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GIBBON, EDWARD (1737–1794)
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See also:GIBBON, See also:EDWARD (1737–1794) , See also:English historian, was descended, he tells us in his autobiography, from a Kentish
See also:family of considerable antiquity; among his remoter ancestors he reckons the See also:lord high treasurer See also:Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele,
whom See also:Shakespeare has immortalized in his See also: " Many anxious and solitary days," says Gibbon, " did she consume with patient trial of every mode of See also:relief and amusement. Many wakeful nights did she sit by my bedside in trembling expectation that each See also:hour would be my last." As circumstances allowed, she appears to have taught him See also:reading, See also:writing and See also:arithmetic—acquisitions made with so little of remembered See also:pain that " were not the See also:error corrected by See also:analogy," he says, " I should be tempted to conceive them as innate." At seven he was committed for eighteen months to the care of a private See also:tutor, See also: Finally, it was concluded that he would never be able to encounter the discipline of a school; and casual instructors, at various times and places, were provided for him. Meanwhile his indiscriminate appetite for reading had begun to See also:fix itself more and more decidedly upon history; and the See also:list of See also:historical See also:works devoured by him during this period of chronic See also:ill-health is simply astonishing. It included, besides See also:Hearne's Ductor historicus and the successive volumes of the Universal History, which was then in course of publication, Littlebury's See also:Herodotus, See also:Spelman's See also:Xenophon, See also:Gordon's See also:Tacitus, an See also:anonymous See also:translation of See also:Procopius; "many crude lumps of See also:Speed, See also:Rapin, See also:Mezeray, See also:Davila, Machiavel, Father See also:Paul, See also:Bower, &c., were hastily gulped. I devoured them like so many novels; and I swallowed with the same voracious appetite the descriptions of India and See also:China, of See also:Mexico and See also:Peru." His first introduction to the historic scenes the study of which afterwards formed the See also:passion of his life took See also:place in 1951, when, while along with his father visiting a friend in See also:Wiltshire, he discovered in the library " a common book, the continuation of Echard's See also:Roman History." " To me the reigns of the successors of See also:Constantine were absolutely new; and I was immersed in the passage of the Goths over the See also:Danube, when the See also:summons of the See also:dinner See also:bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast." Soon afterwards his See also:fancy kindled with the first glimpses into See also:Oriental history, the See also:wild " barbaric " See also:charm of which he never ceased to feel. See also:Ockley's book on the See also:Saracens " first opened his eyes " to the striking career of See also:Mahomet and his hordes; and with his characteristic ardour of See also:literary See also:research, after exhausting all that could be learned in English of the See also:Arabs and Persians, the See also:Tatars and See also:Turks, he forthwith plunged into the See also:French of D'Herbelot, and the Latin of See also:Pocock's version of Abulfaragius, sometimes understanding them, but oftener only guessing their meaning. He soon learned to call to his aid the subsidiary sciences of See also:geography and See also:chronology, and before he was quite capable of reading them had already attempted to weigh in his childish See also:balance the competing systems of See also:Scaliger and Petavius, of Marsham and See also:Newton. At this See also:early period he seems already to have adopted in some degree the See also:plan of study he followed in after life and recommended in his Essai sur ''elude—that is, of letting his subject rather than his author determine his course, of suspending the perusal of a book to reflect, and to compare the statements with those of other authors—so that he often read portions of many volumes while mastering one. Towards his sixteenth year he tell us " nature displayed in his favour her mysterious energies," and all his infirmities suddenly vanished. Thenceforward, while never possessing or abusing the insolence of health, he could say " few persons have been more exempt from real or imaginary ills." His unexpected recovery revived his father's hopes for his See also:education, hitherto so much neglected if judged by See also:ordinary See also:standards; and accordingly in See also:January 1752 he was placed at See also:Esher, Surrey, under the care of Dr See also:Francis, the well-known translator of See also:Horace. But Gibbon's See also:friends in a few See also:weeks discovered that the new tutor preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils, and in this perplexity decided to send him prematurely to See also:Oxford, where he was matriculated as a See also:gentleman commoner of Magdalen See also:College, 3rd April 1752. According to his own testimony he arrived at the university " with a stock of See also:information which might have puzzled a See also:doctor, and a degree of See also:ignorance of which a schoolboy might be ashamed." And indeed his huge wallet of scraps stood him in little See also:stead at the See also:trim banquets to which ne was invited at Oxford, while the wandering habits by which he had filled it absolutely unfitted him to be a See also:guest. He was not well grounded in any of the elementary branches, which are essential to university studies and to all success in their See also:prosecution. It was natural, therefore, that he should dislike the university, and as natural that the university should dislike him. Many of his complaints of the See also:system were certainly just; but it may be doubted whether any university system would have been profitable to him, considering his antecedents. He complains especially of his tutors, and in one See also:case with abundant See also:reason; but, by his own confession, they might have recriminated with See also:justice, for he indulged in See also:gay society, and kept See also:late See also:hours. His observations, however, on the defects of the English university system, some of which have only very recently been removed, are acute and well See also:worth pondering, however little relevant to his own case. He remained at Magdalen about fourteen months. " To the university of Oxford," he says, " I acknowledge no See also:obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College; they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life."
