THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For MAY, 1816.

ART. I. Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq. With Memoirs of his Life and Writings, composed by himself: illustrated from his Letters, with occasional Notes and Narrative. By John Lord Sheffield. Vol. III. 4to. pp. 700. With a Portrait of Mr. Gibbon. 21. 8s. Boards. Murray.

1815.

66

WE HEN we recollect that the two former volumes of this collection were given to the public twenty years ago, (and reported in vols. xx. and xxv. of our present series,) we might be tempted to ask the noble editor, “ Quæ tantæ tenuere moræ ?” Distinguished, however, as his Lordship is in general by promptitude both of conception and of execution, we shall not urge such an inquiry on this occasion: nor do we mean, on the other hand, to imitate the complaisant example of a reverend dignitary, who gravely affirms in the volume before us, (p. 677.) that the names of his Lordship and Mr. Gibbon will go down to posterity with as much just distinction as any of the memorable duets of antiquity. Still, if we never indulged in all the effusions of admiration which were once excited by the novelty and magnitude of Mr. Gibbon's History, we turn with pleasure to the task of reporting this final addition to his miscellanies. Like the second of the previous volumes, the present contains a number of dry and uninviting passages, but it also exhibits a clear view of the gradual advance of a zealous and persevering student. If other authors have equalled or surpassed Mr. G. in the variety of their attainments, few deserve equal credit for attentive habits of reading, and for a steady adherence, year after year, to the department which formed the proper object of his labours. It very seldom happens, also, that we are furnished with such copious means of tracing the progress of a man of letters; the pieces now printed forming, with the preceding volumes, materials for a complete history of his studies. We have, therefore, laid the three quartos before us, and have endeavoured to collect from the whole all that seemed likely to be useful towards exhibiting a view of the early pursuits, the VOL. LXXX.

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fluctuating projects, and the eventual success of this distinguished candidate for historical fame. All this we shall endeavour to embody into a brief account of his life; trespassing very little, we hope, with repetitions of particulars which we had formerly stated; introducing from the fragments and essays now published such extracts as may conduce to the illustration of the narrative; and reserving a critical notice of them for a separate and subsequent article.

In point of inheritance, Mr. Gibbon had that kind of middle prospect which would have justified the choice of a genteel profession, without enabling him to dispense with an addition to his patrimonial income. He was an only son, and was educated partly at a public school, partly at home in consequence of the delicate state of his health. His memoirs (vol. i.) record a number of amusing but trivial particulars respecting his boy-hood; and it appears that, although too much indulged at that age to go through the severe study necessary for the acquisition of languages, he passed even in his early years much of his time in reading: which, though it was as desultory as we might expect from a youth who was abandoned to his own guidance, was chiefly directed towards history. When he was entered a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford, he complained that the laxity of that seminary in those days left him as much to his own management as paternal indulgence had done at home. Thus situated, his reading, when pointed towards divinity, took a singular direction, (as the world has long since been informed,) and had the effect of making him, at the age of seventeen, a proselyte to the Catholic faith. His father consequently sent him to Lausanne, to the house of M. Pavillard, a Protestant clergyman; with a communication of the young man's strange conduct, and explicit directions to keep a strict watch over his future studies. Of this change the historian himself says, "Instead of a splendid residence in Magdalen College, I found myself in a small room, an old house, and a gloomy street; the most unfrequented part of an unhandsome town."

The assiduity of his application, however, was much promoted by this exclusion from scenes of amusement, and by his want of command of money': the French language, in particular, he cultivated with success; using it not only as the channel of conversation, but as the medium for committing to paper his notes and observations on English and Latin authors. He made no progress in such exercises as riding or fencing, having little turn for bodily activity, in consequence of constitutional delicacy. A few years sufficed to open his

eyes with regard to his religious aberration, and to enable him to redeem the time lost in the outset of his pursuits. In studying French and Latin, he adopted a method which he strongly recommends; viz. that of making choice of a classic writer, such as Cicero, translating one of his epistles into French, letting it lie some time till the original was forgotten, and then re-translating it from French into Latin. Middleton's life of Cicero pleased him more in his youth than subsequently but he speaks of the works of the Roman orator and Xenophon as most eligible books for a liberal scholar, both for their style and for their matter. Cicero's epistles afford, in his opinion, the models of every kind of correspondence, and his productions may be said to form a library of eloquence and reason. He read much of Latin at Lausanne, and furnished a striking example that a youth, who has been idle in the bustle of a college, may become assiduous in retirement. It was his rule never to allow a difficult or corrupt passage to escape him; to consult a number of commentators; to make repeated abstracts, and even to let them branch out into essays. He thus read, three times, Terence, Virgil, Horace, and Tacitus; and he soon became eager to peruse the Greek models of these celebrated writers. It was now that he regretted the waste of his early years, when he might have conquered the more irksome part of the study of Greek: on the present occasion, he made a certain progress in that language: but, being without the stimulus of emulation, he withdrew from the barren task of searching words in a lexicon, to the free and familiar conversation of Latin authors. At a subsequent period, he resumed Greek, and carried his knowlege in it to a considerable proficiency. Logic he studied with great care and advantage: but in mathematics he went only to a limited extent, and never regretted that he desisted from that pursuit before his mind was "hardened by the habit of demonstration so destructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which must however determine the actions and opinions of our lives." He proceeded to read Grotius and Puffendorf, and liked their commentator Barbeyrac : he studied also Locke, and adopted his plan of a common placebook. He read a great part of Bayle's Dictionary: but his attention was at this time more particularly given to Pascal's Provençal Letters, "which teach the management of the weapon of grave and temperate irony on serious subjects;" to De la Bleterie's life of Julian; and to Gianoni's Civil History of Naples, which "displays the abuse of sacerdotal power and the revolutions of Italy in the dark ages."

