publication, a memorable aera in the life of a student, when he
ventures to reveal the measure of his mind: his hopes and fears are
multiplied by the idea of self-importance, and he believes for a
while that the eyes of mankind are fixed on his person and
performance. Whatever may be my present reputation, it no longer
rests on the merit of this first essay; and at the end of
twenty-eight years I may appreciate my juvenile work with the
impartiality, and almost with the indifference, of a stranger. In
his answer to Lady Hervey, the Count de Caylus admires, or affects
to admire, "les livres sans nombre que Mr. Gibbon a lus et tres bien
lus." But, alas! my stock of erudition at that time was scanty and
superficial; and if I allow myself the liberty of naming the Greek
masters, my genuine and personal acquaintance was confined to the
Latin classics. The most serious defect of my Essay is a kind of
obscurity and abruptness which always fatigues, and may often elude,
the attention of the reader. Instead of a precise and proper
definition of the title itself, the sense of the word Litterature is
loosely and variously applied: a number of remarks and examples,
historical, critical, philosophical, are heaped on each other
without method or connection; and if we except some introductory
pages, all the remaining chapters might indifferently be reversed or
transposed. The obscure passages is often affected, brevis esse
laboro, obscurus fio; the desire of expressing perhaps a common idea
with sententious and oracular brevity: alas! how fatal has been the
imitation of Montesquieu! But this obscurity sometimes proceeds from
a mixture of light and darkness in the author's mind; from a partial
ray which strikes upon an angle, instead of spreading itself over
the surface of an object. After this fair confession I shall
presume to say, that the Essay does credit to a young writer of two
and twenty years of age, who had read with taste, who thinks with
freedom, and who writes in a foreign language with spirit and
elegance. The defence of the early History of Rome and the new
Chronology of Sir Isaac Newton form a specious argument. The
patriotic and political design of the Georgics is happily conceived;
and any probable conjecture, which tends to raise the dignity of the
poet and the poem, deserves to be adopted, without a rigid scrutiny.
Some dawnings of a philosophic spirit enlighten the general remarks
on the study of history and of man. I am not displeased with the
inquiry into the origin and nature of the gods of polytheism, which
might deserve the illustration of a riper judgment. Upon the whole,
I may apply to the first labour of my pen the speech of a far
superior artist, when he surveyed the first productions of his
pencil. After viewing some portraits which he had painted in his
youth, my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds acknowledged to me, that he was
rather humbled than flattered by the comparison with his present
works; and that after so much time and study, he had conceived his
improvement to be much greater than he found it to have been.
At Lausanne I composed the first chapters of my Essay in French, the
familiar language of my conversation and studies, in which it was
easier for me to write than in my mother tongue. After my return to
England I continued the same practice, without any affectation, or
design of repudiating (as Dr. Bentley would say) my vernacular
idiom. But I should have escaped some Anti-gallican clamour, had I
been content with the more natural character of an English author.
I should have been more consistent had I rejected Mallet's advice,
of prefixing an English dedication to a French book; a confusion of
tongues that seemed to accuse the ignorance of my patron. The use
of a foreign dialect might be excused by the hope of being employed
as a negociator, by the desire of being generally understood on the
continent; but my true motive was doubtless the ambition of new and
singular fame, an Englishman claiming a place among the writers of
France. The latin tongue had been consecrated by the service of the
church, it was refined by the imitation of the ancients; and in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the scholars of Europe enjoyed the
advantage, which they have gradually resigned, of conversing and
writing in a common and learned idiom. As that idiom was no longer
in any country the vulgar speech, they all stood on a level with
each other; yet a citizen of old Rome might have smiled at the best
Latinity of the Germans and Britons; and we may learn from the
Ciceronianus of Erasmus, how difficult it was found to steer a
middle course between pedantry and barbarism. The Romans themselves
had sometimes attempted a more perilous task, of writing in a living
language, and appealing to the taste and judgment of the natives.
