became intimately acquainted with Diderot, D'Alembert, Barthelemy, Arnaud, Raynal, Helvetius, and several other eminent persons. To Mrs. Gibbon he writes:-" Paris, in most respects, has fully answered my expectations. I have a number of very good acquaintance, which increase every day; for nothing is so easy as the making them here. Instead of complaining of the want of them, I begin already to think of making a choice. Next Sunday, for instance, I have only three invitations to dinner. Either in the houses you are already acquainted, you meet with people who ask you to come and see them, or some of your friends offer themselves to introduce you. When I speak of these connexions, I mean chiefly for dinner and the evening. Suppers as yet I am pretty much a stranger to, and I fancy shall continue so; for Paris is divided into two species, who have but little communication with each other. The one, who is chiefly connected with the men of letters, dine very much at home, are glad to see their friends, and pass the evenings till about nine in agreeable and rational conversation. The others are the most fashionable, sup in numerous parties, and always play, or rather game, both before and after supper. You may easily guess which sort suits me best. Indeed, madam, we may say what we please of the frivolity of the French, but I do assure you, that in a fortnight passed at Paris, I have heard more conversation worth remembering, and seen more men of letters among the people of fashion, than I had done in two or three winters in London. Amongst my acquaintance, I cannot help mentioning M. Helvetius, the author of the famous book de l'Esprit. I met him at dinner at madame Geoffrin's, where he took great notice of me, made me a visit next day, has ever since treated me, not in a polite, but in a friendly manner."-Pursuing the subject in a letter to his father, he says: "The buildings of every kind, the libraries, the public diversions, take up a great part of my time; and I have already found several houses where it is both very easy and very agreeable to be acquainted. Lady Hervey's recommendation to madame Geoffrin was a most excellent one. Her house is a very good one; regular dinners there every Wednesday, and the best company of Paris, in men of letters and people of fashion. It was at her house I connected myself with M. Helvetius, who, from his heart, his hand, and his fortune, is a most

valuable man. At his house I was introduced to the baron d'Olbach, who is a man of parts and fortune, and has two dinners every week. The other houses I am known in are the duchess d'Aiguillon's, madame la comtesse de Froulay's, madame du Bocage, madame Boyer, M. le marquis de Mirabeau, and M. de Foucemagn. All these people have their different merit: in some I met with good dinners; in others, societies for the evening; and in all, good sense, entertainment, and civility, which, as I have no favours to ask, or business to transact with them, is sufficient for me. Their men of letters are as affable and communicative as I expected. My letters to them did me no harm, but were very little necessary. My book had been of great service to me, and the compliments I have received upon it would make me insufferably vain, if I laid any stress on them. When I take notice of the civilities I have received, I must take notice too of what I have seen of a contrary behaviour. You know how much I always built upon the count de Caylus: he has not been of the least use to me. With great difficulty I have seen him, and that is all."

After staying fourteen weeks in Paris he again visited Lausanne, a place which excited many delightful recollections. "An absence of five years (he tells us) had not made much alteration in manners, or even in persons. My old friends, of both sexes, hailed my voluntary return-the most genuine proof of my attachment. They had been flattered by the present of my book, the produce of their soil; and the good Pavilliard shed tears of joy, as he embraced a pupil, whose literary merit he might fairly impute to his own labours." He staid at Lausanne nearly eleven months; in the course of which time he became acquainted with Mr. Holroyd (the late lord Sheffield), of whom he speaks in the most affectionate terms.

In April 1764, he undertook the tour of Italy, having previously studied the geography of ancient Rome and the science of medals. The excessive heat obliged him to continue a few weeks at Florence, and he did not reach home till the beginning of October. "My temper (he says) is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect: but, at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first ap

