No More Learning

Though what Gibbon calls the curiosity of the public' may
have exhausted itself long since, the candid judgment of many
generations and of almost every class of readers has confirmed the
opinion formed at once by Gibbon's own age. His great work
remains an enduring monument of research, an imperishable
literary possession and one of the highest encouragements to
intellectual endeavour that can be found in the history of
letters.
The facts of Gibbon's life in themselves neither numerous
nor startling—are related by him in an autobiography which,
i Decline and Fall, chap. LII.
2 Cf. Memoirs, p. 225.


## p. 299 (#325) ############################################

Gibbon's Autobiography
299
by general consent, has established itself as one of the most
fascinating books of its class in English literature. This is the
more remarkable, since the Memoirs of My Life and Writings,
as they were first printed by Gibbon's intimate friend the first
earl of Sheffield (John Baker Holroyd), who made no pretence
of concealing his editorial method, were a cento put together out
of six, or, strictly speaking, seven, more or less fragmentary
sketches written at different times by the author! Lord Sheffield
was aided in his task (to what extent has been disputed) by
his daughter Maria Josepha (afterwards Lady Stanley of Alderley),
described by Gibbon himself as 'a most extraordinary young
woman,' and certainly one of the brightest that ever put pen
to paper. The material on which they worked was excellent in
its way, and their treatment of it extraordinarily skilful ; so that
a third member of this delightful family, Lord Sheffield's sister
Serena,' expressed the opinion of many generations of readers
in writing of the Memoirs : "They make me feel affectionate to
Mr Gibbon? ' The charm of Gibbon's manner as an autobiographer
and, in a lesser degree, as a letter-writer, lies not only in his
inexhaustible vivacity of mind, but, above all, in his gift of self-
revelation, which is not obscured for long either by over-elaboration
of style or by affectation of chic (such as his more than filial
effusions to his stepmother or his facetious epistles to his friend
Holroyd occasionally display). Out of all this wealth of matter, ,
we must content ourselves here with abstracting only a few
necessary data
Edward Gibbon, born at Putney-on-Thames on 27 April 1737,
came of a family of ancient descents, tory principles and ample
income. His grandfather, a city merchant, had seen his wealth
.
engulfed in the South Sea abyss—it was only very wise great men,
like Sir Robert Walpole, or very cautious small men, like Pope,
1 For details, see bibliography. Frederic Harrison, in Proceedings of the Gibbon
Commemoration (1895), describes the whole as '& pot-pourri concocted out of the MS
with great skill and tact, but with the most daring freedom. ' He calculates that
possibly one-third of the MS was not printed at all by Lord Sheffield. The whole
series of autobiographical sketches are now in print. Rowland Prothero, in a note in
his edition of Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753—94)—the edition cited through-
out this chapter as Letters-vol. I, p. 155, shows, by the example of a letter
(no. XXXIII) patched together by Lord Sheffield out of five extending over a period of
six months, that he applied the same method to the Letters published by him in 1814.
· The Girlhood of Maria Josepha Holroyd, ed. Adeane, Jane, p. 372.
* The Gibbons were connected, among others, with the Actons, and Edward
Gibbon, the historian's father, was a kinsman of the great-grandfather of the late
Lord Acton.


## p. 300 (#326) ############################################

300
Historians
who knew when to withdraw from the brink ; but he had realised
a second fortune, which he left to a son who, in due course,
became a tory member of parliament and a London alderman.
Edward, a weakly child—so weakly that 'in the baptism of each
of my brothers my father's prudence successively repeated my
Christian name. . . that, in case of the departure of the eldest son,
this patronymic appellation might still be perpetuated in the
family! ,' was, after two years at a preparatory school at Kingston-
upon-Thames, sent to the most famous seminary of the day,
Westminster school. But, though he lodged in College street
at the boarding-house of his favourite 'Aunt Kitty' (Catherine
Porten), the school, as readers of Cowper do not need to be
reminded, was ill-suited to so tender a nursling; and Gibbon
remained a stranger to its studies almost as much as to its
recreations. More than this—he tells us, in words that have been
frequently quoted, how he is
tempted to enter a protest against the trite and lavish praise of the happiness
of our boyish years, which is echoed with so much affectation in the world.
That happiness I have never known, that time I have never regretted 2.
Yet, even his boyhood had its enjoyments, and the best of these
was, also, the most enduring. His reading, though private, was
carried on with enthusiasm, and, before he was sixteen, he had,
in something more than outline, covered at least a large part
of the ground which he afterwards surveyed in The Decline and
Falls. Before, however, his boyhood was really over, his studies
were suddenly arrested by his entry, as a gentleman-commoner, at
Magdalen college, Oxford, on 3 April 1752. No passage of his
Memoirs has been more frequently quoted than his account of
his Alma Mater, whom, if not actually 'dissolved in port,' he
found content with the leavings of an obsolete system of studies,
varied by prolonged convivialities, tinged, in their turn, by way
of sentiment, with a futile Jacobitism“. The authorities of his
college made no pretence of making up by religious training for
the neglect of scholarship. He was, he says, forced by the 'in-
credible neglect' of his tutors to 'grope his way for himself';
and the immediate result was that, on 8 June 1753, he was
1 As a matter of fact, all his five brothers died in infancy.
? Memoirs, p. 216.
8 Morison, J. C. , Gibbon (English Men of Letters), pp. 4–5.
• For comparison pictures of the intellectual barrenness of Oxford in the period
1761–92, see Memoirs, appendix 15, where Sir James Stephen's account of Cambridge
in 1812-16 is also cited.


