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 would create many
enemies, and conciliate few friends. But the shaft was shot, the
alarm was sounded, and I could only rejoice, that if the voice of
our priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands were disarmed from
the powers of persecution. I adhered to the wise resolution of
trusting myself and my writings to the candour of the public, till
Mr. Davies of Oxford presumed to attack, not the faith, but the
fidelity, of the historian. My Vindication, expressive of less
anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy and idle
metropolis; and the most rational part of the laity, and even of the
clergy, appear to have been satisfied of my innocence and accuracy.
I would not print this Vindication in quarto, lest it should be
bound and preserved with the history itself. At the distance of
twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davies, Chelsum, &c.
A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation.
They, however, were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was
indeed neglected; and I dare not boast the making Dr. Watson a
bishop; he is a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit: but I
enjoyed the pleasure of giving a Royal pension to Mr. Davies, and of
collating Dr. Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. Their success
encouraged the zeal of Taylor the Arian, [Note: The stupendous
title, Thoughts on the Causes of the grand Apostacy, at first
agitated my nerves, till I discovered that it was the apostacy of
the whole church, since the Council of Nice, from Mr. Taylor's
private religion. His book is a thorough mixture of high enthusiasm
and low buffoonery, and the Millennium is a fundamental article of
his creed.] and Milner the Methodist, [Note: From his grammar-school
at Kingston upon Hull, Mr. Joseph Milner pronounces an anathema
against all rational religion. His faith is a divine taste, a
spiritual inspiration; his church is a mystic and invisible body:
the natural Christians, such as Mr. Locke, who believe and interpret
the Scriptures, are, in his judgment, no better than profane
infidels.] with many others, whom it would be difficult to
remember, and tedious to rehearse. The list of my adversaries,
however, was graced with the more respectable names of Dr.
Priestley, Sir David Dalrymple, and Dr. White; and every polemic, of
either university, discharged his sermon or pamphlet against the
impenetrable silence of the Roman historian. In his History of the
Corruptions of Christianity, Dr. Priestley threw down his two
gauntlets to Bishop Hurd and Mr. Gibbon. I declined the challenge
in a letter, exhorting my opponent to enlighten the world by his
philosophical discoveries, and to remember that the merit of his
predecessor Servetus is now reduced to a single passage, which
indicates the smaller circulation of the blood through the lungs,
from and to the heart. Instead of listening to this friendly
advice, the dauntless philosopher of Birmingham continued to fire
away his double battery against those who believed too little, and
those who believed too much. From my replies he has nothing to hope
or fear: but his Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the
spear of Horsley, and his trumpet of sedition may at length awaken
the magistrates of a free country. The profession and rank of Sir
David Dalrymple (now a Lord of Session) has given a more decent
colour to his style. But he scrutinized each separate passage of
the two chapters with the dry minuteness of a special pleader; and
as he was always solicitous to make, he may have succeeded sometimes
in finding, a flaw. In his Annals of Scotland, he has shewn himself
a diligent collector and an accurate critic. I have praised, and I
still praise, the eloquent sermons which were preached in St. Mary's
pulpit at Oxford by Dr. White. If he assaulted me with some degree
of illiberal acrimony, in such a place, and before such an audience,
he was obliged to speak the language of the country. I smiled at a
passage in one of his private letters to Mr. Badcock; "The part
where we encounter Gibbon must be brilliant and striking." In a
sermon preached before the university of Cambridge, Dr. Edwards
complimented a work, "which can only perish with the language
itself;" and esteems the author a formidable enemy. He is, indeed,
astonished that more learning and ingenuity has not been shewn in
the defence of Israel; that the prelates and dignitaries of the
church (alas, good man!) did not vie with each other, whose stone
should sink the deepest in the forehead of this Goliath.
"But the force of truth will oblige us to confess, that in the
attacks which have been levelled against our sceptical historian, we
can discover but slender traces of profound and exquisite erudition,
of solid criticism and accurate investigation; but we are too
frequently disgusted by vague and inconclusive reasoning; by
unseasonable banter and senseless witticisms; by imbittered bigotry
and enthusiastic jargon; by futile cavils and illiberal invectives.
Proud and elated by the weakness of his antagonists, he condescends
not to handle the sword of controversy."--Monthly Review, Oct. 1790.
Let me frankly own that I was startled at the first discharge of
ecclesiastical ordnance; but as soon as I found that this empty
noise was mischievous only in the intention, my fear was converted
into indignation; and every feeling of indignation or curiosity has
long since subsided in pure and placid indifference.
