LIFE IN LONDON.--PARLIAMENT.--THE BOARD OF TRADE.--THE DECLINE AND
FALL.--MIGRATION TO LAUSANNE.
Gibbon's settlement in London as master in his own house did not come
too soon. A few more years of anxiety and dependence, such as he had
passed of late with his father in the country, would probably have
dried up the spring of literary ambition and made him miss his career.
He had no tastes to fit him for a country life. The pursuit of farming
only pleased him in Virgil's _Georgics_. He seems neither to have
liked nor to have needed exercise, and English rural sports had no
charms for him. "I never handled a gun, I seldom mounted a horse, and
my philosophic walks were soon terminated by a shady bench, where I
was long detained by the sedentary amusement of reading or
meditation." He was a born _citadin_. "Never," he writes to his friend
Holroyd, "never pretend to allure me by painting in odious colours the
dust of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Weald it
is to visit you, and not your trees." His ideal was to devote the
morning, commencing early--at seven, say--to study, and the afternoon
and evening to society and recreation, not "disdaining the innocent
amusement of a game at cards." And this plan of a happy life he very
fairly realised in his little house in Bentinck Street. The letters
that we have of his relating to this period are buoyant with spirits
and self-congratulation at his happy lot. He writes to his step-mother
that he is every day more satisfied with his present mode of life,
which he always believed was most calculated to make him happy. The
stable and moderate stimulus of congenial society, alternating with
study, was what he liked. The excitement and dissipation of a town
life, which purchase pleasure to-day at the expense of fatigue and
disgust to-morrow, were as little to his taste as the amusements of
the country. In 1772, when he settled in London, he was young in
years, but he was old in tastes, and he enjoyed himself with the
complacency often seen in healthy old men. "My library," he writes to
Holroyd in 1773, "Kensington Gardens, and a few parties with new
acquaintance, among whom I reckon Goldsmith and Sir Joshua Reynolds,"
(poor Goldsmith was to die the year following), "fill up my time, and
the monster _ennui_ preserves a very respectful distance. By the by,
your friends Batt, Sir John Russell, and Lascelles dined with me one
day before they set off: _for I sometimes give the prettiest little
dinner in the world_." One can imagine Gibbon, the picture of
plumpness and content, doing the honours of his modest household.
Still he was never prominent in society, even after the publication of
his great work had made him famous. Lord Sheffield says that his
conversation was superior to his writings, and in a circle of intimate
friends it is probable that this was true. But in the free encounter
of wit and argument, the same want of readiness that made him silent
in parliament would most likely restrict his conversational power. It
may be doubted if there is a striking remark or saying of his on
record. His name occurs in Boswell, but nearly always as a _persona
muta_. Certainly the arena where Johnson and Burke encountered each
other was not fitted to bring out a shy and not very quick man.
Against Johnson he manifestly harboured a sort of grudge, and if he
ever felt the weight of Ursa Major's paw it is not surprising.
He rather oddly preserved an instance of his conversational skill, as
if aware that he would not easily get credit for it. The scene was in
Paris. "At the table of my old friend M. de Foncemagne, I was involved
in a dispute with the Abbé de Mably.... As I might be partial in my
own cause, I shall transcribe the words of an unknown critic. 'You
were, my dear Théodon, at M. de Foncemagne's house, when the Abbé de
Mably and Mr. Gibbon dined there along with a number of guests. The
conversation ran almost entirely on history. The Abbé, being a
profound politician, turned it while at dessert on the administration
of affairs, and as by genius and temper, and the habit of admiring
Livy, he values only the republican system, he began to boast of the
excellence of republics, being well persuaded that the learned
Englishman would approve of all he said and admire the profoundity of
genius that had enabled a Frenchman to discover all these advantages.
But Mr. Gibbon, knowing by experience the inconveniences of a popular
government, was not at all of his opinion, and generously took up the
defence of monarchy. The Abbé wished to convince him out of Livy, and
by some arguments drawn from Plutarch in favour of the Spartans. Mr.
Gibbon, being endowed with a most excellent memory, and having all
events present to his mind, soon got the command of the conversation.
The Abbé grew angry, they lost possession of themselves, and said hard
things of each other. The Englishman retaining his native coolness,
watched for his advantages, and pressed the Abbé with increasing
success in proportion as he was more disturbed by passion. The
conversation grew warmer, and was broken off by M. de Foncemagne's
rising from table and passing into the parlour, where no one was
tempted to renew it."