The vanity of Tully was doubly interested in the Greek memoirs of
his own consulship; and if he modestly supposes that some Latinisms
might be detected in his style, he is confident of his own skill in
the art of Isocrates and Aristotle; and he requests his friend
Atticus to disperse the copies of his work at Athens, and in the
other cities of Greece, (Ad Atticum, i. 19. ii. i.) But it must not
be forgotten, that from infancy to manhood Cicero and his
contemporaries had read and declaimed, and composed with equal
diligence in both languages; and that he was not allowed to frequent
a Latin school till he had imbibed the lessons of the Greek
grammarians and rhetoricians. In modern times, the language of
France has been diffused by the merit of her writers, the social
manners of the natives, the influence of the monarchy, and the exile
of the protestants. Several foreigners have seized the opportunity
of speaking to Europe in this common dialect, and Germany may plead
the authority of Leibnitz and Frederick, of the first of her
philosophers, and the greatest of her kings. The just pride and
laudable prejudice of England has restrained this communication of
idioms; and of all the nations on this side of the Alps, my
Countrymen are the least practised, and least perfect in the
exercise of the French tongue. By Sir William Temple and Lord
Chesterfield it was only used on occasions of civility and business,
and their printed letters will not be quoted as models of
composition. Lord Bolingbroke may have published in French a sketch
of his Reflections on Exile: but his reputation now reposes on the
address of Voltaire, "Docte sermones utriusque linguae;" and by his
English dedication to Queen Caroline, and his Essay on Epic Poetry,
it should seem that Voltaire himself wished to deserve a return of
the same compliment. The exception of Count Hamilton cannot fairly
be urged; though an Irishman by birth, he was educated in France
from his childhood. Yet I am surprised that a long residence in
England, and the habits of domestic conversation, did not affect the
ease and purity of his inimitable style; and I regret the omission
of his English verses, which might have afforded an amusing object
of comparison. I might therefore assume the primus ego in patriam,
&c.; but with what success I have explored this untrodden path must
be left to the decision of my French readers. Dr. Maty, who might
himself be questioned as a foreigner, has secured his retreat at my
expense. "Je ne crois pas que vous vous piquiez d'etre moins facile
a reconnoitre pour un Anglois que Lucullus pour un Romain." My
friends at Paris have been more indulgent, they received me as a
countryman, or at least as a provincial; but they were friends and
Parisians. The defects which Maty insinuates, "Ces traits saillans,
ces figures hardies, ce sacrifice de la regle au sentiment, et de la
cadence a la force," are the faults of the youth, rather than of the
stranger: and after the long and laborious exercise of my own
language, I am conscious that my French style has been ripened and
improved.
I have already hinted, that the publication of my essay was delayed
till I had embraced the military profession. I shall now amuse
myself with the recollection of an active scene, which bears no
affinity to any other period of my studious and social life.
In the outset of a glorious war, the English people had been
defended by the aid of German mercenaries. A national militia has
been the cry of every patriot since the Revolution; and this
measure, both in parliament and in the field, was supported by the
country gentlemen or Tories, who insensibly transferred their
loyalty to the house of Hanover: in the language of Mr. Burke, they
have changed the idol, but they have preserved the idolatry. In the
act of offering our names and receiving our commissions, as major
and captain in the Hampshire regiment, (June 12, 1759,) we had not
supposed that we should be dragged away, my father from his farm,
myself from my books, and condemned, during two years and a half,
(May 10, 1760--December 23, 1762,) to a wandering life of military
servitude. But a weekly or monthly exercise of thirty thousand
provincials would have left them useless and ridiculous; and after
the pretence of an invasion had vanished, the popularity of Mr. Pitt
gave a sanction to the illegal step of keeping them till the end of
the war under arms, in constant pay and duty, and at a distance from
their respective homes. When the King's order for our embodying
came down, it was too late to retreat, and too soon to repent. The
South battalion of the Hampshire militia was a small independent
corps of four hundred and seventy-six, officers and men, commanded
by lieutenant-colonel Sir Thomas Worsley, who, after a prolix and
passionate contest, delivered us from the tyranny of the lord
lieutenant, the Duke of Bolton. My proper station, as first
captain, was at the head of my own, and afterwards of the grenadier,
