Porten, the affectionate guardian of my tender years. I hastened to
her house in College-street, Westminster; and the evening was spent
in the effusions of joy and confidence. It was not without some awe
and apprehension that I approached the presence of my father. My
infancy, to speak the truth, had been neglected at home; the
severity of his look and language at our last parting still dwelt on
my memory; nor could I form any notion of his character, or my
probable reception. They were both more agreeable than I could
expect. The domestic discipline of our ancestors has been relaxed
by the philosophy and softness of the age; and if my father
remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent, it was only
to adopt with his own son an opposite mode of behaviour. He
received me as a man and a friend; all constraint was banished at
our first interview, and we ever afterwards continued on the same
terms of easy and equal politeness. He applauded the success of my
education; every word and action was expressive of the most cordial
affection; and our lives would have passed without a cloud, if his
oeconomy had been equal to his fortune, or if his fortune had been
equal to his desires. During my absence he had married his second
wife, Miss Dorothea Patton, who was introduced to me with the most
unfavourable prejudice. I considered his second marriage as an act
of displeasure, and I was disposed to hate the rival of my mother.
But the injustice was in my own fancy, and the imaginary monster was
an amiable and deserving woman. I could not be mistaken in the
first view of her understanding, her knowledge, and the elegant
spirit of her conversation: her polite welcome, and her assiduous
care to study and gratify my wishes, announced at least that the
surface would be smooth; and my suspicions of art and falsehood were
gradually dispelled by the full discovery of her warm and exquisite
sensibility. After some reserve on my side, our minds associated in
confidence and friendship; and as Mrs. Gibbon had neither children
nor the hopes of children, we more easily adopted the tender names
and genuine characters of mother and of son. By the indulgence of
these parents, I was left at liberty to consult my taste or reason
in the choice of place, of company, and of amusements; and my
excursions were bounded only by the limits of the island, and the
measure of my income. Some faint efforts were made to procure me
the employment of secretary to a foreign embassy; and I listened to
a scheme which would again have transported me to the continent.
Mrs. Gibbon, with seeming wisdom, exhorted me to take chambers in
the Temple, and devote my leisure to the study of the law. I cannot
repent of having neglected her advice. Few men, without the spur of
necessity, have resolution to force their way, through the thorns
and thickets of that gloomy labyrinth. Nature had not endowed me
with the bold and ready eloquence which makes itself heard amidst
the tumult of the bar; and I should probably have been diverted from
the labours of literature, without acquiring the fame or fortune of
a successful pleader. I had no need to call to my aid the regular
duties of a profession; every day, every hour, was agreeably filled;
nor have I known, like so many of my countrymen, the tediousness of
an idle life.
Of the two years (May 1758-May 1760,) between my return to England
and the embodying of the Hampshire militia, I passed about nine
months in London, and the remainder in the country. The metropolis
affords many amusements, which are open to all. It is itself an
astonishing and perpetual spectacle to the curious eye; and each
taste, each sense may be gratified by the variety of objects which
will occur in the long circuit of a morning walk. I assiduously
frequented the theatres at a very propitious aera of the stage, when
a constellation of excellent actors, both in tragedy and comedy, was
eclipsed by the meridian brightness of Garrick in the maturity of
his judgment, and vigour of his performance. The pleasures of a
town-life are within the reach of every man who is regardless of his
health, his money, and his company. By the contagion of example I
was sometimes seduced; but the better habits, which I had formed at
Lausanne, induced me to seek a more elegant and rational society;
and if my search was less easy and successful than I might have
hoped, I shall at present impute the failure to the disadvantages of
my situation and character. Had the rank and fortune of my parents
given them an annual establishment in London, their own house would
have introduced me to a numerous and polite circle of acquaintance.
