hands." On the more delicate subject of religion, Μ. Pavilliard followed the same winning and judicious method, with equal success; and at length, on Christmas day 1754, Mr Gibbon, after a full conviction, received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne. “It was here," says he, “that I suspended my religious inquiries, acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent of Catholics and Protestants.”^[1. As Mr Gibbon was himself alone instrumental in his conversion to popery, so he seems inclined to take to himself a large share of the merit of his reconversion to protestantism. “Mr Pavilliard,” says he, “was not unmindful that his first task, his most important duty, was to reclaim me from the errors of popery. The intermixture of sects has rendered the Swiss clergy acute and learned on the topics of controversy ļ and I have some of his letters in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and my gradual concessions, after a firm and weU managed defence. I was willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share of the honoβr of my conversion; yet I must observe that it was principally effected by my private reflections; and I still remember my solitary transport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against transubstantiation.” with reference to the claim here put forward by Mr Gibbon, Lord Sheffield observes: “Μ. Pavilliard has described to me the astonishment with which he gazed on Mr Gibbon standing before him; a thin little figure, with a large bead, disputing and urging, with the greatest ability, all the best arguments that bad ever been used in ftvourot popery.” Bossuet and Parsons had supplied him with hrs arms. ]

At Lausanne Gibbon laid the foundation of all his future improvement; and although it is no doubt true, as he has himself observed, that every man who rises above the common level has received two educations, one from his teachers and another from himself, yet it is at least equally so that the success of the second is in a great measure dependent on the proper direction given to the first Under his judicious tutor he was reclaimed from his excursive and desultory habits of reading, and initiated in a regular and methodical course of study, without in the least abating his thirst of general knowledge, or hindering him from gratifying his curiosity, after the hours appropriated to the pursuits in which he had been led to engage. His reading had now a fixed object, the attainment of which made him sensible of the value of his acquisitions, and reconciled him to that system of regular application by which all his powers were invigorated. By acquiring a knowledge of the Greek, Latin, and French languages, new stores of learning were opened, and new models of taste presented to him. Poetry, history, philosophy, criticism, and antiquities, in their turn occupied his attention; and the honest zeal of the tutor was admirably seconded by an unwearied industry and insatiable avidity of knowledge on the part of the pupil, which bespoke a mind capable of extraordinary attainments, and deserving of the highest honours in literature. For the pursuit of science, however, he evinced neither the same aptitude nor the same inclination. His father had been desirous, and even pressing, that he should devote some time to the study of the mathematics; nor did he refuse to comply with a wish so reasonable. But, after attending during two winters the prelections of a teacher, who explained the elements of algebra and geometry as far as the conic sections of the Marquis de 1'Hôpital, he relinquished for ever the pursuit of the mathematics, in which he appears to have made but little proficiency, and consoled himself with the reflection, in which few will probably be inclined to coincide, that he desisted “before his mind had become hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration, so destructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which must determine the actions and opinions of our lives.” It is not very wonderful, perhaps, that a mind naturally disposed to doubt should shrink from certain and demonstrable truth, which excludes the play of sceptical ingenuity; or that the rigour of exact science should revolt one [7:10:505]who had so long been accustomed to expatiate in the more attractive regions of taste and literature; but, on the other hand, it does seem a little surprising that Gibbon, like Johnson, should have thought himself entitled to undervalue a science which he had failed to acquire, and that his memory did not suggest to him many eminent examples in disproof of his assertion that the mind becomes hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration. It is always easy, however, to find a plausible excuse for neglecting that which we want either the power or the inclination to pursue.

Whilst at Lausanne, Gibbon to his classical attainments added the study of Grotius and Puffendorff, of Locke and Montesquieu; and he also mentions the Provincial Letters of Pascal, the Life of Julian by La Bleterie, and the Civil History of Naples by Giannone, as having remotely contributed to form the historian of the Homan empire. From the Provincitd Letters he tells us that he learned to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity; a weapon, we may remark, which, however useful to a polemic, is unlawful in the hand of an historian, and which, when resorted to by the latter, justly subjects him to the suspicion of having exhausted both his courage and his argument. Truth as well as error may be discredited by a sneer, which it is proverbially impossible to refute; sarcasm may provoke ridicule and excite contempt, but it can never conduce to the purposes of that sound practical philosophy which seeks its examples in history. It is more to the honour of our indefatigable student that, about this time, he established a correspondence with several distinguished literary characters, to whom he looked for instruction and direction; with Crevier, the successor of llollin, and the editor of Livy; with Breitenger of Zurich, the editor of a Septuagint Bible; with Professor Matthew Gesner of Göttingen, and Μ. Allamand, minister at Bex ;—and that by the acuteness of his remarks, the extent of his knowledge, and his zeal in the cause of literature, he attracted their particular attention, and proved himself not unworthy of their confidence.

He had also the satisfaction of seeing Voltaire, who, after forfeiting by his own misconduct the friendship of the king of Prussia, had retired, at the age of sixty, with a plentiful fortune, to this free and beautiful country, and resided two winters at Monrepos, a countryhouse close to a suburb of Lausanne. “The most extraordinary man of the age” received the young Englishman with civility, but without any peculiar notice or distinction. Virgilium nidi tantum, says Gibbon. But the incense with which the autocrat of literature was then approached, and the boyish enthusiasm of the unfledged author, which made him look upon admission to the private theatricals of Monrepos as the highest distinction, could scarcely be without influence on the formation of his character and opinions. According to his own expression, he then rated Voltaire above his real magnitude; but he was probably unconscious that both his tone of mind and his manner of expression, in which he was ever endeavouring to point his stately and inflexible English with the light and graceful irony of the Frenchman, were perpetually betraying his early adoration of the patriarch; whilst, on the other hand, Voltaire little suspected that, in the awkward and oddly-formed English boy (whose memory had retained, and whose indiscretion made public, one of his fugitive poems not yet intended for the vulgar ear), he was silently forming, not a disciple, but a fellow-labourer, whose fame would at length cast his own historical reputation into the shade. The immediate effect of Mr Gibbon’s attendance at the private theatre of Monrepos was an increased predilection for the French stage, and a corresponding decline in his veneration for Shakspeare. A taste formed to delight in the smooth-shaven, artificial lawn of a French play, can never retain any relish for the wild, irregular, masculine beauties of our great dramatist, heaped together as they are with all the profusion, magnificence, and simplicity of nature herself.

Gibbon was now familiar in some, and acquainted in many families of Lausanne, and his evenings were generally devoted to conversation and cards, either in private parties, or in what are called assemblies; in short, he enjoyed his full share of the amusements of society. During this alternation of study and pleasure, he became enamoured of Mademoiselle Susan Curchod, daughter of the minister of Crassy, in the mountains which separate the Pays de Vaud from the county of Burgundy; a young lady whose personal attractions were, he assures us, embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. His addresses were favoured by Mademoiselle Curchod and her parents, and both at Crassy and at Lausanne he indulged his dream of felicity; but his father, on being consulted, expressed the utmost repugnance to “this strange alliance,” and his son, thinking more of his prospects than of his passion, yielded, as he says, to his fate. “I sighed as a lover,” he adds; “I obeyed as a son.” His wound, which could scarcely have been deep, was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life; and his cure was accelerated by learning that the lady herself was not inconsolable for the loss of so prudent a lover. But the minister of Crassy soon afterwards died, and as his stipend died with him, his daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence for her mother and herself. In her lowest distress, however, she maintained a spotless reputation, and having attracted the notice of a rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, she became the wife of Μ. Neckar, afterwards prime minister of France. .

