GIBBON. 291 



the restoring him to English habits and rubbing away 

 the foreign rust of his Swiss education. It is singular 

 enough that, at the close of this long and thankless inter- 

 ruption, on his resuming his studious habits, he hesitated 

 between Greek and Mathematics, when a letter of Mr. 

 Scott (whom I have mentioned in the life of his teacher 

 Simson*) traced to him a map of the country, which 

 seems to have appeared too rocky and arid for his taste. 

 He now, therefore, applied himself to Greek, which he 

 had hitherto almost entirely neglected, having only 

 as yet formed any acquaintance with the monuments 

 of the Attic and the Doric genius through the medium 

 of general descriptions, or through the imperfect reflexion 

 of translations, that preserve not all of the substance 

 and nothing whatever of the diction. His characteristic 

 industry soon accomplished the task of introducing him 

 to the father of poetry; whose immortal song Scaliger 

 had read through in twenty-one days, but with Gibbon's 

 more imperfect knowledge of the Homeric language its 

 perusal occupied as many weeks. He read almost the 

 whole of the Iliad twice in the same year, beside some 

 books of the Odyssey and Longinus's treatise. The other 

 books which he read at the same time were more or less 

 connected with Greek learning. 



During the time spent in the militia, he had frequently 

 revolved in his mind the plan of some historical work, 

 and had successively chosen as his subjects, the Expedi- 

 tion of Charles VIII. into Italy, respecting which he 

 went so far as to discuss at large that Prince's title to 

 the crown of Naples, contrasted with the rival claims of 



* Vol. I., Lives of Philosophers. 



u 2 