But thus " idle " though he may have been as a " student," he already meditated authorship. In the first See also:long vacation—during which he, doubtless with some See also:sarcasm, says that " his See also:taste for books began to revive "—he contemplated a See also:treatise on the age of See also:Sesostris, in which (and it was characteristic) his See also:chief See also:object was to investigate not so much the events as the probable See also:epoch of the reign of that semi-mythical monarch, whom he was inclined to regard as having been contemporary with See also:Solomon. " Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of See also:composition, I resolved to write a book "; but the See also:discovery of his own weakness, he adds, was the first symptom of taste. On his first return to Oxford the See also:work was " wisely relinquished," and never afterwards resumed. The most memorable incident, however, in Gibbon's stay at Oxford was his temporary See also:conversion to the doctrines of the See also: At this See also:stage he was introduced by a friend (Mr See also:Molesworth) to See also:Bossuet's See also:Variations of Protestantism and Exposition of See also:Catholic See also:Doctrine (see Gibbon, Decline and Fall, c. xv., note 79). " These works," says he, " achieved my conversion, and I surely See also:fell by a See also:noble See also:hand." In bringing about this " fall," however, See also:Parsons the Jesuit appears to have had a considerable See also:share; at least Lord See also:Sheffield has recorded that on the only occasion on which Gibbon talked with him on the subject he imputed the See also:change in his religious views principally to that vigorous writer, who, in his opinion, had urged all the best arguments in favour of Roman Catholicism. But be this as it may, he had no sooner adopted his new creed than he resolved to profess it; " a momentary glow of See also:enthusiasm " had raised him above all temporal considerations, and accordingly, on See also:June 8, 1753, he records that having " privately abjured the heresies" of his childhood before a Catholic See also:priest of the name of See also:Baker, a Jesuit, in London, he announced the same to his father in an elaborate controversial See also:epistle which his spiritual adviser much approved, and which he himself afterwards described to Lord Sheffield as having been " written with all the pomp, the dignity, and self-See also:satisfaction of a See also:martyr." The See also:elder Gibbon heard with indignant surprise of this See also:act of juvenile See also:apostasy, and, indiscreetly giving vent to his wrath, precipitated the See also:expulsion of his son from Oxford, a See also:punishment which the See also:culprit, in after years at least, found no cause to deplore. In his See also:Memoirs he speaks of the results of his " childish revolt against the See also:religion of his country " with undisguised self- 3e)gratulation. It had delivered him for ever from the " See also:port and See also:prejudice " of the university, and led him into the See also:bright paths of philosophic freedom. That his conversion was sincere at the time, that it marked a real if but a transitory phase of genuine religious conviction, we have no reason to doubt, notwithstanding the See also:scepticism he has himself expressed. " To my See also:present feelings it seems incredible that I should ever believe that I believed in See also:transubstantiation," he indeed declares; but his incredulous astonishment is not unmixed with undoubting See also:pride. " I could not blush that my See also:tender mind was entangled in the sophistry which had reduced the acute and manly understandings of a See also:Chillingworth or a See also:Bayle." Nor is the sincerity of the Catholicism he professed in these boyish days in any way discredited by the fact of his subsequent lack of religion. Indeed, as one of the acutest and most sympathetic of his critics has remarked, the deep and settled grudge he has betrayed towards every form of Christian belief, in all the writings of his maturity, may be taken as See also:evidence that he had at one time experienced in his own See also:person at least some of the painful workings of a See also:positive faith. But little time was lost by the elder Gibbon in the formation of a new plan of education for his son, and in devising some method which if possible might effect the cure of his "spiritual malady." The result of deliberation, aided by the advice and experience of Lord See also:Eliot, was that it was almost immediately decided to fix Gibbon for some years abroad under the roof of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist See also:minister at See also:Lausanne. In as far as regards the instructor and See also:guide thus selected, a more fortunate choice could scarcely have been made. From the testimony of his See also:pupil, and the still more conclusive evidence of his own See also:correspondence with the father, Pavilliard seems to have been a man of singular See also:good sense, See also:temper and tact. At the outset, indeed, there was one considerable obstacle to the free intercourse of tutor and pupil: M. Pavilliard appears to have known little of English, and young Gibbon knew practically nothing of French. But this difficulty was soon removed by the pupil's See also:diligence; the very exigencies of his situation were of service to him in calling forth all his powers, and he studied the language with such success that at the See also:close of his five years' See also:exile he declares that he " spontaneously thought " in French rather than in English, and that it had become more See also:familiar to " See also:ear, tongue and See also:pen." It is well known that in after years he had doubts whether he should not compose his See also:great work in French; and it is certain that his familiarity with that language, in spite of considerable efforts to counteract its effects, tinged his style to the last. Under the judicious regulations of his new tutor a methodical course of reading was marked out, and most ardently prosecuted; the pupil's progress was proportionably rapid. With the systematic study of the Latin, and to a slight extent also of the Greek See also:classics, he conjoined that of See also:logic in the prolix system of See also:Crousaz; and he further invigorated his reasoning powers, as well as enlarged his knowledge of See also:metaphysics and See also:jurisprudence, by the perusal of See also:Locke, See also:Grotius and See also:Montesquieu. He also read largely, though somewhat indiscriminately, in French literature, and appears to have been particularly struck with See also:Pascal's Provincial Letters, which he tells us he reperused almost every year of his subsequent life with new See also:pleasure, and which he particularly mentions as having been, along with Bleterie's Life of See also:Julian and See also:Giannone's History of See also:Naples, a book which probably contributed in a See also:special sense to form the historian of the Roman See also:empire. The comprehensive scheme of study included See also:mathematics also, in which he advanced as far as the conic sections in the treatise of L'Hopital. He assures us that his tutor did not complain of any inaptitude on the pupil's See also:part, and that the pupil was as happily unconscious of any on his own; but here he See also:broke off. He adds, what is not quite clear from one who so frankly acknowledges his limited acquaintance with the See also:science, that he had reason to congratulate himself that he knew no more. " As soon," he says, " as I understood the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of the mathematics; nor can I lament that I desisted before my mind was hardened by the See also:habit of rigid demonstration, so destructive II respects was much in need of such See also:elevation will be doubted by none but the hopelessly cynical; and probably there are few readers who can peruse the See also:paragraph in which Gibbon " approaches the delicate subject of his