In 1758, Mr Gibbon took leave of Lausanne, and returned to England, after an absence of nearly five years. His father received him as a man and a friend, and appeared to rejoice in the success of the plan of education which had effected the reconversion and improvement of his son. One disagreeable circumstance, however, awaited the young student on his return to his native country and paternal home. In the room of her who had given him birth he found a stepmother, whom he regarded as an intruder, and to whom he was introduced with the most unfavourable prejudice. But this initial dislike, by no means unnatural on his part, was soon overcome by the amiable manners and obliging conduct of the new Mrs Gibbon, who gave him a polite welcome, and did all in her power to study and gratify his wishes. At home he was allowed to consult his own taste in the choice of place, company, and amusements; and his excursions were bounded only by the limits of the island and the measure of his income. He assiduously frequented the theatre at a very propitious era of the stage, and indulged somewhat freely in the pleasures of a town life; but the better ha- ' bits which he had formed at Lausanne, prevailing over these occasional excesses, induced him to seek more elegant and rational society, though, in the first instance, not with the success which might have been expected. He had now reached his twenty-first year without having made choice of a profession, or engaged in any regular employment. His stepmother recommended the study of the law, and some faint efforts were made to procure for him the situation of secretary to a foreign embassy; but the former scheme he declined, and the latter did not succeed.

Of the first two years which he spent in England, he passed about nine months in London, and the remainder in the country. But as his father’s taste had always preferred the highest and the lowest company, for which, it seems, he was equally qualified, he was by this time forgotten by the great with whom he had associated; and, as he had no fixed residence in London, his son failed [7:10:506] to gain admission into those circles of society in which he ardently desired to move. He acquired an intimacy, however, in the house of David Mallet, and by his means was introduced to Lady Harvey’s parties; nor was he at all displeased by her preference and affectation of the manners, language, and literature of France. But his progress in the English world was in general left to his own efforts, and those efforts, he says, were languid and slow. The want of society, however, does not appear to have given him much uneasiness; he depended chiefly on himself for his happiness; and, unlike many of his countrymen, he knew not the tediousness of an idle life, or the misery of having hours which he could not occupy. At Buriton he enjoyed many opportunities of adding to his stock of learning; books became more and more the source of all his pleasures; and the leisure he could borrow from his systematic plan of study was employed in perusing the works of the best English authors since the revolution. His father had endeavoured in vain to inspire him with a taste for agriculture, and to induce him to acquire a knowledge of rural affairs; but his own more rational object was to restore the purity of his diction which had been corrupted by the long and constant use of a foreign idiom. By the advice of Mallet he was directed to the writings of Swift and Addison, which he has on the whole judiciously discriminated. ∙ “Wit and simplicity,” says he, “are their common attributes; but the style of Swift is supported by manly original vigour; that of Addison is adorned by the female graces of elegance and mildness.” But the first productions of Robertson and Hume, the histories of Scotland and of the Stuarts, engaged his attention still more deeply. The perfect composition, the nervous language, and the well-turned periods of the one, inflamed him with the ambitious hope that he might one day tread in his footsteps; whilst the calm philosophy and the careless inimitable beauties of the other often forced him to close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair. Charmed, however, as he was with Swift and Addison, with Robertson and Hume, and well as he knew how to appreciate the peculiar excellencies of their respective styles, he lost sight of every model when he became a writer of history, and formed a style of his own, which, though in its essential spirit it is at least in part French, is justly entitled to be considered as original.

In 1761, Gibbon, yielding to the authority of a parent, published his Essai sur [Etude de la Littérature, which appeared in a small volume duodecimo. As his object, at this time, was to get an appointment as secretary of legation to some English ambassador or plenipotentiary, his father believed that the proof of some literary talents might introduce him to public notice, and second the recommendation of his friends; and, with these views, the essay in question was published. Part of this production had been written at Lausanne, and the remainder completed in London, where the whole was revised by Dr Maty, author of the Journal Britannique, who approved the design, and applauded the execution. The object of the essay was to prove, in opposition to D’Alembert and other writers in the Encyclopédie, that all the faculties of the mind may be exercised and displayed in the study of ancient literature, and that the new philosophy for which the Encyclopédistes contended was not more adverse to the cultivation of taste than inconsistent with the principles of enlightened reason. But he introduces a variety of topics not immediately bearing on his design, and shows that, in the belles-lettres and in criticism, he had expatiated through a range much more ample than could have been expected from his years. The work, indeed, is remarkable, both for the ideas which it contains, and for the purity with which it is written in French, a language then more familiar to Gibbon than his own. This book, however, made less sensation in England than in France, where it was most favourably received, and, by anticipation, ensured the autþor, particularlyamongst men of letters, the most distinguished reception. In England it was received with cold indifference, little read, and speedily forgotten; but had the knowledge of the French language been then as common in the literary world as it is now, so extraordinary a production from the pen of a young man would have met with a different reception, and raised high expectations of future eminence. For the neglect of his countrymen, however, the author was in some measure indemnified by the copious extracts, the warm commendations, and the flattering predictions, of the journals of France and Holland, countries where the work was estimated at its real value. In his Memoirs he discusses its merits and defects with singular impartiality; but, in fixing the respective measures of praise and blame, the former predominates, and with justice.

The uncongenial profession of a militia captain, which was embraced by Gibbon about the time when this essay appeared, neither diverted his mind from his historical pursuits, nor relaxed his unwearied industry. It is true, that for two years and a half he endured a “wandering life of military servitude" in the south battalion of the Hampshire militia; but though the roll of the drum disturbed him in the midst of an inquiry into ancient weights, measures, and coins, even these days of more than usual bodily activity and mental distraction were turned to account. In his marchings and countermarchings from Winchester to Blandford, and from Blandford to Southampton, he studied the Mémoires Militaires of Μ. Guischardt ;—the discipline and movementsofa modern battalion gave him a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion ;—and, amidst his peaceful evolutions, the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers laid in that store of military knowledge which afterwards enabled him successfully to elucidate the campaigns of Julian, of Belisarius, and of Narses. At the peace of 1763 his regiment was disbanded, and he resumed his studies, the regularity of which had suffered unavoidable interruption during the period of his service in the militia. In forming a new plan, he hesitated for a time between the mathematics and the Greek language, both of which he had neglected since his return from Lausanne; but having at length given the preference to Greek, he applied himself to Homer, and pursued his reading with unflinching vigour. Whatever he read or studied, however, appears to have had reference, directly or indirectly, to historical composition. From the early age of fifteen, when he projected writing the Age of Sesostris, this seems to have been the grand aim of all his studies; and, in fact, he aspired to the character of an historian long before he was able to fix upon a subject. Nor was the time unfavourable to his ambition, or calculated to abate his ardour. On the contrary, a generous emulation was excited by witnessing the triumphs of Robertson and Hume; and it is not improbable that, whilst he secretly aspired to complete the triumvirate of British historians, he thought that a subject only was wanting to enable him to realise the object of his ambition.

During his life of military servitude, as he calls it, he had resolved on several subjects for historical composition, which, from their diversity and dissimilarity, prove that he had then no particular purpose to serve, no preconceived theory to support, no actual prejudice or belief to overthrow. Amongst these he has enumerated, 1. the expedition of Charles VIII. of France into Italy; 2. the crusade of Richard Coeur de Lion ; 3. the barons’ wars against John and Henry III.; 4. the history of Edward the Black Prince; 5. the lives, with comparisons, of Henry V. and the Emperor Titus; 6. the life of Sir Philip Sidney; and, lastly, that of “Scotland’s Montrose ;” all of which he sue-cessively[7:10:507] chose and rejected. He then fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh as his hero; but, after dwelling with fondness on his eventful story, varied by the characters of the soldier and sailor, the courtier and historian, he abandoned his design. “What new lights,” he asks, “could I reflect on a subject which has exercised the accurate industry of Birch, the lively and curious acuteness of Walpole, the critical spirit of Hurd, the vigorous sense of Robertson, and the impartial philosophy of Hume ?” The History of the Liberty of the Swiss, and the History of the Republic of Florence under the House of Medicis, were each in turn meditated and discarded.