But if not brilliant in society, he was very _répandu_, and was
welcomed in the best circles. He was a member of Boodle's, White's,
Brooks's, and Almack's,[9] and "there were few persons in the literary
or political world to whom he was a stranger." It is to be regretted
that the best sketch of him at this period borders on caricature. "The
learned Gibbon," says Colman, "was a curious counterbalance to the
learned (may I not say the less learned) Johnson. Their manners and
tastes, both in writing and conversation, were as different as their
habiliments. On the day I first sat down with Johnson in his
rusty-brown suit and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon was placed
opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.
Each had his measured phraseology, and Johnson's famous parallel
between Dryden and Pope might be loosely parodied in reference to
himself and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant:
the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantic, and the latter
was occasionally finical. Johnson marched to kettledrums and trumpets,
Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys. Johnson hewed passages through
the Alps, while Gibbon levelled walks through parks and gardens.
Mauled as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises by
condescending once or twice in the course of the evening to talk with
me. The great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to
the capacity of the boy: but it was done _more suo_--still his
mannerism prevailed, still he tapped his snuff-box, still he smirked
and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of
good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men. His mouth,
mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole nearly in the centre of his
visage." (Quoted in Croker's _Boswell_.)
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 9: Not the assembly-room of that name, but a gaming-club
where the play was high. I find no evidence that Gibbon ever yielded
to the prevalent passion for gambling.]
Now and then he even joins in a masquerade, "the finest thing ever
seen," which costs two thousand guineas. But the chief charm of it to
him seems to have been the pleasure that it gave to his Aunt Porten.
These little vanities are however quite superficial, and are never
allowed to interfere with work.
Now indeed he was no loiterer. In three years after his settlement in
London he had produced the first volume of the _Decline and Fall_: an
amount of diligence which will not be underrated by those who
appreciate the vast difference between commencing and continuing an
undertaking of that magnitude. "At the outset," he says, "all was dark
and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true æra of the decline
and fall of the empire, the limits of the Introduction, the division
of the chapters, and the order of the narrative,--and I was often
tempted to cast away the labour of seven years;"--alternations no
doubt of hope and despair familiar to every sincere and competent
student. But he had taken the best and only reliable means of securing
himself from the danger of these fluctuations of spirit. He finished
his reading and preparation before he began to write, and when he at
last put pen to paper his course lay open before him, with no fear of
sudden and disquieting stoppages arising from imperfect knowledge and
need of further inquiry. It is a pity that we cannot follow the
elaboration of the work in detail. That portion of his Memoirs in
which he speaks of it is very short and fragmentary, and the defect is
not supplied by his letters. He seems to have worked with singular
ease and mastery of his subject, and never to have felt his task as a
strain or a fatigue. Even his intimate friends were not aware that he
was engaged on a work of such magnitude, and it is amusing to see his
friend Holroyd warn him against a hasty and immature publication when
he learned that the book was in the press. He had apparently heard
little of it before. This alone would show with what ease and
smoothness Gibbon must have worked. He had excellent health--a strange
fact after his sickly childhood; society unbent his mind instead of
distracting it; his stomach was perfect--perhaps too good, as about
this time he began to be admonished by the gout. He never seems to
have needed change. "Sufficient for the summer is the evil thereof,
viz., one distant country excursion." There was an extraordinary
difference in this respect between the present age and those which
went before it; restlessness and change of scene have become almost a
necessity of life with us, whereas our ancestors could continue
healthy and happy for months and years without stirring from home.
What is there to explain the change? We must not pretend that we work
harder than they did.[10] However, Gibbon was able to keep himself in
good condition with his long spell of work in the morning, and his
dinner-parties at home or elsewhere in the afternoon, and to have kept
at home as much as he could. Whenever he went away to the country, it
was on invitations which he could not well refuse. The result was a
leisurely, unhasting fulness of achievement, calm stretches of
thorough and contented work, which have left their marks on the
_Decline and Fall_. One of its charms is a constant good humour and
complacency; not a sign is visible that the writer is pressed for
time, or wants to get his performance out of hand; but, on the
contrary, a calm lingering over details, sprightly asides in the
notes, which the least hurry would have suppressed or passed by, and a
general impression conveyed of thorough enjoyment in the immensity of
the labour.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: The most remarkable instance of all is the case of
Newton, who, according to Dr. Whewell, resided in Trinity College "for
thirty-five years without the interruption of a month."--_Hist. of the
Inductive Sciences_, vol. ii. book vii.]
