GIBBON. 317 



equally precise, and his manner was strongly tinged with 

 affectation. Great resources of information, and as much 

 readiness of argument, and remark, and sally, as his con- 

 ceit would allow to appear, ministered to the staple of his 

 talk. Sir James Mackintosh, in reference to Gibbon's 

 powers of conversation was wont to say, that he might 

 have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind, without 

 being missed. I say in reference to his powers of conver- 

 sation; though Mr. Green who relates the anecdote, con- 

 siders the application of the remark as having been gene- 

 ral. But Sir James far better knew the merit of Gibbon, 

 and the value of his great work, than thus to compare 

 him generally with Burke whose whole writings, excel- 

 lent as they are for some qualities, will never stand 

 nearly so high in the estimation of mankind, either for 

 profound learning or for various usefulness, as the 'De- 

 cline and Fall.' 



His letters have the faults of his conversation ; they 

 are, not easy or natural; all is constrained, all for effect. 

 No one can suppose in reading them that a word would 

 have been changed, had the writer known they were to 

 be published the morning after he dispatched them, 

 and had sent them to the printing-office instead of the 

 post-office. 



The external appearance of Gibbon was extremely un- 

 graceful and forbidding. In his early years his figure 

 was very small and slender, but his head disproportionately 

 large. In after life his whole form was changed, and his 

 large head and barely human features, seemed better 

 adapted to the bulk into which his body had swelled. 

 By far the best picture of him and of his conversation is 

 given by Colman, whom Mr. Croker copies in a note to 