early love " without discerning in it a pathos much deeper than that of which the writer was himself aware. During the See also:remainder of his See also:residence at Lausanne he had good reason to " indulge his See also:dream of felicity "; but on his return to England, " I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this See also:strange See also:alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle I yielded to my See also:fate; I sighed as a See also:lover, I obeyed as a son; my See also:wound was insensibly healed by time, See also:absence, and the habits of a new life." 2 In 1758 he returned with mingled joy and regret to England, and was kindly received at home. But he found a stepmother there; and this apparition on his father's See also:hearth at first rather appalled him. The cordial and See also:gentle See also:manners of Mrs Gibbon, however, and her unremitting care for his happiness, won him from his first prejudices, and gave her a permanent place in his esteem and See also:affection. He seems to have been much indulged, and to have led a very pleasant life of it; he pleased himself in moderate excursions, frequented the See also:theatre, mingled, though not very often, in society; was sometimes a little extravagant, and sometimes a little dissipated, but never lost the benefits of his Lausanne exile; and easily settled into a sober, discreet, calculating Epicurean philosopher, who sought the summum bonum of man in temperate, regulated and elevated pleasure. The first two years after his return to England he spent principally at his father's country seat at Buriton, in See also:Hampshire, only nine months being given to the See also:metropolis. He has left an amusing acccunt of his employments in the country, where his love of study was at once inflamed by a large and unwonted command of books and checked by the necessary interruptions of his otherwise happy domestic life. After breakfast " he was expected," he says, to spend an hour with Mrs Gibbon; after See also:tea his father claimed his conversation; in the midst of an interesting work he was often called down to entertain idle visitors; and, worst of all, he was periodically compelled to return the well-meant compliments. He mentions that he dreaded the " recurrence of the full See also:moon," which was the period generally selected for the more convenient accomplishment of such formidable excursions. His father's library, though large in comparison with that he commanded at Lausanne, contained, he says, " much trash."; but a See also:gradual See also:process of reconstruction transformed it at length into that " numerous and select " library which was " the See also:foundation of his works, and the best comfort of his life both at home and abroad." No sooner had he returned home than he began the work of See also:accumulation, and records that, on the See also:receipt of his first See also:quarter's See also:allowance, a large share was appropriated to his literary wants. " He could never forget," he declares, " the joy with which he exchanged a See also:bank note of twenty pounds for the twenty volumes of the Memoirs of the See also:Academy of See also:Inscriptions," an Academy which has been well characterized (by Sainte-Beuve) as Gibbon's intellectual father-See also:land. It may not be uninteresting here to note the principles which guided him both now and afterwards in his literary purchases. " I am not conscious," says he, " of having ever bought a book from a See also:motive of ostentation; every volume, before it was deposited on the shelf, was either read or sufficiently examined "; he also mentions that he soon adopted the tolerating See also:maxim of the elder See also:Pliny, that no book is ever so See also:bad as to be absolutely good for nothing. In London he seems to have seen but little select society —partly from his father's taste, "which had always preferred the highest and lowest company," and partly from his own reserve and timidity, increased by his See also:foreign education, which had made English habits unfamiliar, and the very language 2 The affair, however, was not finally broken off till 1763. Mdlle Curchod soon afterwards became the wife of See also:Necker, the famous financier; and Gibbon and the Neckers frequently afterwards met on terms of mutual friendship and esteem. 930 of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which must, however, determine the See also:action and opinions of our lives." Under the new influences which were brought to See also:bear on him, he in less than two years resumed his Protestantism. "He is willing," he says, to allow M. Pavilliard a " handsome share in his reconversion," though he maintains, and no doubt rightly, that it was principally due "to his own solitary reflections." He particularly congratulated himself on having discovered the " philosophical See also:argument " against transubstantiation, " that the See also:text of Scripture which seems to inculcate the real presence is attested only by a single sense—our sight, while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our senses—the sight, the See also:touch, and the taste." Before a similar mode of reasoning, all the other distinctive articles of the Romish creed " disappeared like a dream "; and " after a full conviction," on See also:Christmas See also:day, 1754, he received the See also:sacrament in the church of Lausanne. Although, however, he adds that at this point he suspended his religious inquiries, " acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the See also:general consent of Catholics and Protestants," his readers will probably do him no great injustice if they assume that even then it was rather to the negations than to the affirmations of Protestantism that he most heartily assented. With all his devotion to study at Lausanne' (he read ten or twelve hours a day), he still found some time for the acquisition of some of the lighter accomplishments, such as See also:riding, dancing, See also:drawing, and also for mingling in such society as the place had to offer. In See also:September 1755 he writes to his aunt: " I find a great many agreeable See also:people here, see them sometimes, and can say upon the whole, without vanity, that, though I am the Englishman here who spends the least See also:money, I am he who is most generally liked." Thus his " studious and sedentary life" passed pleasantly enough, interrupted only at rare intervals by boyish excursions of a day or a See also:week in the neighbourhood, and by at least one memorable tour of See also:Switzerland, by See also:Basel, See also:Zurich, See also:Lucerne and See also:Bern, made along with Pavilliard in the autumn of 1755. The last eighteen months of this residence abroad saw the infusion of two new elements—one of them at least of considerable importance—into his life. In 1757 See also:Voltaire came to reside at Lausanne; and although he took but little See also:notice of the young Englishman of twenty, who eagerly sought and easily obtained an introduction, the See also:establishment of the theatre at Monrepos, where the brilliant versifier himself de-claimed before select audiences his own productions on the stage, had no small influence in fortifying Gibbon's taste for the French theatre, and in at the same time abating that "See also:idolatry for the gigantic See also:genius of Shakespeare which is inculcated from our See also:infancy as the first See also:duty of an Englishman." In the same year—apparently about June—he saw for the first time, and forthwith loved, the beautiful, intelligent and accomplished Mademoiselle.Susan Curchod, daughter of the See also:pasteur of Crassier. That the passion which she inspired in him was tender, pure and fitted to raise to a higher level a nature which in some ' The See also:Journal for 1755 records that during that year, besides writing and translating a great See also:deal in' Latin and French, he had read, amongst other works, See also:Cicero's Epistolae ad familiares, his See also:Brutus, all his Orations, his