But whilst his brain was teeming with projects, which came like shadows and so departed, all his designs were suspended by a visit to the Continent, which, according to the law of custom, if not of reason, his father thought necessary to complete his education. Having obtained from Lady Harvey, Horace Walpole, Mallet, and the Duke of Nivernois,^[2. In acknowledging the politeness of the Duke of Nivemois, Gibbon notices a circumstance which serves in some degree to unfold his own character, and also to exhibit that superiority of pretension, from which, in fact, he never departed. “The Duke,” says he, “received me civilly, but, perhaps through Maty’s fault, treated me more as a man of letters than as a man of fashion.” Congreve and Gray were <veak enough to be offended on account of a similar mistake; but that Gibbon, whose sole ambition was to rise to literary eminence, should have for a moment preferred the equivocal character of a man of fashion to that of a man of letters, is as unaccountable as it is surprising that, at an advanced period of life, he should have deliberately recorded such an incident If he had been only a man of fashion, the reader would in vain have sought for his biography in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. ] letters of recommendation to various persons of distinction in France, he left his father’s residence in Hampshire, and reached Paris on the 28th of January 1763, only thirty-six days after the disbanding of the militia. Two years were loosely defined as the term of his absence; and he was left at liberty to spend his time in such places and in such a manner as might be most agreeable to his own taste and judgment. In France the fame of his Essai sur l’ Etude de ta Littérature had preceded him, and his vanity was gratified by being considered as an Englishman of fortune who merely wrote for his amusement. When Gibbon reached Paris, Montesquieu and Fontenelle were no more; Voltaire had retired to his estate near Geneva; Rousseau had been driven from his hermitage of Montmorency; and he neglected to seek the acquaintance of Buffon. But he mixed in familiar society with D'Alembert, Diderot, the Count de Caylus, the Abbé de la Bléterie, Barthélemy, Raynal, Arnaud, Condamine, Puclos, Bougainville, Caperonnier, De Guignes, Suard, and others; and four days in the week he had a place without invitation at the hospitable tables of Mesdames Geoffrin and Du Boccage,^[3. Gibbon was also introduced to Madame du Deffand, on whom he appears to have made, upon the whole, a favourable impression. But his elaborate efforts to be>agreeable, and to assume the perfect tone of French society and manners, did not escape that clever and fastidious woman, whom voltaire so justly called l’aveugle clairvoyante. In one of her letters to walpole, she writes thus; “As to Μ. Gibbon, he is a very sensible man, who"has a great deal of conversation, an infinity of knowledge, you will perhaps add, an infinity of cleverness (d’esprit) —I am not quite decided on that point. He sets too much value on our talents for society (noe agrémente), shows too much desire of acquiring them; it is constantly on the tip of my tongue to say to him, ‘ Don’t put yourself to so much trouble; you deserve the honour of being a Frenchman.’” ] of Helvetius, and Baron d’Holbach. After passing fourteen weeks at Paris, enjoying the society and amusements of that capital, he, in the month of May 1763, revisited his old friends at Lausanne, where he remained nearly a year. During this sojourn on the banks of the Leman Lake, he formed an acquaintance, destined to ripen into lasting friendship, with Mr Holroyd, afterwards Lord Sheffield, who at a subsequent period became as it were the guardian of his posthumous fame, and whom he characterises as “a friend whose activity in the ardour of youth was always prompted by a benevolent heart and‘a strong understanding.” In 1764 he set out for Italy, after having carefully studied the geography and ancient history of the seat of the Roman empire, with the view of rendering his visit profitable and satisfactory to his own mind. His description of his journey is clear and precise; and as he possessed a temper not very susceptible of enthusiasm, he scorns to affect raptures which he did not feel. But the sight of Rome appeared to have conquered his apathy, and as he approached and entered the eternal city, his mind was agitated with emotions which he declares it impossible either to forget or express. Here the conception of the work which was destined to fix and perpetuate his fame first rose in his mind. “It was at Rome,” says he, “on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter [now the church of Zocolants or Franciscan friars] that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.”^[4. In a memoir of the life of Gibbon, prefixed to Guizot’s French edition of the Decline and Fall, and written by Μ. Suard, the translator of Kobertson, to whom the historian was intimately known, we meet with the following observations on the passage above quoted: “Perhaps it will not be difficult to trace, in the impressions from which the conception of the work arose, one of the causes of that war which Gibbon seems to have declared against christianity; the design of which neither appears conformable to his character, little disposed to party-spirit, nor consistent with that moderation of thought and sentiment which led him in all things, particular as well as general, to view the advantages as well as the injurious consequences. But, struck with a first impression. Gibbon, in writing the history of the fall of the empire, saw in christianity only an institution which had placed vespers, barefooted friars, and processions, in the room of the magnificent ceremonies of the worship of Jupiter and the triumphs of the Capitol” This explanation, however, seems to us entirely fallacious. In many of his habits Gibbon was at least half a Frenchman; but he was not the creature of such impressions as that which Μ. Suard has here attributed to him. He drew his aversion to Christianity from a deeper source. Paganism was the old established religion; Christianity, viewed in its origin and early history, was a daring innovation. The one was sanctioned by time and confirmed by habit; the other had nothing but its truth to recommend it. In this light Gibbon viewed the two religions, as he has himself unequivocally declared in one of his letters; his principles naturally led him to recognise the prescriptive rights of paganism, which he regarded as the established system; and they also indisposed him towards Christianity, which sought to effect and ultimately accomplished its subversion. The conservative character of bis political creed attached him to the former; but he bated the latter both as a politician and as an unbeliever. This seems to be the whole mystery. ] But this appears to have been merely the effect of the emotion produced by local associations; for the original plan was confined to the decay of the city rather than of the empire. Rome and Italy having satiated his curiosity, he returned to England, and arrived at his father’s residence in the month of Jun# 1765.

The five years and a half which intervened between his return from his travels and the death of his father in 1770, seem to have formed the portion of his life which he passed with the least enjoyment, and remembered with the least satisfaction. By the resignation of his father, and the death of Sir Thomas Worsley, he was successively promoted to the rank of major and lieutenant-colonel commandant of his regiment of militia; but he was each year more disgusted with “the inn, the wine, the company, and the tiresome repetition of annual attendance and daily exercise.” He had other and more rational grounds ol [7:10:508]uneasiness on account of his situation. He belonged to no profession which he could cultivate; he had adopted no plan, by which, like some of his acquaintance, he might rise to consequence. Without aim or pursuit, he lamented that he had not engaged in the study of the law, embarked in trade, tempted the chances of civil office or India adventure, or at least courted “the fat slumbers of the church.” But a mind like his was not formed to remain inactive, and the dissatisfaction which he now experienced in considering his actual position, probably arose from an impatience to acquire fame, and the elongation of the only prospect which had presented itself to his view. He still contemplated, at an awful distance, a history of the decline and fall of Rome; but, as an immediate object of pursuit, he resumed the study of the revolutions of Switzerland, which he had formerly abandoned, and, after much reading, executed, in French, the first book of a history of Swiss liberty. This specimen of his work was read, in the winter of 1767, to a literary society of foreigners in London; and as the author was unknown, he listened without observation, though with painful sensations, to the free strictures and unfavourable sentence of his judges; but their condemnation, he assures us, was ratified by his cooler thoughts. The attempt, however, was generously commended by Mr Hume, to whom the manuscript had been submitted, and who endeavoured only to dissuade the author from composing in French, and thus, as Horace says of the Romans who wrote in Greek, carrying faggots into the wood. The design was, however, abandoned, in deference to the opinion of the foreign critics, and the manuscript subsequently passed into the hands of Lord Sheffield.

After this failure, Gibbon, in 1767, united with Μ. Deyverdun, a native of Lausanne, then in England, and a person of taste and critical discernment, to whom he was much attached, in publishing a literary journal, under the title of Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne, in imitation of Dr Maty’s Journal Britannique, which was esteemed and regretted. But the attempt met with little encouragement, and only two volumes of the Mémoires appeared. Gibbon acknowledges having reviewed, in the first volume, Lord Lyttleton ’ β History of Henry II., a work of sense and learning, but not illuminated by a single ray of genius. The materials of a third volume were nearly completed, when Deyverdun having accepted the situation of travelling companion to Sir Richard Worsley, to which his coadjutor had recommended him, this appointment put an end to the Mémoires Littéraires.