But my father's taste had always preferred the highest and the
lowest company, for which he was equally qualified; and after a
twelve years' retirement, he was no longer in the memory of the
great with whom he had associated. I found myself a stranger in the
midst of a vast and unknown city; and at my entrance into life I was
reduced to some dull family parties, and some scattered connections,
which were not such as I should have chosen for myself. The most
useful friends of my father were the Mallets: they received me with
civility and kindness at first on his account, and afterwards on my
own; and (if I may use Lord Chesterfield's words) I was soon
domesticated in their house. Mr. Mallet, a name among the English
poets, is praised by an unforgiving enemy, for the ease and elegance
of his conversation, and his wife was not destitute of wit or
learning. By his assistance I was introduced to Lady Hervey, the
mother of the present earl of Bristol. Her age and infirmities
confined her at home; her dinners were select; in the evening her
house was open to the best company of both sexes and all nations;
nor was I displeased at her preference and affectation of the
manners, the language, and the literature of France. But my
progress in the English world was in general left to my own efforts,
and those efforts were languid and slow. I had not been endowed by
art or nature with those happy gifts of confidence and address,
which unlock every door and every bosom; nor would it be reasonable
to complain of the just consequences of my sickly childhood, foreign
education, and reserved temper. While coaches were rattling through
Bond-street, I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging
with my books. My studies were sometimes interrupted by a sigh,
which I breathed towards Lausanne; and on the approach of Spring, I
withdrew without reluctance from the noisy and extensive scene of
crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure. In each
of the twenty-five years of my acquaintance with London (1758-1783)
the prospect gradually brightened; and this unfavourable picture
most properly belongs to the first period after my return from
Switzerland.
My father's residence in Hampshire, where I have passed many light,
and some heavy hours, was at Beriton, near Petersfield, one mile
from the Portsmouth road, and at the easy distance of fifty-eight
miles from London. An old mansion, in a state of decay, had been
converted into the fashion and convenience of a modern house: and if
strangers had nothing to see, the inhabitants had little to desire.
The spot was not happily chosen, at the end of the village and the
bottom of the hill: but the aspect of the adjacent grounds was
various and cheerful; the downs commanded a noble prospect, and the
long hanging woods in sight of the house could not perhaps have been
improved by art or expence. My father kept in his own hands the
whole of the estate, and even rented some additional land; and
whatsoever might be the balance of profit and loss, the farm
supplied him with amusement and plenty. The produce maintained a
number of men and horses, which were multiplied by the intermixture
of domestic and rural servants; and in the intervals of labour the
favourite team, a handsome set of bays or greys, was harnessed to
the coach. The oeconomy of the house was regulated by the taste and
prudence of Mrs. Gibbon. She prided herself in the elegance of her
occasional dinners; and from the uncleanly avarice of Madame
Pavilliard, I was suddenly transported to the daily neatness and
luxury of an English table. Our immediate neighbourhood was rare
and rustic; but from the verge of our hills, as far as Chichester
and Goodwood, the western district of Sussex was interspersed with
noble seats and hospitable families, with whom we cultivated a
friendly, and might have enjoyed a very frequent, intercourse. As
my stay at Buriton was always voluntary, I was received and
dismissed with smiles; but the comforts of my retirement did not
depend on the ordinary pleasures of the country. My father could
never inspire me with his love and knowledge of farming. I never
handled a gun, I seldom mounted an 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. At home I
occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment; the library on the same
floor was soon considered as my peculiar domain; and I might say
with truth, that I was never less alone than when by myself. My
sole complaint, which I piously suppressed, arose from the kind
restraint imposed on the freedom of my time. By the habit of early
rising I always secured a sacred portion of the day, and many
scattered moments were stolen and employed by my studious industry.