One would have liked to see this elaboration more clearly, to have
been allowed a glimpse into his workshop while he was so engaged.
Unfortunately the editor of his journals has selected the relatively
unimportant records of his earlier studies, and left us in the dark as
regards this far more interesting period. He was such an indefatigable
diarist that it is unlikely that he neglected to keep a journal in
this crisis of his studies. But it has not been published, and it may
have been destroyed. All that we have is this short paragraph in his
Memoirs:--
"The classics, as low as Tacitus and 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 almost 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 applied the
collections of Tillemont 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."
When the time for composition arrived, he showed a fastidiousness
which was full of good augury. "Three times did I compose the first
chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably
satisfied with their effect." His hand grew firmer as he advanced. But
the two final chapters interposed a long delay, and needed "three
successive revisals to reduce them from a volume to their present
size." Gibbon spent more time over his first volume than over any one
of the five which followed it. To these he devoted almost regularly
two years apiece, more or less, whereas the first cost him three
years--so disproportionately difficult is the start in matters of this
kind.
While engaged in the composition of the first volume, he became a
member of Parliament. One morning at half past seven, "as he was
destroying an army of barbarians," he heard a double rap at his door.
It was a friend who came to inquire if he was desirous of entering
the House of Commons. The answer may be imagined, and he took his seat
as member for the borough of Liskeard after the general election in
1774.
Gibbon's political career is the side of his history from which a
friendly biographer would most readily turn away. Not that it was
exceptionally ignoble or self-seeking if tried by the standard of the
time, but it was altogether commonplace and unworthy of him. The fact
that he never even once opened his mouth in the House is not in itself
blameworthy, though disappointing in a man of his power. It was indeed
laudable enough if he had nothing to say. But why had he nothing to
say? His excuse is timidity and want of readiness. We may reasonably
assume that the cause lay deeper. With his mental vigour he would soon
have overcome such obstacles if he had really wished and tried to
overcome them. The fact is that he never tried because he never
wished. It is a singular thing to say of such a man, but nevertheless
true, that he had no taste or capacity whatever for politics. He lived
at one of the most exciting periods of our history; he assisted at
debates in which constitutional and imperial questions of the highest
moment were discussed by masters of eloquence and state policy, and he
hardly appears to have been aware of the fact. It was not that he
despised politics as Walpole affected to do, or that he regarded party
struggles as "barbarous and absurd faction," as Hume did; still less
did he pass by them with the supercilious indifference of a mystic
whose eyes are fixed on the individual spirit of man as the one spring
of good and evil. He never rose to the level of the ordinary citizen
or even partisan, who takes an exaggerated view perhaps of the
importance of the politics of the day, but who at any rate thereby
shows a sense of social solidarity and the claims of civic communion.
He called himself a Whig, but he had no zeal for Whig principles. He
voted steadily with Lord North, and quite approved of taxing and
coercing America into slavery; but he had no high notions of the royal
prerogative, and was lukewarm in this as in everything. With such
absence of passion one might have expected that he would be at least
shrewd and sagacious in his judgments on politics. But he is nothing
of the kind. In his familiar letters he reserves generally a few lines
for parliamentary gossip, amid chat about the weather and family
business. He never approaches to a broad survey of policy, or
expresses serious and settled convictions on home or foreign affairs.