proached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Cæsar fell, was at once present to my eye, and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation." In another place he remarks, "It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." After devoting six weeks to the tour of Naples, he returned to his own country: the succeeding five years and a half afforded him scarcely any pleasure. The military profession he sustained, necessarily involved him in engagements altogether uncongenial to his character: every spring he attended the monthly meeting and exercise of the militia at Southampton; but at each visit he was more disgusted with the inn, the company, and the wine. While others were rapidly advancing in the various paths which lead to fame and fortune, he appeared to himself to stand alone, without the probability of a change of condition; and this desponding view led him to deplore his neglecting to embrace, at an early age, the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, or even the sacred function of the church. The friendship and society of Mr. Deyverdun (a native of Switzerland) frequently proved, under these mental anxieties, a seasonable relief-with him his future projects were usually discussed." The decline and fall of Rome (says Gibbon) I still cultivated at an awful distance; but the two historical designs, which had balanced my choice, were submitted to his taste; and, in the parallel between the revolutions of Florence and Switzerland, our common partiality for a country, which was his by birth, and mine by adoption, inclined the scale in favour of the latter." A plan was accordingly conceived and digested, and in a short time the first book was completed, and submitted to the examination of a society of foreigners in London: their decision was unfavourable to his hopes, and he relinquished the work. In conjunction with Mr. Deyverdun, he undertook a journal in imitation of the Journal Britannique, by Dr. Maty, and entitled it, Memoires Literaires de la Grand Bretagne: only two volumes were published; the third was nearly com

pleted when his friend and coadjutor was appointed to officiate as travelling governor to sir Richard Worsley, and the speculation ceased.

He next began a controversy with Dr. Warburton, who, in his Divine Legation of Moses, had supported the hypothesis, that the descent of Æneas to hell is not a false but a mimic scene, which represents his initiation as a lawgiver, to the Eleusinian mysteries. The opposition of Gibbon was evidently successful: still he candidly declared, he thought he acted a cowardly part in concealing his name and character. This criticism on Warburton, and some articles in the Journal, were his sole publications during the fifteen years (17611776) which followed his Essay on the Study of Literature.

In November 1770, his father died: the event was sincerely deplored, though it removed those unpleasant forebodings which so harassed him at a former period. He became possessed of an ample and independent fortune; and his mind being perfectly at ease, he judged it the favourable era for commencing the great work, which had long employed his head, and interested his heart, and for which an extensive course of preparatory study had fully qualified him. "The classics (he observes) as low as Tacitus, the younger Pliny, and Juvenal, were my old and familiar companions. I insensibly plunged into the ocean of the Augustan History; and in the descending series I investigated, with my pen always in my hand, the original records, both Greek and Latin, from Dion Cassius to Ammianus Marcellinus, from the reign of Trajan to the last age of the Western Cæsars. The subsidiary rays of medals and inscriptions, of geography and chronology, were thrown on their proper objects; and I plied the collections of Tillemont, whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius, to fix and arrange within my reach the loose and scattered atoms of historical information. Through the darkness of the middle ages I explored my way in the annals and antiquities of Italy of the learned Muratori; and diligently compared them with the parallel or transverse lines of Sigonius and Maffei, Baronius and Pagi, till I almost grasped the ruins of Rome in the fourteenth century, without suspecting that this final. chapter must be attained by the labour of six quartos, and twenty years. Among the books which I perused, the Theodosian Code, with the commentary of James Godefroy, must

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be gratefully remembered. I used it (and much I used it) as a work of history, rather than of jurisprudence; but in every light it may be considered as a full and capacious repository. of the political state of the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. As 1 believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the gospel, and the triumph of the church, are inseparably connected with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes and effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and apologies of the Christians themselves, with the glances of candour or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising sects. The Jewish and heathen testimonies, as they are collected and illustrated by Dr. Lardner, directed, without superseding, my search of the originals; and in an ample dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the passion, I privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age. I have assembled the preparatory studies, directly or indirectly, relative to my history; but, in strict equity, they must be spread beyond this period of my life, over the two summers (1771 and 1772) that elapsed between my father's death and my settlement in London."

By the interest of a friend he held a seat in parliament as the representative of the borough of Leskerd; this was not permitted to check the progress of his History. In February 1776, he published the first volume, and such was the reception it met with, that the impression was disposed of in a few days: a second and a third edition barely satisfied the demand, and the property of the bookseller was invaded by the pirates of Dublin. His book was almost on every table and toilette, and the historian was extolled by the reigning taste or fashion of the day. But gratifying as this general approbation might be, the flattering testimonies of eminent contemporaries produced a stronger and more lasting satisfaction. Mr. Hume writes thus: "As I ran through your volume of History with great avidity and impatience, I cannot forbear discovering somewhat of the same impatience in returning you thanks for your agreeable present, and expressing the satisfaction which the performance has given me. Whether I consider the dignity of your style, the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness of your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object of esteem; and I own, that if I had not previously had the happiness of your per