## p. 301 (#327) ############################################

Gibbon's Conversions
301
received into the church of Rome by a Jesuit named Baker, one
of the chaplains to the Sardinian legation, and that, in the same
month, his connection with Oxford came to an abrupt close. He
had, at that time, barely completed his sixteenth year; but he
tells us that, 'from his childhood, he had been fond of religious
disputation. '
No sooner had Gibbon left Oxford than his taste for study
returned, and he essayed original composition in an essay on
the chronology of the age of Sesostris. But the situation had
another side for a 'practical' man like the elder Gibbon, who
might well view with alarm the worldly consequences entailed,
at that time, by conversion to Roman catholicism. He seems
to have tried the effect upon his son of the society of David
Mallet, a second-rate writer patronised in turn by Pope, Bolingbroke
and Hume. But Mallet's philosophy (rather scandalised than
reclaimed 'the convert, and threats availed as little as arguments.
For, as he confesses, in his inimitable way, he cherished a secret
hope that his father would not be able or willing to effect his
menaces,' while 'the pride of conscience' encouraged the youth
'to sustain the honourable and important part which he was now
acting. Accordingly, change of scene (and of environment) was
resolved upon as the only remedy left. In June 1753, he was
sent by his father to Lausanne, where he was settled under the
roof and tuition of a Calvinist minister named Pavillard, who
afterwards described to Lord Sheffield the astonishment with
which he gazed on Mr Gibbon standing before him: a thin little
figure’(time was to render the first epithet inappropriate), 'with
a large head, disputing and urging, with the greatest ability, all
the best arguments that had ever been used in favour of
Popery? '
To Lausanne, Gibbon became so attached that, after he had
returned thither in the days of his maturity and established
reputation, it became, in Byron's words? one of
the abodes
Of names which unto (them) bequeath'd a name.
His Swiss tutor's treatment of him was both kindly and discreet,
and, without grave difficulty, weaned the young man's mind
from the form of faith to which he had tendered his allegiance.
· Letters, vol. I, p. 2, note.
2 Childe Harold, canto III, st. 105. For an account of Lausanne and the Gibbon
relics there and elsewhere, see Read, Meredith, Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne and
Savoy, 2 vols. 1897 : vol. 11 in especial.


## p. 302 (#328) ############################################

302
Historians
In matters spiritual, Gibbon inclined rather to frivolity than to
deliberate change; nor was this the only illustration of a dis-
position of mind 'clear' as the air and 'light' like the soil of
Attica, and one in which some of the highest and of the deepest
feelings alike failed to take root. It is, at the same time, absurd
to waste indignation (as, for instance, Schlosser has done) upon his
abandonment of an early engagement to a lady of great beauty
and charm, Suzanne Curchod, who afterwards became the wife
of the celebrated Necker. The real cause of the rupture was the
veto of his father, upon whom he was wholly dependent, and whose
decision neither of the lovers could ignore'.
Gibbon did not leave Lausanne till April 1758. During his
five years' sojourn there, his life had been the very reverse of that
of a recluse-a character to which, indeed, he never made any
pretension. As yet, he had not reached his intellectual manhood;
nor is it easy to decide in what degree a steadfast ambition had
already taken possession of him. Though his reading was various,
it was neither purposeless nor unsystematic. He brought home
with him, as the fruit of his studies, a work which was in every
sense that of a beginner, but, at the same time, not ill calculated
to attract the public. Before sending it to the printer, however,
he cheerfully took the experienced advice of Paul Maty, editor
of The New Review, and entirely recast it. The very circumstance
that Gibbon's Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature, published in
1761, was written in French shows under what influences it had
been composed and to what kind of readers it was primarily
addressed. Its purpose is one more defence of classical literature
and history, the study of which was then out of fashion in France;
but, though the idea is good, the style lacks naturalness-a defect
due to the youthfulness of the writer far more than to the fact
of his having written his treatise in a foreign tongue; for he
had already acquired a mastery over French which he retained
through life.
Before, however, he had entered the lists as an English author,
he had passed through a different, but by no means barren,
experience of life. A few days before the publication of his essay,
1 A full account of their relations from first to last, characteristic of both the man
and the age, will be found in an editorial note to Letters, vol. I, p. 40, and cf. ibid.
vol. I, p. 81, note, as to the last phase. ' In June 1794, Maria Josepha wrote: 'I
thought I had told you that Madame Necker had the satisfaction of going out of the
world with the knowledge of being Mr Gibbon's First and only love' (Girlhood,
p. 288). The passage in the Memoirs referring to Gibbon's renunciation of his
engagement, was, as F. Harrison shows, unscrupulously recast by Lord Sheffield.