dialogues De amicitia and De seneciute, See also:Terence (twice), and Pliny's Epistles. In January 1756 he says: " I determined to read over the Latin authors in See also:order, and read this year Virgil, See also:Sallust, See also:Livy, Velleius Paterculus, See also:Valerius See also:Maximus, Tacitus, Suetonius, See also:Quintus See also:Curtius, See also:Justin, Floras, See also:Plautus, Terence and See also:Lucretius. I also read and meditated Locke Upon the Under-See also:standing." Again in January 1757 he writes: " I began to study See also:algebra under M. de Traytorrens, went through the elements of algebra and See also:geometry, and the three first books of the See also:Marquis de l'Hopital's Conic Sections. I also read See also:Tibullus, See also:Catullus, See also:Propertius, Horace (with See also:Dacier's and Torrentius's notes), Virgil, See also:Ovid's Epistles, , with Meziriac's commentary, the Ars amandi and the Elegies; likewise the See also:Augustus and Tiberius of Suetonius, and a Latin translation of See also:Dion See also:Cassius from the See also:death of See also:Julius See also:Caesar to the death of Augustus. I also continued my correspondence, begun last year, with M. Allamand of Bex, and the See also:Professor Breitinger of Zurich, and opened a new one with the Professor See also:Gesner of See also:Gottingen. N.B.—Last year and this I read St John's See also:Gospel, with part of Xenophon's Cyrapaedia, the Iliad, and Herodotus; but, upon the whole, I rather neglected my Greek." in some degree strange. And thus he was led to draw that interesting picture of the literary recluse among the crowds of London: " While coaches were rattling through See also:Bond See also:Street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books. My studies were sometimes interrupted with a sigh, which I breathed towards Lausanne; and on the approach of See also:spring I withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive See also:scene of crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." He renewed former acquaintance, however, with the " poet " See also:Mallet, and through him gained See also:access to See also:Lady See also:Hervey's circle, where a congenial admiration, not to say affectation, of French manners and literature made him a welcome guest. It ought to be added that in each of the twenty-five years of his subsequent acquaintance with London " the prospect gradually brightened," and his social as well as his intellectual qualities secured him a wide circle of friends. In one respect Mallet gave him good counsel in those early days. He advised him to addict himself to an assiduous study of the more idiomatic English writers, such as See also:Swift and See also:Addison—with a view to unlearn his foreign See also:idiom and recover his See also:half-forgotten See also:vernacular—a task, however, which he never perfectly accomplished. Much as he admired these writers, See also:Hume and See also:Robertson were still greater favourites, as well from their subject as for their style. Of his admiration of Hume's style, of its nameless See also:grace of See also:simple elegance, he has left us a strong expression, when he tells us that it often compelled him to close the historian's volumes with a mixed sensation of delight and despair. In 1761 Gibbon, at the age of twenty-four, after many delays, and with many flutterings of See also:hope and fear, gave to the See also:world, in French, his maiden publication, an Essai sur l'etude de la /literature, which he had composed two years before. It was published partly in compliance with his father's wishes, who thought that the See also:proof of some literary See also:talent might introduce him favourably to public notice, and secure the recommeudation of his friends for some See also:appointment in connexion with the See also:mission of the English plenipotentiaries to the See also:congress at See also:Augsburg which was at that time in contemplation. But in yielding to paternal authority, Gibbon frankly owns that he " complied, like a pious son, with the wish of his own See also:heart." The subject of this youthful effort was suggested, its author says, by a refinement of vanity—" the See also:desire of justifying and praising the object of a favourite pursuit," namely, the study of See also:ancient literature. Partly owing to its being written in French, partly to its See also:character, the Essai excited more See also:attention abroad than at home. Gibbon has criticized it with the utmost frankness, not to say severity; but, after every See also:abatement, it is unquestionably a surprising effort for a mind so young, and contains many thoughts which would not have disgraced a thinker or a See also:scholar of much maturer age. His See also:account of its first reception and subsequent fortunes in England deserves to be cited as a curious piece of literary history. " In England," be says, " it was received with See also:cold indifference, little read, and speedily forgotten. A small impression was slowly dispersed; the bookseller murmured, and the author (had his feelings been more exquisite) might have wept over the blunders and baldness of the English translation. The publication of my history fifteen years afterwards revived the memory of my first performance, and the See also:essay was eagerly sought in the shops. But I refused the permission which See also:Becket solicited of reprinting it; the public curiosity was imperfectly satisfied by a pirated copy of the booksellers of See also:Dublin; and when a copy of the original edition has been discovered in a See also:sale, the See also:primitive value of half-a-See also:crown has risen to the fanciful See also:price of a See also:guinea or See also:thirty shillings." 1 1 The Essai, in a good English translation, now appears in the See also:Miscellaneous Works. See also:Villemain finds in it " peu de vues, nulle onginalite surtout, mais une grande passion litteraire, 1'amour See also:des recherches savantes et du beau langage." Sainte-Beuve's criticism is almost identical with Gibbon's own; but though he finds that " la lecture en est asset difficile et parfois obscure, la liaison des idees khappe souvent See also:par trop de concision et par le desir qu'a eu le jeune auteur d'y faire entrer, d'y See also:condenser la plupart de ses notes," he adds, " it y a, chemin faisant, des vues neuves et qui sentent 1'historien.' Some time before the publication of the essay, Gibbon had entered a new and, one might suppose, a very uncongenial scene of life. In an hour of patriotic ardour he became (June 12, 1759) a See also:captain in the Hampshire See also:militia, and for more than two years (May io, 176o, to December 23, 1762) led a wandering life of " military See also:servitude." Hampshire, See also:Kent, Wiltshire and See also:Dorsetshire formed the successive theatres of what he calls his " bloodless and inglorious See also:campaigns." He complains of the busy idleness in which his time was spent; but, considering the circumstances, so adverse to study, one is rather surprised that the military student should have done so much, than that he did so little; and never probably before were so many hours of literary study spent in a See also:tent. In estimating the comparative advantages and disadvantages of this wearisome period of his life, he has summed up with the impartiality of a philosopher and the sagacity of a man of the world. Irksome as were his employments, grievous as was the See also:waste of time, uncongenial as were his companions, solid benefits were to be set off against these things; his health became robust, his knowledge of the world was enlarged, he wore off some of his foreign idiom, got rid of much of his reserve; he adds—and perhaps in his estimate it was the benefit to be most prized of all—" the discipline and evolutions of a See also:modern See also:battalion gave me a clearer notion of the See also:phalanx and the See also:legion, and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the Roman empire."
