318 GIBBON. 



his invaluable Edition of Boswell's Johnson, (vol. i. p. 

 121.) "The learned Gibbon was a curious counter- 

 balance to the learned, (may I not say the less learned 1 ?*) 

 Johnson. Their manners and tastes both in writing and 

 in conversation were as different as their habiliments. 

 On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty 

 brown suit, and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon 

 was placed opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, 

 with a bag and sword. Each had his measured phrase- 

 ology; and Johnson's famous parallel between Dryden 

 and Pope might be loosely parodied in reference to him- 

 self and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gib- 

 bon's elegant ; the stateliness of the former was sometimes 

 pedantic, and the polish of the latter was sometimes 

 finical. Johnson marched to kettledrums and trumpets, 

 Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys ; Johnson hewed 

 passages through the Alps, while Gibbon levelled walks 

 through parks and gardens. Mauled as I had been by 

 Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises, by cori- 

 descending once or twice in the course of the evening to 

 talk with me. The great historian was light and playful, 

 suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy ; but it was 

 done more suo ; still his manner prevailed, still he tap- 

 ped his snuff-box, still he smiled and smiled, and rounded 

 his periods with the same air of good breeding as if he 

 were conversing with men. His mouth, mellifluous as 

 Plato's, was a round hole nearly in the centre of his 

 visage." 



We are now in the last place to consider Gibbon as an 

 historian, and in considering the nature and estimating 



* It really is singular to see any kind of doubt expressed on this 

 by any one who had ever heard either author. 