## p. 303 (#329) ############################################

Hesitation between Historic Subjects
Subjects 303
he joined the Hampshire militia, in which, for two years, he held
in succession the rank of captain, major and colonel, and became,
practically, the commander of a smart 'independent corps of
476 officers and men,' whose encampment on Winchester downs,
on one occasion, at least, lasted four months, so that for twice that
period he never took a book into his hands. His predilection for
military history and the accounts of marches and campaigns was
of old standing, and afterwards reflected itself in many passages of
his historical masterpiece.
There cannot be any reason for doubting his statement that,
during all this time, he was looking to the future rather than to the
present, and that the conviction was gaining upon him of the time
having arrived for beginning his proper career in life. It was
in the direction of history that Gibbon's reading had lain almost
since he had been able to read at all; and, by 1760 or thereabouts,
Hume and Robertson were already before the world as historical
writers who commanded its applause, and the reproach of having
failed to reach the level of Italian and French achievement in this
branch of literature could no longer be held to rest upon English
writers. Gibbon, as a matter of course, was familiar with the
chief historical productions of Voltaire, and, during his visit to
Paris, in 1763, became personally acquainted with more than one
French historian of note. Thus, he could not fail to agree with
Hume that 'this was the historical age? ' But, though he had no
doubt as to the field of literature in which it behoved him to
engage, he hesitated for some time with regard to the particular
historical subject upon which he should fix his choice. Charles
VIII's Italian expedition (which subject he rejected for the good
reason that it was rather the introduction to great events than
important in itself), the English barons' war, a Plutarchian
parallel between Henry V and Titus and the biographies of more
than one British worthy—that of Sir Walter Ralegh in especial-
attracted him in turn. Gradually, he arrived at the conclusion
that the theme chosen by him must not be narrow, and must not
be English. The history of Swiss liberty, and that of Florence
under the Medici, hereupon, for a time, busied his imagination-
the former, he afterwards actually began, in French, but abandoned
after, in 1767-8, the first book of it had been read to 'a literary
society of foreigners in London,' and unfavourably received by
-
1
Memoirs, pp. 135 ff. , of. appendix 24.
9 Letters of Hume to Strachan, p. 155, cited ibid. appendix 21.


## p. 304 (#330) ############################################

304
Historians
them! But if, like Milton, he was embarrassed by the wealth of
themes which presented themselves to his literary imagination,
he ended, again like Milton, by choosing what, in its development,
proved the grandest and noblest of them all.
Soon after the disbandment of the militia on the close of the
war in 1763, he paid a long visit to the continent, spending some
time in Paris and then in Lausanne, where, during the better part
of a year, he prepared himself for a sojourn in Italy by a severe
course of archaeological study? He crossed the Italian frontier
in April 1764, and reached Rome in October. Here, on the 15th
of that month, as he records in a passage which is one of the
landmarks of historical literature, it was
-as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed
fryars 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 3.
For, as he adds, the conception of his life's work was, at first,
confined within these limits, and only gradually grew in his mind
into the vaster scheme which he actually carried into execution.
We shall, perhaps, not err in attributing a direct incitement
towards this expansion to the title, if not to the substance, of
Montesquieu's Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des
Romains et leur décadence (1734), which, to a mind like Gibbon's,
already occupied with part of the theme, could hardly fail to
suggest such an achievement as that to which, in the end, his
genius proved capable of rising *.
Still, a long interval separates the original conception of
Gibbon's Decline and Fall from the execution of even its first
instalment. During the years 1756 to 1764, he produced a series
of miscellaneous historical writings, which, in part, may be described
as preliminary studies for the great work of which the design had
now dawned upon him. Some of them were in the synoptical
form for which he always had a special predilection, characteristic
of a mind desirous, with all its inclination to detail, of securing as
wide as possible a grasp of the theme on which it was engaged-
1 Cf. Morison, J. C. , Gibbon, pp. 38-40; and see, as to Introduction à l'Histoire
Générale de la République des Suisses, Memoirs, pp. 171–2. This fragment, on a theme
which has more fitfully than enduringly attracted the attention of English historians,
is largely based on Tschudi. It is printed in vol. in of The Miscellaneous Works of
Edward Gibbon (1814 ed. ).
Morison, J. C. , Gibbon, p. 51.
• Memoirs, p. 167.
* The similarity in title, and the difference in design, are well pointed out in the
preface to the 1776 edition of the German translation of The Decline and Fall
by Wenck, F. A. W.