Gibbon’s next performance was of a bolder description, being nothing less than an attack on Warburton, who, in a singular chapter of the Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated, had maintained that the descent of Aeneas and the Sybil to the infernal regions was not a false, but a mimic scene, representing the initiation of Aeneas, in the character of a lawgiver, into the Eleusinian mysteries. This hypothesis, which the bishop had endeavoured to support by an elaborate but strained interpretation, Gibbon assailed and completely overthrew in his Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, published in 1770. In this production he proved that the ancient lawgivers did not invent the mysteries, and that Aeneas was never invested with the office of lawgiver ;—that there is not any argument or circumstance which melts a fable into allegory, or removes the scene from the Lake Avernus to the Temple of Ceres ;—that such a wild supposition is equally injurious to the poet and the man ;—that if Virgil was not initiated, he could not, and if he were, he would not, reveal the secrets of the initiation ;—and that the anathema of Horace (Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit, &c.) at once attests his own ignorance, and the innocence of his friend. All this, which seems quite conclusive against Warburton’s allegorical interpretation, might, however, have been argued in temperate and respectful language; but the clear, elegant, and decisive criticism of Gibbon, which early received the approbation of Heyne, and has since been generally acknowledged to be unanswerable, was deformed by an acrimony of style which might be excused, but could scarcely be justified, by the pride and presumption with which the bishop pronounced his infallible decrees, and the merciless severity with which he lashed his antagonists in his polemical writings.^[5. Hayley, a poet and a scholar, not only pronounces a favourable judgment on the critical observations, but even condescends to justify an acrimony of style, which the author himself afterwards regretted as unmanly and indefensible. Heyne, more learned, and at the same time more candid, gently blamed the contemptuous treatment of a man who, with all his faults, was entitled to the esteem of every scholar. “ l’aullo acriut quam velu .peretrinxit." We may add, that the editor of the warburtonian tracts, Dr Parr, considers the allegorical interpretation “as completely refuted in a most clear, elegant, and decisive work of criticism, which could not derive authority from the greatest name, but to which the greatest name might with propriety have been affixed.” ] A calmer tone would have been better suited to the subject; and the argument gained nothing in force by the circumstance, that the author aimed his strokes against the person and the hypothesis of Bishop Warburton. At the same time “the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature” maintained a discreet silence; he had previously shrunk from the encounter (which he had himself provoked) with Dr Lowth; ana Gibbon appears to have been, in like manner, considered as an antagonist with whom it might be hazardous openly to do battle.

In the fifteen years which elapsed between the publication of his Essai sur l’Etude de la Littérature, and that of the first volume of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, this criticism on Warburton, and some articles in the journal above mentioned, were the only productions of his pen which Gibbon gave to the world. But after the death of his father in 1770, an event which left him the entire disposal of his time and choice of his pursuits, he applied himself seriously to the composition of the first volume of his history. For several years he had revolved the subject in his mind, and read a great deal with a view to the undertaking, including the classics as low as Tacitus, Pliny the younger, and Juvenal; the Augustan history, and the original records both Greek and Latin, from Dion Cassius to Ammianus Marcellinus; the Annals and Antiquities of Muratori, which he compared with Sigonius and Maffei, Baronius and Pagi; the Theodosian Code, with the commentary of James Godefroy; besides all that related to the propagation of the gospel and the triumph of the church, the narratives and apologies of the Christians themselves, and the Jewish and heathen testimonies, as these have been collected and illustrated by Lardner. Observing the maxim, Multum legere potius quam multa, he reviewed again and again the French and English, as well as the Latin and Italian classics; his Greek studies, though less assiduous, maintained and extended his knowledge of that incomparable language; and a third perusal of Blackstone’s Commentaries, with a copious and critical abstract, formed an introduction to the knowledge of English jurisprudence. At the commencement of his undertaking all was dark and doubtful—even the title of the work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, the limits of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of the narrative; and, amidst the uncertainty in which he found himself involved, he was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years. But, happily, in spite of every discouragement, he [7:10:509]persevered in his task, which his return as member of parliament for the borough of Leskeard, in 1775, did not seriously interrupt; and, on the 17th of February 1776, he gave to the world the first volume of that work which has placed its author in the foremost rank of modern historians. Its success was almost unprecedented. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and even a third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand; the book was on every table, almost on every toilette; and, to use his own words, the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of the day. But, if the voice of public favour be music to the ear of an author, Gibbon must have derived more substantial satisfaction from the approbation of such judges as Robertson and Hume. “The candour of Dr Robertson,” says he, “embraced his disciple. A letter from Mr Hume overpaid the labour of ten years.” The latter, however, with his usual sagacity, anticipated the objections which he foresaw would be urged against the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters. “When 1 heard of your undertaking, which was some time ago,” says he, “I own I was a little curious to see how you would extricate yourself from the subject of your two last chapters. I think you have observed a very prudent temperament; but it was impossible to treat the subject so as not to give grounds of suspicion against you, and you may expect that a clamour will arise. This, if any thing, will retard your success with the public; for, in every other respect, your work is calculated to be popular. But, among many other marks of decline, the prevalence of superstition in England prognosticates the fall of philosophy and decay of taste; and though nobody be more capable than you to revive them, you will probably find a struggle in your first advances.”

Gibbon’s own reflections on this subject appear to us to be either hypocritical or ironical. He affects not to have believed that the majority of English readers were so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of Christianity; and he professes that if he had foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility, he might perhaps have softened the two invidious chapters, which were calculated, he admits, to create many enemies, and to conciliate few friends. But as the shaft was shot and tha alarm sounded, he consoled himself with the reflection, that if the voice of the priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands were disarmed from the power of persecution. The sincerity of this apology is more than doubtful; nor is it possible to believe that Gibbon completely misjudged the state of the public feeling on the subject of Christianity, which Hume appears, from the above extract, to have so accurately appreciated. But, however this may be, the effect of Gibbon’s hostility towards Christianity, upon the character of his history, has, for the first time, been fairly and justly estimated by the French critics. What they complain of is not so much his insidious description of the human means by which it was propagated, as his false estimate of its influence upon the social and even political condition of mankind. In this country, the matter has chiefly been considered in a polemical spirit; abroad, it has been viewed in a light at once more enlarged, more philosophical, and, we may add, more wisely Christian. Here, amidst the indignation of the better part of the community at the publication of the first volume of the Decline and Fall, our more distinguished theological writers stood aloof, and the onset was made by a few rash and feeble volunteers, who, ill armed and worse disciplined, rushed against the thick bosses of the historian’s buckler. With a single discharge of his formidable artillery of learning and sarcasm, Gibbon laid prostrate the whole disorderly squadron; and Davis, Chelsum, Travis, and the rest, sunk back into their original insignificance. When the first of these ventured to attack, not the faith, but the fidelity of the historian, the latter published his Vindication, which, ,, expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy and idle metropolis,” and annihilated Davis.