It was during this period that he read Homer and See also:Longinus, having for the first time acquired some real mastery of Greek; and after the publication of the Essai, his mind was full of projects for a new literary effort. The See also:Italian expedition of See also: " My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect. But at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor See also:express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal See also:City. After a sleepless See also:night, I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the See also:forum; each memorable spot, where See also:Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of See also:intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and See also:minute investigation." Here at last his long yearning for some great theme worthy of his historic genius was gratified. The first conception of the Decline and Fall arose as he lingered one evening amidst the vestiges of ancient See also:glory. " It was at Rome, on the 15th of See also:October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the See also:bare-footed friars were singing See also:vespers in the See also:temple of See also:Jupiter, that the See also:idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." The five years and a half which intervened between his return from this tour, in June 1765, and the death of his father, in See also:November 1770, seem to have formed the portion of his life which " he passed with the least enjoyment and remembered with the least satisfaction." He attended every spring the meetings of the militia at Southampton, and See also:rose successively to the See also:rank of See also:major and See also:lieutenant-See also:colonel commandant; but was each year " more disgusted with the See also:inn, the See also:wine, the company, and the tiresome repetition of See also:annual attendance and daily exercise." From his own account, however, it appears that other and deeper causes produced this discontent. Sincerely attached to his home, he yet See also:felt the See also:anomaly of his position. At thirty, still a dependant, without a settled occupation, without a definite social status, he often regretted that he had not " embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of See also:trade, the chances of See also:civil See also:office or India See also:adventure, or even the See also:fat slumbers of the church." From the emoluments of a profession he " might have derived an ample fortune, or a competent income instead of being stinted to the same narrow allowance, to be increased only by an event which he sincerely deprecated." Doubtless the See also:secret See also:fire of a consuming, but as yet ungratified, literary ambition also troubled his repose. He was still contemplating " at an awful distance " The Decline and Fall, and meantime revolved some other subjects, that seemed more immediately practicable. Hesitating for some time between the revolutions of Florence and those of Switzerland, he consulted M. Deyverdun, a young Swiss with whom he had formed a close and intimate friendship during his first residence at Lausanne, and finally decided in favour of the land which was his " friend's by See also:birth " and " his own by See also:adoption." He executed the first book in French; it was read (in 1767), as an anonymous See also:production, before 'a literary society of foreigners in London, and condemned. Gibbon sat and listened unobserved to their strictures. It never got beyond that See also:rehearsal; Hume, indeed, approved of the performance, only deprecating as unwise the author's preference for French; but Gibbon sided with the See also:majority. In 1767 also he joined with M. Deyverdun in starting a literary journal under the title of Me-moires litteraires de la Grande-Bretagne. But its circulation was limited, and only the second volume had appeared (1768) when Deyverdun went abroad. The materials already collected for a third volume were sup-pressed. It is interesting, however, to know, that in the first volume is a See also:review by Gibbon of Lord See also:Lyttelton's History of Henry II., and that the second volume contains a contribution by Hume on Walpole's Historic Doubts. The next See also:appearance of the historian made a deeper impression. It was the first distinct See also:print of the See also:lion's See also:foot. " Ex ungue leonem " might have been justly said, for he attacked, and attacked successfully, the redoubtable See also:Warburton. Of the many paradoxes in the Divine See also:Legation, few are more extravagant than the theory that Virgil, in the See also:sixth book of his Aeneid, intended to allegorize, in the visit of his See also:hero and the Sibyl to theshades, the See also:initiation of See also:Aeneas, as a lawgiver, into the Eleusinian mysteries. This theory Gibbon completely exploded in his See also:Critical Observations (1770)--no very difficult task, indeed, but achieved in a style, and with a profusion of learning, which called forth the warmest commendations both at home and abroad. Warburton never replied; and few will believe that he would not, if he had not thought silence more discreet. Gibbon, however, regrets that the style of his pamphlet was too acrimonious; and this regret, considering his antagonist's slight claims to forbearance, is creditable to him. " I cannot forgive myself the contemptuous treatment of a man who, with all his faults, was entitled to my esteem; and I can less forgive, in a See also:personal attack, the cowardly concealment of my name and character." Soon after his " See also:release from the fruitless task of the Swiss revolution " in 1768, he had gradually advanced from the wish to the hope, from the hope to the See also:design, from the design to the See also:execution of his great historical work. His preparations were indeed vast. The classics, " as See also:low as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and See also:Juvenal," had been long familiar. He now " plunged into the ocean of the Augustan history," and with pen almost always in hand," pored over all the original records, Greek and Latin, between See also:Trajan and the last of the Western Caesars. The subsidiary rays of medals and inscriptions, of geography and chronology, were thrown on their proper See also:objects; and I applied the collections of See also:Tillemont, whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius, to fix and arrange within my reach the loose and scattered atoms of historical information." The Christian apologists and their See also:pagan assailants; the Theodosian See also:Code, with See also:Godefroy's commentary; the See also:Annals and Antiquities of See also:Muratori, collated with " the parallel or transverse lines" of See also:Sigonius and See also:Maffei, Pagi and See also:Baronius, were all critically studied. Still following the wise maxim which he had adopted as a student, " multum legere potius quam multa," he reviewed again and again the immortal works of the French and English, the Latin and Italian classics. He deepened and extended his acquaintance with Greek, particularly with his favourite authors Homer and Xenophon; and, to crown all, he succeeded in achieving the third perusal of See also:Blackstone's Commentaries. The course of his study was for some time seriously interrupted by his father's illness and death in 1770, and by the many distractions connected with the transference of his residence from Buriton to London. It was_not, indeed, until October 1772 that he found himself at last independent, and fairly settled in his house and library, with full leisure and opportunity to set about the composition of the first volume of his history. Even then it appears from his own confession that he long brooded over the See also:chaos of materials he had amassed before See also:light dawned upon it. At the commencement, he says,." all was dark and doubtful "; the limits, divisions, even the title of his work were undetermined; the first See also:chapter was composed three times, and the second and third twice, before he was satisfied with his efforts. This prolonged meditation on his design and its execution was ultimately well repaid by the result: so methodical did his ideas become, and so readily did his materials shape themselves, that, with the above exceptions, the original MS. of the entire six quartos was sent uncopied to the printers. He also says that not a See also:sheet had been seen by any other eyes than those of author and printer, a statement indeed which must be taken with a small See also:deduction; or rather we must suppose that a few chapters had been submitted, if not to the " eyes," to the " ears " of others; for he elsewhere tells us that he was " soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the See also:manuscript to his friends." Such, however, were his preliminary difficulties that he confesses he was often " tempted to See also:cast away the labour of seven years "; and it was not until See also:February 1776 that the first volume was published. The success was instant, and, for a See also:quarto, probably unprecedented. The entire impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and a third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand. The author might almost have-said, as Lord See also:Byron after the publication of Childe Harold, that " he awoke one See also:morning and found himself famous." In addition to public See also:applause, he was gratified by the more select praises of the highest living authorities in that See also:branch of literature: " the candour of Dr Robertson embraced his See also:disciple "; Hume's See also:letter of congratulation " overpaid the labour of ten years." The latter, however, with his usual sagacity, anticipated the objections which he saw could be urged against the famous fifteenth and sixteenth 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." The " clamour " thus predicted was not slow to make itself heard. Within two years the famous chapters had elicited what might almost be called a library of controversy. The only attack, however, to which Gibbon deigned to make any reply was that of See also:Davies, who had impugned his accuracy or good faith. His Vindication appeared in February 1779; and, as See also:Milman remarks, " this single See also:discharge from the ponderous See also:artillery of learning and sarcasm laid prostrate the whole disorderly See also:squadron " of his rash and feeble assailants.' Two years before the publication of this first volume Gibbon was elected member of parliament for See also:Liskeard (1774). His See also:political duties did not suspend his prosecution of his history, except on one occasion, and for a little while, in '1779, when he undertook, on behalf of the ministry, a task which, if well performed, was also, it must be added, well rewarded. The French See also:government had issued a manifesto preparatory to a See also:declaration of See also:war, and Gibbon was solicited by See also:Chancellor See also:Thurlow and Lord See also:Weymouth, secretary of See also:state, to See also:answer it. In compliance with this See also:request he produced the able Memoire justiflcalif, composed in French, and delivered to the courts of See also:Europe; and shortly afterwards he received a seat at the See also:Board of Trade and Plantations—little more than a See also:sinecure in itself, but with a very substantial See also:salary of nearly £800 per annum. His See also:acceptance displeased some of his former political associates, and the was accused of "deserting his party." In his Memoir, indeed, Gibbon denies that he had ever enlisted with the Whigs. A note of See also:Fox, however, on the margin of a copy of The Decline and Fall records a very distinct remembrance of the historian's previous vituperation of the ministry; within a fortnight of the date of his acceptance of office, he is there alleged to have said that " there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the See also:principal persons in See also:administration were laid upon the table." Lord Sheffield merely replies, somewhat weakly it must be said, that his friend never intended the words to be taken literally. More to the point is the often-quoted passage from Gibbon's letter to Deyverdun, where the See also:frank See also:revelation is made: " You have not forgotten that I went into parliament without patriotism and without ambition, and that
' For a very full list of publications in answer to Gibbon's attack on Christianity reference may he made to the Bibliographer's See also:Manual, pp. 885-886 (1858). Of these the earliest were See also:Watson's See also:Apology (1776), See also:Salisbury's Strictures (1776) and Chelsum's (anonymous) Remarks (1776). In 1778 the Few Remarks by a Gentleman (Francis See also:Eyre), the Reply of See also:Loftus, the Letters of Apthorpe and the Examination of Davies appeared. Gibbon's Vindication (1779) called forth a Reply by Davies (1779), and A Short See also:Appeal to the Public by Francis Eyre (1779). Laughton's polemical treatise was published in 1780, and those of See also:Milner and See also: Their crude productions, for the most part, were conspicuous rather for insolence and abusiveness than for logic or learning. Those of See also:Bishop Watson and Lord See also:Hailes were the best, but simply because they contented themselves with a dispassionate exposition of the general argument in favour of Christianity. The most foolish and discreditable was certainly that of Davies; his unworthy attempt to depreciate the great historian's learning, and his captious, cavilling, acrimonious charges of See also:petty inaccuracies and discreditable falsification gave the object of his attack an easy See also:triumph.all my views tended to the convenient and respectable place of a lord of trade." In April 1781 the second and third quartos of his History were published. They excited no controversy, and were comparatively little talked about--so little, indeed, as to have extorted from him a half murmur about " coldness and prejudice." The volumes, however, were bought and read with silent avidity. Meanwhile public events were developing in a manner that had a considerable influence upon the manner in which the remaining years of the historian's life were spent. At the general See also:election in 1780 he had lost his seat for Liskeard, but had subsequently been elected for See also:Lymington. The ministry of Lord See also:North, however, was tottering, and soon after fell; the Board of Trade was abolished by the passing of See also:Burke's See also:bill in 1782, and Gibbon's salary vanished with it—no trifle, for his See also:expenditure had been for three years on a See also:scale somewhat disproportionate to his private fortune. He did not like to depend on statesmen's promises, which are proverbially uncertain of fulfilment; he as little liked to retrench; and he was wearied of parliament, where he had never given any but silent votes. Urged by such considerations, he once more turned his eyes to the scene of his early exile, where he might live on his decent patrimony in a style which was impossible in England, and pursue unembarrassed his literary studies. He therefore resolved to fix himself at Lausanne. A word only is necessary on his See also:parliamentary career. Neither nature nor acquired habits qualified him to be an orator; his late entrance on public life, his natural timidity, his feeble See also:voice, his limited command of idiomatic English, and even, as he candidly confesses, his literary fame, were all obstacles to success. " After a fleeting, illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a See also:mute? . . . I was not armed by nature and education with the intrepid See also:energy of mind and voice—` Vincentem strepitus et natum See also:rebus agendis.' Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice." His repugnance to public life had been strongly expressed to his father in a letter of a very early date, in which he begged that the money which a seat in the House of See also:Commons would cost might be expended in a mode more agreeable to him. Gibbon was eight-and-thirty when he entered parliament; and the obstacles which even at an earlier period he had not had courage to encounter were hardly likely to be vanquished then. Nor had he much political sagacity. He was better skilled in investigating the past than in See also:divining the future. While Burke and Fox and so many great statesmen proclaimed the consequences of the collision with See also:America, Gibbon saw nothing but colonies in See also:rebellion, and a paternal government justly incensed. His silent votes were all given on that See also:hypothesis. In a similar manner, while he abhorred the French Revolution when it came, he seems to have had no See also:apprehension, like See also:Chesterfield, Burke, or even Horace Walpole, of its approach; nor does he appear to have at all suspected that it had had anything to do with the speculations of the philosophic coteries in which he had taken such delight. But while it may be doubted whether his presence in parliament was of any See also:direct utility to the legislative business of the country, there can be no question of the present See also:advantage which he derived from it in the prosecution of the great work of his life--an advantage of which he was fully conscious when he wrote: " The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian." Having sold all his property except his library—to him equally a necessary and a luxury—Gibbon repaired to Lausanne in September 1783, and took up his See also:abode with his early friend Deyverdun, now a See also:resident there. Perfectly free from every engagement but those which his own tastes imposed, easy in his circumstances, commanding just as much society, and that as select, as he pleased, with the noblest scenery spread out at his feet, no situation can be imagined more favourable for the 2 In 1775 he writes to See also:Holroyd: " I am still a mute; it is more tremendous than I imagined; the great speakers fill me with despair; the bad ones with terror." prosecution of his literary enterprise; a See also:hermit in his study as long as he See also:chose, he found the most delightful recreation