The prosecution of my history was soon afterwards checked by another
controversy of a very different kind. At the request of the Lord
Chancellor, and of Lord Weymouth, then Secretary of State, I
vindicated, against the French manifesto, the justice of the British
arms. The whole correspondence of Lord Stormont, our late
ambassador at Paris, was submitted to my inspection, and the Memoire
Justificatif, which I composed in French, was first approved by the
Cabinet Ministers, and then delivered as a State paper to the courts
of Europe. The style and manner are praised by Beaumarchais
himself, who, in his private quarrel, attempted a reply; but he
flatters me, by ascribing the memoir to Lord Stormont; and the
grossness of his invective betrays the loss of temper and of wit; he
acknowledged, Oeuv. de Beaumarchais, iii. 299, 355, that le style ne
seroit pas sans grace, ni la logique sans justesse, &c. if the
facts were true which he undertakes to disprove. For these facts
my credit is not pledged; I spoke as a lawyer from my brief, but the
veracity of Beaumarchais may be estimated from the assertion that
France, by the treaty of Paris (1763) was limited to a certain
number of ships of war. On the application of the Duke of Choiseul,
he was obliged to retract this daring falsehood.
Among the honourable connections which I had formed, I may justly
be proud of the friendship of Mr. Wedderburne, at that time
Attorney-General, who now illustrates the title of Lord Loughborough,
and the office of Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. By his strong
recommendation, and the favourable disposition of Lord North, I was
appointed one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations;
and my private income was enlarged by a clear addition of between
seven and eight hundred pounds a-year. The fancy of an hostile
orator may paint, in the strong colours of ridicule, "the perpetual
virtual adjournment, and the unbroken sitting vacation of the Board
of Trade." [Note: I can never forget the delight with which that
diffusive and ingenious orator, Mr. Burke, was heard by all sides of
the house, and even by those whose existence he proscribed. (Speech
on the Bill of Reform, p. 72-80.) The Lords of Trade blushed at
their insignificancy, and Mr. Eden's appeal to the 2,500 volumes of
our Reports, served only to excite a general laugh. I take this
opportunity of certifying the correctness of Mr. Burke's printed
speeches, which I have heard and read.] But it must be allowed that
our duty was not intolerably severe, and that I enjoyed many days
and weeks of repose, without being called away from my library to
the office. 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.
The aspect of the next session of parliament was stormy and
perilous; county meetings, petitions, and committees of
correspondence, announced the public discontent; and instead of
voting with a triumphant majority, the friends of government were
often exposed to a struggle, and sometimes to a defeat. The House
of Commons adopted Mr. Dunning's motion, "That the influence of the
Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished:"
and Mr. Burke's bill of reform was framed with skill, introduced
with eloquence, and supported by numbers. Our late president, the
American Secretary of State, very narrowly escaped the sentence of
proscription; but the unfortunate Board of Trade was abolished in
the committee by a small majority (207 to 199) of eight votes. The
storm, however, blew over for a time; a large defection of country
gentlemen eluded the sanguine hopes of the patriots: the Lords of
Trade were revived; administration recovered their strength and
spirit; and the flames of London, which were kindled by a
mischievous madman, admonished all thinking men of the danger of an
appeal to the people. In the premature dissolution which followed
this session of parliament I lost my seat. Mr. Elliot was now
deeply engaged in the measures of opposition, and the electors of
Leskeard are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. Elliot.
In this interval of my senatorial life, I published the second and
third volumes of the Decline and Fall. My ecclesiastical history
still breathed the same spirit of freedom; but protestant zeal is
more indifferent to the characters and controversies of the fourth
and fifth centuries. My obstinate silence had damped the ardour of
the polemics. Dr. Watson, the most candid of my adversaries,
assured me that he had no thoughts of renewing the attack, and my
impartial balance of the virtues and vices of Julian was generally
praised. This truce was interrupted only by some animadversions of
the Catholics of Italy, and by some angry letters from Mr. Travis,
who made me personally responsible for condemning, with the best
critics, the spurious text of the three heavenly witnesses.
