This celebrated historian, the son of a gentleman who for some time
represented the borough of Petersfield in parliament, was born at
Putney, on the 27th of April, 1737. After having received the elements
of instruction at a day school, and under a private tutor, he was, in
1746, sent to an academy at Kingston-upon-Thames; and from thence, in
1748, to Westminster, where he entered the school, and resided in a
boarding-house kept by his aunt. His delicate health soon occasioned
his removal from Westminster school, though he subsequently attempted
to renew his attendance there, after having passed some time at Bath
and Winchester, by the advice of his physicians. In his fifteenth
year, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Philip Francis, the
translator of Horace: and, on the 3d of April, 1752, he was
matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Here, according to his own account, ‘he spent fourteen months, the
most unprofitable of his whole life,’ and appears to have been
conspicuous only for his dissipation and extravagance. Such a mode of
passing his time he attributes less to his own inclination, than to
the negligence of his tutors, whom he charges with recommending no
plan of study for his use, and prescribing no exercises for his
inspection. ‘I was not,’ he says, ‘devoid of capacity or application;’
and insinuates that he might have arrived at academical distinction,
‘in the discipline of a well-constituted university, under the
guidance of skillful and vigilant professors.’
His departure from Oxford was hastened by his adoption of the catholic
faith, his conversion to which he attributed to a perusal of Bossuet’s
Exposition of the Catholic Doctrine, and the History of the Protestant
Variations. At a future period he observes: ‘To my present feelings,
it seems incredible that I should ever believe that I believed in
transubstantiation. But my conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental
words, “this is my body;” and dashed against each other the figurative
half-meanings of the protestant sects. Every objection was resolved
into omnipotence; and, after repeating, at St. Mary’s, the Athanasian
creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real presence.’ On
his arrival in London, he introduced himself to a priest, renounced
the protestant, and was admitted a member of the Romish church, in
June, 1753. His father was highly indignant at his religious
conversion, and sent him, in consequence, to Lausanne in Switzerland,
where he resided in the house with Mr. Pavillard, and ‘spent nearly
five years with pleasure and profit.’ His tutor, who was a minister,
spared no effort to convince him that he had come to an erroneous
conclusion concerning the catholic doctrine; and his exertions, aided
by the mature reflections of his pupil, were at length successful.
‘The various articles of the Romish creed,’ says our author,
‘disappeared like a dream; and, after a full conviction, on Christmas
day, 1754, I received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne.’ During
his stay in this city, he made rapid and profitable progress in his
studies; and, besides opening a correspondence with the chief literati
of the continent, he acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and
perfected his acquaintance with the Greek and Latin languages.
Previous to his leaving Lausanne, he formed an attachment to a
Mademoiselle Curchod, the commencement and termination of which, in
his own words, is too interesting to be omitted. ‘I saw,’ he says,
‘and loved. I found her learned, without pedantry; lively in
conversation; pure in sentiment; elegant in manners. She permitted me
to make her two or three visits in her father’s house. I passed some
happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, and her parents
honorably encouraged the connexion. In a calm retirement, the gay
vanity of youth no longer fluttered in her bosom. She listened to the
voice of truth and passion, and I might presume to hope I had made
some impression on a virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne, I
indulged my dream of felicity; but, on my return to England, I soon
discovered that my father would not hear to this strange alliance.
After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a lover; I
obeyed as a son: my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and
the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated by a faithful report
of the tranquillity and cheerfulness of the lady herself; and my love
subsided into friendship and esteem. A rich banker of Paris, a citizen
of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess
this inestimable treasure; and, in the capital of taste and luxury,
she resisted the temptation of wealth, as she had sustained the
hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to
the most conspicuous station in Europe; and Mademoiselle Curchod is
now the wife of M. Necker.’