Their plan of attack, indeed, was as misjudging as their mode of conducting it was unskilful. With a little learning scraped together for the occasion, they ventured to impeach the accuracy and to condemn the false quotations of a scholar, whose mind was thoroughly saturated with every kind of knowledge which could bear upon his subject; and they could only make up in vituperation and intemperance for their manifest deficiency in all the qualifications requisite in defenders of Christianity. Watson, bishop of Llandaff, was the only one of the number who had the good taste to maintain towards his adversary the dignified courtesy which belonged to his literary character; and the judgment to confine his Apology to one point, namely, the inadequacy of Gibbon’s secondary causes to account for the diffusion of Christianity. But it may even be questioned whether Watson himself has not unconsciously been seduced, by the consummate skill of his antagonist, to advance beyond the position which is really impregnable, and to carry on the contest upon ground far less advantageous. The art of Gibbon consists in confounding the origin and apostolic propagation of the new religion with its later progress. No argument for the divine authority of Christianity has been urged with greater force, or developed with higher eloquence, than that which is deduced from its primary development and rapid extension throughout the greater part of the Roman empire. But this argument, unanswerable when confined within just limits, becomes feeble, or disputable, or evanescent, as we recede from the time and place where the new religion was born and first manifested to the world. By Gibbon, however, the main question, namely, the divine origin of Christianity, was dexterously eluded or speciously conceded. His plan enabled him to commence his account, in most parts, below the apostolic times; and it was only by the strength of the dark colouring which he worked, with infinite art and skill, out of the failings and follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt or suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of Christianity. “The theologian,” says he, “may indidge the pleasing task of describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her native purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian: he must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth among a weak and degenerate race of beings.” This passage betrays the whole secret of his art. Divest it of the latent sarcasm which pervades the whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history, written in the genuine spirit of Christian candour. But as the historian, with seeming respect, yet dexterously confounding the true limits of the question, contrives to insinuate that the supposed origin of our religion is a mere Utopian dream of the theologian, and to suggest rather than affirm that the days of Christian purity were a kind of poetic golden age; so the theologian, by adventuring too far into the domain of the historian, may find himself obliged to contest points where he has little chance of victory, to deny facts established by unimpeachable evidence, and to retire, if not with the shame of defeat, at least with doubtful and imperfect success.^[6. Gibbon speaks of his assailants with unmeasured contempt; and, in truth, he had every reason to do so. Davis, Chelsum, and Travis vanished before him; but “a victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation.” If the strength of his adversaries had, however, been in proportion to their numbers, he would certainly have been overwhelmed. The following is a list of the principal writings called forth by his bold yet insidious attack on Christianity:—1. Remarks on the two last Chapters of Mr Gibbon*a History. 2. An Apology for Christianity, by R. watson, D. D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, 1776, in 12mo. 3. The History of the Establishmentof Christianity, by william Salisbury, B. D., 1776, in 8vo. 4. Reply to the Reason, ings of Mr Gibbon in his History, by S. Loftus, Dublin, 1778, in 8vo. 5. Letters on the Prevalence of Christianity, by East Apthorpe, Μ. A., 1778, in 8vo. 6. An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr Gibbon’s History, by H. E. Davis, B. A., Oxford, 1778, in 8vo. 7. Remarks on the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by a'Gentleman. 8. Remarks on the two last Chapters of Mr Gibbon’s History, by James Chelsum, D. D., Oxford, 1778, in 8vo. This last was a second edition of the anonymous Remarks mentioned in the first article, and contains additional strictures by Dr Randolph, professor of divinity at Qxford. Mr Gibbon now published his answer, which appeared under the title of a vindication of some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by the author, 1779, in 8vo. This was immediately followed by, 1. A Short Appeal to the Public, by the gentleman who is particularly addressed in the postscript of the vindication, 1779-1780, in 8vo. 2. A Reply to Mr Gibbon’s vindication, by H. E. Davis, Oxford, 1780, in 8vo. 3. A I{cply to Mr Gibbon’s vindication, by James Chelsum,' D. D., I78δ, in 8vo. The most considerable of the works directed against the His. tory generally were, 1. Thoughts on the nature of the Grand Apostacy, with reflections and observations on the Fifteenth Chapter of Mr Gibbon’s History, by H. Taylor, 1781-1782, in 8vo. 2. Gibbon’s Account of Christianity considered, by Joseph Milner, A. Μ., 1781, in 8vo. 3. Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq. in defence of the authenticity of the 7th verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of St John, by George Travis, A. Μ., 1784, in 4to. 4. An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes which Mr Gibbon has assigned for the rapid growth of Christianity, by Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, 1786, in 4to. Dr Priestley, in his History of the Corruptions of Christianity, also threw dówn’his gauntlet to Mr Gibbon, who, however, declined the challenge in a letter, exhorting his opponent to enlighten the world by his philosophical discoveries, and to remember that the merit of his predecessor Servetus is now reduced to a single passage, indicating the smaller circulation of the blood through the lungs. Of all his antagonists. Dr watson is the only one of whom Gibbon speaks with respect, and, indeed, almost the only one who deserved it. “Let me frankly own,” says he, in concluding an account of his chief opponents, “that I was startled at the first discharge of ecclesiastical ordnance; but as soon as I found that this empty noise was mischievous only in the intention, my fear was converted into indignation; and every feeling of indignation or curiosity has long since subsided into pure and placid indifference.” ]
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Nearly two years elapsed between the publication of the first and the commencement of-the second volume of the history. During this interval Gibbon studied a course of anatomy, demonstrated by Dr Hunter; dived deeply into what he calls the mud of the Arian controversy; studied the transactions of the age of Constantine; and spent some months of pleasure at Paris. The prosecution of his task was also checked by employment of a different description, for which his talents were considered as peculiarly adapted. At the request of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, and Lord Weymouth, then secretary of state, he was induced to prepare an answer to a manifesto which the French court had issued against Great Britain, preparatory to a declaration of war. This Mr Gibbon accomplished with great ability, and vindicated the justice of the British arms, in a Mémoire Justificatif, composed in French, which, having been first approved of by the cabinet ministers, was then delivered as a state paper to the courts of Europe. For this service he was appointed one of the lords commissioners of trade and plantations; a place, the duties of which were by no means arduous, whilst it enlarged his private income by a clear addition of between L.700 and L.800 a year. His acceptance of this appointment provoked some of the leaders of opposition, and he was accused of deserting a party in which he declares he had never enlisted. On this subject, however, there is an awkward reminiscence preserved in the handwriting of Mr Fox. That statesman, in an autograph note on his copy of Gibbon’s history, says, that, at the time of the declaration of war against Spain, in the year 1779, the author of this work declared publicly, at Brookes’, that there would be no hope for England, except by cutting off six heads in the cabinet council, and exposing them, as an example, in open parliament; yet, before fifteen days had elapsed, he accepted a place under the same administration. The inconsistency which this statement involves, Lord Sheffield has attempted to palliate, if not to obviate, by observing, that, though his friend may have carelessly used strong expressions respecting some or perhaps all parties, yet he never meant that such expressions should be taken literally. But the world were not obliged to understand that, on political subjects, Mr Gibbon spoke in parables.

At the general election in 1780 he lost his seat for Leskeard, which had suddenly been converted into an opposition borough; and in the interval of his senatorial life which followed, he published the second and third volumes of his history. They appeared in April 1781, and excited as much attention as, though far less controversy than, his first volume. They were written with equal elegance but more caution, and exhibited proots of juster and more profound thinking. His affection for his work did not permit him to estimate truly the reception with which these volumes were honoured; and, in his Memoirs, he speaks of a coldness, and even prejudice, which appear to have been altogether imaginary. It is certain, indeed, that their merit was fully appreciated, both at home and abroad; but two volumes are not so speedily sold as one, and the promise of a continuation, whilst it gratified his admirers, necessarily suspended that final judgment upon which the fame of the work was ultimately to depend.

Soon after the meeting of the new parliament, he was chosen, upon a vacancy, to represent the borough of Lymington in Hampshire. But the administration to which he had attached himself was now on the decline; the minister who refused to bend was broken by the tempest which had arisen against the supporters of the American war, and with his fall the board of trade was abolished, by which means our author was stripped of a convenient salary, which he had enjoyed about three years. Amidst the conflict of parties which followed the dissolution of Lord North’s administration, Gibbon, from a principle of gratitude, adhered to the coalition, and his vote was counted in the day of battle (it was all he could supply), but he was forgotten in the division of the spoil. The board of trade could not be restored; a seat at the board of customs or excise was promised on the first vacancy, but the chance was distant and doubtful; the tumult of London, and the attendance on parliament, were grown irksome to him; and, without some additional income, he could not prudently maintain the style of expense to which he had for some time been accustomed. In these circumstances, and having always cherished a secret wish that the school of his youth might become the retreat of his declining age, he once more turned his thoughts to his beloved Lausanne. But before proceeding with the remainder of the narrative, we shall stop for a moment to review the historian’s political career.

