GIBBON. 303 



dans les societes qu'il frequente." (Lett., 284.) Suard 

 gives more credit to his talents, but charges him with 

 being too prepared in his sentences and too anxious to 

 shine, while he allows his conversation to be full and 

 animated. He likewise praises the facility and correct- 

 ness of his French, though he spoke it with a very strong 

 accent and with extremely unpleasant intonations of the 

 voice. 



His return to Parliament somewhat delayed the first 

 volume, but the attendance of some stormy sessions does 

 not appear to have at all interrupted the further progress 

 of the work. And the all but sinecure place of a Lord 

 of Trade, which he accepted in 1779, could have very 

 little influence on the disposal of his time. This favour 

 was opportunely bestowed on him as a recompense, not 

 merely for his steady support in Parliament, but for his 

 drawing up a defence for the British Government against 

 the French claims in 1778 ; it was written at the request 

 of the Ministers, particularly Lord Thurlow, then Chan- 

 cellor, and was prepared in concert with the Foreign Office, 

 from which the materials were furnished. The work is 

 allowed to have been respectably executed; and the 

 scurrilous attack upon it by Wilkes, generally set down 

 to the account of factious spleen^ had no success. In 

 1780 he lost his seat in Parliament, at the general 

 election ; and soon after published his second and third 

 volumes, which, he confesses, were by no means so well 

 received as the first had been. Lord North's friendship 

 restored him to the House of Commons as member for 

 Lymington, a seat which he retained until Mr. Pitt's 

 dissolution to defeat the famous Coalition in 1784. The 

 Board of Trade had been abolished some months before, 