Throughout the American war he never seems to have really made up his
mind on the nature of the struggle, and the momentous issues that it
involved. Favourable news puts him in high spirits, which are promptly
cooled by the announcement of reverses; not that he ever shows any
real anxiety or despondency about the commonwealth. His opinions on
the subject are at the mercy of the last mail. It is disappointing to
find an elegant trifler like Horace Walpole not only far more
discerning in his appreciation of such a crisis, but also far more
patriotically sensitive as to the wisdom of the means of meeting it,
than the historian of Rome. Gibbon's tone often amounts to levity, and
he chronicles the most serious measures with an unconcern really
surprising. "In a few days we stop the ports of New England. I cannot
write volumes: but I am more and more convinced that with firmness all
may go well: yet I sometimes doubt." (February 8, 1775.) "Something
will be done this year; but in the spring the force of the country
will be exerted to the utmost: Scotch Highlanders, Irish Papists,
Hanoverians, Canadians, Indians, &c., will all in various shapes be
employed." (August 1, 1775.) "What think you of the season, of Siberia
is it not? A pleasant campaign in America." (January 29, 1776.) At
precisely the same time the sagacious coxcomb of Strawberry Hill was
writing thus: "The times are indeed very serious. Pacification with
America is not the measure adopted. More regiments are ordered
thither, and to-morrow a plan, I fear equivalent to a declaration of
war, is to be laid before both Houses. They are bold ministers
methinks who do not hesitate on civil war, in which victory may bring
ruin, and disappointment endanger their heads.... Acquisition alone
can make burdens palatable, and in a war with our own colonies we must
inflict instead of acquiring them, and we cannot recover them without
undoing them. I am still to learn wisdom and experience, if these
things are not so." (Letter to Mann, January 25, 1775.) "A war with
our colonies, which is now declared, is a proof how much influence
jargon has on human actions. A war on our own trade is popular."
(February 15, 1775.) "The war with America goes on briskly, that is as
far as voting goes. A great majority in both houses is as brave as a
mob ducking a pick-pocket. They flatter themselves they shall terrify
the colonies into submission in three months, and are amazed to hear
that there is no such probability. They might as well have
excommunicated them, and left it to the devil to put the sentence into
execution." (February 18, 1775.) Not only is Walpole's judgment wiser,
but the elements of a wise judgment were present to him in a way in
which they were not so to Gibbon. When the latter does attempt a
forecast, he shows, as might be expected, as little penetration of the
future as appreciation of the present. Writing from Paris on August
11, 1777, when all French society was ablaze with enthusiasm for
America, and the court just on the point of yielding to the current,
he is under no immediate apprehensions of a war with France, and
"would not be surprised if next summer the French were to lend their
cordial assistance to England as the weaker party." The emptiness of
his letters as regards home politics perhaps admits of a more
favourable explanation, and may be owing to the careful suppression by
their editor, Lord Sheffield, of everything of real interest. It is
impossible to estimate the weight of this consideration, but it may be
great. Still we have a sufficient number of his letters to be able to
say that on the whole they are neither thoughtful nor graphic: they
give us neither pictures of events nor insight into the times. It must
be, however, remembered that Gibbon greatly disliked letter-writing,
and never wrote unless he was obliged.
It was no secret that Gibbon wanted a place under government. Moderate
as his establishment seems to have been, it was more expensive than he
could afford, and he looked, not without warrant, to a supplement of
income from one of the rich windfalls which, in that time of sinecures
were wont to refresh the spirits of sturdy supporters of
administration. He had influential friends, and even relatives, in and
near the government, and but for his parliamentary nullity he would
probably have been provided with a comfortable berth at an early
period. But his "sincere and silent vote" was not valuable enough to
command a high price from his patrons. Once only was he able to help
them with his pen, when he drew up, at the request of Lords Thurlow
and Weymouth, his _Mémoire Justificatif_, in French, in which "he
vindicated against the French manifesto the justice of the British
arms." It was a service worthy of a small fee, which no doubt he
received. He had to wait till 1779, when he had been five years in
Parliament, before his cousin Mr. Eliot, and his friend Wedderburne,
the Attorney-General, were able to find him a post as one of the Lords
Commissioners of Trade and Plantations. The Board of Trade, of which
he became one of the eight members, survives in mortal memory only
from being embalmed in the bright amber of one of Burke's great
speeches. "This board, Sir, has had both its original formation and
its regeneration in a job. In a job it was conceived, and in a job its
mother brought it forth.... This board is a sort of temperate bed of
influence: a sort of gently ripening hothouse, where eight members of
Parliament receive salaries of a thousand a year for a certain given
time, in order to mature at a proper season a claim to two thousand,
granted for doing less" (_Speech on Economical Reform_). Gibbon, with
entire good humour, acknowledges the justice of Burke's indictment,
and says he was "heard with delight, even by those whose existence he
proscribed." After all, he only enjoyed the emolument of his office
for three years, and he places that emolument at a lower figure than
Burke did. He could not have received more than between two and three
thousand pounds of public money; and when we consider what manner of
men have fattened on the national purse, it would be churlish to
grudge that small sum to the historian of the _Decline and Fall_. The
misfortune is that, reasonably or otherwise, doubts were raised as to
Gibbon's complete straightforwardness and honourable adhesion to party
ties in accepting office. He says himself: "My acceptance of a place
provoked some of the leaders of opposition with whom I had lived in
habits of intimacy, and I was most unjustly accused of deserting a
party in which I had never enlisted." There is certainly no evidence
that those who were most qualified to speak, those who gave him the
place and reckoned on his vote, ever complained of want of allegiance.
