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OF.

THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

ALTHOUGH no circumstance connected with the history of an illustrious individual can be considered as wholly uninteresting, it must, however, be admitted that, in point of utility, prominent features only are really worthy of being recorded. The biographer, in the present case, is provided with materials of the most unexception. able kind, and has little else to do than carefully and succinctly relate a series of trans. actions, which have been already more copiously described.*

The historian informs us, that he was born at Putney, in the county of Surry, on the 27th of April, 1737. Edward, his grandfather, was first a commissioner of customs, and next a director of the South Sea Company: in the latter capacity he had the misfortune to lose the principal part of his property, and no inconsiderable portion of his reputation; though his grandson has taken some pains to exculpate him from the heavy charges brought against that body. By his skill and credit he succeeded in retrieving his fortune; but to his son (who also was named Edward) he left only a small share of the estate, owing to a matrimonial connection, which had excited his disapprobation. Edward was twice a member of parliament, and signalized himself by a determined opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. He married Judith Porten, the daughter of a respectable merchant of London; by her he had six sons and a daughter, all of whom died in early life, except the subject of our memoir. The excessive weakness of his constitution rendered it doubtful whether he would ever attain the age of manhood; and his father, that the patronymic name of Edward might be preserved in the family, repeated it at the baptism of every successive son To his aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten, our author acknowledges himself to have been greatly indebted for her tender care of his helpless infancy; and he would have those express the same obligation, who have rejoiced that his life was preserved.

As soon as the use of speech had prepared his mind for the admission of know ledge, he was instructed in the common branches of education, writing, reading, and arithmetic; and, after this previous instruction at home, and at a day-school at Putney, he was committed, at the age of seven, to the care of Mr. John Kirkby,ť who, during eighteen months, performed the office of domestic tutor; an unfortunate man, for whom the pupil entertained feelings of respect and gratitude. Under his tuition were acquired the rudiments of English and Latin. Kirkby having, on one occasion, forgotten to mention king George in his prayer, the zealous loyalty of old Gibbon dismissed him, after some reluctance, with a decent reward. Edward was then sent to Kingston-upon-Thames, to a school containing about seventy boys, kept by Dr. Wooddeson. Sickness frequently interrupted his studies; and, at the expiration of two years, his mother died: this misfortune occasioned his return to the parental roof, where he was again placed under the care of his aunt, who now devoted the same attention to the improvement of his mind, which she had formerly applied to the strengthening of his constitution. "I feel (he remarks) a melancholy pleasure in repeating my obligations to that excellent woman-the true mother of my mind, as well as of my health. Pain and languor were often soothed by the voice of instruction and amusement; and to her kind lessons I ascribe my early and

The Author's Memoirs of Himself, 4to. edit.

↑ Author of two small volumes: The Life of Automathes, Lond. 1745; and an English and Latin Grammar, Lond. 1746. A

invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for the treasures of India. I should perhaps be astonished were it possible to ascertain the date at which a favourite tale was engraved, by frequent repetition, in my memory: the Cavern of the Winds, the Palace of Felicity, and the fatal moment, at the end of three months or centuries, when prince Adolphus is overtaken by Time, who had worn out so many pair of wings in the pursuit. Before I left Kingston school, I was well acquainted with Pope's Homer, and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; two books which will always please, by the moving picture of human manners and specious miracles: nor was I then capable of discerning that Pope's translation is a portrait endowed with every merit, excepting that of likeness to the original. The verses of Pope accustomed my ear to the sound of poetic harmony. In the death of Hector, and the shipwreck of Ulysses, I tasted the new emotions of terror and pity; and seriously disputed with my aunt on the vices and virtues of the heroes of the Trojan war. From Pope's Homer to Dryden's Virgil was an easy transition; but I know not how, from some fault in the author, the translator, or the reader, the pious Eneas did not so forcibly seize on my imagination; and I derived more pleasure from Ovid's Metamorphoses, especially in the fall of Phaeton, and the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses. My grandfather's flight unlocked the door of a tolerable library; and I turned over many English pages of poetry and romance, of history and travels. Where a title attracted my eye, without fear or awe I snatched the volume from the shelf, and Mrs. Porten, who indulged herself in moral and religious speculations, was more prone to encourage than to check a curiosity above the strength of a boy. This year (1748), the twelfth of my age, I shall note as the most propitious to the growth of my intellectual stature.

