1737-1794
[Sidenote: Colman’s _Random Recollections_.]
“The learned Gibbon was a curious counter-balance 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 a 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.”
[Sidenote: Lord Sheffield’s _Gibbon_.]
“M. Pavilliard has described to me the astonishment with which he gazed
on Mr. Gibbon standing before him; a thin little figure, with a large
head, disputing and urging, with the greatest ability, all the best
arguments that had ever been used in favour of popery. Mr. Gibbon many
years ago became very fat and corpulent, but he had uncommonly small
bones, and was very slightly made.”
[Sidenote: _Quarterly Review_, 1809. *]
“As to his manners in society, without doubt the agreeableness of
Gibbon was neither that yielding and retiring complaisance, nor that
modesty which is forgetful of self; but his vanity never showed itself
in an offensive manner: anxious to succeed and to please, he wished to
command attention, and obtained it without difficulty by a conversation
animated, sprightly, and full of matter: all that was dictatorial in
his tone betrayed not so much that desire of domineering over others,
which is always offensive, as confidence in himself. Notwithstanding
this, his conversation never carried one away; its fault was a kind of
arrangement which never permitted him to say anything unless well.”