## p. 305 (#331) ############################################

Earlier Miscellaneous Writings
305
e. g. the first of the whole series, Outlines of the History of the
World-The Ninth Century to the Fifteenth inclusive. Others
were of the nature of small monographs, showing Gibbon's com-
plementary interest in close and accurate investigations—such as
Critical Enquiries concerning the Title of Charles the Eighth
to the Crown of Naples (1761)? To a rather later date belongs
the review in French) (1768) of Horace Walpole's Historic
Doubts? , which treats this celebrated tour de force politely, but
as a striking, rather than convincing, piece of work and ends with
arguments derived from Hume, showing that the sentiment
général on the subject represents the better grounded conclusion:
We pass by the classical studies belonging to the same period
(1762 to 1770)*, noting only the long collection of French 'minutes'
taken from the magnum opus of Cluverius in 1763 and 1764, as
a preparation for his Italian tour, and entitled Nomina Gentesque
Antiquae Italiae, and the wellknown Observations on the Design
of the VIth Book of the Aeneid, Gibbon's first larger effort in
English prose. The attack which the latter piece makes upon
Warburton's hypothesis, that Vergil's picture symbolises the mystic
conception of ancient religion, is very spirited; but modern scholar-
ship is in this instance in sympathy with the theory denounced 6.
During the greater part of the year 1770, in which these Obser-
vations appeared (and in which Gibbon also put to paper some
Remarks on Blackstone's Commentaries), Gibbon's father was
afflicted by an illness which, in November, proved fatal; yet
the coincidence of this illness with a long interval of silence
in the letters addressed by Junius' to The Public Advertiser
and to its printer has been made the starting-point of a theory
that Gibbon was the author of the famous Letters 6!
The death of Gibbon's father involved the son in a mass of
uncongenial business, and, in the end, he found himself far from
being a wealthy man. Still, he had saved enough from the wreck
to be able, in the autumn of 1772, to establish himself in London,
where he found easy access to the materials which he needed
for the progress of his great work, together with the stimulus,
which he could ill spare, of intellectual society in club and
6
The French introduction to the intended Swiss History has been already noted.
2 Cf. , as to this, chap. XII, ante.
For all these, see vol. III of Miscellaneous Works.
* For all these, see ibid. vol. iv.
o Ct. Morison, J. C. , Gibbon, p. 29. The Observations are printed in vol. iv, the
Remarks on Blackstone in vol. v, of Miscellaneous Works.
• See Smith, James, Junius Unveiled (1909).
E. L. X. CH. XIII.
20


## p. 306 (#332) ############################################

306
Historians
drawing-room! In 1774, he entered the House of Commons,
and, two years later, the first volume of The Decline and Fall
was published.
The success of his political venture, in itself, was moderate;
but he has recorded that “the eight sessions that I sat in parliament
were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue
of an historian? ' Although, while sitting for Liskeard till 1781 and
then for Lymington till 1783, he remained a silent member, he voted
steadily for Lord North’s government and, afterwards, adhered
to him in his coalition with Fox. In 1779, he was rewarded for
bis public fidelity by a commissionership of trade and plantations,
which he held till its abolition in 1782. The salary of the office
was of much importance to him *; indeed, he thought himself
unable to live in England without it, and when, on its suppression,
he was disappointed in his hopes of other official employment, he,
in the year before the downfall of the coalition, 'left the sinking
ship and swam ashore on a plank 5. ' In truth, Gibbon was so
conscious of his complete lack of the requisite gifts that (as he
apologetically confesses) he rapidly relinquished the 'fleeting
illusive hope of success in the parliamentary arena' He was,
however, persuaded, by Lords Thurlow and Weymouth, to indite,
in the shape of a Mémoire Justificatif (1778), a reply to an official
vindication by the government of Louis XVI of its conduct
towards Great Britain. This paper, which denounces the inter-
vention of the French government in Great Britain's quarrel
with her American colonies, and the delusive Spanish offer of
mediation, is a state manifesto rather than a diplomatic document,
and resembles some of the publicistic efforts put forth a generation
later by Gentz-if not the productions of Gentz's model, Burke.
While the political phase of his career, as a whole, was lame
and self-ended, the first instalment of his great historical work,
of which vol. I was published on 17 February 1776, took the town
by storm; nor has The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
ever ceased to hold the commanding position in the world of letters
which it occupied at the outset.
1 'I never found my mind more vigorous, nor my composition more happy, than
in the winter hurry of society and parliament. ' Memoirs, p. 201.
Ibid. p. 193.
3 For the doggerel, attributed to Fox, commenting on this appointment, see Letters,
vol. 1, p. 354.
* See his letter to Edward (afterwards Lord) Elliot (1779) in Memoirs, appendix 43.
5 See ibid. appendix 47 (Letters, vol. 11, p. 92).
6 It is printed in Miscellaneous Works, vol. v.
1


## p. 307 (#333) ############################################

First Reception of The Decline and Fall 307
a
He had produced the first portion of his work in a more
leisurely way than that in which he composed the five succeeding
volumes, on each of which he spent about a couple of years; and
everything in the circumstances of its publication pointed to
a fair success. But the actual reception of the volume very far
surpassed the modest expectations entertained by him just before
its issue, when, as he avers, he was 'neither elated by the ambition
of fame, nor depressed by the apprehension of contempt. He felt
conscious of his essential accuracy, of the sufficiency of his reading,
of his being in accord with the spirit of enlightenment charac-
teristic of his age and of the splendour, as well as the attractiveness,
of his theme. Yet the triumph was not the less sweet; and he
confesses himself 'at a loss to describe the success of the work
without betraying the vanity of the writer. ' Three editions were
rapidly exhausted; Madame Necker brought him her congratu-
lations in person; and when, in the following year, he returned
her visit at Paris, the world of fashion (which, more entirely here
than in London, covered the world of letters) was at his feet. At
home, Hume wrote him a letter which 'overpaid the labour of ten
years,' and Robertson's commendations were equally sincere.
Other historians and scholars added their praise ; and, when it
proved, for a time, that he had provoked the susceptibilities of
religious orthodoxy, without calling forth the cavils of 'profane'
critics, he was satisfied.
It will be most convenient to enumerate at once the chief
attacks to which The Decline and Fall gave rise, without
separating the earlier from the later. In a scornful review of
antagonists, victory over whom he professes to regard as a sufficient
humiliation, and whose 'rewards in this world' he proceeds to
recite? , Gibbon declares that 'the earliest of them was, in this
respect, neglected. ' Although this was not strictly true}, it
sug-
gests a just estimate of James Chelsum’s Remarks on the Two
Last Chapters of Mr Gibbon's History (1776), a pamphlet not
discourteous in tone, but devoid of force. Gibbon was probably
less touched by this tract and by the sermons of Thomas Randolph,
another Oxford divine, directed against his fifteenth chapter,
than by An Apology for Christianity in a Series of Letters
1 Cf. , as to the reception of vol. 1, Memoirs, pp. 194–9, where Hume's letter is
printed at length.
? Memoirs, pp. 202 ff.
8 Chelsum held three benefices and was chaplain to two bishops, besides being
preacher at Whitehall. See ibid. appendix 39, which contains a notice of several of
Gibbon's censors.
6
20-2