Gibbon entered the House of Commons in 1764, and he witnessed a great epoch in the history of the British parliament. Never had a more brilliant constellation of talent and genius risen in the political horizon; never had higher interests commanded attention and inspired eloquence. The insurrection of the colonies, the violent and arbitrary laws which had oppressed and driven them to [7:10:511] despair, the war with America, the misfortunes and reverses of that ill-fated contest, the dismemberment which threatened the empire, together with the justice, policy, and necessity of concluding a peace; such were the subjects then debated in parliament, with an ardour, ability, and eloquence, not surpassed, perhaps never equalled, in any other period of our history. But amidst all the excitement and animation of such a scene, Gibbon remained mute, and threw his silent vote into the scale of power in support of the pretensions of the crown against the opinion of the great body of the nation, and the just claims of the Americans. He thought, or professed to think, the cause of the government, in this instance, the cause of England, and declared himself more and more convinced that the administration had the right as well as the power on their side. With a temperament constitutionally cold, and principles essentially conservative, he had none of the generous sympathies inspired by an ardent love of liberty; in the resistance of the Americans he saw nothing but a rising against authority, to be put down by force of arms; and, though possessing a mind accustomed to develope political results, and to estimate the remote consequences of changes in the social relations of mankind, he showed himself as insensible as the humblest of Lord North’s adherents to the real character of the struggle in which Britain was then engaged, and seems as little to have anticipated the advantages which would accrue to mankind from the generous rivalry of two great nations sprung from a common stock, or to have foreseen that the separation of the colonies from the mother country was, sooner or later, inevitable, and that, even if then averted, it might take place during some political crisis pregnant with still greater danger to the power of Britain. His sagacity, in short, was speculative, not practical; and his want of political courage commensurate with a certain blind, undistinguishing dread of change, which forms the most prominent characteristic of the sect of politicians to which, from congeniality of sentiment, he had attached himself. For Lord North individually he seems to have cherished the most sincere personal regard; and, though history will scarcely ratify Gibbon’s estimate of his character, yet the fine tribute paid to the fallen minister in the preface to the fourth (quarto) volume of the Decline and Fall does honour to the historian’s memory.

With regard to Gibbon’s parliamentary silence, it is highly probable that it proceeded from the cause which he has himself explained. “After a fleeting illusive hope," says he, “prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute. I was not armed by nature and education with the intrepid energy of mind and voice,

Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis.

Timidity was fortified by pride; and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice.” Another cause besides physical inability, and the embarrassment of a high literary reputation, seems also to have concurred in repressing his ambition of oratorical fame. “Upon the whole,” he writes to Mr Holroyd, “though I still believe I shall try, I doubt whether nature, not that in some instances I am ungrateful, has given me the talents of an orator, and I feel that I came into parliament much too late to exert them.” At the period to which this refers, Gibbon was eight and thirty; but at every brilliant epoch of British oratory, the leading speakers have almost invariably commenced their career long before the age of forty; and where there are exceptions to this rule, these will generally be found amongst those who have been bred to the kindred profession of the bar. Besides, in the confirmed habit of close, accurate, and laboured composition, there is something which disqualifies for free, prompt, and effective public speaking, in which readiness and fluency are far more indispensable requisites than precision and correctness.^[7. “Extraordinary periods of public excitement,” says a very able writer, “like the French Revolution, may suddenly, as it were, mature the powers of older men; but it may be remembered, that Mirabeau was by no means an unpractised speaker; and how many of the leading orators of that period, displaying in the midst of tlashy and histrionic declamation so much of vigorous and powerful eloquence, had been avocate r'—(QuarteTlÿ Review, vol. 1, p. 286-) ]

Having resolved to withdraw from public life, and fixed upon Lausanne as the place of his retreat, Gibbon entered into an arrangement with his old friend Μ. Deyverdun, who was now settled there; and having disposed of all his effects, excepting his library, he bade adieu to England in September 1783, and arrived at Lausanne nearly twenty years after his second departure. His reception was cordial, and the comparative advantages of his situation fully answered his expectations. His personal freedom, which had been somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the board of trade, was now restored, and he was delivered from the chain of duty and dependence, as well as from the hopes and fears of political adventure. His English economy, which had been that of a solitary bachelor, who might afford occasional dinners, was exchanged for a more social mode of life, in which he enjoyed at every meal, at every hour, the pleasant conversation of the friend of his youth, whilst his table was daily provided for the reception of one or two extraordinary guests. In London he was lost in the crowd; at Lausanne he ranked with the first families, and his style of prudent expense enabled him to maintain a fair balance of reciprocal civilities. Instead of a small house between a street and a stable-yard, he now occupied a spacious and convenient mansion, with a garden of four acres laid out by the taste of Μ. Deyverdun, a rich scenery of meadows and vineyards descending to the Leman Lake, and the distant prospect beyond the lake crowned by the stupendous mountains of Savoy. In this catalogue of advantages, however, which we have abridged from the Memoirs, there is a perceptible intermixture of caprice and weakness; for surely a man of Gibbon’s intellectual resources might easily have discovered situations in England adapted to every purpose of economy and retirement, yet calculated to afford at intervals the enjoyment of good society. But, not to mention that Gibbon in his habits was at least half a foreigner, it appears that, either from pride or modesty, he was averse to the society of his literary contemporaries, in which he does not seem to have been qualified to shine, and preferred, in his hours of relaxation, that style of company in which the conversation flows in an easy natural channel, and where the object is mutually to please, not to talk for effect. In society he sought to repose and recreate his mind, after the fatigue of research and the labour of composition, not to stimulate and excite it by what is called brilliant conversation; and, as enjoyment was his object, he naturally disliked and avoided company where the aim was rather display than social amusement.

Gibbon remained about a year at Lausanne before he resumed the composition of history; but having done so, he proceeded steadily with his laborious task, which he at length completed on the 27th of June 1787. The fourth volume was terminated by an abstract of the controversies respecting the Incarnation; in the fifth and sixth volumes the revolutions of the empire and the world are most rapid, various, “nd instructive, and the Greek and [7:10:512]Roman histories are checked by the hostile narratives of the barbarians of the East and West. The conclusion of his great, and, we may add, immortal work, the historian has commemorated in language strongly expressive of the emotions with which his mind was filled in contemplating the completion of that edifice which he had at length reared to perpetuate his fame. “I have presumed,” says he, “to mark the moment of conception; I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my, pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.”^[8. “I will add two facts,” says he, “which have seldom occurred in the composition of six, or at least five quartos. 1. My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press. 2. Not a sheet has been seen by any human eyes, excepting those of the author and printer; the faults and the merits are exclusively my own.” This must be taken with a slight deduction, inasmuch as it appears from a previous part of his Memoirs, that he three times composed the first chapter of the first volume, and twice the second and third, before he was satisfied with them; and also, that although “he was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to his friends,” this had nevertheless been, to a certain extent, done by him. ]

With the manuscript of the three last volumes he set out from Lausanne, after a quiet residence of four years, and at the end of a fortnight arrived at the house of his friend Lord Sheffield, where he remained during his stay in England. The arrangements with the bookseller and printer were soon settled; but after the whole had passed through the press, the day of publication was delayed that it might coincide with the fifty-first anniversary of his birthday (8th May 1788), when the double festival was celebrated by a literary dinner at the house of the publisher, Mr Cadeli, where the historian “seemed to blush,” whilst they read some complimentary stanzas written by Mr Hayley for the occasion. The sale of these volumes was rapid, and the work being generally read, was of course variously judged. The style was exposed to much academical criticism; a religious clamour was revived upon nearly the same grounds as before; and the reproach of indecency was loudly echoed by the more rigid censors of morals. This last charge he professes he could never understand, and assigns several reasons why it appeared to him unaccountable. First, an equal freedom in the former part, especially in the first volume, had passed without notice, or at least without censure: secondly, he considered himself as justified in painting the manners of the times, and regarded the vices of Theodora as forming an essential feature in the reign and character of Justinian: thirdly, he adds, that his English text is chaste, and that all the licentious passages in the notes are left in the obscurity of a learned language. But in offering such a vindication, or rather such an apology, the historian seems to have forgotten that it is no excuse of an offence against morals or decorum that, for a time, it may have escaped observation or censure; that sensuality may be censured without being lasciviously described; that it is not philosophically just to exhibit individual vices, in strong relief, as forming a general picture of the manners of a particular country; and that licentious passages are but thinly veiled by being “left in the obscurity" of languages which are taught at every school. In the opinion of a distinguished French critic, Μ. Villemain, Gibbon was dead to all lofty and generous emotions. This, however, is not doing justice to the historian. On most subjects, his mind was alive to the noblest sentiments, and calmly yet firmly arrayed on the side of humanity, justice, and the best interests of mankind; on two, the virtue of women and the magnanimity of Christians, he was incurably prejudiced. Porson, his bitterest and most malignant critic, admits that in his history, “his reflections are just and profound: he pleads eloquently for the rights of mankind and the duty of toleration; nor does his humanity ever slumber unless when women are ravished and Christians persecuted.”