always ready for him at the See also:threshold. " In London," says he, " I was lost in the crowd; I ranked with the first families in Lausanne, and my style of prudent expense enabled me to maintain a See also:fair balance of reciprocal civilities. . . . Instead of a small house between a street and a See also:stable-yard, I began to occupy a spacious and convenient See also:mansion, connected on the north See also:side with the city, and open on the south to a beautiful and boundless See also:horizon. A See also:garden of four acres had been laid out by the taste of M. Deyverdun: from the garden a rich scenery of meadows and vineyards descends to the Leman See also:Lake, and the prospect far beyond the lake is crowned by the stupendous mountains of See also:Savoy." In this enviable See also:retreat, it is no wonder that a year should have been suffered to See also:roll See also:round before he vigorously resumed his great work—and with many men it would never have been resumed in such a See also:paradise. We may remark in passing that the retreat was often enlivened, or invaded, by friendly tourists from England, whose " frequent incursions " into Switzerland our recluse seems half to lament as an evil. Among his more valued visitors were M. and Mme Necker; Mr Fox also gave him two welcome " days of free and private society " in 1788. Differing as they did in politics, Gibbon's testimony to the genius and character of the great statesman is highly See also:honourable to both: " Perhaps no human being," he says, " was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood." When once fairly reseated at his task, he proceeded in this delightful retreat leisurely, yet rapidly, to its completion, The See also:fourth volume, partly written in 1782, was completed in June 1784; the preparation of the fifth volume occupied less than two years; while the sixth and last, begun 18th May 1786, was finished in thirteen months. The feelings with which he brought his labours to a close must be described in his own inimitable words: " It was 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 See also: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 See also:air was temperate, the See also:sky was serene, the See also:silver See also: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 See also:melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an See also:everlasting leave of an old and agreeable See also:companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and See also:precarious." Taking the manuscript with him, Gibbon, after an absence of four years, once more visited London in 1787; and the 51St anniversary of the author's birthday (27th April 1788) witnessed the publication of the last three volumes of The Decline and Fall. They met with a See also:quick and easy sale, were very extensively read, and very liberally and deservedly praised for the unflagging See also:industry and vigour they displayed, though just exception, if only on the See also:score of good taste, was taken to the scoffing See also:tone he continued to maintain in all passages where the Christian religion was specially concerned, and much See also:fault was found with the indecency of some of his notes.' He returned to Switzerland in See also:July 1788, cherishing vague schemes of fresh literary activity; but genuine sorrow caused by the death of his friend Deyverdun interfered with steady work, nor was it easy for him to fix on a new subject which should be at once congenial and proportioned to his powers; while the premonitory mutterings of the great thunderstorm of the French Revolution, which reverberated in hollow echoes even through 1 An anonymous pamphlet, entitled Observations on the three last volumes of the Roman History, appeared in 1788; Disney's See also:Sermon, with Strictures, in 179o; and See also:Whitaker's Review, in 1791. With regard to the second of the above complaints, surprise will probably be felt that it was not extended to portions of the text as well as to the notes.the quiet valleys of Switzerland, further troubled his repose. For some months he found amusement in the preparation of the delightful Memoirs (1789) from which most of our knowledge of his personal history is derived; but his letters to friends in England, written between 1788 and 1793 occasionally betray a slight but unmistakable tone of ennui. In April 1793 he unexpectedly received tidings of the death of Lady Sheffield; and the motive of friendship thus supplied combined with the pressure of public events to urge him homewards. He arrived in England in the following June, and spent the summer at Sheffield Place, where his presence was even more highly prized than it had ever before been. Returning to London early in November, he found it necessary to consult his physicians for a symptom which, neglected since 1761, had gradually become complicated with hydrocele, and was now imperatively demanding surgical aid; but the painful operations which had to be performed did not interfere with his customary cheerfulness, nor did they prevent him from paying a Christmas visit to Sheffield Place. Here, however, See also:fever made its appearance; and a removal to London (January 6, 1794) was considered imperative. Another operation brought him some relief; but a relapse occurred during the night of the 15th, and on the following day he peacefully breathed his last. His remains were laid in the See also:burial place of the Sheffield family, Fletching, See also:Sussex, where an See also:epitaph by Dr See also:Parr describes his character and work in the language at once of elegance, of moderation and of truth. The personal appearance of Gibbon as a lad of sixteen is brought before us somewhat dimly in M. Pavilliard's description of the " thin little figure, with a large See also:head, disputing and arguing, with the greatest ability, all the best arguments that had ever been used in favour of popery." What he afterwards became has been made more vividly familiar by the clever See also:silhouette prefixed to the Miscellaneous Works (Gibbon himself, at least, we know, did not regard it as a See also:caricature), and by Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds's portrait so often engraved. It is hardly fair perhaps to add a reference to Suard's highly-coloured description of the short See also:Silenus-like figure, not more than 56 in. in height, the slim legs, the large turned-in feet, the shrill piercing voice; but almost every one will remember, from See also:Croker's See also:Boswell, See also:Colman's account of the great historian " tapping his See also:snuff-See also:box, smirking and smiling, and rounding his periods " from that mellifluous mouth. It has already been seen that Gibbon's early ailments all left him on the approach of manhood; thenceforward, " till admonished by the See also:gout," he could truly boast of an See also:immunity well-nigh perfect from every bodily complaint; an exceptionally vigorous See also:brain, and a See also:stomach " almost too good," See also:united to bestow upon him a vast capacity alike for work and for enjoyment. This capacity he never abused so as to See also:burden his See also:conscience or depress his See also:spirits. " The madness of superfluous health I have never known." To illustrate the intensity of the pleasure he found alike in the solitude of his study and in the relaxations of genial social intercourse, almost any page taken at See also:random, either from the Life or from the Letters, would suffice; and many incidental touches show that he was not a stranger to the delights of quiet contemplation of the beauties and grandeurs of nature. His manners, if formal, were refined; his conversation, when he felt himself at home, interesting and unaffected; and that he was capable alike of feeling and inspiring a very constant friend-See also:ship there are many witnesses to show. That his temperament at the same time was frigid and comparatively passionless cannot be denied; but neither ought this to be imputed to him as a fault; hostile criticisms upon the grief for a father's death, that " was soothed by the conscious satisfaction that I had discharged all the duties of filial piety," seem somewhat out of place. His most ardent admirers, however, are constrained to admit that he was deficient in large-hearted benevolence; that he was destitute of any " enthusiasm of humanity "; and that so far as every sort of religious yearning or aspiration is concerned, his poverty was almost unique. Gibbon was such a man as Horace might have been, had the Roman Epicurean been fonder of hard intellectual work, and less prone than he was to the See also:indulgence of emotion. (H. Ro.; J. S. BL.) Gibbon's literary See also:art, the sustained excellence of his style, his piquant epigrams and his brilliant See also:irony, would perhaps not secure for his work the See also:immortality which it seems likely to enjoy, if it were not also marked by ecumenical grasp, extra-ordinary accuracy and striking acuteness of judgment. It is needless to say that in many points his statements and conclusions must now be corrected. He was never content with secondhand