But the family hours of breakfast, of dinner, of tea, and of supper,
were regular and long: after breakfast Mrs. Gibbon expected my
company in her dressing-room; after tea my father claimed my
conversation and the perusal of the newspapers; and in the midst of
an interesting work I was often called down to receive the visit of
some idle neighbours. Their dinners and visits required, in due
season, a similar return; and I dreaded the period of the full moon,
which was usually reserved for our more distant excursions. I could
not refuse attending my father, in the summer of 1759, to the races
at Stockbridge, Reading, and Odiam, where he had entered a horse for
the hunter's plate; and I was not displeased with the sight of our
Olympic games, the beauty of the spot, the fleetness of the horses,
and the gay tumult of the numerous spectators. As soon as the
militia business was agitated, many days were tediously consumed in
meetings of deputy-lieutenants at Petersfield, Alton, and
Winchester. In the close of the same year, 1759, Sir Simeon (then
Mr.) Stewart attempted an unsuccessful contest for the county of
Southampton, against Mr. Legge, Chancellor of the Exchequer: a
well-known contest, in which Lord Bute's influence was first exerted
and censured. Our canvas at Portsmouth and Gosport lasted several
days; but the interruption of my studies was compensated in some
degree by the spectacle of English manners, and the acquisition of
some practical knowledge.
If in a more domestic or more dissipated scene my application was
somewhat relaxed, the love of knowledge was inflamed and gratified
by the command of books; and I compared the poverty of Lausanne with
the plenty of London. My father's study at Buriton was stuffed with
much trash of the last age, with much high church divinity and
politics, which have long since gone to their proper place: yet it
contained some valuable editions of the classics and the fathers,
the choice, as it should seem, of Mr. Law; and many English
publications of the times had been occasionally added. From this
slender beginning I have gradually formed a numerous and select
library, the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my
life, both at home and abroad. On the receipt of the first quarter,
a large share of my allowance was appropriated to my literary wants.
I cannot forget the joy with which I exchanged a bank-note of twenty
pounds for the twenty volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of
Inscriptions; nor would it have been easy, by any other expenditure
of the same sum, to have procured so large and lasting a fund of
rational amusement. At a time when I most assiduously frequented
this school of ancient literature, I thus expressed my opinion of a
learned and various collection, which since the year 1759 has been
doubled in magnitude, though not in merit--"Une de ces societes, qui
ont mieux immortalise Louis XIV. qu un ambition souvent pernicieuse
aux hommes, commengoit deja ces recherches qui reunissent la
justesse de l'esprit, l'amenete & l'eruditlon: ou l'on voit iant des
decouvertes, et quelquefois, ce qui ne cede qu'a peine aux
decouvertes, une ignorance modeste et savante." The review of my
library must be reserved for the period of its maturity; but in this
place I may allow myself to observe, that I am not conscious of
having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation, that every
volume, before it was deposited on the shelf, was either read or
sufficiently examined, and that I soon adopted the tolerating maxim
of the elder Pliny, "nullum esse librum tam malum ut non ex aliqua
parte prodesset." I could not yet find leisure or courage to renew
the pursuit of the Greek language, excepting by reading the lessons
of the Old and New Testament every Sunday, when I attended the
family to church. The series of my Latin authors was less
strenuously completed; but the acquisition, by inheritance or
purchase, of the best editions of Cicero, Quintilian, Livy, Tacitus,
Ovid, &c. afforded a fair prospect, which I seldom neglected. I
persevered in the useful method of abstracts and observations; and a
single example may suffice, of a note which had almost swelled into
a work. The solution of a passage of Livy (xxxviii. 38,) involved
me in the dry and dark treatises of Greaves, Arbuthnot, Hooper,
Bernard, Eisenschmidt, Gronovius, La Barre, Freret, &c.; and in my
French essay (chap. 20,) I ridiculously send the reader to my own
manuscript remarks on the weights, coins, and measures of the
ancients, which were abruptly terminated by the militia drum.