In the preface to his fourth volume, Gibbon, whilst he gloried in the name of Englishman, announced his approaching return to the banks of the Leman Lake; nor did his year’s residence in England, on this occasion, induce him to alter his resolution, or even to entertain a wish of settling in his native country. A few weeks after the publication of his history, he accordingly set out for Switzerland, and, on the 30th of July 1788, arrived at Lausanne, where, after a full repast on Homer and Aristophanes, he involved himself in the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato. But the cheering prospect of happiness which had again wooed him to his favourite retreat was soon obscured by the illness and death of his friend Deyverdun; whilst the great political movement which had now begun to agitate France extended itself to Switzerland, and, throwing men’s minds into a ferment of hope and fear, of anticipated improvement and foreboding apprehension, served to interrupt the tranquillity which had long reigned in that peaceful country. A swarm of emigrants of both sexes, attracted by similarity of manners and languages, as well as by the vicinity, flocked to Lausanne, and bringing with them a spirit of political discussion inflamed by passion and by prejudice, provoked hostility to their opinions, even whilst their misfortunes called forth sympathy. The language of disappointment on the one hand begot that of Resumption on the other; domestic harmony was embittered by an infusion of party spirit; the ladies and gentlemen in Switzerland, as elsewhere, became suddenly transformed into politicians; and whilst the partisans of the old absolute monarchy denounced the advocates of constitutional freedom as rebels against their king and traitors to their country, the zealous missionaries of the new political faith scattered the seeds of discontent in those cities and villages, which, for more than two centuries and a half, no commotion had agitated. Of the manner in which the historian at this period employed his time we have little account. He appears to have amused himself by writing the Memoirs of his Life, which it was reserved for his friend Lord Sheffield to give to the world; and also to have projected a series of biographical portraits of eminent Englishmen from the time of Henry VIII., a design in the execution of which little or no progress seems to have been made. His habits of industry had by this time become impaired, and his studies, instead of being prosecuted as formerly with reference to a great object, were now so far restricted as merely to constitute the amusement of his morning hours.

He remained in Switzerland as long as he considered it prudent to do so, and only quitted that country when the execution of Louis XVI. and the declaration of war which almost immediately followed on the part of Great Britain, rendered it no longer a safe asylum for an Englishman who, it was well known, entertained strong anti-revolutionary [7:10:513]opinions. Mr Gibbon left Lausanne in May 1793, arrived in June at Lord Sheffield’s house in Downing Street, and soon afterwards settled, for the summer, with that nobleman at Sheffield Place. In October he went to Bath to pay a visit of kindness to his father’s widow, and then proceeded to Althorp, the seat of Earl Spencer, from which he returned to London. His health was visibly declining, and he now for the first time disclosed, by a letter to his friend Lord Sheffield, the immediate cause, which he had hitherto concealed from every human being, except a confidential servant. This complaint was originally a hernia, which had at length produced hydrocele, and required immediate surgical treatment. Tapping afforded temporary relief; but as the original complaint was of about thirty years standing, it had completely undermined his constitution, which could not for any length of time support the discharge; and he died, on the 16th of January 1794, preserving his senses and composure to the last. Absurd reports as to the manner of his death were circulated at the time, and implicitly believed by many credulous persons. But all these stories have been refuted by the authoritative relation of his friend and biographer, who has stated the real circumstances attending his demise with equal clearness and simplicity. Mr Gibbon did not at any time show the least sign of alarm or apprehension of death; and, in fact, it does not appear that he ever thought himself in danger, or conceived his departure from this earthly scene to be so near at hand.

The personal character of Mr Gibbon, which was upon the whole highly estimable, may be correctly appreciated from the Memoirs which he left behind him. In these his sentiments are disclosed without the reserve which he employed in his more laboured compositions, and bis mental failings are detailed with an ingenuous candour which commands our respect and confidence. He frankly confesses the vanity of the author and the pride of the gentleman; the vanity of one of the most successful authors of modem times, and the pride of a gentleman of amiable manners and high accomplishments. It must, however, be admitted that his anxiety for fame sometimes obscured the lustre of his social qualities, separated him too widely from his literary contemporaries, and occasionally led him to speak of his opponents with a contemptuous arrogance at variance with the general tone of his bland and moderate character. His conversation, though not enlivened by wit, nor adorned with those lighter graces in which the French so greatly excel all other nations, is yet said to have been rich in various information, communicated in a calm and agreeable, though somewhat peculiar manner; but in company he seldom brought forward his vast treasures of knowledge, and was more ambitious to be thought a man of the world than a mere, scholar or author. “As to his manners in society,” says Μ. Suard, who knew him well, “without doubt the agreeableness (amabilité) of Gibbon was neither that yielding and retiring complaisance, nor that modesty which is forgetful of self; but his vanity (amour-propre) never showed itself in an offensive manner. Anxious to succeed and to please, he wished to command attention, and obtained it without difficulty by a conversation animated, sprightly, and full of matter. All that was dictatorial (tranchant) in his tone betrayed not so much that desire of domineering over others, which is always offensive, as confidence in himself; and that confidence was justified both by his powers and by his success. Notwithstanding this, his conversation never carried one away (ri entrainait jamais) ; its fault was a kind of arrangement which never permitted him to say any thing unless well.” In this elaborate and artificial structure of his conversation, we are irresistibly reminded of the characteristic qualities and defects of his style, in which, according to Porson, the thread of his verbosity is sometimes finer than the staple of his argument, and where, in endeavouring to avoid vulgar terms, he occasionally dignifies trifles, and clothes common thoughts in a dress which would be rich enough for the noblest ideas.

But although Gibbon has disclosed much of his character in his Memoirs, there are some points left unexplained, concerning which it would be very desirable to be better informed. He has told us much of the progress of opinions in his mind; of his conversion to popery, which, considering at what age it occurred, he has treated with disproportionate gravity; and of his reconversion to protestantism, which he has related with more brevity and obscurity. But at the latter of these points he stops short; we leave him a good Protestant in the hands of Μ. Pavilliard, and, after a considerable interval, we find him transformed into an implacable enemy of Christianity, without the pretence of a quarrel, or any previous declaration of hostilities. By what process was this singular transition effected? by what train of reading or interchange of sentiments did he contract this causeless inveteracy? Porson has charged him with often making, where he cannot find, an occasion to insult our religion, “which,” says that incomparable Hellenist, “he hates so cordially that he might seem to revenge some personal injury.” The accusation is no doubt a little too sweeping; yet whence arose the undeniable antipathy on which it is grounded? On this subject we are left entirely to conjecture; but, without venturing to affirm any thing, it may not unreasonably be attributed to his intimacy with the French writers, particularly Helvetius, and to his correspondence with Hume, to whom he looked up with the reverence of a disciple; connections which probably led him to think that the farther he departed from the Christian faith, the nearer he approached to the perfection of the philosophical character.