company; but in the absence, or even in the presence, of the two
field officers, I was entrusted by my friend and my father with the
effective labour of dictating the orders, and exercising the
battalion. With the help of an original journal, I could write the
history of my bloodless and inglorious campaigns; but as these
events have lost much of their importance in my own eyes, they shall
be dispatched in a few words. From Winchester, the first place of
assembly, (June 4, 1760,) we were removed, at our own request, for
the benefit of a foreign education. By the arbitrary, and often
capricious, orders of the War-office, the battalion successively
marched to the pleasant and hospitable Blandford (June 17); to
Hilsea barracks, a seat of disease and discord (Sept. 1); to
Cranbrook in the weald of Kent (Dec. 11); to the sea-coast of Dover
(Dec. 27); to Winchester camp (June 25, 1761); to the populous and
disorderly town of Devizes (Oct. 23); to Salisbury (Feb. 28, 1762);
to our beloved Blandford a second time (March 9); and finally, to
the fashionable resort of Southampton (June 2); where the colours
were fixed till our final dissolution. (Dec. 23). On the beach at
Dover we had exercised in sight of the Gallic shores. But the most
splendid and useful scene of our life was a four months' encampment
on Winchester Down, under the command of the Earl of Effingham. Our
army consisted of the thirty-fourth regiment of foot and six militia
corps. The consciousness of our defects was stimulated by friendly
emulation. We improved our time and opportunities in morning and
evening field-days; and in the general reviews the South Hampshire
were rather a credit than a disgrace to the line. In our subsequent
quarters of the Devizes and Blandford, we advanced with a quick step
in our military studies; the ballot of the ensuing summer renewed
our vigour and youth; and had the militia subsisted another year, we
might have contested the prize with the most perfect of our
brethren.
The loss of so many busy and idle hours was not compensated by any
elegant pleasure; and my temper was insensibly soured by the society
of out rustic officers. In every state there exists, however, a
balance of good and evil. The habits of a sedentary life were
usefully broken by the duties of an active profession: in the
healthful exercise of the field I hunted with a battalion, instead
of a pack; and at that time I was ready, at any hour of the day or
night, to fly from quarters to London, from London to quarters, on
the slightest call of private or regimental business. But my
principal obligation to the militia, was the making me an
Englishman, and a soldier. After my foreign education, with my
reserved temper, I should long have continued a stranger in my
native country, had I not been shaken in this various scene of new
faces and new friends: had not experience forced me to feel the
characters of our leading men, the state of parties, the forms of
office, and the operation of our civil and military system. In this
peaceful service I imbibed the rudiments of the language, and
science of tactics, which opened a new field of study and
observation. I diligently read, and meditated, the Memoires
Militaires of Quintus Icilius, (Mr. Guichardt,) the only writer who
has united the merits of a professor and a veteran. The discipline
and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the
phalanx and the legion; and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers
(the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the
Roman empire.
A youth of any spirit is fired even by the play of arms, and in the
first sallies of my enthusiasm I had seriously attempted to embrace
the regular profession of a soldier. But this military fever was
cooled by the enjoyment of our mimic Bellona, who soon unveiled to
my eyes her naked deformity. How often did I sigh for my proper
station in society and letters. How often (a proud comparison) did
I repeat the complaint of Cicero in the command of a provincial
army: "Clitellae bovi sunt impositae. Est incredibile quam me
negotii taedeat. Non habet satis magnum campum ille tibi non
ignotus cursus animi; et industriae meae praeclara opera cessat.
Lucem, libros, urbem, domum, vos desidero. Sed feram, ut potero;
sit modo annuum. Si prorogatur, actum est."--Epist. ad Atticum,
lib. v. 15. From a service without danger I might indeed have
retired without disgrace; but as often as I hinted a wish of
resigning, my fetters were riveted by the friendly intreaties of the
colonel, the parental authority of the major, and my own regard for
the honour and welfare of the battalion. When I felt that my
personal escape was impracticable, I bowed my neck to the yoke: my
servitude was protracted far beyond the annual patience of Cicero;
and it was not till after the preliminaries of peace that I received
my discharge, from the act of government which disembodied the
militia.
