*As you have probably received my last letter of thirteen hundred
pages,[474] I shall be very concise; Read, judge, pronounce: and
believe that I sincerely agree with my friend Julian,[475] in
esteeming the praise of those only who will freely censure my
defects. Next Thursday I shall be delivered to the World, for whose
inconstant and malicious levity I am coolly but firmly prepared.
Excuse me to Sarah. I see more clearly than ever the absolute
necessity of confining my presents to my own family; _that_, and that
only, is a determined line, and Lord S. is the first to approve his
exclusion. He has a strong assurance of success, and some hopes of
a speedy decision. How suddenly your friend General Pierson[476]
disappeared! You thought him happy. What is happiness?*
I am, My Dear Madam,
Ever Yours,
E. GIBBON.
[474] The second and third volumes of the _Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire_. Gibbon had presented his first volume of the
_Decline and Fall_ to the Duke of Gloucester. When the second
volume appeared, it was, in like manner, presented to the Duke,
who "received the author with much good nature and affability,
saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, 'Another
d--mn'd thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble!
Eh! Mr. Gibbon?'" (Best's _Personal and Literary Memorials_, p.
68). "You will be diverted to hear," writes Walpole to Mason,
January 27, 1781, "that Mr. Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He
lent me his second volume in the middle of November. I returned
it with a most civil panegyric. He came for more incense; I gave
it, but alas! with too much sincerity; I added, 'Mr. Gibbon, I
am sorry _you_ should have pitched on so disgusting a subject as
the Constantinopolitan History. There is so much of the Arians
and Eunomians, and semi-Pelagians; and there is such a strange
contrast between Roman and Gothic manners, and so little harmony
between a Consul Sabinus and a Ricimer, Duke of the Palace, that
though you have written the story as well as it could be written,
I fear few will have patience to read it.' He coloured: all his
round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed
up his button-mouth, and rapping his snuff-box, said, 'It had
never been put together before'--so well, he meant to add--but
gulped it. He meant _so well_ certainly, for Tillemont, whom he
quotes in every page, has done the very thing. I well knew his
vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he
had too much sense to avow it so palpably."
[475] "When he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
cruelly mortified by the reflection that the slaves who would
not dare to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his
virtues" (_Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. iii. ch.
xxii.). Gibbon quotes the sentiments from the words of Julian
himself (Ammianus, xxii. 10).
[476] Probably General Sir Richard Pearson, K.B., who died
suddenly at Bath of gout in the stomach, February 13, 1781.
[Sidenote: RECEPTION OF HIS NEW VOLUMES.]
415.
_To his Stepmother._
Bentinck Street, April 13th, 1781.