As I am now entering on a more ample field of society and study, I
can only hope to avoid a vain and prolix garrulity, by overlooking
the vulgar crowd of my acquaintance, and confining myself to such
intimate friends among books and men, as are best entitled to my
notice by their own merit and reputation, or by the deep impression
which they have left on my mind. Yet I will embrace this occasion
of recommending to the young student a practice, which about this
time I myself adopted. After glancing my eye over the design and
order of a new book, I suspended the perusal till I had finished the
task of self examination, till I had revolved, in a solitary walk,
all that I knew or believed, or had thought on the subject of the
whole work, or of some particular chapter: I was then qualified to
discern how much the author added to my original stock; and I was
sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was sometimes armed by the
opposition of our ideas. The favourite companions of my leisure
were our English writers since the Revolution: they breathe the
spirit of reason and liberty; and they most seasonably contributed
to restore the purity of my own language, which had been corrupted
by the long use of a foreign idiom. By the judicious advice of Mr.
Mallet, I was directed to the writings of Swift and Addison; wit and
simplicity are their common attributes: but the style of Swift is
supported by manly original vigour; that of Addison is adorned by
the female graces of elegance and mildness. The old reproach, that
no British altars had been raised to the muse of history, was
recently disproved by the first performances of Robertson and Hume,
the histories of Scotland and of the Stuarts. I will assume the
presumption of saying, that I was not unworthy to read them: nor
will I disguise my different feelings in the repeated perusals. The
perfect composition, the nervous language, the well-turned periods
of Dr. Robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that I might one
day tread in his footsteps: the calm philosophy, the careless,
inimitable beauties of his friend and rival, often forced me to
close the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair.
The design of my first work, the Essay on the Study of Literature,
was suggested by a refinement of vanity, the desire of justifying
and praising the object of a favourite pursuit. In France, to which
my ideas were confined, the learning and language of Greece and Rome
were neglected by a philosophic age. The guardian of those studies,
the Academy of Inscriptions, was degraded to the lowest rank among
the three royal societies of Paris: the new appellation of Erudits
was contemptuously applied to the successors of Lipsius and
Casaubon; and I was provoked to hear (see M. d'Alembert Discours
preliminaire a l'Encyclopedie) that the exercise of the memory,
their sole merit, had been superseded by the nobler faculties of the
imagination and the judgment. I was ambitious of proving by my own
example, as well as by my precepts, that all the faculties of the
mind may be exercised and displayed by the study of ancient
literature: I began to select and adorn the various proofs and
illustrations which had offered themselves in reading the classics;
and the first pages or chapters of my essay were composed before my
departure from Lausanne. The hurry of the journey, and of the first
weeks of my English life, suspended all thoughts of serious
application: but my object was ever before my eyes; and no more than
ten days, from the first to the eleventh of July, were suffered to
elapse after my summer establishment at Buriton. My essay was
finished in about six weeks; and as soon as a fair copy had been
transcribed by one of the French prisoners at Petersfield, I looked
round for a critic and judge of my first performance. A writer can
seldom be content with the doubtful recompense of solitary
approbation; but a youth ignorant of the world, and of himself, must
desire to weigh his talents in some scales less partial than his
own: my conduct was natural, my motive laudable, my choice of Dr.
Maty judicious and fortunate. By descent and education Dr. Maty,
though born in Holland, might be considered as a Frenchman; but he
was fixed in London by the practice of physic, and an office in the
British Museum. His reputation was justly founded on the eighteen
volumes of the Journal Britannique, which he had supported, almost
alone, with perseverance and success. This humble though useful
labour, which had once been dignified by the genius of Bayle and the
learning of Le Clerc, was not disgraced by the taste, the knowledge,
and the judgment of Maty: he exhibits a candid and pleasing view of
the state of literature in England during a period of six years
(January 1750--December 1755); and, far different from his angry
son, he handles the rod of criticism with the tenderness and
reluctance of a parent. The author of the Journal Britannique
sometimes aspires to the character of a poet and philosopher: his
style is pure and elegant; and in his virtues, or even in his
defects, he may be ranked as one of the last disciples of the school
of Fontenelle. His answer to my first letter was prompt and polite:
after a careful examination he returned my manuscript, with some
animadversion and much applause; and when I visited London in the
ensuing winter, we discussed the design and execution in several
free and familiar conversations. In a short excursion to Buriton I
reviewed my essay, according to his friendly advice; and after
suppressing a third, adding a third, and altering a third, I
consummated my first labour by a short preface, which is dated Feb.
