Gibbon, the historian, was at one time a zealous partizan of Charles
Fox. No man denounced Mr. Pitt with a keener sarcasm, or more bitter
malignity. But he had his price. A lucrative office won him over to
the ministry. A week before his appointment he had said in Mr. Fox's
presence, "that public indignation should not be appeased, until the
heads of at least six of the ministers were laid on the table of the
House of Commons."
This fact is found stated in the hand writing of Mr. Fox, on a blank
leaf of a copy of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, which was purchased after Mr. F's death, at a sale of
his effects. The anecdote is followed by these lines, also in Mr. F's
hand writing.
King George, in a fright,
Lest Gibbon should write
The story of Britain's disgrace,
Thought no means so sure
His pen to secure,
As to give the Historian a place.
But the caution was vain--
'Tis the curse of his reign,
That his projects should never succeed.
Though he write not a line,
Yet a cause of decline
In the Author's example we read.
His book well describes
How corruption and bribes
Overthrew the great Empire of Rome;
And his writings declare
A degeneracy there
Which his conduct exhibits at home.