## p. 308 (#334) ############################################

308
Historians
to Edward Gibbon (1776), by Richard Watson, regius professor
of divinity at Cambridge, afterwards bishop of Llandaff, the
polished character of whose style he feels himself bound to
acknowledge. What is even more notable in Watson's Apology
(which was afterwards reprinted with a companion Apology for
the Bible, in answer to Thomas Paine), is the tolerance of tone
observable in the general conduct of his argument, as well as
in such a passage as that acknowledging Voltaire's services to
Christianity in the repression of bigotry. The criticism of Gibbon's
use of insinuation is telling, and in the last letter the appeal, not
to Gibbon, but to that section of the public which, so to speak,
was on the look-out for religious difficulties obstructing the
acceptance of the Christian faith-is both skilful and impressive.
Passing by Letters on the Prevalence of Christianity before
its Civil establishment by East Apthorpe (on whom archbishop
Cornwallis promptly bestowed a city living), and Smyth Loftus's
Reply to the Reasonings of Mr Gibbon (whose mention of a
Theological answer written by a mere Irish parson' seems to apply
to this effort), both printed in 1778', we come to a publication
of the same year, which at last moved Gibbon to break the silence
hitherto opposed by him to the assailants of his first volume, or,
rather, of the portion of it which had treated of the progress of
early Christianity. Henry Edwards Davis, a young Oxonian, in
his Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of
Mr Gibbon's History etc. (1778), set about his task in the ardent
spirit of a reviewer fresh to the warpath, and, after attempting to
convict the author of The Decline and Fall of misrepresentation
(including misquotation) of a number of—mainly Latin-writers,
launched forth into the still more nebulous sphere of charges
of plagiarism from Middleton, Barbeyrac, Dodwell and others-
curiously enough tracing only a single passage to Tillemont as its
source. Davis's Examination is of the sort which small critics
have at all times applied to writers whether great or small, and, in
this as in other instances, it succeeded in stinging. In A Vindica-
tion of some Passages in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters
(1779), after declaring that Davis's accusations, as touching the
historian's honour, had extorted from him a notice which he had
1 An Enquiry into the Belief of the Christians of the first three centuries respecting
the Godhead by William Burgh, author of three volumes of Political Disquisitions
(1773-5), belongs to the same year.
Cf. ante, chap. XII and post, p. 314, note 2.
* Reprinted in vol. iv of Miscellaneous Works.
1


## p. 309 (#335) ############################################

Gibbon and his Critics
309
refused to more honourable foes, he defended himself, with indisput-
able and, in point of fact, undisputed success, against the indictment
preferred against him, and took advantage of the occasion to
reply, without losing his temper, to “the theological champions
who have signalized their ardour to break a lance against the
shield of a Pagan adversary. The defence served its purpose,
and he did not find any necessity for renewing it. As his great
work progressed, a second series of censors took up their parable
against it. In 1781, Henry Taylor, a divine of the 'intellectual'
school, in his Thoughts on the Nature of the Grand Apostacy and
Observations on Gibbon's still-vext fifteenth chapter, sought, while
deprecating the historian's sneers, to show that he aimed not at
the essence, but only at the particulars of his subject; and Joseph
Milner, a mystically disposed evangelical who wrote ecclesiastical
history with the intent of illustrating the display of Christian
virtues, and whom Gibbon set down as a fool, published his
Gibbon's Account of Christianity considered etc. In the following
year, John Priestley, in the second volume of his History of the
Corruptions of Christianity joined issue with Gibbon, whom he
charged with representing the immediate causes of the spread of
the Christian religion as having been themselves effects! In 1784,
Joseph White, in the third of a set of Bampton lectures delivered
at Oxford, returned to the subject of Gibbon's 'five causes,' which
the critic conceived to be in reality unconnected with any divine
interposition’; in the same year, a special point-intended, of course,
as a test-point-concerning Gibbon's trustworthiness was raised by
George Travis, archdeacon of Chester, in his Letters to Edward
Gibbon in defence of the disputed verse (St John's First Epistle,
chap. V, v. 7) introducing the three heavenly witnesses. The attack
drew down upon its unfortunate author a series of replies by
Richard Porson, which have been classed with the controversial
criticism of Bentley; but, although satisfactorily vindicated as to
the main issue of the dispute, Gibbon cannot have regarded his
champion's intervention with feelings of unmixed gratitude.
Travis's arguments were confounded; but Porson's criticism of
the writer whom Travis had attacked has survived :
,
J
6
I confess I see nothing wrong in Mr Gibbon's attack upon Christianity.
It proceeded, I doubt not, from the purest and most virtuous motives. We
can only blame him for carrying on the attack in an insidious manner, and
with imperfect weapons,
1 As to Priestley and his point of view, see vol. XI.
2 Letters to Mr Archdeacon Travis (1790), preface, p. xxix.