Not long after his mother's death, another important change happened in the family: his grandfather became a bankrupt, and suddenly absconded; and the daughter (our Author's worthy aunt), who had advanced beyond her fortieth year, was reduced to a state of penury. But her spirit was superior to a life of dependance upon the bounty of her relations, and she resolved upon endeavouring to secure an honourable maintenance, by keeping a boarding-house for Westminster school: the attempt succeeded, and she laboriously acquired a competence for old age. Edward accompanied her thither, and was instantly placed in the school, which had for its head master Dr. John Nicoll. He was still the victim of severe bodily indisposition, which at length increased to so alarming a height, that Mrs. Porten, with the advice of physicians, determined to attend him to Bath. "A strange nervous affection (he says), which alternately contracted my legs, and produced, without any visible symptoms, the most excruciating pain, was ineffectually opposed by the various methods of bathing and pumping.-It might now be apprehended, that I should continue for life an illiterate cripple; but, as I approached my sixteenth year, nature displayed in my favour her mysterious energies: my constitution was fortified and fixed; and my disorders, instead of growing with my growth, and strengthening with my strength, most wonderfully vanished.-My unexpected recovery again encouraged the hope of my education, and I was placed at Esher, in Surry, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Philip Francis, in a pleasant spot, which promised to unite the various benefits of air, exercise, and study. The translator of Horace might have taught me to relish the Latin poets, had not my friends discovered, in a few weeks, that he preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils." The neglect and irregularity attending his scholastic instruction induced his father to carry him to Oxford, and he was matriculated in the university as a gentlemancommoner of Magdalen college. His account of himself at this period, and for some time prior thereto, is highly interesting.

"The curiosity which had been implanted in my infant mind, was still alive and active; but my reason was not sufficiently informed to understand the value, or to lament the loss, of three precious years, from my entrance at Westminster to my admission at Oxford. Instead of repining at my long and frequent confinement to the chamber or the couch, I secretly rejoiced in those infirmities, which delivered me from the exercises of the school, and the society of my equals. As often as I was tolerably exempt from danger and pain, reading, free desultory reading, was the employment and comfort of my solitary hours. At Westminster my aunt sought only to amuse and indulge me; in my stations at Bath and Winchester, at Buriton and Putney, a false compassion respected my sufferings; and I was allowed, without control or advice, to gratify the wanderings of an unripe taste. My indiscriminato appetite subsided by degrees in the historic line; and since philosophy has exploded

all innate ideas and natural propensities,* I must ascribe this choice to the assudious perusal of the Universal History, as the octavo volumes successively appeared. This unequal work, and a treatise of Hearne, the Ductus Historicus, referred and introduced me to the Greek and Roman historians; to as many at least as were accessible to an English Reader. All that I could find were greedily devoured, from Littlebury's lame Herodotus, and Spelman's valuable Xenophon, to the pompous folios of Gordon's Tacitus, and a ragged Procopius of the beginning of the last century. The cheap acquisition of so much knowledge confirmed my dislike to the study of languages; and I argued with Mrs. Porten, that, were I master of Greek and Latin, I must interpret to myself in English the thoughts of the original, and that such extempore versions must be inferior to the elaborate translations of professed scholars; a silly sophism, which could not easily be confuted by a person ignorant of any other language than her own. From the ancient I leapt to the modern world; many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c. I devoured like so many novels; and I swallowed with the same voracious appetite the descriptions of India and China, of Mexico and Peru.

"My first introduction to the historic scenes, which have since engaged so many years of my life, must be ascribed to an accident. In the summer of 1751, I accompanied my father on a visit to Mr. Hoare's, in Wiltshire; but I was less delighted with the beauties of Stourhead, than with discovering in the library a common book, the Continuation of Echard's Roman History, which is indeed executed with more skill and taste than the previous work. To me the reigns of the successors of Constantine were absolutely new; and I was immersed in the passage of the Goths over the Danube, when the summons of the dinner-bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast. This transient glance served rather to irritate than to appease my curiosity; and as soon as I returned to Bath, I procured the second and third volumes of Howel's History of the World, which exhibited the Byzantine period on a larger scale. Mahomet and his Saracens soon fixed my attention; and some instinct of criticism directed me to the genuine sources. Simon Ockley, an original in every sense, first opened my eyes; and I was led from one book to another, till I had ranged round the circle of Oriental history. Before I was sixteen, I had exhausted all that could be learned in English of the Arabs and Persians, the Tartars and Turks; and the same ardour urged me to guess at the French of d'Herbelot, and to construe the barbarous Latin of Pocock's Abulfaragius. Such vague and multifarious reading could not teach me to think, to write, or to act; and the only principle that darted a ray of light into the indigested chaos, was an early and rational application to the order of time and place. The maps of Cellarius and Wells imprinted in my mind the picture of ancient geography; from Stranchius I imbibed the elements of Chronology; the Tables of Helvicus and Anderson, tho Annals of Usher and Prideaux, distinguished the connection of events, and engraved the multitude of names and dates in a clear and indelible series. But, in the discussion of the first ages, I overleaped the bounds of modesty and use. In my childish balance I presumed to weigh the systems of Scaliger and Petavius, of Marsham and Newton, which I could seldom study in the originals; and my sleep has been disturbed by the difficulty of reconciling the septuagint with the Hebrew computation. I arrived at Oxford with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a school-boy would have been ashamed. To the university of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother."

