THE ENGLISH REVIEW, For AUGUST 1796. ART. I. Mifcellaneous Works of Mr. Gibbon, and Memoirs of his Life and Writings, by himself. MR. [Concluded from our laft Number. ] R. Gibbon, from April 1764 to May 1765, travelled in Italy. Of this tour he gives a rapid narrative. Content with tracing his line of march, and flightly touching on his perfonal feelings, he waves all minute investigation of scenes that have been viewed by thoufands, and defcribed by hundreds, of our modern travellers. The great object, he obferves, of all pilgrims to Italy, is, ROME. He divides his narrative therefore, 1ft, into his journey thither; 2d, his refidence there; 3d, his return. • After leaving Florence, I compared the folitude of Pisa with the induftry of Lucca and Leghorn *, and continued my journey through Sienna to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. My temper is not very fufceptible of enthufiafm; and the enthufiafm This mode of expreffion occurs frequently throughout the whole of Mr. Gibbon's writings, and always with a happy effect. There is in it an elegant brevity. There is no occafion to mention that he came, at fuch and fuch a time, by fuch or fuch a road, after dining or fleeping at fuch and fuch an inn, to thofe places. That he came to them fomehow is understood. His only object, in his rapid narrative, is, to fet off their most prominent features in the light of contrafl. ING. REV. VOL. XXVIII. AUG. 1796. H which which I do not feel, I have ever fcorned to affect. But, at the diftance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal city. After a fleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum, each memorable spot where Romulus ftood, or Tully spoke, or Cæfar fell, was, at once prefent to my eye; and feveral days of intoxication were loft or enjoyed before I could defcend to a cool or minute inveftigation. My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience and tafte; but, in the daily labour of eighteen weeks, the powers of attention were fometimes fatigued, till I was myself qualified, in a last review, to select and study the capital works of ancient and modern art *. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of Naples, the most populous of cities, relative to its fize, whofe luxurious inhabitants feem to dwell on the confines of paradife and hell fire. I was prefented to the boy-king by our envoy, Sir William Hamilton; who, wifely diverting his correfpondence from the Secretary of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has elucidated a country of fuch inestimable value to the naturalift and antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome; but I departed without kiffing the feet of Rezzanico (Clement XIII.), who neither poffeffed the wit of his predeceffor, Lambertini, nor the virtues of his fucceffor, Ganganelli. In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto, I again croffed the Appenine; from the coaft of the Adriatic I traversed a fruitful and populous country, which could alone difprove the paradox of Montefquieu, that modern Italy is a defert. Without adopting the exclufive prejudice of the natives, I fincerely admire the paintings of the Bologna fchool. I haftened to efcape from the fad folitude of Ferrara †, which, in the age of Cæfar, was ftill more defolate. The spectacle of Venice afforded fome hours of aftonishment; the university of Padua is a dying taper; but Verona ftill boafts her amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned by the claffic architecture of Palladio. The road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montefquieu find them without inhabitants?) led me back to Milan, Turin, and the paffage of Mount Cenis, where I again croffed the Alps in my way to Lyons.' How much would Mr. Gibbon, were he alive, deplore the prefent ravages of the French in Italy! Roman ftatues, fculptures, and other remains, cannot excite the fame enthufiafm, the fame warm affociations of ideas, at Paris, as they infpire at Rome. Like rofes and other flowers, plucked from the tree, they will lofe much of their fcent and flavour. + Here, and throughout this mixture of narration and defcription, we have every where inftances of that elegant brevity already noticed. It recalls to mind the narrative defcriptions in Homer and Virgil. Rome Rome and Italy had now fatiated our author's curious appeite, and he returned to the peaceful retreat of his family and Dooks, June 1765-His father's death happened in 1770. We have an account of his ftudies and publications during the five years and an half that fill up the period between thefe dates.As foon as he had paid the last folemn duties to his father, and obtained, from time and reafon, a tolerable compofure of mind, he began to form the plan of an independent life, moft adapted to his circumstances and inclinations. Yet, fo intricate was the net, and his efforts fo awkward and feeble, that nearly two. years (November 1770-October 1772) were fuffered to elapfe before he could difentangle himself from the management of the farm, and transfer his refidence from Beriton to a house in London. During this interval he continued to divide his year between the town and the country: I had now attained the first of earthly bleffings, independence: I was the abfolute mafter of my hours and actions; nor was I deceived in the hope, that the establishment of my library in town would allow me to divide the day between ftudy and fociety. Each year, the circle of my acquaintance, the number of my dead and living companions was enlarged. To a lover of books, the fhops and fales of London prefented irresistible temptations; and the manufacture of my hiftory required a various and growing stock of materials. The militia, my travels, the Houfe of Commons, the fame of an author, contributed to multiply my connexions. I was chofen a member of the fashionable clubs; and, before I left England in the year 1783, there were few perfons of any eminence in the literary or political world to whom I was a ftranger.