In 1758, he returned to England, and took up his residence at his
father’s house, where he devoted himself to the gradual collection of
a library, and to a strict course of reading. In 1761, he acquired
some reputation on the continent, but little at home, by the
publication of a small work, written in the French language, entitled,
Essai sur l’Etude de la Littérature. His literary occupation received
an interruption in the same year, by his entering as captain in the
Hampshire militia, in which he remained till the peace of 1763. He
then set out for Paris, where the reputation he had acquired by his
Essai, procured him an introduction to the first literary and
fashionable circles. After a stay of eleven months at Lausanne, he
proceeded to Rome, where, as ‘he sat musing amongst the ruins of the
capital, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the
Temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the
city first started to his mind.’ He returned from Italy in 1765, and
again entered the militia as lieutenant-colonel commandant; but
resigned the situation on the death of his father, in 1770. The
interval between these periods was passed by him in a variety of
amusements and occupations, partly in the country, and partly in
London, where, in conjunction with other travelers, he established a
weekly convivial meeting, under the name of the Roman Club. Alluding
to this period of life, he says, ‘I lamented that, at the proper age,
I had not embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, the
chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers
of the church.’ His regret at the want of a profession arose, in a
great measure, from an apprehension of being left, in his old age,
without a sufficient maintenance; a fear that acted as a stimulus to
his subsequent exertions.
He had already-made some progress in a History of the Revolutions of
Switzerland, and, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Deyverdun, had
produced two volumes of a literary journal, entitled Memoires
Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne. The former, however, he committed
to the flames, before it was finished, and the latter met with little
encouragement. His next performance was more successful; it was a
masterly refutation of Warburton’s hypothesis that Virgil’s
description of Æneas’ descent into the shades was an allegorical
representation of the hero’s initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries.
About two years after the death of his father, he sat down steadily to
the composition of the first volume of his celebrated history. ‘At the
outset,’ he says, ‘all was dark and doubtful; even the title of the
work, the true era of the decline and fall of the empire, the limits
of the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of
the narrative; and I was often tempted to cast away the labor of seven
years;’ and, again, ‘three times did I compose the first chapter, and
twice the second and third, before I was tolerably certain of their
effect.’ At length, in 1776, previously to which he had been returned
to parliament for the borough of Liskeard, through the influence of
his cousin, Mr. Eliot, appeared the first quarto volume of his Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire. It was received with a burst of
applause, and almost immediately reached a third edition; but the most
gratifying result to its author was the spontaneous approbation of
Hume and Robertson. ‘My book,’ says Gibbon, ‘was on every table, and
almost on every toilette.’ The two chapters, however, in which
revealed religion was impugned, gave rise to various attacks; but he
only thought fit to reply to one, by Mr. Davis, who called in question
‘not the faith, but the fidelity of the historian.’
In parliament, our author was a silent supporter of ministers, and was
employed by them to compose, in the French language, a manifesto
against that government, which was sent as a state paper to all the
courts of Europe, under the title of Memoire Justificatif. For this
service he was appointed one of the lords commissioners of trade and
the plantations, but on the retirement of the North administration,
his place being abolished, he meditated a retirement to Lausanne, for
the purpose of completing his History. Previously to his departure
from England, the second and third volumes had appeared in 1781, in
which he tells us, ‘his Ecclesiastical History still breathed the same
spirit of freedom;’ but, ‘that his obstinate silence, with regard to
former attacks, had damped the ardor of the polemics.’ In 1783, he
sold every thing but his library, and proceeded to Lausanne; where, in
conjunction with his friend, Mr. Deyverdun, he took an elegant and
beautifully situated house, and devoted himself to the composition of
his History, and the pleasures of the society which the place
afforded. In four years he brought his Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire to a termination, and seems to have arrived at the close of his
literary labors with mingled feelings of regret and delight. ‘It was,’
he says, ‘on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787,
between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of
the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my
pen, I took several turns in a _berceau_, or covered walk of acacias,
which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon
was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not
dissemble the first emotions of joy, on the recovery of my freedom,
and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon
humbled, and a sober melancholy spread over my mind, by the idea that
I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion,
and that whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life
of the author might be short and precarious. I will add two facts,
which have seldom occurred in the composition of six, or at least
five, quartos: First――My rough manuscript, without any intermediate
copy, has been sent to press. Second――Not a sheet has been seen by any
human eyes excepting those of the author and the printer. The faults
and merits are exclusively my own.’
