L" >:; 



intervened, liufore I was seriously engaged in the 

 execution of that lulxuiniis work/ 



* ine of i In- project* taken n|i and abandoned 

 after two years' prcpiinit4)r i v studie* \va* a history of 



Switzerland in conjunction with his friend I)i-v- 

 v.M.lun, \\iili wlioin also he planned ami actually 

 minted two volumes of a periodical work entitled 

 Jfrmoth v 1 . 1 1 1 mires de la Grcuule Bretu<jn> ( I7<i7 

 68). Another work was his anonymous I'ritii-nl 

 'ittii.n.-i ,,n the Sixth Book of the JEncnl, a 

 lutier attack iqurn the paradox advanced in War 

 burton's Divine Legation, that Virgil in the sixth 

 hook of hi-, .Knfiid, in the visit of .-Eneas and the 

 Sibyl to the shades, allegorised his hero's initia- 

 tions, as a lawgiver, into tne KleuHiniaii mysteries. 

 In 1770 his father died, leaving his affairs in dis- 

 order, from which (iihlion within two yean* con- 

 trived to extricate himself, and settle in London. 

 In 1774 he entered parliament as member for the 

 borough of Liskeard at the beginning of the 

 struggle with America, and 'supported with many 

 a sincere and silent vote the rights, though not, 

 perhaps, the interest of the mother-country.' He 

 sat afterwards also for Lymington, altogether for 

 eight sessions, without ever summoning courage to 

 >peak. In a letter (1775) to Holroyd (the future 

 Lord Sheffield ) he writes : ' I am still a mute ; it 

 is more tremendous than I imagined ; the great 

 speakers fill me with despair ; the bad ones with 

 terror.' His constant support of government was 

 rewarded in 1779 by a post as one of the Lords 

 Commissioners of Trade and Plantations, which 

 brought a welcome addition to his income of over 

 700 a year, but of which he was deprived three 

 . years later on the suppression of the office through 

 the exertions of Burke. 



After the labours of seven years and infinite 

 fastidiousness in its composition, he published the 

 first volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman 

 Empire in February 1776. Its success was im- 

 mediate, and it was not for some time that the 

 religious world awakened to the insidiously 

 dangerous character of the attack upon Christi- 

 anity in the 15th and 16th chapters, which while 

 not formally denying the 'convincing evidence 

 of the doctrine itself, and the ruling providence 

 of its great author,' proceed to account for the 

 rapid growth of the early Christian church by 

 ' secondary ' or merely human causes most of them 

 rather its effects. Of these he offered five : ( 1 ) the 

 inflexible and intolerant zeal of the Christians ; 

 (2) the doctrine of a future life, improved by 

 every additional circumstance which could give 

 weight and efficacy to that important truth ; ( 3 ) 

 the miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive 

 church ; ( 4 ) the virtues of the primitive Christians ; 

 (5) the union and discipline of the Christian 

 republic. Gibbon was by temper incapable of 

 apprehending spiritual aspirations by sympathetic 

 insight, and he assailed with sneer and innuendo 

 what he did not understand yet instinctively dis- 

 liked, but feared openly to attack. He was too 

 worldly and altogether too much a true son of his 

 century to estimate aright what was really un- 

 worldly ; and, moreover, this inability was intensi- 

 fied by his own cold and comoosed temperament 

 and the reflex effect of his peculiar experiences. 



Hume, who was then slowly dying (March 1776), 

 in a characteristic and highly complimentary letter 

 said about these 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 prophecy 

 proved true, and Gibbon was ere long assaileu by a 

 loud discharge of 'ecclesiastical ordnance,' which 

 he professes to have found but empty sound, ' mis- 

 chievous only in the intention.' He claims to have 



hel|M-d hi* OKriuiliint* to being rewarded in thin 

 world. He only deigned to reply when Henry E. 

 h.ivies of Oxford impugned 'not the faith, but the 

 fidelity of the ln-tni ian ;' -till, he would not print 

 IUH Viiiilii-ntinn iii quarto le>t it should IK- hound and 

 preened with the history itself. He persevered 

 a--i'liiMii-ls with hix great work, and hau two more 

 volume* ready in 1781. And now, having loMt oHice, 

 and finding it difficult to live easily in London 

 upon Iii- income, he determined to accept I'e\ 

 verdun's invitation to settle down with him in IUH 

 house at Lausanne. He started in Septeml>er 1783, 

 and spent the next four years in the midst of his 

 6000 volumes, in calm and uninterrupted work, 

 never moving the while a dozen miles out of the 

 town. He had nearly completed the fourth volume 

 before leaving London, the fifth was finished in 

 twenty-one months, the sixth in little more than 

 a year. The conclusion must be told in his own 

 memorable and touching words : ' It was on the 

 day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June 1787, 

 between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I 

 wrote the last 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 tem- 

 perate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the 

 moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature 

 was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions 

 of joy on recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, 

 the establishment of my fame. But my pride was 

 soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread 

 over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an 

 everlasting leave of an old and agreeable com- 

 panion, and that, whatsoever might ue the future 

 fate of my History, the life of the historian must 

 be short and precarious. ' A month later he started 

 for England to superintend the printing of the 

 work. The fourth volume took three months ; the 

 last two were issued in the May of 1788. He 

 returned immediately to Lausanne, where within 

 a twelvemonth his much-loved companion I)ey- 

 verdun died a blow which affected him deeply, 

 and from which indeed he never fully recovered. 

 The state of France filled him with trouble, though 

 it was some solace to have the exiled Neckere 

 beside him at Coppet, near Lausanne. The letters 

 between his old love and himself are creditable in 

 the highest degree to the hearts of both. ' Come 

 to us,' she writes, ' when you are restored to health 

 and to yourself ; that moment should always belong 

 to your first and your last friend, and I do not 

 know which of those titles is the sweetest and 

 dearest to my heart.' But his last years were not 

 happy ; good living and want of exercise had 

 brought on burdensome corpulency, and he began 

 to be racked with the torture of gout. His aunt 

 had already died in 1786, Deyverdun and other 

 favourite friends had quickly followed, and last 

 came the unexpected death of his dear friend, 

 Lady Sheffield. At once, though travelling was 

 now terrible to him, he made up his mind to go to 

 console Lord Sheffield, and within a month he was 

 with him. After three months' stay at Sheffield 

 Place, and a visit to his aged step-mother at Bath, 

 he came to London, where a few days later he was 

 seized with an attack of dropsy, the result of a 

 rupture which he had neglected for over thirty 

 years. An operation gave temporary relief, and he 

 went again a little into society, but two months 

 later he died, without apprehension or suffering, in 

 St James's Street, London, Ititli January 1794. 



The monumental work of Gibbon is likely to 

 remain our masterpiece in history. The magnitude 

 of the subject is nobly sustained by the dignity of 

 the treatment, and the whole fabnc stands out a 

 marvellous bridge flung by genius and eruditiou 



