Edward Gibbon.

BORN A. D. 1737.-DIED A. D. 1794.

THE celebrated historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' was born at Putney, on the 27th of April, 1737. His father was a private gentleman of fortune. In his ninth year he was sent to a private academy, and, in his eleventh, was placed at Westminster school. His health proving delicate he was removed from the latter seminary, and placed under the private tuition of Mr Francis, the wellknown translator of Horace. In April, 1752, he was matriculated of Magdalen college, Oxford, where he spent fourteen months in a very profitless manner: not that he was devoid of capacity or application, but, according to his own account, for want of proper tutorage, and skilful and vigilant professors.

While at Oxford he fancied himself made a convert to the Roman Catholic faith by the perusal of Bossuet's Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine,' and the works of Parsons the Jesuit. In the sketch he has left us of himself he says: "To my present feelings, it seems incredible

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that I should ever believe that I believed in transubstantiation. my conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental words, 'This is my body;' and dashed against each other the figurative half-meanings of the protestant sects. Every objection was resolved into omnipotence; and, after repeating, at St Mary's, the Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real presence." On his arrival in London, he was admitted a member of the Romish church, in June, 1753. His father was highly indignant at his religious conversion, and sent him, in consequence, to Lausanne, in Switzerland, where he resided in the house of Mr Pavillard, and " spent nearly five years with pleasure and profit." His tutor, who was a Calvinistic minister, spared no effort to recover him from his Papistical errors; and his exertions, aided by the mature reflections of his pupil, were at length successful. "The various articles of the Romish creed," says our author, "disappeared like a dream; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne." During his stay in this city, he made rapid progress in his studies; and, besides opening a correspondence with the chief literati of the continent, acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and perfected his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages. Speaking of his first residence at Lausanne, he says: "Whatever have been the fruits of my education, they must be ascribed to the fortunate banishment which placed me at Lausanne. If my childish revolt against the religion of my country had not stripped me in time of my academical gown, the five important years so liberally improved in the studies and conversation of Lausanne, would have been steeped in port and prejudice among the monks of Oxford." To his classical acquirements while at Lausanne, he added the study of Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Montesquieu, and Pascal. In the midst too of his studies and reading he contrived to fall in love with a young lady, of whom he has left us the following account: "I saw," he says, "and loved. I found her learned, without pedantry; lively in

conversation; pure in sentiment; elegant in manners. She permitted me to make her two or three visits in her father's house. I passed some happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents honourably encouraged the connection. In a calm retirement, the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom. She listened to the voice of truth and passion, and I might presume to hope I had made some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne, I indulged my dream of felicity; but, on my return to England, I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a lover; I obeyed as a son: my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love subsided into friendship and esteem. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure; and, in the capital of taste and luxury, she resisted the temptation of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe; and Mademoiselle Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker."

In 1758 he received permission to return home. His father received him with kindness, and left him to consult his own tastes in the future employment of his time. Fortunately for his literary career he found it difficult to establish himself in an extensive and general acquaintance, which flung him upon his books for entertainment and mental occupation. "I had not been endowed," he says, " by art or nature, with those happy gifts of confidence and address, which unlock every door and bosom." To his books then he gave himself up by a kind of necessity; and from this period he began to accumulate that immense and multiform erudition which was to support him through the composition of his great work.

In 1761 he appeared for the first time as an author in a small volume entitled Essai sur l'etude de la Litterature.' It was written in the French language, and attracted considerable attention in Paris; in England it was scarcely noticed. To amuse himself and gratify his father, he now accepted a commission in a militia regiment; but "a wandering life of military servitude" did not approve itself altogether to his genius and habits, though he retained his commission till the regiment was disbanded in 1763, and was afterwards pleased to hint that the historian of the Roman empire was somewhat aided in his magnificent task by the military knowledge he had acquired while a captain of the Hampshire grenadiers! During his military service his active mind would not allow him to remain altogether without a master-object. Hume and Robertson were gaining rich trophies in the field of historical literature, and the young soldier was even then ambitious of emulating their example. He tells us, that, among the subjects which sug gested themselves to him as fit themes for him to exercise his pen upon, were the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy,-the crusade of Richard I.,-the Barons' wars against John and Henry III.,—the history of the Black Prince, the life of Sir Philip Sydney,-of the marquess of Montrose,―of Sir Walter Raleigh,-the history of Swiss liberty, and the history of Florence under the Medici.

In 1763 he again visited the continent. From Paris he proceeded to Lausanne, where he formed acquaintance with Mr Holroyd, afterwards Lord Sheffield, who subsequently became the editor of his works. After a stay of eleven months amongst his old friends, he proceeded to Italy. It was at Rome, as "he sat musing amongst the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to his mind." He returned from Italy in 1765, and again entered the militia to please his father-as lieutenant-colonel commandant; but resigned the situation on the death of his father, in 1770. The interval between these periods was passed by him, partly in the country, and partly in London, where, in conjunction with other travellers, he established a weekly convivial meeting under the name of 'The Roman Club.' Alluding to this period of his life, he says, "I lamented that, at the proper age, I had not embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, the chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the church." Still his active mind was making fresh acquisitions, all of a kind which fitted him for his great approaching task. By way of preparatory trial, perhaps, in the winter of 1767, he sketched the first book of a History of the Revolution in Switzerland; in the same year, in conjunction with a learned Swiss, he published a few Nos. of a literary periodical in French, under the title Memoires Literaires de la Grand Bretagne.' His next performance was 'Critical Observations on the Sixth book of the Æneid.' The object of this tract was to confute the arrogant Warburton in his hypothesis of the descent of Æneas to hell. It was an easy task in competent hands; but the selection of such an antagonist indicated great confidence in his own powers on the part of Gibbon.