-No fooner was I fettled in my house and library, than I undertook the compofition of the first volume of my Hiftory. At the outfet all was dark and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, the limits of the introduction, the divifions of the chapters, and the order of the narrative; and I was often tempted to caft away the labour of feven years. The ftyle of an author fhould be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation *.' Our author, by the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married his first coufin, was returned, at the general election, for the borough of Liefkeard: I took my feat at the beginning of the memorable contest between Great Britain and America, and fupported, with many a In the opinion of moft readers he has rather paffed the line, and leaned towards the latter. fincere and filent vote, the rights, though not, perhaps, the intereft of the mother country. After a fleeting, illufive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiefce in the humble ftation of a mute. I was not armed by nature and education with the intrepid energy of mind and voice, Vincentem ftrepitus, et natum rebus agendis. Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the fuccefs of my pen difcouraged the trial of my voice. But I affifted at the debates of a free affembly; I listened to the attack and defence of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the characters, views, and paffions, of the first men of the age. The caufe of government was ably vindicated by Lord North, a ftatefman of fpotlefs integrity, a confummate master of debate, who could wield, with equal dexterity, the arms of reafon and of ridicule. He was feated on the Treasury bench between his attorney and folicitor general, the two pillars of the law and fate, magis pares quam fimiles; and the minifter might indulge in a fhort flumber, whilst he was upholden on either hand by the majestic fenfe of Thurlow, and the skilful eloquence of Wedderburne. From the adverfe fide of the house, an ardent and powerful oppofition was fupported by the lively declamation of Barré, the legal acuteness of Dunning, the profufe and philofophic fancy of Burke, and the argumentative vehemence of Mr. Fox, who, in the conduct of a party, approved himself equal to the conduct of an empire. By fuch men every operation of peace and war, every principle of justice or policy, every queftion of authority and freedom, was attacked and defended; and the fubject of the momentous conteft was, the union or feparation of Great Britain and America. The eight feffions that I fat in parliament were a fchool of civil prudence, the first and moft effential virtue of an hiftorian.' Mr. Gibbon, having given an account of the first conception, progress, and termination, of his great work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, takes notice of two facts which have feldom occurred in the compofition of fix, or at least five quartos: 1. My rough manufcript, without any intermediate copy, has been fent to the prefs. 2. Not a fheet has been feen by any human eye, excepting thofe of the author and the printer: the faults and the merits are exclufively my own.I cannot help recollecting a much more extraordinary fact, which is affirmed of himself by Relif de la Bretorme, a voluminous and original writer of French novels. He laboured, · and may fill labour, in the humble office of corrector to a printing-house: but this office enabled him to transport an Lord North frequently fell asleep on the Treafury bench; and fometimes even in the midst of long invectives by Mr. Burke, Mr.' Temple Lutterel, and others, against him, • entire entire volume from his mind to the prefs; and his work was given to the public without ever having been written by a pen.". The Memoirs of Mr. Gibbon by himfelf conclude with the following paragraph: The prefent is a fleeting moment, the aft is no more; and our profpect of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may poffibly be my laft; but the laws of probabil, fo true in general, fo fallacious in particular, ftill allow about fifteen years. I fhall foon enter into the period which, as the noft agreeable of his long life, was felected by the judgment and experience of the fage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the eloquent hiftorian of nature (Buffon), who fixes our moral happiness to the mature season in which our paffions are fuppofed to be calmed, our duties fulfilled, our fame and fortune eftablished on a folid bafis. In 'private converfation, that great and amiable man added the weight of his own experience; and this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far more inclined to embrace than difpute this comfortable doctrine. I will not fup-: pofe any premature decay of the mind or body; but i muft. reluctantly obferve, that two caufes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner 'fhade the evening of life.' When our editor, Lord Sheffield, firft undertook to prepare Mr. Gibbon's Memoirs for the prefs, he fuppofed that it would be neceffary to introduce fome continuation of them from the time when they cease, namely, foon after his return to Switzerland in the year 1788; but the examination of his correfpondence with himself fuggefted that the best continuation would be, the publication of his letters from that time to his death. These are published accordingly, and, together with letters to and from various other perfons, form about three fourths of Volume I. The letters to Lord Sheffield, which relate chiefly to Mr, Gibbon's own private affairs, and of which his Lordship feems to have taken charge, fill about an hundred and fifty pages: thofe to and from other perfons, about three hundred and fifty. A great proportion of these letters are written to obfcure perfons, with whom, however, Mr. Gibbon was naturally concerned, either on the score of business, or that of confanguinity and friendship: but there are alfo not a few addreffed to characters of eminence in the political as well as literary world. And, however humble the fubject or the addrefs of the letters, we are pleased, on the whole, with the display they contain of the mind and character of fo juftly celebrated an author. Among the letters written by other perfons to Mr. H 3 |