philosophie profonde et élégante. Nous ne prodiguerons jamais à la grandeur la récompense des talents. My Lord L. ne doit pas prétendre à la gloire de ces hommes de génie, mais il lui reste les qualités d'un bon écrivain, d'un savant très éclairé, d'un écrivain exact et impartial, et c'est avec plaisir que nous les lui accordons."

I can discover no indications of Gibbon's style or sentiment in the second volume of these Memoirs. The review of a dialogue ascribed to Lord Herbert of Cherbury approaches the nearest to his manner, but I doubt his authorship of this.-M.

(3) page 146.

"Look at Flatus, and learn how miserable they are, who are left to the folly of their own passions.

"Flatus is rich and in health, yet always uneasy, and always searching after happiness. Every time you visit him, you find some new project in his head; he is eager upon it as something that is more worth his while, and will do more for him than anything that is already past. Every new thing so seizes him, that if you were to take him from it, he would think himself quite undone. His sanguine temper, and strong passions, promise him so much happiness in every thing, that he is always cheated, and is satisfied with nothing.

"At his first setting out in life, fine clothes was his delight, his inquiry was only after the best tailors and peruke-makers, and he had no thoughts of excelling in any thing but dress. He spared no expense, but carried every nicety to its greatest height. But this happiness not answering his expectations, he left off his brocades, put on a plain coat, railed at fops and beaus, and gave himself up to gaming with great eagerness.

This new pleasure satisfied him for some time, he envied no other way of life. But being by the fate of play drawn into a duel, where he narrowly escaped his death, he left off the dice, and sought for happiness no longer amongst the gamesters.

The next thing that seized his wandering imagination, was the diversion of the town and for more than a twelvemonth, you heard him talk of nothing but ladies, drawing-rooms, birth days, plays, balls, and assemblies. But growing sick of these, he had recourse to hard drinking. Here he had many a merry night, and met with stronger joys than any he had felt before. Here he had thoughts of setting up his staff, and looking out no farther; but unluckily falling into a fever, he grew angry at all strong liquors, and took his leave of the happiness of being drunk.

The next attempt after happiness carried him into the field; for two or three years, nothing was so happy as hunting; he entered upon it with all his soul, and leaped more hedges and ditches, than had ever been known in so short a time. You never saw him but in a green coat; he was the envy of all that blow the horn, and always spoke to his dogs in great propriety of language. If you met him at home in a bad day, you would hear him blow his horn, and be entertained with the surprising accidents of the noble chase. No sooner had Flatus outdone all the world in the breed and education of his dogs, built new kennels, new stables, and bought a new hunting-seat, but he immediately got sight of another happiness, hated the senseless noise and hurry of hunting, gave away the dogs, and was for some time after deep in the pleasures of building.

"Now he invents new kinds of dove-cotes, and has such contrivances in his barns and stables, as were never seen before: he wonders at the dulness of the old builders, is wholly bent upon the improvement of architecture, and will hardly hang a door in the ordinary way. He tells his friends that he never was

so delighted with any thing in his life; that he has more happiness amongst his brick and mortar than ever he had at court; and that he is contriving how to have some little matter to do that way as long as he lives.

"The next year he leaves his house unfinished, complains to every body of masons and carpenters, and devotes himself wholly to the business of riding about. After this, you can never see him but on horseback, and so highly delighted with this new way of life, that he would tell you, give him but his horse and a clean country to ride in, and you might take all the rest to yourself. A variety of new saddles and bridles, and a great change of horses, added much to the pleasure of this new way of life. But, however, having after some time tired both himself and his horses, the happiest thing he could think of next, was to go abroad and visit foreign countries; and there, indeed, happiness exceeded his imagination, and he was only uneasy that he had begun so fine a life no sooner. The next month he returned home, unable to bear any longer the impertinence of foreigners.

"After this he was a great student for one whole year; he was up early and late at his Italian grammar, that he might have the happiness of understanding the opera, whenever he should hear one, and not be like those unreasonable people, that are pleased with they know not what.

"Flatus is very ill-natured, or otherwise, just as his affairs happen to be when you visit him; if you find him when some project is almost worn out, you will find a peevish ill-bred man; but if you had seen him just as he entered upon his riding regimen, or begun to excel in sounding of the horn, you had been saluted with great civility.

"Flatus is now at a full stand, and is doing what he never did in his life before, he is reasoning and reflecting with himself. He loses several days in considering which of his cast off ways of life he should try again.

"But here a new project comes in to his relief. He is now living upon herbs, and running about the country, to get himself into as good wind as any runningfootman in the kingdom."-Law's Serious Call.-M.

(4) page 147.

That great diary of the conversations held at " the Club," Boswell's Johnson, has little which relates to Gibbon. The following is the best :

6

Johnson, whose mind had been led to think of wild beasts, suddenly broke in upon the conversation with, Pennant tells of bears.' When the first ludicrous effect from this ejaculation of the "great Bear" had subsided, silence ensued. He (then) proceeded, 'We are told that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.' Mr. Gibbon muttered, in a low tone of voice, I should not much like to trust myself to you.' This piece of sarcastic pleasantry was a prudent resolution if applied to a competition of abilities." To this passage Mr. Croker (vol. iii. p. 222.) subjoins the following note: Mr. Green, the anonymons author of the Diary of a Lover of Literature' (printed at Ipswich), states (under the date of 13th June, 1796,) that a friend, whom he designates by the initial M. (and whom I believe to be my able and obliging friend, Sir James Mackintosh), talking to him of the relative ability of Burke and Gibbon, said, 'Gibbon might have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind without his missing it.' I fancy, now that enthusiasm has cooled, Sir James would be inclined to allow Gibbon a larger share of mind, though his intellectual powers can never be compared with Burke's."