accounts when the See also:primary See also:sources were accessible; " I have always endeavoured," he says, " to draw from the fountainhead; my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and if they have sometimes eluded my See also:search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." Since he wrote, new authorities have been discovered or rendered accessible; works in Greek, Latin, See also:Slavonic, Armenian, See also:Syriac, Arabic and other See also:languages, which he was unable to consult, have been published. Again, many of the authorities which he used have been edited in See also:superior texts. The relative weights of the sources have been more nicely determined by critical investigation. See also:Archaeology has become a science. In the immense region which Gibbon surveyed there is hardly a See also:section which has not been submitted to the microscopic examination of specialists. But apart from the inevitable advances made in the course of a See also:century during which historical research entered upon a new phase, the reader of Gibbon must be warned against one See also:capital defect. In judging the Decline and Fall it should carefully be observed that it falls into two parts which are heterogeneous in the method of treatment. The first part, a little more than five-eighths of the work, supplies a very full history of 46o years (A.D. 18o–641); the second and smaller part is a See also:summary history of about 800 years (A.D. 641–1453) in which certain episodes are selected for See also:fuller treatment and so made prominent. To the first part unstinted praise must be accorded; it may be said that, with the materials at the author's disposition, it hardly admitted of improvement, except in trifling details. But the second, notwithstanding the brilliancy of the narrative and the masterly art in the grouping of events, suffers from a See also:radical defect which renders it a misleading guide. The author designates the See also:story of the later empire at See also:Constantinople (after See also:Heraclius) as " a See also:uniform See also:tale of weakness and misery," a judgment which is entirely false; and in accordance with this doctrine, he makes the empire, which is his proper subject, merely a See also:string for connecting great movements which affected it, such as the Saracen conquests, the See also:Crusades, the Mongol invasions, the See also:Turkish conquests. He failed to bring out the momentous fact that up to the 12th century the empire was the See also:bulwark of Europe against the See also:East, nor did he appreciate its importance in preserving the heritage of Greek See also:civilization. He compressed into a single chapter the domestic history and policy of the emperors from the son of Heraclius to See also:Isaac See also:Angelus; and did no justice to the remarkable ability and the indefatigable industry shown in the service of the state by most of the sovereigns from See also:Leo III. to See also:Basil II. He did not penetrate into the deeper causes underlying the revolutions and See also:palace intrigues. His eye rested only on superficial characteristics which have served to See also:associate the name " See also:Byzantine " with treachery, See also:cruelty, bigotry and decadence. It was reserved for See also:Finlay to depict, with greater knowledge and a juster See also:perception, the See also:lights and shades of Byzantine history. Thus the later part of the Decline and Fall, while the narrative of certain episodes will always be read with profit, does not convey a true idea of the history of the empire or of its significance in the history of Europe. It must be added that the pages on the Slavonic peoples and their 'relations to the empire are conspicuously insufficient; but it must be taken into account that it was not till many years after Gibbon's death that Slavonic history began to receive due attention, in consequence of the rise of competent scholars among the Slays themselves. The most famous chapters of the Decline and Fall are thefifteenth and sixteenth, in which the historian traces the early progress of Christianity and the policy of the Roman government towards it. The flavour of these chapters is due to the irony which Gibbon has employed with consummate art and felicity. There was a See also:practical motive for using this weapon. An attack on Christianity laid a writer open to prosecution and penalties under the statutes of the See also:realm (q and ro William III. c. 22, still unrepealed). Gibbon's stylistic artifice both averted the peril of prosecution and rendered the attack more telling. In his Autobiography he alleges that he learned from the Provincial Letters of Pascal " to See also:manage the weapon of See also:grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity." It is not easy, however, to perceive much resemblance between the method of Pascal and that of Gibbon, though in particular passages we may discover the influence which Gibbon acknowledges. For instance, the well-known description (in See also:chap. xlvii.) of the preposition " in " occurring in a theological See also:dogma as a " momentous particle which the memory rather than the understanding must retain " is taken directly from the first Provincial Letter. The See also:main points in the general conclusions of these chapters have been See also:borne out by subsequent research. The account of the causes of the expansion of Christianity is chiefly to be criticized for its omissions. There were a number of important contributory conditions (enumerated in See also:Harnack's Mission and Ausbreitung des Christentums) which Gibbon did not take into account. He rightly insisted on the facilities of communication created by the Roman empire, but did not emphasize the See also:diffusion of Judaism. And he did not realize the importance of the kinship between Christian doctrine and Hellenistic See also:syncretism, which helped to promote the reception of Christianity. He was ignorant of another fact of great importance (which has only in See also:recent years been fully appreciated through the researches of F. Cumont), the wide diffusion of the Mithraic religion and the close analogies between its doctrines and those of Christianity. In regard to the attitude of the Roman government towards the Christian religion, there are questions still sub judice; but Gibbon had the merit of reducing the number of martyrs within probable limits. Gibbon's See also:verdict on the history of the See also:middle ages is contained in the famous See also:sentence, " I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion." It is important to understand clearly the criterion which he applied; it is frequently misapprehended. He was a son of the 18th century; he had studied with sympathy Locke and Montesquieu; no one appreciated more keenly than he did political See also:liberty and the freedom of an Englishman. This is illustrated by his love of Switzerland, his intense See also:interest in the fortunes of that country, his design of writing " The History of the Liberty of the Swiss "—a theme, he says " from which the dullest stranger would catch fire." Such views and sentiments are incompatible with the idealization of a benevolent despotism. Yet in this See also:matter Gibbon has been grossly misapprehended and misrepresented. For instance, See also:Mirabeau wrote thus to Sir See also:Samuel See also:Romilly: " I have never been able to read the work of Mr Gibbon without being astounded that it should ever have been written in English; or without being tempted to turn to the author and say, ` You an Englishman? No, indeed.' That admiration for an empire of more than two See also:hundred millions of men, where not one had the right to call himself free; that effeminate See also:philosophy which has more praise for luxury and pleasures than for all the virtues; that style always elegant and never energetic, reveal at the most the elector of See also:Hanover's slave." This criticism is based on a perverse misreading of the historian's observations on the age of Trajan, See also:Hadrian and the Antonines. He enlarges, as it was his business to do, on the tranquillity and prosperity of the empire in that period, but he does not fail to place his See also:finger on the want of political liberty as a fatal defect. He points out that under this benevolent despotism, though men might be happy, their happiness was unstable, because it depended on the character of a single man; and the highest praise he can give to those virtuous princes is that they " deserved the honour of restoring the See also:republic, had the See also:Romans of their days been capable of a rational freedom." The criterion by which
Gibbon judged civilization and progress was the measure in which the happiness of men is secured, and of that happiness he considered political freedom an essential See also:condition. He was essentially humane; and it is worthy of notice that he was in favour of the abolition of See also:slavery, while humane men like his friend Lord Sheffield, Dr See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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