GIBBON. 301 



The public voice amply confirmed these important and 

 learned judgments. The first edition of a thousand was 

 exhausted in a few days ; two others scarcely supplied 

 the demand; and the Dublin pirates twice invaded the 

 copyright. The volume, moreover, was to be seen not 

 only in the studies of the learned, but in the drawing- 

 rooms of the idle and the gay. On the other hand, the 

 violence of theological controversy was speedily excited 

 by the two chapters ; and adversaries of various ranks in 

 the Church, and of every degree of merit, hastened to the 

 conflict, from Lord Hailes and Dr. Watson, afterwards 

 Bishop of Llandaff, down to Mr. Ohelsum., a feeble but 

 violent divine, and Taylor, an Arian minister, Vicar of 

 Portsmouth, and alike wrongheaded and enthusiastic. 

 Gibbon admits that for a while the noise stunned him, 

 but he soon found that his antagonists were, with a very 

 few exceptions, far too little prepared for the combat, by 

 the possession of any weapons save zeal, to occasion him 

 any harm, and he resolved to maintain silence and leave 

 his defence to time, and to the body of those readers 

 who had studied his work. This reserve he continued 

 until his veracity was attacked by the charge of false 

 quotations, and then he published his ' Vindication.' Of 

 that work the reverend editor of his Life and History 

 well observes, that "this single discharge from the pon- 

 derous artillery of learning and sarcasm laid prostrate 



agreed with him, or did not disapprove the line which he had pur- 

 sued. Both these great historians assumed that their opinions on 

 the matter must be well known, and could not be mistaken by those 

 their letters were addressed to, Mr. Hume's being written to Gibbon 

 himself, and Dr. Robertson's to Mr. Strahan, the publisher of his 

 celebrated Sermon. 