## p. 310 (#336) ############################################

310
Historians
and there follows a literary judgment of the great historian's
style—and, incidentally, of his ethics——to which further reference
must be made below, and which, while full of wit, is, in some
respects, not more witty than true. A more formidable censor than
archdeacon Travis appeared, in 1782, in the person of Lord Hailes
(Sir David Dalrymple), of whose own contributions to historical
literature some mention was made in the previous chapter of this
work. Much of the logic of An Inquiry into the Secondary
Causes which Mr Gibbon has assigned for the Rapid Growth
of Christianity (1778)—which is at once straightforward in form
and temperate in tone-is irrefutable; and Gibbon was sagacious
enough to allow that, possibly, some flaws were discovered in his
work by his legal critic, to whose accuracy as a historian he goes out
of his way to pay a compliment. Finally, after, in a university
sermon at Cambridge (1790), Thomas Edwards had referred, as
to a formidable enemy, to a writer whose work 'can perish only
with the language itself, John Whitaker, of whose History of
Manchester notice will be taken below, and who seems to have
been actuated by recent private pique”, published, in 1791, a series
of criticisms begun by him in The English Review, in October
1788, under the title Gibbon's History etc. , in Vols. IV. V. and Vi.
reviewed. In this tractate, Gibbon's supposed lack of veracity is
traced back to the lack of probity stated to be shown by him
already in the earlier portions of his work; and his absorption
of other writers' materials is held up to blame together with the
frequent inelegance of his style. The general method of Whitaker's
attack can only be described by the word 'nagging'; at the
close, he gathers up the innumerable charges into a grand
denunciation of the historian as another Miltonic Belial, imposing
but hollow, pleasing to the outward sense but incapable of high
thoughts.
This summary account of the attacks upon The Decline and
Fall published in the lifetime of its author at least illustrates
the narrowness of the limits within which the sea of criticism
was, after all, almost entirely confined. Gibbon's treatment of
them, on the other hand, shows how little importance he attached
to such censure except when it impugned his general qualifications
as a historian. How little he cared for immediate applause is
1 Memoirs, p. 204.
2 See Lord Sheffield's note in Misc. Works, vol. I, p. 243, where it is stated that
Whitaker had written very amiable letters to Gibbon after perusing chapters xv
and xvi.


## p. 311 (#337) ############################################

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Antiquities of the House of Brunswick 311
shown by the fact that, though the popular welcome extended
to his second and third volumes (1781) was, at first, fainter, it was
only now that he finally resolved to carry on the work from
the fall of the western to that of the eastern empire-an interval
of about a thousand years. Not long afterwards, he at last made
up his mind to exchange conditions of existence which, as he
asserts, had become wearisome to him and which he, certainly,
could no longer afford to meet, for the freedom of a purely literary
life; and, in the autumn of 1783, he broke up his London establish-
ment and carried out the long-cherished plan of settling with his
tried friend George Deyverdun? at Lausanne. Here, in a retire-
ment which was anything but 'cloistered,' he, by the end of 1787,
brought to a close the main work of his life, of which the three
concluding volumes (IV-VI) were carried by him to England and
published in April 1788. The passage in the Memoirs relating
the historian's actual accomplishment of his task is one of the
commonplaces of English literature, and records one of the golden
moments which redeem the endless tale of disappointments and
failures in the annals of authorship.
After, in 1788, Gibbon had again returned to Lausanne, where,
in the following year, he lost the faithful Deyverdun, he made up
his mind-once more setting an example which but few men of
letters have found themselves able to follow-to undertake no
other great work, but to confine himself henceforth to essays
or 'Historical excursions ? ' It was as one of these that he
designed his Antiquities of the House of Brunswick. What he
wrote of this work amounts to more than a fragments; for, of the
three divisions contemplated by him, the first (The Italian Descent)
and part of the second (The German Reign), were actually carried
out, though the third (The British Succession of the House of
Brunswick), for which Gibbon could have but very imperfectly
commanded the material preserved in Hanover and at home, was
not even approached by him. Whatever temporary value Gibbon's
treatment of the material amassed by Leibniz and Muratori might
have possessed vanished with the tardy publication, in 1842, of
Leibniz's own Annales imperii occidentis Brunsvicenses. But
17
2
TE
i It was with Deyverdun that, in 1768, Gibbon had brought out in London the
French literary annual called Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne pour les
Années 1767 et 1768, to which he contributed, with other articles, a review of Lyttel-
ton's History of Henry II, 'that voluminous work, in which sense and learning are not
illuminated by a ray of genius. ' (Memoirs, pp. 173–4. )
? See the letter to Langer in Letters, p. 229.
3 See Miscellaneous Works, vol. III.