On the other hand, Gibbon's own letter to Edward Elliot, accepting the
place, betrays a somewhat uneasy conscience. He owns that he was far
from approving all the past measures of the administration, even some
of those in which he himself had silently concurred; that he saw many
capital defects in the characters of some of the present ministers,
and was sorry that in so alarming a situation of public affairs the
country had not the assistance of several able and honest men who were
now in opposition. Still, for various reasons, he did not consider
himself in any way implicated, and rather suspiciously concludes with
an allusion to his pecuniary difficulties and a flourish. "The
addition of the salary which is now offered will make my situation
perfectly easy, but I hope that you will do me the justice to believe
that my mind could not be so unless I were conscious of the rectitude
of my conduct."
The strongest charge against Gibbon in reference to this matter is
asserted to come from his friend Fox, in this odd form. "In June 1781,
Mr. Fox's library came to be sold. Amongst his other books the first
volume of Mr. Gibbon's history was brought to the hammer. In the
blank leaf of this was a note in the handwriting of Mr. Fox, stating a
remarkable declaration of our historian at a well-known tavern in Pall
Mall, and contrasting it with Mr. Gibbon's political conduct
afterwards. 'The author,' it observed, 'at Brooks's said that there
was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal
persons in administration' (Lord North being then prime minister)
'were laid upon the table. Yet,' as the observation added, 'eleven
days afterwards this same gentleman accepted a place of a lord of
trade under these very ministers, and has acted with them ever
since.'" It is impossible to tell what amount of truth there is in
this story, and not very important to inquire. It rests on the
authority of a strong personal enemy, and the cordial intimacy which
ever subsisted between Gibbon and Fox seems to show that it was mere
calumny. Perhaps the fact that Gibbon had really no opinions in
politics may have led persons of opposite parties to think that he
agreed with them more than he did, and when he merely followed his own
interest, they may have inferred that he was deserting their
principles. After losing his post on the Board of Trade he still hoped
for Government employ, "either a secure seat at the Board of Customs
or Excise," or in a diplomatic capacity. He was disappointed. If Lord
Sheffield is to be believed, it was his friend Fox who frustrated his
appointment as secretary of embassy at Paris, when he had been already
named to that office.
The way in which Gibbon acted and afterwards spoke in reference to the
celebrated Coalition gives perhaps the best measure of his political
calibre. He voted among the rank and file of Lord North's followers
for the Coalition with meek subserviency. He speaks of a "principle of
gratitude" which actuated him on this occasion. Lord North had given
him his seat, and if a man's conscience allows him to think rather of
his patron than of his country, there is nothing to be said, except
that his code of political ethics is low. We may admit that his vote
was pledged; but there is also no doubt that any gratitude that there
was in the matter was stimulated by a lively sense of favours to come.
The Portland ministry had not been long in office when he wrote in the
following terms to his friend Deyverdun: "You have not forgotten that
I went into Parliament without patriotism and without ambition, and
that all my views tended to the convenient and respectable place of a
lord of trade. This situation I at length obtained. I possessed it for
three years, from 1779 to 1782, and the net produce, which amounted to
750_l._ sterling, augmented my income to my wants and desires. But in
the spring of last year the storm burst over our heads. Lord North was
overthrown, your humble servant turned out, and even the Board of
Trade, of which I was a member, abolished and broken up for ever by
Mr. Burke's reform. To complete my misfortunes, I still remain a
member of the Lower House. At the end of the last Parliament, Mr.
Eliot withdrew his nomination. But the favour of Lord North
facilitated my re-election, and gratitude imposed on me the duty of
making available for his service the rights which I held in part from
him. That winter we fought under the allied standards of Lord North
and Mr. Fox: we triumphed over Lord Shelburne and the peace, and my
friend (_i.e._ Lord North) remounted his steed in the quality of a
secretary of state. Now he can easily say to me, 'It was a great deal
for me, it was nothing for you;' and in spite of the strongest
assurances, I have too much reason to allow me to have much faith.
