306 GIBBON. 



acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the 

 lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the 

 sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected 

 from the waters, and all nature was silent." " I will 

 not," he adds, " 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 agree- 

 able companion, and that whatever might be the future 

 date of my History, the life of the historian must be 

 short and precarious." (' Life,' ch. x.) 



He returned for a few months to London, in order to 

 superintend the publication of the last volumes. During 

 this visit he lived, both in Sussex and London, in the 

 family of Lord Sheffield, which had in some sort become 

 his OWE. He remained a few weeks after the publication 

 on his fifty-first birth-day, 27th April, 1788, for which 

 coincidence it was deferred a little while a strange 

 arrangement, certainly, when the expediency of dispatch 

 had been so strongly felt as to require nine sheets a-week 

 from the printer and three thousand copies of each. 

 Before he left England he had full notice of the storm 

 which the infidel tendency and, still more, the indecency 

 of many portions of the last three volumes, raised against 

 him. To the former charge he had been accustomed, 

 and he was prepared for it ; but he expresses much sur- 

 prise at the second, a surprise not greater than that of 

 his reader, provided he be also a reader of the History. 



His return to Lausanne was saddened by the de- 

 plorable condition in which lie found his friend Dey verdun, 

 reduced by repeated strokes of apoplexy to a state that 