## p. 312 (#338) ############################################

312
Historians
Gibbon's narrative has a few purple patches, nor would posterity
willingly forego the tribute which, near its opening, he pays to
'the genius and unparalleled intellect' of Leibniz, as well as to the
industry and critical ability of the indefatigable Italian scholar
with whom the great German was associated in his researches.
In 1791, Gibbon bade farewell to Lausanne, and the rest of his
life was spent in England, where he almost continuously enjoyed
the paternal hospitality of his most intimate English friend, the
earl of Sheffield (John Baker Holroyd), at Sheffield place, Sussex,
and in London. Lord Sheffield's name is as enduringly associated
with that of the great historian as Boswell's is with Johnson's, but
in a more equal way—as is shown by Lord Sheffield's unique
treatment of Gibbon's Memoirs and by his admirable posthumous
editions of the Miscellaneous Works. The last addition which
Gibbon lived to make to these, the Address recommending the
publication of Scriptores Rerum Anglicanarum, under the editor-
ship of the Scottish antiquarian and historian John Pinkerton-
a noble design which was to remain long unaccomplished-was
interrupted by death? . Thus, his last literary effort appropriately
directed itself to the promotion of historical research. He died
on 16 January 1794, and was buried in the Sheffield mausoleum in
Fletching church, by the side of his dear friend, we may almost
say, of his brother by adoption? ' In the Memoirs, which he left
behind him as the best monument of his long literary life, he
confesses himself 'disgusted with the affectation of men of letters,
who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow;
and that their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable weight)
affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecutions. '
Whatever crowning grace Gibbon's life may have missed, it brought
him a long intellectual triumph and a fame which the course of
time has left undimmed.
Gibbon declared, as has been seen, that he never presumed to
accept a place in the British triumvirate of historians'; but
succeeding generations have concurred in assigning to The Decline
and Fall the primacy, which it still holds, among historical works
in our literature, and in esteeming its author the most brilliant
example known of the union of the historian and the man of
6
1 It is printed, with an explanatory appendix by Pinkerton, in vol. in of Miscel-
laneous Works.
2 Harrison, Frederic, u. 8.
3 Memoirs, p. 241.


## p. 313 (#339) ############################################

The Subject of The Decline and
and Fall
Fall 313
533
bu
t
letters! ' From the ancients, he had taken over the rhetorical side
of the historian's task; from the French, he had derived the
treatment of historical materials by a scientific method of criticism
and selection ; from the French, too, with the assistance of Hume
and Robertson, he had learnt how to combine scientific method
with artistic effect. His literary art may suffer from mannerisms,
which were those of his age, as well as from foibles, which were his
own, and, as a scientific history, his work has, in many respects,
become superannuated; but its main and distinctive qualities
1
continue unimpaired. Is it possible to indicate, in a few words,
of which, among these qualities, the importance seems paramount?
In the first place, his choice of subject—as it gradually
developed itself in the progress of the work—was supremely
felicitous; for it is the greatest theme furnished by profane
history. Even before Gibbon could feel assured that the complete
treatment of the whole subject would be compassed by himself, he
already contemplated it in its unity? What the Roman empire
was, after it had attained to its full strength and maturity, and how
its western division verged gradually to its decline and downfall, is
only half the story; the other and much longer half shows how its
fall was followed by long centuries of life in the eastern, and a
revival, in new conditions, of its existence in the western, world.
And more than this: Janus-like, the historian is constrained to
turn, with one face, to the Roman commonwealth out of which
the empire grew and of which it never lost the impress ; while,
with his other face, he looks forward to modern times. He bids
us consider, not only what it was that declined and fell, but, also,
what grew into life. The new elements of movement, the rise
of new national, and that of new religious, powers must all be
reviewed in their twofold relation to what they superseded and to
what they prepared. The migration and settlements of the
Teutonic tribes, and the spread and establishment of the Christian,
and, after it, of the Mohammadan, religion, must be treated not
only as helping to break up the Roman empire, but, also, as
cooperating in the new order of things. The principle of the
continuity of history, Freeman's favourite theme, is, as the latest
editor of Gibbon reminds us,
not the least important aspect of The Decline and Fall. . . . On the continuity
of the Roman Empire depended the unity of Gibbon's work . . . whatever
names of contempt he might apply to the institution in the days of the decline S.
· Bury, J. B. , preface to the 1909 edn. , p. viii.
? See the outline of the scheme in the preface to vol. 1 dated 1 February 1776.
3 Bury, 1. 8.
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## p. 314 (#340) ############################################