At Magdalen College he remained fourteen months, and he states them to have been the most inactive and unprofitable he ever knew; yet was he not, in his sixteenth year, devoid of capacity, nor had he been unaccustomed to reflection; and he is therefore disposed, for this neglect, to impute a greater proportion of blame to the manner of the school, than the indifference of the scholar. His first tutor was Dr. Waldegrave, whom he describes as a learned and pious man, though possessing an indolent temper, and scarcely any knowledge of the world beyond the confines of the university. "As soon (he observes) as my tutor had sounded the insufficiency of his disciple in school-learning, he proposed that we should read every morning, from ten to eleven, the comedies of Terence. During the first weeks I constantly attended these lessons in my tutor's room; but as they appeared equally devoid of

* Locke's philosophy has exploded innate ideas; but who will believe that he was born without some natural propensities? Gibbon's taste for history might certainly be acquired; but had he no propensities that were engendered in his nature ?

profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence with less ceremony; the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence: the slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impediment; nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or neglect. Had the hour of lecture been constantly filled, a single hour was a small portion of my academic leisure. No plan of study was recommended for my use; no exercises were prescribed for his inspection; and, at the most precious season of youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse, without labour or amusement, without ad vice or account. I should have listened to the voice of reason, and of my tutor; his mild behaviour had gained my confidence.

The long recess between Trinity and Michaelmas terms afforded him an oppor tunity of visiting his father's house at Buriton in Hampshire, and he cheerfully em braced it. At this time his love of literature revived, and he determined to employ his talent at composition, so far as to form a book! The title was, The age of Sesostris; suggested, he conceived, by Voltaire's Age of Lewis XIV. which had obtained popularity. His chief aim in this undertaking was, to ascertain the probable period of the life and reign of the Asiatic conqueror, which he conjectured to have been about the tenth century before the Christian era. What credit might be due to the performance cannot now be decided: upon a review of it, some years afterward, he was himself so little satisfied with the subject, and the execution of it, that he com mitted it to the flames.

The vacation being over, he again returned to Oxford. Dr. Waldegrave had accepted a living at Washington in Sussex, and Gibbon was in consequence trans ferred to an academical successor, whose literary attainments failed to command the respect of the college. The same laxity of discipline, which had heretofore produced so many evils, still prevailed to a disgraceful extent: in the course of one winter he visited Bath, made a tour to Buckinghamshire, and took four excursions to London, "without once hearing the voice of admonition, without once feeling the hand of control." His natural taste for research and controversy prompted him to pursue with attention the works of Roman Catholic divines, and two productions, from the pen of Bossuet, were the instruments in converting him to the Popish faith. In the impetuosity of youthful ardour, and unbiassed by the considerations of a temporal nature, he resolved to make an open profession of his new religion; and, on coming to London, he was recommended to a priest, who, after ascertaining the motives of his change, readily admitted him into the pale of the Roman church. To his father he wrote an elaborate epistle, acquainting him with the particulars of this important event, and using every argument in his power to justify his conduct. The good sense of his father was astonished at a departure so sudden and extraordinary, and, in the first ebullition of anger, communicated what it would have been wisdom to conceal, and the gates of the college were for ever barred against the apostate's

return.