3, 1759. Yet I still shrunk from the press with the terrors of
virgin modesty: the manuscript was safely deposited in my desk; and
as my attention was engaged by new objects, the delay might have
been prolonged till I had fulfilled the precept of Horace, "nonumque
prematur in annum." Father Sirmond, a learned jesuit, was still more
rigid, since he advised a young friend to expect the mature age of
fifty, before he gave himself or his writings to the public (Olivet
Hist. de l'Acad. Francoise, tom. ii. p. 143). The counsel was
singular; but it is still more singular that it should have been
approved by the example of the author. Sirmond was himself
fifty-five years of age when he published (in 1614) his first work,
an edition of Sidonius Apollinaris, with many valuable annotations:
(see his life, before the great edition of his works in five volumes
folio, Paris, 1696, e Typographia Regia).
Two years elapsed in silence: but in the spring of 1761 I yielded to
the authority of a parent, and complied, like a pious son, with the
wish of my own heart. My private resolves were influenced by the
state of Europe. About this time the belligerent powers had made
and accepted overtures of peace; our English plenipotentiaries were
named to assist at the Congress of Augsburg, which never met: I
wished to attend them as a gentleman or a secretary; and my father
fondly believed that the proof of some literary talents might
introduce me to public notice, and second the recommendations of my
friends. After a last revisal I consulted with Mr. Mallet and Dr.
Maty, who approved the design and promoted the execution. Mr.
Mallet, after hearing me read my manuscript, received it from my
hands, and delivered it into those of Becket, with whom he made an
agreement in my name; an easy agreement: I required only a certain
number of copies; and, without transferring my property, I devolved
on the bookseller the charges and profits of the edition. Dr. Maty
undertook, in my absence, to correct the sheets: he inserted,
without my knowledge, an elegant and flattering epistle to the
author; which is composed, however, with so much art, that, in case
of a defeat, his favourable report might have been ascribed to the
indulgence of a friend for the rash attempt of a young English
gentleman. The work was printed and published, under the title of
Essai sur l'Etude de la Litterature, a Londres, chez T. Becket et P.
A. de Hondt, 1761, in a small volume in duodecimo: my dedication to
my father, a proper and pious address, was composed the
twenty-eighth of May: Dr. Maty's letter is dated June 16; and I
received the first copy (June 23) at Alresford, two days before I
marched with the Hampshire militia. Some weeks afterwards, on the
same ground, I presented my book to the late Duke of York, who
breakfasted in Colonel Pitt's tent. By my father's direction, and
Mallet's advice, many literary gifts were distributed to several
eminent characters in England and France; two books were sent to the
Count de Caylus, and the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, at Paris: I had
reserved twenty copies for my friends at Lausanne, as the first
fruits of my education, and a grateful token of my remembrance: and
on all these persons I levied an unavoidable tax of civility and
compliment. It is not surprising that a work, of which the style
and sentiments were so totally foreign, should have been more
successful abroad than at home. I was delighted by the copious
extracts, the warm commendations, and the flattering predictions of
the journals of France and Holland: and the next year (1762) a new
edition (I believe at Geneva) extended the fame, or at least the
circulation, of the work. In England it was received with cold
indifference, little read, and speedily forgotten: a small
impression was slowly dispersed; the bookseller murmured, and the
author (had his feelings been more exquisite) might have wept over
the blunders and baldness of the English translation. The
publication of my History fifteen years afterwards revived the
memory of my first performance, and the Essay was eagerly sought in
the shops. But I refused the permission which Becket solicited of
reprinting it: the public curiosity was imperfectly satisfied by a
pirated copy of the booksellers of Dublin; and when a copy of the
original edition has been discovered in a sale, the primitive value
of half-a-crown has risen to the fanciful price of a guinea or
thirty shillings.