The piety or prudence of my Italian translator has provided an
antidote against the poison of his original. The 5th and 7th
volumes are armed with five letters from an anonymous divine to his
friends, Foothead and Kirk, two English students at Rome: and this
meritorious service is commended by Monsignor Stoner, a prelate of
the same nation, who discovers much venom in the fluid and nervous
style of Gibbon. The critical essay at the end of the third volume
was furnished by the Abbate Nicola Spedalieri, whose zeal has
gradually swelled to a more solid confutation in two quarto
volumes.--Shall I be excused for not having read them?
The brutal insolence of Mr. Travis's challenge can only be excused
by the absence of learning, judgment, and humanity; and to that
excuse be has the fairest or foulest pretension. Compared with
Archdeacon Travis, Chelsum and Davies assume the title of
respectable enemies.
The bigoted advocate of popes and monks may be turned over even to
the bigots of Oxford; and the wretched Travis still smarts under the
lash of the merciless Porson. I consider Mr. Porson's answer to
Archdeacon Travis as the most acute and accurate piece of criticism
which has appeared since the days of Bentley. His strictures are
founded in argument, enriched with learning, and enlivened with wit;
and his adversary neither deserves nor finds any quarter at his
hands. The evidence of the three heavenly witnesses would now be
rejected in any court of justice: but prejudice is blind, authority
is deaf, and our vulgar bibles will ever be polluted by this
spurious text, "sedet aeternumqne sedebit." The more learned
ecclesiastics will indeed have the secret satisfaction of
reprobating in the closet what they read in the church.
I perceived, and without surprise, the coldness and even prejudice
of the town; nor could a whisper escape my ear, that, in the
judgment of many readers, my continuation was much inferior to the
original attempts. An author who cannot ascend will always appear
to sink; envy was now prepared for my reception, and the zeal of my
religious, was fortified by the motive of my political, enemies.
Bishop Newton, in writing his own life, was at full liberty to
declare how much he himself and two eminent brethren were disgusted
by Mr. G.'s prolixity, tediousness, and affectation. But the old
man should not have indulged his zeal in a false and feeble charge
against the historian, who had faithfully and even cautiously
rendered Dr. Burnet's meaning by the alternative of sleep or repose.
That philosophic divine supposes, that, in the period between death
and the resurrection, human souls exist without a body, endowed with
internal consciousness, but destitute of all active or passive
connection with the external world. "Secundum communem dictionem
sacrae scripturae, mors dicitur somnus, et morientes dicuntur
abdormire, quod innuere mihi videtur statum mortis esse statum
quietis, silentii, et {Greek expression}." (De Statu Mortuorum, ch.
v. p. 98.)
I was however encouraged by some domestic and foreign testimonies of
applause; and the second and third volumes insensibly rose in sale
and reputation to a level with the first. But the public is seldom
wrong; and I am inclined to believe that, especially in the
beginning, they are more prolix and less entertaining than the
first: my efforts had not been relaxed by success, and I had rather
deviated into the opposite fault of minute and superfluous
diligence. On the Continent, my name and writings were slowly
diffused; a French translation of the first volume had disappointed
the booksellers of Paris; and a passage in the third was construed
as a personal reflection on the reigning monarch. [Note: It may not
be generally known that Louis XVI. is a great reader, and a reader
of English books. On perusing a passage of my History which seems
to compare him to Arcadius or Honorius, he expressed his resentment
to the Prince of B------, from whom the intelligence was conveyed to
me. I shall neither disclaim the allusion, nor examine the
likeness; but the situation of the late King of France excludes all
suspicion of flattery; and I am ready to declare that the concluding
observations of my third volume were written before his accession to
the throne.]
Before I could apply for a seat at the general election the list was
already full; but Lord North's promise was sincere, his
recommendation was effectual, and I was soon chosen on a vacancy for
the borough of Lymington, in Hampshire. In the first session of the
new parliament, administration stood their ground; their final
overthrow was reserved for the second. The American war had once
been the favourite of the country: the pride of England was
irritated by the resistance of her colonies, and the executive power
was driven by national clamour into the most vigorous and coercive
measures. But the length of a fruitless contest, the loss of
armies, the accumulation of debt and taxes, and the hostile
confederacy of France, Spain, and Holland, indisposed the public to
the American war, and the persons by whom it was conducted; the
representatives of the people, followed, at a slow distance, the
changes of their opinion; and the ministers who refused to bend,
were broken by the tempest. As soon as Lord North had lost, or was
about to lose, a majority in the House of Commons, he surrendered
his office, and retired to a private station, with the tranquil
assurance of a clear conscience and a cheerful temper: the old
fabric was dissolved, and the posts of government were occupied by
the victorious and veteran troops of opposition. The lords of trade
were not immediately dismissed, but the board itself was abolished
by Mr. Burke's bill, which decency had compelled the patriots to
revive; and I was stripped of a convenient salary, after having
enjoyed it about three years.