With great genius and very respectable talents, he has now neither the
title nor the credit of prime minister; more active colleagues carry
off the most savoury morsels which their voracious creatures
immediately devour; our misfortunes and reforms have diminished the
number of favours; either through pride or through indolence I am but
a bad suitor, and if at last I obtain something, it may perhaps be on
the eve of a fresh revolution, which will in an instant snatch from me
that which has cost me so many cares and pains."
Such a letter speaks for itself. Gibbon might well say that he entered
parliament without patriotism and without ambition. The only redeeming
feature is the almost cynical frankness with which he openly regards
politics from a personal point of view. However, it may be pleaded
that the letter was written to a bosom friend at a moment of great
depression, and when Gibbon's pecuniary difficulties were pressing him
severely. The Coalition promised him a place, and that was enough; the
contempt for all principle which had brought it about was not thought
of. But even this minute excuse does not apply to the way in which,
years after, when he was in comfort at Lausanne, he refers to the
subject in his Memoirs. The light in which the Coalition deserved to
be regarded was clear by that time. Yet he speaks of it, not only
without blame or regret, but contrives to cast suspicion on the
motives of those who were disgusted by it, and bestowed their
allegiance elsewhere.
"It is not the purpose of this narrative to expatiate on the
public or secret history of the times: the schism which
followed the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the
appointment of the Earl of Shelbourne, the resignation of
Mr. Fox and his famous coalition with Lord North. But I may
assert with some degree of assurance that in their political
conflict those great antagonists had never felt any personal
animosity to each other, that their reconciliation was easy
and sincere, and that their friendship has never been
clouded by the shadow of suspicion or jealousy. The _most
violent_ or _venal_ of their respective followers embraced
this fair occasion of revolt, but their alliance still
commanded a majority of the House of Commons, the peace was
censured, Lord Shelbourne resigned, and the two friends
knelt on the same cushion to take the oath of secretary of
state. From a principle of gratitude I adhered to the
Coalition; my vote was counted in the day of battle, but I
was overlooked in the division of the spoil."
From this we learn that it was only the _violent_ and the _venal_ who
disapproved of the Coalition. One would like to know how Gibbon
explained the fact that at the general election of 1784 no less than
one hundred and sixty of the supporters of the Coalition lost their
seats, and that Fox's political reputation was all but irretrievably
ruined from this time forward.
Meanwhile, he had not neglected, his own proper work. The first volume
of his history was published in February, 1776. It derived, he says,
"more credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author."
In the first instance he intended to print only five hundred copies,
but the number was doubled by the "prophetic taste" of his printer,
Mr. Strahan. The book was received with a burst of applause--it was a
_succès fou_. The first impression was exhausted in a few days, and a
second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand. The
wiser few were as warm in their eulogies as the general public. Hume
declared that if he had not been personally acquainted with the
author, he should have been surprised by such a performance coming
from any Englishman in that age. Dr. Robertson, Adam Ferguson, and
Horace Walpole joined in the chorus. Walpole betrays an amusing
mixture of admiration and pique at not having found the author out
before. "I know him a little, and never suspected the extent of his
talents; for he is perfectly modest, or I want penetration, which I
know too; but I intend to know him a great deal more." He oddly enough
says that Gibbon was the "son of a foolish alderman," which shows at
least how little the author was known in the great world up to this
time. Now, however, society was determined to know more of him, the
surest proof, not of merit, but of success. It must have been a rather
intoxicating moment, but Gibbon had a cool head not easily turned. It
would be unfair not to add that he had something much better, a really
warm and affectionate regard for old friends, the best preservative
against the fumes of flattery and sudden fame. Holroyd, Deyverdun,
Madame Necker were more to him than all the great people with whom he
now became acquainted. Necker and his wife came over from Paris and
paid him a long visit in Bentinck Street, when his laurels were just
fresh. "I live with her" he writes, "just as I used to do twenty years
ago, laugh at her Paris varnish, and oblige her to become a simple
reasonable Suissesse. The man, who might read English husbands lessons
of proper and dutiful behaviour, is a sensible, good-natured
creature." The next year he returned the visit to Paris. His fame had
preceded him, and he received the cordial but discriminating welcome
which _the ancien régime_ at that time specially reserved for _gens
d'esprit_. Madame du Deffand writes to Walpole, "Mr. Gibbon has the
greatest success here; it is quite a struggle to get him." He did not
deny himself a rather sumptuous style of living while in Paris.