When I complain of the loss of time, justice to myself and to the
militia must throw the greatest part of that reproach on the first
seven or eight months, while I was obliged to learn as well as to
teach. The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of
Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field;
and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room,
all literary ideas were banished from my mind. After this long
fast, the longest which I have ever known, I once more tasted at
Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking; and the hungry appetite
with which I opened a volume of Tully's philosophical works is still
present to my memory. The last review of my Essay before its
publication, had prompted me to investigate the nature of the gods;
my inquiries led me to the Historie Critique du Manicheisme of
Beausobre, who discusses many deep questions of Pagan and Christian
theology: and from this rich treasury of facts and opinions, I
deduced my own consequences, beyond the holy circle of the author.
After this recovery I never relapsed into indolence; and my example
might prove, that in the life most averse to study, some hours may
be stolen, some minutes may be snatched. Amidst the tumult of
Winchester camp I sometimes thought and read in my tent; in the more
settled quarters of the Devizes, Blandford, and Southampton, I
always secured a separate lodging, and the necessary books; and in
the summer of 1762, while the new militia was raising, I enjoyed at
Buriton two or three months of literary repose. In forming a new
plan of study, I hesitated between the mathematics and the Greek
language; both of which I had neglected since my return from
Lausanne. I consulted a learned and friendly mathematician, Mr.
George Scott, a pupil of de Moivre; and his map of a country which I
have never explored, may perhaps be more serviceable to others. As
soon as I had given the preference to Greek, the example of Scaliger
and my own reason determined me on the choice of Homer, the father
of poetry, and the Bible of the ancients: but Scaliger ran through
the Iliad in one and twenty days; and I was not dissatisfied with my
own diligence for performing the same labour in an equal number of
weeks. After the first difficulties were surmounted, the language
of nature and harmony soon became easy and familiar, and each day I
sailed upon the ocean with a brisker gale and a more steady course.
{Passage in Greek}
Ilias, A 481.
--Fair wind, and blowing fresh,
Apollo sent them; quick they rear'd the mast,
Then spread th'unsullied canvas to the gale,
And the wind fill'd it. Roar'd the sable flood
Around the bark, that ever as she went
Dash'd wide the brine, and scudded swift away.
COWPER'S Homer.
In the study of a poet who has since become the most intimate of my
friends, I successively applied many passages and fragments of Greek
writers; and among these I shall notice a life of Homer, in the
Oposcula Mythologica of Gale, several books of the geography of
Strabo, and the entire treatise of Longinus, which, from the title
and the style, is equally worthy of the epithet of sublime. My
grammatical skill was improved, my vocabulary was enlarged; and in
the militia I acquired a just and indelible knowledge of the first
of languages. On every march, in every journey, Horace was always
in my pocket, and often in my hand: but I should not mention his two
critical epistles, the amusement of a morning, had they not been
accompanied by the elaborate commentary of Dr. Hurd, now Bishop of
Worcester. On the interesting subjects of composition and imitation
of epic and dramatic poetry, I presumed to think for myself; and
thirty close-written pages in folio could scarcely comprise my full
and free discussion of the sense of the master and the pedantry of
the servant.
After his oracle Dr. Johnson, my friend Sir Joshua Reynolds denies
all original genius, any natural propensity of the mind to one art
or science rather than another. Without engaging in a metaphysical
or rather verbal dispute, I know, by experience, that from my early
youth I aspired to the character of an historian. While I served in
the militia, before and after the publication of my essay, this idea
ripened in my mind; nor can I paint in more lively colours the
feelings of the moment, than by transcribing some passages, under
their respective dates, from a journal which I kept at that time.
Beriton, April 14, 1761. (In a short excursion from Dover.)--
"Having thought of several subjects for an historical composition, I
chose the expedition of Charles VIII. of France into Italy. I read
two memoirs of Mr. de Foncemagne in the Academy of Inscriptions
(tom. xvii. p. 539-607.), and abstracted them. I likewise finished
this day a dissertation, in which I examine the right of Charles
VIII. to the crown of Naples, and the rival claims of the House of
Anjou and Arragon: it consists of ten folio pages, besides large
notes."