So flexible is the title of my History, that the final aera might be
fixed at my own choice; and I long hesitated whether I should be
content with the three volumes, the fall of the Western empire,
which fulfilled my first engagement with the public. In this
interval of suspense, nearly a twelvemonth, I returned by a natural
impulse to the Greek authors of antiquity; I read with new pleasure
the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Histories of Herodotus, Thucydides,
and Xenophon, a large portion of the tragic and comic theatre of
Athens, and many interesting dialogues of the Socratic school. Yet
in the luxury of freedom I began to wish for the daily task, the
active pursuit, which gave a value to every book, and an object to
every inquiry; the preface of a new edition announced my design, and
I dropped without reluctance from the age of Plato to that of
Justinian. The original texts of Procopius and Agathias supplied
the events and even the characters of his reign: but a laborious
winter was devoted to the Codes, the Pandects, and the modern
interpreters, before I presumed to form an abstract of the civil
law. My skill was improved by practice, my diligence perhaps was
quickened by the loss of office; and, excepting the last chapter, I
had finished the fourth volume before I sought a retreat on the
banks of the Leman Lake.
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
Shelburne, 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 in the House of
Commons; the peace was censured, Lord Shelburne 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. There were many claimants more deserving
and importunate than myself: the board of trade could not be
restored; and, while the list of places was curtailed, the number of
candidates was doubled. An easy dismission to a secure seat at the
board of customs or excise was promised on the first vacancy: but
the chance was distant and doubtful; nor could I solicit with much
ardour an ignoble servitude, which would have robbed me of the most
valuable of my studious hours: at the same time the tumult of
London, and the attendance on parliament, were grown more irksome;
and, without some additional income, I could not long or prudently
maintain the style of expence to which I was accustomed.
From my early acquaintance with Lausanne I had always cherished a
secret wish, that the school of my youth might become the retreat of
my declining age. A moderate fortune would secure the blessings of
ease, leisure, and independence: the country, the people, the
manners, the language, were congenial to my taste; and I might
indulge the hope of passing some years in the domestic society of a
friend. After travelling with several English, Mr. Deyverdun was
now settled at home, in a pleasant habitation, the gift of his
deceased aunt: we had long been separated, we had long been silent;
yet in my first letter I exposed, with the most perfect confidence,
my situation, my sentiments, and my designs. His immediate answer
was a warm and joyful acceptance: the picture of our future life
provoked my impatience; and the terms of arrangement were short and
simple, as he possessed the property, and I undertook the expence of
our common house. Before I could break my English chain, it was
incumbent on me to struggle with the feelings of my heart, the
indolence of my temper, and the opinion of the world, which
unanimously condemned this voluntary banishment. In the disposal of
my effects, the library, a sacred deposit, was alone excepted: as my
post-chaise moved over Westminster-bridge I bid a long farewell to
the "fumum et opes strepitumque Romae." My journey by the direct
road through France was not attended with any accident, and I
arrived at Lausanne nearly twenty years after my second departure.
Within less than three months the coalition struck on some hidden
rocks: had I remained on board, I should have perished in the
general shipwreck.
Since my establishment at Lausanne, more than seven years have
elapsed; and if every day has not been equally soft and serene, not
a day, not a moment, has occurred in which I have repented of my
choice. During my absence, a long portion of human life, many
changes had happened: my elder acquaintance had left the stage;
virgins were ripened into matrons, and children were grown to the
age of manhood. But the same manners were transmitted from one
generation to another: my friend alone was an inestimable treasure;
my name was not totally forgotten, and all were ambitious to welcome
the arrival of a stranger and the return of a fellow-citizen. The
first winter was given to a general embrace, without any nice
discrimination of persons and characters. After a more regular
settlement, a more accurate survey, I discovered three solid and
permanent benefits of my new situation. 1. My personal freedom had
been somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the Board of
Trade; but I was now delivered from the chain of duty and
dependence, from the hopes and fears of political adventure: my
sober mind was no longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, and I
rejoiced in my escape, as often as I read of the midnight debates
which preceded the dissolution of parliament. 2. My English
oeconomy had been that of a solitary bachelor, who might afford some
occasional dinners. In Switzerland I enjoyed at every meal, at
every hour, the free and pleasant conversation of the friend of my
youth; and my daily table was always provided for the reception of
one or two extraordinary guests. Our importance in society is less
a positive than a relative weight: in London I was lost in the
crowd; I ranked with the first families of Lausanne, and my style of
prudent expence enabled me to maintain a fair balance of reciprocal
civilities. 3. Instead of a small house between a street and a
stable-yard, I began to occupy a spacious and convenient mansion,
connected on the north side with the city, and open on the south to
a beautiful and boundless horizon. A garden of four acres had been
laid out by the taste of Mr. Deyverdun: from the garden a rich
scenery of meadows and vineyards descends to the Leman Lake, and the
prospect far beyond the Lake is crowned by the stupendous mountains
of Savoy. My books and my acquaintance had been first united in
London; but this happy position of my library in town and country
was finally reserved for Lausanne. Possessed of every comfort in
this triple alliance, I could not be tempted to change my habitation
with the changes of the seasons.
