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figure; but we know little of the man who dwelt within the gorgeous wrappings. Of the many-hued life the people lived, we hear next to nothing.”* But in spite of bis defects, Robertson's name will always hold an honorable place among the historians of England.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) was the greatest historical writer of this group. He was born at Putney, near London, and was the grandson of a merchant of large fortune. As his health was delicate, his early education was neglected; but he acquired an insatiable appetite for reading, especially for historical literature. When he had been at the University of Oxford a little more than a year, he embraced the Roman Catholic faith. For this act he was taken from the University and was sent to Lausanne, where he was placed under the care of an eminent Swiss theologian. He subsequently re-entered the Protestant Church; but it is probable that this change of faith was only a matter of form about which he was merely indifferent. In Switzerland he commenced that course of systematic study which gradually filled his mind with stores of sacred and profane learning; and there too he acquired a strong sympathy with French modes of thought. Indeed, the first-fruits of his pen actually appeared in French, an essay on the Study of Literature. Between 1763 and 1765 he travelled over France, Switzerland, and Italy. His own words must be used in describing an incident which occurred in 1764. "As I sat musing amidst the ruin of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to my mind." +

Returning to England in 1765 he passed several years in comparative leisure, before setting himself strenuously at work on the composition of his history. The first volume appeared in 1776, re

ceiving the applause of the learned, and the favor of the 1776] masses of readers. Meanwhile Gibbon had taken a seat in Parliament and was interested in the political questions of the day. His support was given to Lord North throughout the period of our Revolutionary War. In 1781 the second and third volumes of his history were published. He then retired from the

service of the governinent, sought his old retreat at Lausanne, and

* Collier.

+ Memoirs, p. 198

for four years devoted himself to the completion of his work. He thus describes the hour and the scene when the task was ended: "It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and and agreeable companion; and that, whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious." He died in London in 1794.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (206–209) is one of the greatest monuments of human industry and skill. It begins with the reign of Trajan, A. D. 98, and closes with the fall of the Eastern Empire in 1452. These thirteen and a half centuries include not only the slow decline of the Roman Empire, but also the irruption of the barbarians, the establishment of the Byzantine power, the re-organization of the European nations, the foundation of the religious and political system of Mohammedanism, and the Crusades. The materials for much of the structure had to be patiently gathered from the rubbish of the Byzantine annalists, and from the wild stories of the eastern chroniclers. To create light and order out of this chaos, the historian had to make himself familiar with the whole range of philosophy, religion, science, jurisprudence and war, as they contribute to the civilization of the nations and ages described by him. And when all this work was done, he had to set it forth in an attractive mauner. For the influences exerted by the literature and civilizations of Greece and Rome, he had a masterly appreciation; but he is not mindful of the important part acted by the Teutonic races in contributing to the results of modern history, and is boldly sceptical concerning the power and purity of Christianity. He has been regarded as one of the most dangerous enemies by whom the Christian faith has been assailed. Valiant men have taken up weapons against him, and, in some instances, have

been betrayed by their zeal into an unfair warfare upon him. The accusation of having intentionally distorted facts, or of garbling authorities, he has refuted in the Vindication in which he replied to his opponents; and the deliberate opinion of Guizot, whom no one can accuse of indifference to religion, will be conclusive as to Gibbon's merit on this point.

His style is elaborate and sonorous. There is a stately tread in his sentences. They lack simplicity; they abound in epigram and antithesis, and have a displeasing preponderance of the Latin over the Saxon element in their diction. He describes scenery and manners with the accuracy and vividness of an eye-witness. His clief fault is found in the fact that his imagination was sensuous, and led him to dwell upon material grandeur with a fonder enthusiasm than he could feel for moral elevation.

CHAPTER XXII.

OF THE

CENTURY.

ETHICAL, POLITICAL, AND THEOLOGICAL WRITERS
LATTER HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH

SAMUEL JOHNSON.

"A mass of genuine manhood."-Thomas Carlyle.

"Johnson, to be sure, has a rough manner; but no man alive has a better beart. He has nothing of the bear but the skin."- Oliver Goldsmith.

"Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared to him. You may be diverted by them; but Johnson gives you a forcible hug and squeezes laughter out of you, whether you will or no."-David Garrick.

"He was distinguished by vigorous understanding and inflexible integrity. His imagination was not more lively than was necessary to illustrate his maxims; his attainments in science were inconsiderable, and in learning far from the first-class; they chiefly consisted in that sort of knowledge which a powerful mind collects from miscellaneous reading and various intercourse with mankind."-Sir James Mackintosh.

"If it be asked, who first, in England, at this period, breasted the waves and stemmed the tide of infidelity,-who, enlisting wit and eloquence, together with argument and learning on the side of revealed religion, first turned the literary current in its favor, and mainly prepared the reaction which succeeded-that praise seems most justly to belong to Dr. Samuel Johnson."-Lord Mahon: History of England.

"The club-room is before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live forever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerc and the beaming smile of Garrick; Gibbon, tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the gigantic body, the huge massy face seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see the heavy form rolling, we hear it puffing; and then comes the Why, sir!' and the 'What then, sir?' and the 'No, sir!' and the 'You don't see your way through the question, sir!'"-T. B. Macaulay.

W

HILE the novelists and historians whose works we

have been considering were busy with their pens,

other writers of prose were making valuable contributions to letters in the department of ethics, politics, and theology. The central figure of the literary men of the period is Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). He was the son of a poor bookseller in Lichfield. From his childhood he had to struggle against disease, and melancholy, and an indolent disposition. In 1728 he was sent to Oxford. There he remained three years, until his dying father had become unable to help him. Leaving the University without his degree, he attempted to support himself by teaching; but he was unsuccessful, and turned his attention to literary work. He was already married to a lady old enough to be his mother. Without fortune and without friends he settled in London in 1737, beginning his thirty years' struggle with labor and want.* The profession he had chosen was then at its lowest ebb, and he was compelled to do its humblest work. He was a bookseller's hack, a mere literary drudge. Poverty attended him. Once, in a note to his employer, he subscribed himself, "Yours, impransus, S. Johnson." He wrote for various publications, and particularly for the Gentleman's Magazine, furnishing criticism, prefaces and translations. In 1738 he made a good name among the booksellers by the sale of his London (215), an admirable paraphrase of the third satire of Juvenal. In 1744 he published A Life of Savage, that unhappy poet whose career was so extraordinary, and whose vices were not less striking than his talents. Johnson had known him well, and they had often wandered supperless and homeless about the streets at midnight. Indeed, no literary life was ever a more correct exemplification than his own of the truth of his majestic line:

"Slow rises worth by poverty depressed."

* David Garrick, a young man who had been one of his pupils, accompanied Johnson to London, intending to study law at Lincoln's Inn; but the stage attracted him away from the bar, and he soon began his famous career as an

actor.

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