In April, 1788, the publication of the concluding volumes took place,
under his own superintendence, for which purpose he had come to
London, where he passed most of his time with Lords North and
Sheffield, and resided with the family of the latter. In July, he
returned to Lausanne, but the death of his friend Deyverdun, which
occurred shortly afterwards, and ‘the tide of emigration and
wretchedness,’ caused by the explosion of the French revolution, had
broken the charm which that place once had for him. In 1791, he was
visited by Lord Sheffield, and in 1793, on the death of that
nobleman’s wife, he, at the earnest desire of the former, proceeded to
England, and again took up his residence at his friend’s house. After
some months spent in familiar intercourse with the principal political
and literary characters of the time, he sunk under the effects of a
hydrocele, the result of a rupture, with which he had been afflicted
for nearly thirty years. He was tapped several times previously to his
decease, which took place on the 16th of January, 1794. On the
preceding day he had talked as usual, and, so far from anticipating
his death, said, ‘that he thought himself good for a life of ten,
twelve, or perhaps twenty years.’
The character of Gibbon, in many points, resembled that of Hume; he
died a bachelor; was a gentleman, a sceptic, and a historian; treated
his literary antagonists with contempt, and had a dignified sense of
his own abilities. He was careful to retain his place in society, by a
strict adherence to its established rules; and as he lived for the
world, took care not to lose its esteem by any conduct inconsistent
with the calmness of a philosopher, the dictates of honor, or the
maxims of morality. He possessed a lofty mind and spirit, but acted
rather from motive than principle; and, as a politician, he can be
considered in no other character than that of a ministerial follower
for the sake of convenience and emolument. His conduct in his domestic
relations was in the highest degree exemplary; and in his friendships
he was sincere, constant, and ardent. He possessed great natural
powers of mind, which he assiduously studied to improve: in
conversation he is described, by Lord Sheffield, as ready, cheerful,
entertaining, brilliant, illuminating, and interesting. As an author,
he is among the most distinguished of the eighteenth century; but the
lapse of forty years has somewhat impaired his reputation for a style
which is now generally admitted to be enigmatical, pompous, and
elaborate, where it should have been concise, simple, and explicit.
Dr. Beattie says, ‘Such is the affectation of his style, that I could
never get through the half of one of his volumes;’ and a celebrated
bishop observed of his ‘bulky quartos,’ that they were ‘only fit for
the gloom and horror of wintry storms.’ None can deny to it, however,
a pervading splendor, stateliness, and majesty; and, indeed, the
writer seems to be always on his guard against a common expression, as
if he were afraid of degrading his own powers, by descending to the
level of ordinary capacities. It is thus that he has some passages of
surprising and matchless beauty; and where his language is in keeping
with his subject, the understanding is readily captivated, and the ear
unconsciously delighted.
As to the matter of his history, the principal charges against him are
the grave ones of a covert attempt to overthrow a belief in revealed
religion, and a complacent indelicacy of description, especially in
the latter volumes. To this he answers, that ‘the licentious passages
are confined to the notes, and to the obscurity of a learned
language;’ an apology which few, perhaps, will consider sufficient.
His attack on Christianity he himself seems to have regretted, though
he never retracted. ‘Had I believed,’ he says, ‘that the majority of
English readers were so fondly attached, even to the name and shadow
of Christianity; had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the
prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite
sensibility; I might, perhaps, have softened the two invidious
chapters, which could create many enemies, and conciliate few
friends.’ His pathetic observations at the close of his memoirs, show
that his own notions offered no security for felicity here, if, as he
insinuated, those of others would fail to do so hereafter. After
quoting the opinion of Fontenelle, who, he observes, fixes our moral
happiness to the mature season in which our passions are supposed to
be calmed, our duties fulfilled, our ambition satisfied, our fame and
fortune established on a solid basis, he says, ‘I am far more inclined
to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not
suppose any premature decay of mind or body; but I must reluctantly
observe, that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of
hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.’ In
a letter to Lord Sheffield, after the death of his wife, he says, ‘the
only consolation in these melancholy trials to which human life is
exposed, the only one at least in which I have any confidence, is the
presence of a real friend.’