My friends had been kindly apprehensive that I should not be able to
exist in a Swiss town at the foot of the Alps, after having so long
conversed with the first men of the first cities of the world. Such
lofty connections may attract the curious, and gratify the vain; but
I am too modest, or too proud, to rate my own value by that of my
associates; and whatsoever may be the fame of learning or genius,
experience has shown the that the cheaper qualifications of
politeness and good sense are of more useful currency in the
commerce of life. By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or
a school: but, after the morning has been occupied by the labours of
the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and
in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the
innocent amusement of a game at cards. Lausanne is peopled by a
numerous gentry, whose companionable idleness is seldom disturbed by
the pursuits of avarice or ambition: the women, though confined to a
domestic education, are endowed for the most part with more taste
and knowledge than their husbands and brothers: but the decent
freedom of both sexes is equally remote from the extremes of
simplicity and refinement. I shall add as a misfortune rather than
a merit, that the situation and beauty of the Pays de Vaud, the long
habits of the English, the medical reputation of Dr. Tissot, and the
fashion of viewing the mountains and Glaciers, have opened us on all
sides to the incursions of foreigners. The visits of Mr. and Madame
Necker, of Prince Henry of Prussia, and of Mr. Fox, may form some
pleasing exceptions; but, in general, Lausanne has appeared most
agreeable in my eyes, when we have been abandoned to our own
society. I had frequently seen Mr. Necker, in the summer of 1784,
at a country house near Lausanne, where he composed his Treatise on
the Administration of the Finances. I have since, in October 1790,
visited him in his present residence, the castle and barony of
Copet, near Geneva. Of the merits and measures of that statesman
various opinions may be entertained; but all impartial men must
agree in their esteem of his integrity and patriotism.
In August 1784, Prince Henry of Prussia, in his way to Paris, passed
three days at Lausanne. His military conduct has been praised by
professional men; his character has been vilified by the wit and
malice of a daemon (Mem. Secret de la Cour de Berlin); but I was
flattered by his affability, and entertained by his conversation.
In his tour of Switzerland (Sept. 1788) Mr. Fox gave me two days of
free and private society. He seemed to feel, and even to envy, the
happiness of my situation; while I admired the powers of a superior
man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the
softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever
more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or
falsehood.
My transmigration from London to Lausanne could not be effected
without interrupting the course of my historical labours. The hurry
of my departure, the joy of my arrival, the delay of my tools,
suspended their progress; and a full twelvemonth was lost before I
could resume the thread of regular and daily industry. A number of
books most requisite and least common had been previously selected;
the academical library of Lausanne, which I could use as my own,
contained at least the fathers and councils; and I have derived some
occasional succour from the public collections of Berne and Geneva.
The fourth volume was soon terminated, by an abstract of the
controversies of the Incarnation, which the learned Dr. Prideaux was
apprehensive of exposing to profane eyes. It had been the original
design of the learned Dean Prideaux to write the history of the ruin
of the Eastern Church. In this work it would have been necessary,
not only to unravel all those controversies which the Christians
made about the hypostatical union, but also to unfold all the
niceties and subtle notions which each sect entertained concerning
it. The pious historian was apprehensive of exposing that
incomprehensible mystery to the cavils and objections of
unbelievers: and he durst not, "seeing the nature of this book,
venture it abroad in so wanton and lewd an age" (Preface to the Life
of Mahomet, p. 10).