Perhaps the recollection of the unpleasant effect of his English
clothes and the long waists of the French on his former visit dwelt in
his mind, for now, like Walpole, he procured a new outfit at once.
"After decking myself out with silks and silver, the ordinary
establishment of coach, lodgings, servants, eating, and pocket
expenses, does not exceed 60_l._ per month. Yet I have two footmen in
handsome liveries behind my coach, and my apartment is hung with
damask."
The remainder of his life in London has nothing important. He
persevered assiduously with his history, and had two more quartos
ready in 1781. They were received with less enthusiasm than the first,
although they were really superior. Gibbon was rather too modestly
inclined to agree with the public and "to believe that, especially in
the beginning, they were more prolix and less entertaining" than the
previous volume. He also wasted some weeks on his vindication of the
fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of that volume, which had excited a
host of feeble and ill-mannered attacks. His defence was complete, and
in excellent temper. But the piece has no permanent value. His
assailants were so ignorant and silly that they gave no scope for a
great controversial reply. Neither perhaps did the subject admit of
it. A literary war generally makes people think of Bentley's
incomparable _Phalaris_. But that was almost a unique occasion and
victory in the history of letters. Bentley himself, the most
pugnacious of men, never found such another.
And so the time glided by, till we come to the year 1783. Lord North
had resigned office, the Board of Trade was abolished, and Gibbon had
lost his convenient salary. The outlook was not pleasant. The seat on
the Board of Customs or Excise with which his hopes had been for a
time kept up, receded into a remote distance, and he came to the
conclusion "that the reign of pensions and sinecures was at an end."
It was clearly necessary to take some important step in the way of
retrenchment. After he had lost his official income, his expenses
exceeded his revenue by something like four hundred pounds. A less
expensive style of living in London never seems to have presented
itself as an alternative. So, like many an Englishman before and
since, he resolved to go abroad to economise.
His old friend Deyverdun was now settled in a comfortable house at
Lausanne, overlooking the Lake of Geneva. They had not met for eight
years. But the friendship had begun a quarter of a century before, in
the old days when Gibbon was a boarder in Pavillard's house, and the
embers of old associations only wanted stirring to make them shoot up
into flame. In a moment of expansion Gibbon wrote off a warm and eager
letter to his friend, setting forth his unsatisfactory position, and
his wish and even necessity to change it. He gradually and with much
delicacy discloses his plan, that he and Deyverdun, both now old
bachelors, should combine their solitary lives in a common household
and carry out an old project, often discussed in younger days, of
living together. "You live in a charming house. I see from here my
apartment, the rooms we shall share with one another, our table, our
walks. But such a marriage is worthless unless it suits both parties,
and I easily feel that circumstances, new tastes, and connections may
frustrate a design which appeared charming in the distance. To settle
my mind and to avoid regrets, you must be as frank as I have been, and
give me a true picture, external and internal, of George Deyverdun."
This letter, written in fluent and perfect French, is one of the best
that we have of Gibbon. Deyverdun answered promptly, and met his
friend's advances with at least equal warmth. The few letters that
have been preserved of his connected with this subject give a highly
favourable idea of his mind and character, and show he was quite
worthy of the long and constant attachment that Gibbon felt for him.