66

Yet Gibbon's History enjoys and will probably maintain a much higher European reputation than any of Johnson's, perhaps of Burke's writings. There is no just standard of admeasurement between the minds of writers distinguished in such different departments of literature. Johnson or even Burke (excellent as

his sketch of the early History of England is) could no more have written the History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, than Gibbon the Rambler, or the Letters on the French Revolution.

In page 335. (vol. iii.) we have a specimen of Boswell's own small wit on the infidelity" contained in the History.

"Lord Eliot informs me, that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner at a gentleman's house in London, after Lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson surprised the company by this sentence, 'Every man of education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in the graces.' Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint manner, tapping his box, addressed her thus: Don't you think, Madam, (looking towards Johnson) that among all your acquaintance, you could not find one exception?' The lady smiled and seemed to acquiesce."-Croker's Boswell, iii. p. 419.

Note.-Mr. Colman, in his Random Records lately published, has given a lively sketch of the appearance and manners of Johnson and Gibbon in society: "The learned Gibbon was a curious counterbalance to the learned (may I not say, less learned) Johnson. Their manners and taste both in writing and conversation, were as different as their habiliments. On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty brown suit, and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword. Each had his measured phraseology; and Johnson's famous parallel between Dryden and Pope might be loosely parodied, in reference to himself and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant; the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantic, and the polish of the latter was occasionally finical. Johnson marched to kettle-drums and trumpets; Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys: Johnson hewed passages through the Alps, while Gibbon levelled walks through parks and gardens. Mauled as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises, by condescending once or twice in the evening to talk with me: the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy; but it was done more suo still his mannerism prevailed, still he tapped his snuff-box, still he smirked and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of good breeding as if he were conversing with men. His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole, nearly in the centre of his visage. Vol. i. p. 121. Mr. Croker's Note.-M.

Mr. Gibbon settles in London.-Begins his History of the Decline and Fall.-Becomes a Member of the House of Commons.-Characters of the principal Speakers.Publishes his first Volume; its Reception. Mr. Hume's Opinion, in a Letter to the Author.

:

No sooner was I settled in my house and library, than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my history. At the outset all was dark and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true æra 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. The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace; but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have been reduced by three successive revisals, from a large volume to their present size; and they might still be compressed, without any loss of facts or sentiments. An opposite fault may he imputed to the concise and superficial narrative of the first reigns from Commodus to Alexander; a fault of which I have never heard, except from Mr. Hume in his last journey to London. Such an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with rational devotion; but I was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to my friends. Of such friends some will praise from politeness, and some will criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.

By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married my first cousin, I was returned at the general election for the borough of Leskeard (1). I took my seat at the beginning of the memorable contest between Great Britain and America, and supported, with many a sincere and silent vote, the rights, though not, perhaps, the interest of the mother-country. After a fleeting illusive hope, 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' (2). But I assisted at the debates of a free assembly; I listened to the attack and defence of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the characters, views, and passions of the first men of the age. The cause of government was ably vindicated by Lord North, a statesman of spotless integrity, a consummate master of debate, who could wield, with equal dexterity, the arms of reason and of ridicule. He was seated on the Treasury-bench between his Attorney and Solicitor General, the two pillars of the law and state, magis pares quàm similes; and the minister might indulge in a short slumber, whilst he was upholden on either hand by the majestic sense of Thurlow, and the skilful eloquence of Wedderburne. From the adverse side of the house an ardent and powerful opposition was supported, by the lively declamation of Barré, the legal acuteness of Dunning, the profuse and philosophic fancy of Burke, and the argumentative vehemence of Fox, who, in the conduct of a party, approved himself equal to the conduct of an empire. By such men every operation of peace and war, every principle of justice or policy, every question of authority and freedom, was attacked and defended; and the subject of the momentous contest was the union or separation of Great Britain and America. The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian.

The volume of my history, which had been somewhat delayed by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now ready for the press. After the perilous adventure had been declined by my friend Mr. Elmsley, I agreed, upon easy terms, with Mr. Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and Mr. William Strahan, an eminent printer (3); and they undertook the care and risk of the publication, which derived more credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author. The last revisal of the proofs was submitted to my vigilance; and many blemishes of style, which had been invisible in the manuscript,

A French sketch of Mr. Gibbon's Life, written by himself, probably for the use of some foreign journalist or translator, contains no fact not mentioned in his English Life. He there describes himself with his usual candour. Depuis huit ans il a assisté aux délibérations les plus importantes, mais il ne s'est jamais trouvé le courage, ni le talent, de parler dans une assemblée publique. This sketch was written before the publication of his three last volumes, as in closing it he says of his History: Cette entreprise lui demande encore plusieurs années d'une application soutenue; mais quel qu'en soit le succès, il trouve dans cette application même un plaisir toujours varié et toujours renaissant.-S.