Anxious to prevent the new opinions taking too deep a root, and desirous of removing the impression they had already made, his father, after due consideration, formed the resolution of sending him to Lausanne, in Switzerland. On his arrival there, he was placed under the roof and tuition of M. Pavilliard, a minister of Calvinistic sentiments. The state of his mind, upon this occasion, is strongly mapicted by himself. "Fixed in my new habitation, I had leisure to contemplate the strange and melancholy prospect before me. My first complaint arose from my igno-ance of the language. În my childhood I had once studied the French Grammar, and 1 could imperfectly understand the easy prose of a familiar subject. But when I was thus suddenly cast on a foreign land, I found myself deprived of the use of speech and of hearing; and, during some weeks, incapable not only of enjoying the plea sures of conversation, but even of asking or answering a question in the common intercourse of life. To a home-bred Englishman, every object, every custom was offensive; but the native of any country might have been disgusted with the general aspect of his lodging and entertainment. I had now exchanged my elegant apart ment in Magdalen College, for a narrow gloomy street, the most unfrequented of an unhandsome town, for an old inconvenient house, and for a small chamber, ill con trived, and ill furnished, which, on the approach of winter, instead of a companionable fire, must be warmed by the dull invisible heat of a stove. From a man. I was again degraded to the dependence of a school-boy. M. Pavilliard managed my expenses, which had been reduced to a diminutive state. I received a small monthly

allowance for my pocket-money; and, helpless and awkward, as I had ever been, Į no longer enjoyed the indispensable comfort of a servant. My condition seemed as destitute of hope as it was devoid of pleasure. I was separated for an indefinite, which appeared an infinite term, from my native country, and I had lost all connection with my Catholic friends. I have since reflected with surprise, that as the Romish clergy of every part of Europe maintain a close correspondence with each other, they never attempted, by letters or messages, to rescue me from the hands of the heretics, or at least to confirm my zeal and constancy in the profession of the faith. Such was my first introduction to Lausanne; a place where I spent nearly five years with pleasure and profit, which I afterward revisited without compulsion, and which I have finally selected as the most grateful retreat for the decline of my life. But it is the peculiar felicity of youth, that the most unpleasing objects and events seldom make a deep and lasting impression; it forgets the past, enjoys the present, and anticipates the future."

The kind treatment received from M. Pavilliard reconciled Gibbon to his situation, and the prominent object of his journey was speedily accomplished. "The intermixture of sects (he says) has rendered the Swiss clergy acute and learned in the topics of controversy, and I have some of his (M. Pavilliard's) letters, in which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and my gradual concessions, after a firm and well-managed defence. I was willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share of the honour of my conversion; yet I must observe, that it was principally effected by my private reflections.-The various articles of the Romish creed disappeared like a dream; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne.

He now pursued his studies with the utmost avidity, and carefully perused nearly the complete circle of Latin classics, arranged under the four divisions of, 1. historians; 2. poets; 3. orators; and 4. philosophers, in a chronological series, from the days of Plautus and Sallust to the decline of the language and empire of Rome. Nor was this course of study merely superficial; many of the authors he read two and three times, always consulted the most learned or ingenious commentators, and, in the fervency of his inquiries, embraced a large compass of historical and critical erudition. Some acquaintance with Grecian literature he acquired, and bestowed much attention on the works of Grotius, Puffendorf, Locke, Crousaz, Montesquieu, and Pascal; he commenced also a correspondence with professor Breitinger, Crevier, and Gesner. After remaining at Lausanne three summers, he was permitted to make the tour of Switzerland, which he performed in a month, and derived much satisfaction from the journey. About this period the charms of Mademoiselle Curchod made a deep impression upon his mind. His own relation of this circumstance is as follows:

"I hesitate, from the apprehension of ridicule, when I approach the delicate subject of my early love. By this word I do not mean the polite attention, the gallantry, without hope or design, which has originated in the spirit of chivalry, and is interwoven with the texture of French manners. I understand by this passion, the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being. I need not blush at recollecting the object of my choice; and though my love was disappointed of success, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling such a pure and exalted sentiment. The personal attractions of Mademoiselle Curchod were embellished by the virtues and talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but the family was respectable. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred her religion to her country. The profession of her father did not extinguish the moderation and philosophy of his temper, and he lived content with a small salary and laborious duty, in the obscure lot of minister of Crassy, in the mountains that separate the Pays de Vaud from the country of Burgundy, In the solitude of a sequestered village, he bestowed a liberal, and even learned, education on his only daughter. She surpassed his hopes by her proficiency in the sciences and languages; and in her short visits to some relations at Lausanne, the wit, the beauty, and erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme of universal applause. The report of such a prodigy awakened my curiosity; 1 saw and loved. I found her learned without pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant in manners; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She permitted me to make her two or three visits at her father's house, I passed some happy days there

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