He cannot express the delight he has felt at his friend's proposal; by
the rarest piece of good fortune, it so happens that he himself is in
a somewhat similar position of uncertainty and difficulty; a year ago
Gibbon's letter would have given him pleasure, now it offers
assistance and support. After a few details concerning the tenant who
occupies a portion of his house, he proceeds to urge Gibbon to carry
out the project he had suggested, to break loose from parliament and
politics, for which he was not fit, and to give himself up to the
charms of study and friendship. "Call to mind, my dear friend," he
goes on, "that I saw you enter parliament with regret, and I think I
was only too good a prophet. I am sure that career has caused you more
privations than joys, more pains than pleasures. Ever since I have
known you I have been convinced that your happiness lay in your study
and in society, and that any path which led you elsewhere was a
departure from happiness." Through nine pages of gentle and friendly
eloquence Deyverdun pursues his argument to induce his friend to
clinch the bargain. "I advise you not only not to solicit a place, but
to refuse one if it were offered to you. Would a thousand a year make
up to you for the loss of five days a week?... By making this retreat
to Switzerland, besides the beauty of the country and the pleasures of
its society, you will acquire two blessings which you have lost,
liberty and competence. You will also be useful, your works will
continue to enlighten us, and, independently of your talents, the man
of honour and refinement is never useless." He then skilfully exhibits
the attractions he has to offer. "You used to like my house and
garden; what would you do now? On the first floor, which looks on the
declivity of Ouchy, I have fitted up an apartment which is enough for
me. I have a servant's room, two _salons_, two cabinets. On a level
with the terrace two other _salons_, of which one serves as a
dining-room in summer, and the other a drawing-room for company. I
have arranged three more rooms between the house and the coachhouse,
so that I can offer you all the large apartment, which consists
actually of eleven rooms, great and small, looking east and south, not
splendidly furnished, I allow, but with a certain elegance which I
hope you will like. The terrace is but little altered ... it is lined
from end to end with boxes of orange-trees. The vine-trellis has
prospered, and extends nearly to the end. I have purchased the
vineyard below the garden, and in front of the house made it into a
lawn, which is watered by the water of the fountain.... In a word,
strangers come to see the place, and in spite of my pompous
description of it I think you will like it.... If you come, you will
find a tranquillity which you cannot have in London, and a friend who
has not passed a single day without thinking of you, and who, in spite
of his defects, his foibles, and his inferiority, is still one of the
companions who suits you best."
More letters followed from both sides in a similar strain. Yet Gibbon
quailed before a final resolution. His aunt, Mrs. Porten, his mother,
Mrs. Gibbon, his friend, Lord Sheffield, all joined in deprecating his
voluntary exile. "That is a nonsensical scheme," said the latter, "you
have got into your head of returning to Lausanne--a pretty fancy; you
remember how much you liked it in your youth, but now you have seen
more of the world, and if you were to try it again you would find
yourself woefully disappointed." Deyverdun, with complete sympathy,
begged him not to be in too great a hurry to decide on a course which
he himself desired so much. "I agree with you," he wrote to Gibbon,
"that this is a sort of marriage, but I could never forgive myself if
I saw you dissatisfied in the sequel, and in a position to reproach
me." Gibbon felt it was a case demanding decision of character, and he
came to a determination with a promptitude and energy not usual with
him. He promised Deyverdun in the next letter an ultimatum, stating
whether he meant to _go_ or to _stay_, and a week after he wrote, "I
go." He had prudently refrained from consulting Lord Sheffield during
this critical period, knowing that his certain disapprobation of the
scheme would only complicate matters and render decision more
difficult. Then he wrote, "I have given Deyverdun my word of honour to
be at Lausanne at the beginning of October, and no power of
persuasion can divert me from this _irrevocable_ resolution, which I
am every day proceeding to execute."
This was no exaggeration. He cancelled the lease of his house in
Bentinck Street, packed the more necessary portion of his books and
shipped them for Rouen, and as his postchaise moved over Westminster
Bridge, "bade a long farewell to the _fumum et opes strepitumque
Romæ_." The only real pang he felt in leaving arose from the "silent
grief" of his Aunt Porten, whom he did not hope to see again. Nor did
he. He started on September 15, 1783, slept at Dover, was flattered
with the hope of making Calais harbour by the same tide in "three
hours and a half, as the wind was brisk and fair," but was driven into
Boulogne. He had not a symptom of seasickness. Then he went on by easy
stages through Aire, Bethune, Douay, Cambray, St. Quentin, La Fère,
Laon, Rheims, Chalons, St. Dizier, Langres, Besançon, and arrived at
Lausanne on the 27th. The inns he found more agreeable to the palate
than to the sight or the smell. At Langres he had an excellent bed
about six feet high from the ground. He beguiled the time with Homer
and Clarendon, talking with his servant, Caplin, and his dog Muff, and
sometimes with the French postilions, and he found them the least
rational of the animals mentioned.
He reached his journey's end, to alight amid a number of minor
troubles, which to a less easy tempered man would have been real
annoyances. He found that Deyverdun had reckoned without his host, or
rather his tenant, and that they could not have possession of the
house for several months, so he had to take lodgings. Then he sprained
his ankle, and this brought on a bad attack of the gout, which laid
him up completely. However, his spirits never gave way. In time his
books arrived, and the friends got installed in their own house. His
satisfaction has then no bounds, with the people, the place, the way
of living, and his daily companion. We must now leave him for a short
space in the enjoyment of his happiness, while we briefly consider the
labours of the previous ten years.