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His attentive habit of keeping notes of the substance of his reading, and of the reflections produced by it, has enabled the noble editor of the present volume to exhibit specimens of Mr. Gibbon's composition at this early period of life. The principal of these are

(1.) "Observations on Sallust, Cæsar, Cornelius Nepos, and Livy," written in Mr. G.'s 19th year. The principal remarks relate to Livy, and discover a mind already keenly alive to the loss of that author's invaluable Decades. Mr. G. had been at this time little more than twelve months in a French house, and had not acquired the habit of writing that language with accuracy, as we perceive from such expressions as "Des autres veulent" instead of d'autres veulent ; 66 quelques de qualités" for quelques unes des qualités, &c.: but, even in these juvenile efforts, we see marks of a habit of arrangement and of a pains-taking course of study.

(2.) "The remarkable Epochs of the History of Greece and Egypt considered in reference to the Chronology of Sir Isaac Newton," written in Mr. G.'s 20th year, and in French also. This essay consists of a comparison of the Newtonian chronology with that of other writers, concerning such points as the æras of Sesostris, Dido, Æneas, &c.

(3.) Dissertation on the Weights, Measures, and Monies of the Ancients, with a few Tables constructed on these Principles," in his 21st year. The principal authorities for this compilation were Freret, Arbuthnot, Bishop Hooper, Greaves, and a German author named Eisenschidt. It is followed by a correspondent Dissertation on the Weights, Measures, and Monies in use during the time of the Lower Empire, not only in Greece and Italy, but in France, Germany, Spain, and such parts of Europe as possessed any thing like a regular government. These tracts exceed seventy 4to. pages, and, however imperfectly finished, must be considered as very useful accompaniments to the study of history.

In 1758, Mr. G. returned to England, and was kindly received by his father; the flattering report of Pavillard, and his own progress, sufficing to efface the remembrance of his early trespass. He was now of an age to be introduced to the society of his father's friends, and particularly to Mallet, by whose advice he was directed to study the style of Swift and Addison. He speaks in his Memoirs with approbation of -this advice; yet, as we have formerly observed, it would be difficult to find, in the whole range of our classics, a greater contrast than his own style made with that of these standards of simplicity and purity. Mr. G.'s father had a numerous acquaintance in London: but the reserved manners of his son

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led him to pass many solitary hours with his books, and to be thankful for an evening-call from Mr. Elmsley, the bookseller, or other unassuming friends. In the country, he had it less in his power to avoid being present in the mixed parties at his father's house; and he regularly regretted the full moon as the season of these uninstructive assemblages. Amid these interruptions, his great gratification was the receipt of a newly purchased book from London; and his plan was, after having satisfied the first impulse of curiosity by inspecting the titlepage and the contents, to meditate, in a solitary walk, on all that he as yet knew in connection with the subject treated in his new acquisition. His favourite works were our own authors since the Revolution; and his attention, as we have mentioned elsewhere, (M. R. vol. xx. p. 308.) was eagerly directed to the lately published histories of Hume and Robertson. "I was not," he says, "without hopes of one day imitating the well turned periods of Robertson; but the calm philosophy, the careless, inimitable beauties of his friend, often forced me to close the volume with mixed sensations of delight. and despair.”

The principal result of his studies at this period of his career was the composition of " An Essay on the Empire of the Medes, by Way of Supplement to the Dissertations of Messrs. Freret and De Bougainville;" composed, probably, in his 24th year. This is a work of very considerable labour and extent, occupying sixty 4to. pages, and finished with considerable attention to style. At this early period, he had acquired no small share of the clearness and vivacity of the best French authors, without falling into that inflated tone which has been so much regretted in his subsquent compositions. The "Essay" is dry, but this fault arises from the nature of the subject rather than from the inexperience of the writer, who gives proof of attentive research, and conveys his meaning in short perspicuous sentences. The young writer felt the inexpediency of offering such an Essay to the public, and was contented to leave it among his MSS., whence it has been extracted for extracted for the first time for the volume before us. Gibbon, indeed, though sufficiently conscious of his attainments, had many scruples about making his appearance as an author, and was induced to print his first publication," Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature," less by a desire of literary reputation than as a specimen of his familiarity with the French language, and of his fitness to act the part of secretary to any of our diplomatists abroad. The subject was suggested by an anxiety to recommend that which was not common in France, the classics being neglected in that