In 1775 Gibbon was elected member of parliament for Liskeard. He was now actively engaged upon his great work, and did not allow his new duties to encroach greatly upon his historical labours. "At the outset," he says, "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 I was often tempted to cast away the labour of seven years;" "three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably certain of their effect." At length, on the 17th of February, 1776, the first volume of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' was given to the public. Its success was instantaneous and decided; congratulations were showered upon him from every side; and, what gratified him most, both Hume and Robertson hastened to compliment him on his performance. A very able writer in the Eclectic Review,' in an elaborate and pious article upon Gibbon's 'Miscellaneous Works,' has given it as his opinion that our historian had a decided advantage over his two great contemporaries in his subject. "It would be mere waste of time," says he, "to do more than solicit the attention of our readers to the question, in order to convince them. how far a history of England, or that of a single though striking reign in the annals of Scotland, or even that of the hero Charles V. and the Reformation, with the noble appendage of America,-how far such subjects are excelled in grandeur by the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' Whatever relates to the fortunes of that immense political

fabric, must necessarily command the attention of every reader, merely because it does relate to it. For, should we even suppose one so ignorant as barely to know, in general, that so vast and powerful an empire did once exist in a state of enviable prosperity, and that at present scarce a vestige of it remains,—with what silent attention would he listen to the narration of that man who should engage to lead him, step by step, through every intermediate scene of decay, from the one state to the other! But, if we suppose the reader to be possessed of some literature, who then can describe with what breathless eagerness of expectation such a one would attend a companion, who should offer to conduct him in safety, through the almost chaotic gulf which separates the two smiling regions of Ancient and Modern history? And, what adds much to our author's merit in this instance, his subject did not fall to him by chance. It was his own deliberate choice. It will appear from the publication now before us how long he hesitated, how profoundly he meditated, how often he tried, how many other subjects he adopted and rejected, before he finally fixed upon that which now furnishes so solid a foundation for his fame. A devout mind may even be pardoned for starting the question, whether the subject were not designed him by Divine Providence, so evidently were his studies directed to his great object, long before it became his decided choice. And, as the accidental fall of an apple supplied our immortal philosopher with the first germ of his theory of universal gravitation, so did the accidental contemplation of the Eternal City in ruins generate in the mind of our great historian the first clear hint of pursuing her, through her gradual fall, from the height of power and majesty to that state of feebleness and neglect in which he then beheld her."

Mr Gibbon was not, however, permitted to enjoy his laurels in peace. His disingenuous attack upon Christianity, contained in the 15th and 16th chapters of his history, called up a host of indignant vindicators of religion, amongst whom were Dr Watson, afterwards bishop of Landaff, Mr Davis of Oxford, Dr Priestley, and Sir David Dalrymple. The historian affected to treat them all with contempt, with the exception of Dr Watson, whose unanswerable Apology for Christianity' compelled his respect as well as defied his powers of refutation.

On the dissolution of North's ministry, Gibbon turned his thoughts again towards Lausanne; and, in September 1783, he once more established himself at that favourite spot with his library around him, which he brought from England for the purpose of completing his history before he should return to his native country. In four years he completed his task. It was," he says, "on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of 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 the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy 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 author might be short and precarious. I will add two facts, which have seldom occurred in the composition of six, or at least five, quartos: First-My rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to press. Second-Not a sheet has been seen by any human eyes, excepting those of the author and the printer. The faults and merits are exclusively his own." With the manuscript copy of these volumes he set out for England, where he remained until their publication, a few weeks after which he again returned to Lausanne, probably intending to spend the remainder of his life there. From this resolution, however, the events of the French revolution appear to have deterred him. He again returned to England in May, 1793. Towards the close of that year he became seriously diseased by hydrocele, the result of an old rupture, under the effects of which he suddenly sank on the 15th of January, 1794.

We cannot sum up our historian's merits in a more useful and satisfactory manner than in the language of the Eclectic reviewer already quoted: "If the historian would be luminous," says this anonymous writer, "he must be quite familiar with his subject. The pages of Gibbon have been pronounced luminous by no trifling authority, and that in the presence of an august assembly, whose undissenting silence may be taken for assent. Judge, then, what powers, as well as labours, are supposed before a man can be thoroughly acquainted with such an extent of story, so diversified in whatever can diversify a subject of that kind. Our other historians had indeed some variety of laws and manners to contend with; but, after all, the one never goes far out of England, and the other rarely for any length of time leaves the precincts of modern Europe; (for when we are speaking of events properly historical, America must be put out of the question;) while Gibbon, besides what relates to other parts of the world, had to trace Europe through a total and radical change in its religion, its geography, and its languages. With what prodigious diversity of manners was he bound to make himself familiar, who had a subject so various and extensive to illustrate. When Robertson at one time proposed taking for his subject the age of Leo X. and the revival of arts, he was soon induced to lay aside all thought of it, when reminded by his friend Hume, that he could not possibly have or acquire the intimate acquaintance with the imitative arts, which he would find absolutely requisite, if he would do perfect justice to his subject. How many subjects of equal difficulty with this had Gibbon to study, before he could worthily commence historian of the Roman empire. But then, he made the best possible use of his time and opportunities. In the closet he read and extracted books; in society he observed and studied men; and even when engaged in the camp as a militia-officer, he embraced the occasion of making himself familiar with military tactics. One subject, and only one, he never examined to the bottom; but on the head of religion, as we shall treat it at large hereafter, we shall say no more at present. But what, after all, is the real state of the case? Is Mr Gibbon indeed a luminous writer? In some respects undoubtedly he is; in others, the praise of luminousness must be refused him. If we attend to the different branches of his subject, by the light of the Roman critic's rule

-'cui lecta potenter erit res,

Nec facundia deseret hunc, nec lucidus ordo;'