314
Historians
Thus, the historian essays to narrate how the ancient world became
the modern, just as the mausoleum of Hadrian became the papal
fastness of St Angelo—or, in his own characteristic words", to
'describe the triumph of barbarism and religion. '
The capabilities of the subject, then, are of surpassing greatness;
yet the mind is able to grasp it as a whole. Here, we have no
mere series of annals, such as were presented even by the excellent
Tillemont, to whom Gibbon was indebted for much of his material”,
but a complete work. Its opening chapters may fall short of the
results of modern numismatical and epigraphical research ; its
later portions, which cover a relatively far larger ground, may
show an inadequate command of the political life of the Byzantine
empire and all but ignore much of the Slavonic side of its history,
may inadequately appreciate the historic significance, or the
individual grandeur, of the figure of Charles the great and may
fail in the narration of the second and third crusades 8-in a word,
it may need to be supplemented, repaired or changed here and
there, and again and again. But it is complete even though it
is imperfect. Eminent historians-Guizot, Milman, Bury-have,
therefore, been willing to become Gibbon's editors and commen-
tators; but they have not dealt with him as he dealt with Tille-
mont. It is as a whole that his work has maintained the position
which it conquered for itself at once in historical literature.
Inspired, as it were, by the muse of history herself in the
magnificence of his choice of subject and in the grandeur of his
determination to treat it with a completeness in harmony with its
nature, Gibbon displayed a breadth of grasp and a lucidity of
exposition such as very few historians have brought to the per-
formance of a cognate task. Whether in tracing the origin and
growth of a new religion, such as Mohammadanism, or in developing
in comprehensive outline the idea of Roman jurisprudence*, the
masterly clearness of his treatment is equal to the demands of his
philosophic insight; nor does the imaginative power of the
historian fall short of the consummate skill of the literary artist.
But there is another requirement which the historian, whatever
may be his theme, is called upon to satisfy, and which, in plain
? Bury, p. vii.
* Tillemont, Le Nain de, Histoire des Empereurs etc. , treats each successive reign in
a series of short chapters or headed articles, with notes appended on a wide variety of
points, in the way that Gibbon loved. It reaches to the death of the emperor
Anastasius, A. D. 518. His Mémoires Ecclésiastiques cover the first six centuries of the
Christian era. As to Gibbon's debt to him, see Bury, u. 8. p. ix.
3 Cf. ibid. pp. xix-xxi ; Morison, Gibbon, pp. 162–5.
• Cf. Bury, pp. xiii and xiv.


## p. 315 (#341) ############################################

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​Gibbon's Accuracy of Statement 315
truth, is antecedent to all others. Any work claiming to be a
contribution to historical knowledge should, within the limits of
human fallibility and the boundaries at different times confining
human knowledge, be exactly truthful. It was on this head only
that Gibbon avowed himself sensitive, and on this alone that he
condescended to reply to antagonists of any sort.
It is worse
than needless to attempt to distinguish between the infinitely
numerous shades of inveracity; and Gibbon would have scorned
any such endeavour. His defence, of which, in the opinion of
those capable of rising above the method adopted by more than
one of his censors, the validity is indisputable, is a real vindication.
He allows that a critical eye may discover in his work some loose
and general references. But he fairly asks whether, inasmuch as
their proportion to the whole body of his statements is quite
inconsiderable, they can be held to warrant the accusation brought
against him. Nor is he unsuccessful in explaining the circum-
stances which, in the instances impugned, rendered greater precision
of statement impossible. The charge of plagiarism—the last
infirmity of sagacious critics-he rebuts with conspicuous success,
and courageously upholds his unhesitating plea of not guilty :
If my readers are satisfied with the form, the colours, the new arrange-
ment which I have given to the labours of my predecessors, they may perhaps
consider me not as a contemptible thief, but as an honest and industrious
manufacturer, who has fairly procured the raw materials, and worked them
up with a laudable degree of skill and success 1.
The verdict of modern historical criticism has approved
his plea. “If,' writes Bury, 'we take into account the vast range
of his work, his accuracy is amazing, and, with all his disadvan-
tages, his slips are singularly few? ' It is an objection of very
secondary importance, though one to which even experienced
writers are wont to expose themselves, that Gibbon is apt to
indulge in what might almost be called a parade of authorities.
Complete, lucid and accurate, Gibbon, finally, is one of the
great masters of English prose. His power of narrative is at
least equalled by his gift of argumentative statement, and, in all
parts of his work, his style is one which holds the reader spell-
bound by its stately dignity, relieved by a curious subtlety of
nuance, and which, at the same time, is the writer's own as much
as is that of Clarendon, Macaulay or Carlyle. Gibbon's long
sentences, which, at times, extend over a whole paragraph or page,
but are never involved, resemble neither those of Johnson nor
those of Robertson ; if his style is to be compared to that of any
1 Vindication (Miscellaneous Works, vol. IV, p. 588).
u. 8. p. ix.
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## p. 316 (#342) ############################################

316
Historians
other master of English prose, it is to Burke’s. Built with
admirable skill and precision, his sentences are coloured by a
delicate choice of words and permeated by a delightful suggestion
of rhythm in each case—too pleasing to seem the effect of design.
Gibbon's irony differs greatly from that of Swift, who deliberately
fools his reader and, thereby, increases the enjoyment that arises
from the perception of his real meaning, and still more from
that of Carlyle, the savage purpose of whose sarcasm never leaves
the reader in doubt. The irony of Gibbon is almost always
refined, but not at any time obscure. It reveals itself in the
choice of an epithet, in the substitution of a noun of more ordinary
usage for another of a more select class ; it also appears in the
inversion of the order in which, commonly, reasons are assigned
or motives suggested, and often makes use of that most dangerous
of all rhetorical devices-insinuation. This, however, already
carries us beyond mere questions of style. Where this insinua-
tion is directed against assumed ethical principles, it has been
admirably characterised as sub-cynical. '
Gibbon's diction, it may be added, was not formed on native
models only; yet it would be in the highest degree unjust to
describe it as Gallicising.