Beriton, August 4, 1761. (In a week's excursion from Winchester
camp.)--"After having long revolved subjects for my intended
historical essay, I renounced my first thought of the expedition of
Charles VIII. as too remote from us, and rather an introduction to
great events, than great and important in itself. I successively
chose and rejected the crusade of Richard the First, the barons'
wars against John and Henry the Third, the History of Edward the
Black Prince, the lives and comparisons of Henry V. and the Emperor
Titus, the life of Sir Philip Sidney, and that of the Marquis of
Montrose. At length I have fixed on Sir Walter Raleigh for my hero.
His eventful story is varied by the characters of the soldier and
sailor, the courtier and historian; and it may afford such a fund of
materials as I desire, which have not yet been properly
manufactured. At present I cannot attempt the execution of this
work. Free leisure, and the opportunity of consulting many books,
both printed and manuscript, are as necessary as they are impossible
to be attained in my present way of life. However, to acquire a
general insight into my subject and resources, I read the life of
Sir Walter Raleigh by Dr. Birch, his copious article in the General
Dictionary by the same hand, and the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and
James the First in Hume's History of England."
Beriton, January 1762. (In a month's absence from the Devizes.)--
"During this interval of repose, I again turned my thoughts to Sir
Walter Raleigh, and looked more closely into my materials. I read
the two volumes in quarto of the Bacon Papers, published by Dr.
Birch; the Fragmenta Regalia of Sir Robert Naunton, Mallet's Life of
Lord Bacon, and the political treatises of that great man in the
first volume of his works, with many of his letters in the second;
Sir William Monson's Naval Tracts, and the elaborate life of Sir
Walter Raleigh, which Mr. Oldys has prefixed to the best edition of
his History of the World. My subject opens upon me, and in general
improves upon a nearer prospect."
Beriton, July 26, 1762. (During my summer residence.)--"I am afraid
of being reduced to drop my hero; but my time has not, however, been
lost in the research of his story, and of a memorable aera of our
English annals. The life of Sir Walter Raleigh, by Oldys, is a very
poor performance; a servile panegyric, or flat apology, tediously
minute, and composed in a dull and affected style. Yet the author
was a man of diligence and learning, who had read everything
relative to his subject, and whose ample collections are arranged
with perspicuity and method. Excepting some anecdotes lately
revealed in the Sidney and Bacon Papers, I know not what I should be
able to add. My ambition (exclusive of the uncertain merit of style
and sentiment) must be confined to the hope of giving a good
abridgment of Oldys. I have even the disappointment of finding some
parts of this copious work very dry and barren; and these parts are
unluckily some of the most characteristic: Raleigh's colony of
Virginia, his quarrels with Essex, the true secret of his
conspiracy, and, above all, the detail of his private life, the most
essential and important to a biographer. My best resource would be
in the circumjacent history of the times, and perhaps in some
digressions artfully introduced, like the fortunes of the
Peripatetic philosophy in the portrait of Lord Bacon. But the
reigns of Elizabeth and James the First are the periods of English
history, which have been the most variously illustrated: and what
new lights could I reflect on a subject, which has exercised the
accurate industry of Birch, the lively and curious acuteness of
Walpole, the critical spirit of Hurd, the vigorous sense of Mallet
and Robertson, and the impartial philosophy of Hume? Could I even
surmount these obstacles, I should shrink with terror from the
modern history of England, where every character is a problem, and
every reader a friend or an enemy; where a writer is supposed to
hoist a flag of party, and is devoted to damnation by the adverse
faction. Such would be my reception at home: and abroad, the
historian of Raleigh must encounter an indifference far more bitter
than censure or reproach. The events of his life are interesting:
but his character is ambiguous, his actions are obscure, his
writings are English, and his fame is confined to the narrow limits
of our language and our island. I must embrace a safer and more
extensive theme.
"There is one which I should prefer to all others, The History of
the Liberty of the Swiss, of that independence which a brave people
rescued from the House of Austria, defended against a Dauphin of
France, and finally sealed with the blood of Charles of Burgundy.
From such a theme, so full of public spirit, of military glory, of
examples of virtue, of lessons of government, the dullest stranger
would catch fire; what might not I hope, whose talents, whatsoever
they may be, would be inflamed with the zeal of patriotism. But the
materials of this history are inaccessible to me, fast locked in the
obscurity of an old barbarous German dialect, of which I am totally
ignorant, and which I cannot resolve to learn for this sole and
peculiar purpose.