As an historian, the universal acknowledgment of the literary world has placed him in the highest rank; and if his taste had equalled his knowledge, if in his narrative the grace of simplicity had concealed the artifice of elaboration, he would, even in that rank, have stood without a rival. But in all the diversified charms of interesting and pathetic relation he is as much inferior to Robertson, as he excels that writer in extent and variety of knowledge, in deep and penetrating sagacity, in comprehensive concentration, and, above all, in the unrivalled mastery which he exercised over his vast stores of learning ;—and if, in these respects, he is likewise superior to Hume, which can scarcely be disputed, he at the same time falls far short of what he has himself characterised as the careless inimitable beauties of that elegant and philosophical historian. Yet, with every deduction that can reasonably be made, enough will remain to support the high reputation of his great work, and to entitle its author to the respect and admiration of every succeeding age. If his laborious system of compilation, the depth and accuracy of his research, partook of the patient plodding erudition of the north, both the merits and defects of his manner of composition were essentially French; and it is not difficult to discern the influence of Voltaire and his school on the philosophical views no less than the sarcastic periods of the historian. Yet it is not in France alone, but likewise among the profound inquiring scholars of Germany, that Gibbon maintains his ground. His chapter containing a condensed abstract of the Roman law was translated by Hugo, in order that it might serve as a text-book for his own prelections on that system of jurisprudence; and the recent editors of the later historians of Rome, particularly of Ammianus Marcellinus, and of the Byzantine Collection, defer to his interpretations, sometimes of the text, always of the meaning of their authors; whilst, even where their own researches heve thrown further light on [7:10:514]the periods comprehended in hia work, their language is uniformly that of acknowledgment of his general accuracy, and of respect for his elevated genius. In a word, Gibbon anticipated that happy union, which we can scarcely hope to see more perfectly consummated, of the indefatigable erudition of the Germans, with the lucid arrangement of the French, and their lively manner of developing their views and relating facts; condensing and perfecting the whole with the masculine boldness and solidity of English judgment. In Gibbon indeed there were wanting a more free and natural style, a purer moral taste, and a philosophy superior to the narrow prejudices of a sect; but, with these exceptions, there is every thing to be admired in him as an historian. An erudition vast, solid, and varied; a criticism equally exact and ingenious; an interest of narration, if not always equal, at least sufficiently sustained to prevent languor; views sometimes profound, often comprehensive, almost always just; reflections original, striking, and piquant; and the art of connecting the facts of the history with enlarged ideas, of which the writer himself did not perhaps perceive all the consequences, but which excite reflection in the mind of the reader; such are the obvious merits of Gibbon as an historian, such the qualities which ensure the permanence of his fame. His defects, though much less apparent, and in some measure concealed from common observation by the extreme artifice of his composition, may nevertheless be brought out with equal distinctness. The first and the greatest of these is that want of elevation of sentiment, which is the more apt to impose on our reason, that the historian never thinks himself so reasonable as when he regards virtue and vice with equal indifference. The imagination of Gibbon was active, and his temperament cold; he was easily induced to admire that which astonished; he invariably misjudged sentiments and emotions which he had never experienced. After labouring to depreciate the heroic courage of the Christian martyrs, he takes pleasure in celebrating the ferocious exploits of Timur and his Tartars; material grandeur, so to speak, strikes him more forcibly than moral greatness; the transports of sublime virtue affect not his soul, whilst the outbreakings of barbarous force seduce his imagination and mislead his judgment. Having no fixed principles in morals, politics, and public economy, or in regard to the constitution of society and the history of civilization, he betrays an uncertainty in his opinions which is sometimes embarrassing; his work does not tend towards one great end; its march is not steady and uniform; in a word, it is the production of an enlightened man, endowed with that philosophical spirit which examines, decomposes, and describes with ability all the details of the events of history, rather than the work of a great philosopher, who, from an immense accumulation of facts, deduces those high conceptions and those truths of a superior order which apply to all histories and to all ages.^[9. The French Revolution showed, in a strong light, Mr Gibbon’s want of fixed opinions; and the just horror which it inspired had the effect of leading him into a new exaggeration. He then maintained that he had only attacked C'hristianity because the Christians destroyed Polytheism, which was the ancient religion of the empire. “The primitive church of which I have spoken a little familiarly,” said he, in a letter to Lord Sheffield, “was an innovation; and I was attached to the ancient establishment of paganism.” If this was not an after-thought, it would afford a key to much that has been considered douhtful, or difficult of explanation, in the history of the historian’s opinions. In his Memoirs we meet with the following passage: “I beg leave to subscribe my assent to Mr Burke’s creed on the Revolution of France. I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can almost excuse his reverence for church establishments. I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of the dead, in which Lucian, Erasmus, and voltaire should mutually acknowledge the danger of exposing an old superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude. ]

Gibbon spoke and wrote French with correctness and elegance; but the style of his English compositions, particularly of his history, has been alternately admired and censured. Porson, who was by no means inclined to spare him, has tha candour to admit that his style is emphatic and expressive, and that his sentences are harmonious. But this seems to us inadequate eulogy. For, however overloaded, and at times measured almost to monotony, the style of Gibbon deserves the higher praise of animation, which keeps the attention continually awake,— of descriptive richness, which brings both manners and local scenery in living freshness before the imagination,— and of energy, which deeply impresses his more sententious truths upon the memory. “Gibbon may be overlaboured, but he is rarely diffuse, and never dull; he may overstrain the attention, but he never permits us to sleep; he may want simplicity, but he never wants force.” Conciseness, vivacity, and often brilliancy, are his most striking characteristics; and if he has neither the careless, easy transparency of Hume, nor the sustained majesty of Robertson, he is more animated than the one, and more picturesque than the other.^[10. The following beautiful and discriminating observations on the taste and style of Gibbon are extracted from a review of his posthumous works, by Sir James Mackintosh, which originally appeared in the Monthly Review : “The reader will not learn without wonder that Swift and Addison were among the earliest models on which our celebrated historian .laboured to form his taste and his style If the composition of these writers continued to be the object of his imitation, the history of literature does not exhibit so striking an example of a man of such great talents so completely disappointed in his purpose. It may be observed that, even in the very act of characterising Swift and Addison, he has deviated not a little from that beautiful simplicity which is the peculiar distinction of these pure and classical writers. Nor can we think that Mr Gibbon, however he may have in some measure emulated the historical merit,, has exactly trodden in the literary footsteps of Dr Robertson. Inferior, probably, to Mr Gibbon, in the vigour of his powers; unequal to him, perhaps, in comprehension of intellect, and variety of knowledge; the Scottish historian has far surpassed him in simplicity and perspicuity of narration; in picturesque and pathetic description; in the sober use of figurative language; and in the delicate perception of that scarcely discernible boundary which separates ornament from exuberance, and elegance from affectation. He adorns more chastely in addressing the imagination; he narrates more clearly for the understanding; and he describes more affectingly for the heart. " The defects of Dr Robertson arise from a less vigorous intellect; the faults of Mr Gibbon from a less pure taste. If Mr Gibbon be the greater man, Dr Robertson is the better writer.” (See Notice of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh, prefixed to the fragment entitled History of the Revolution in England in 1688, London, 1834.) ]

In the year 1796, Lord Sheffield published, in two volumes quarto, Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, including those Memoirs of his own Life and Writings to which we have so often referred. This publication likewise contains a large collection of letters, either written by or addressed to the historian; abstracts of the books he had read, with reflections thereon; extracts from ajournai of his studies; a collection of remarks and detached pieces on various subjects; outlines of his History of the World; his Essai sur l’ Etude de la Littérature, republished; Critical Observations on the design of the sixth book of the Aeneid; a Dissertation on the subject of L’ Homme au Masque de Fer; Mémoire Justificatif pour servir de Réponse à l' Exposé dé la Cour de France; his Vindication of his History; Antiquities of the House of Brunswick; and an address to the public on the subject of a complete edition of our ancient historians. But of all these miscellanies, his journal, abstracts, and remarks are the most curious and instructive in a literary point of view. They [7:10:515] contain much valuable criticism; exhibit a plan of industry such as few men ever pursued with equal constancy; •show an amount of labour approaching to what we read of the indefatigable scholars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and serve to teach scholars of all ages that no station of permanent eminence can ever be reached without persevering exertion, and that, apart from intellectual application, knowledge becomes useless, wit ridiculous, and genius itself contemptible.

(Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. i.; Memoirs, &c.; Histoire de la Decadence et de la Chute de s Empire Ko-main, traduite de ι Anglais d’Edouard Gibbon, by Μ. Guizot, preceded by a Notice of the Life and Character of Gibbon by Μ. Šuard, and accompanied with critical and historical notes, for the most part relating to the history of the propagation of Christianity, Paris, 1828; Chateaubriand, Etudes oìi Discours sur la Chute de l’ Empire Domain, Paris, 1830; Quarterly Review, vol. 1. p. 273 et seqq. Chalmers, art. Gibbon; Biographie Universelle, art. Gibbon.) (a.)