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mysteries. This theory Gibbon completely exploded in his Critical Observations (1770)-no very difficult task, indeed, but achieved in a style, and with a profusion of learning, which called forth the warmest commendations both at home and abroad. Warburton never replied; and few will believe that he would not, if he had not thought silence more discreet. Gibbon, however, regrets that the style of his pamphlet was too acrimonious; and this regret, considering his antagonist's slight claims to forbearance, is creditable to him. “I cannot forgive myself the contemptuous treatment of a man who, with all his faults, was entitled to my esteem; and I can less forgive, in a personal attack, the cowardly concealment of my name and character."

approached it are such as cannot be omitted from any sketch | shades, the initiation of Aeneas, as a lawgiver, into the Eleusinian of Gibbon, however brief. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I do not feel I have ever scorned to affect. But at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod with a lofty step the ruins of the forum; each memorable spot, where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation." Here at last his long yearning for some great theme worthy of his historic genius was gratified. The first conception of the Decline and Fall arose as he lingered one evening amidst the vestiges of ancient glory. "It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind."

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Soon after his "release from the fruitless task of the Swiss revolution" in 1768, he had gradually advanced from the wish to the hope, from the hope to the design, from the design to the execution of his great historical work. His preparations were indeed vast. The classics," as low as Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Juvenal," had been long familiar. He now plunged into the ocean of the Augustan history," and with pen almost always in hand," pored over all the original records, Greek and Latin, between Trajan and the last of the Western Caesars, "The subsidiary rays of medals and inscriptions, of geography and chronology, were thrown on their proper objects; and I applied the collections of Tillemont, whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius, to fix and arrange within my reach the loose and scattered atoms of historical information." The Christian apologists and their pagan assailants; the Theodosian Code, with Godefroy's commentary; the Annals and Antiquities of Muratori, collated with "the parallel or transverse lines" of Sigonius and Maffei, Pagi and Baronius, were all critically studied. Still following the wise maxim which he had adopted as a student, "multum legere potius quam multa," he reviewed again and again the immortal works of the French and English, the Latin and Italian classics. He deepened and extended his acquaintance with Greek, particularly with his favourite authors Homer and Xenophon; and, to crown all, he succeeded in achieving the third perusal of Blackstone's Commentaries.

The five years and a half which intervened between his return from this tour, in June 1765, and the death of his father, in November 1770, seem to have formed the portion of his life which he passed with the least enjoyment and remembered with the least satisfaction." He attended every spring the meetings of the militia at Southampton, and rose successively to the rank of major and lieutenant-colonel commandant; but was each year more disgusted with the inn, the wine, the company, and the tiresome repetition of annual attendance and daily exercise." From his own account, however, it appears that other and deeper causes produced this discontent. Sincerely attached to his home, he yet felt the anomaly of his position. At thirty, still a dependant, without a settled occupation, without a definite social status, he often regretted that he had not "embraced the lucrative pursuits of the law or of trade, the chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the church." From the emoluments of a profession he might have derived an ample fortune, or a competent income instead of being stinted to the same narrow allowance, to be increased only by an event which he sincerely deprecated." Doubtless the secret fire of a consuming, but as yet ungratified, literary ambition also troubled his repose. He was still contemplating at an awful distance" The Decline and Fall, and meantime revolved some other subjects, that seemed more immediately practicable. Hesitating for some time between the revolutions of Florence and those of Switzerland, he consulted M. Deyverdun, a young Swiss with whom he had formed a close and intimate friendship during his first residence at Lausanne, and finally decided in favour of the land which was his "friend's by birth" and " his own by adoption." He executed the first book in French; it was read (in 1767), as an anonymous produc-it. tion, before a literary society of foreigners in London, and condemned. Gibbon sat and listened unobserved to their strictures. It never got beyond that rehearsal; Hume, indeed, approved of the performance, only deprecating as unwise the author's preference for French; but Gibbon cided with the majority.

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In 1767 also he joined with M. Deyverdun in starting a literary journal under the title of Mémoires littéraires de la GrandeBretagne. But its circulation was limited, and only the second volume had appeared (1768) when Deyverdun went abroad. The materials already collected for a third volume were suppressed. It is interesting, however, to know, that in the first volume is a review by Gibbon of Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II., and that the second volume contains a contribution by Hume on Walpole's Historic Doubts.

The next appearance of the historian made a deeper impression. It was the first distinct print of the lion's foot. "Ex ungue leonem" might have been justly said, for he attacked, and attacked successfully, the redoubtable Warburton. Of the many paradoxes in the Divine Legation, few are more extravagant than the theory that Virgil, in the sixth book of his Aeneid, intended to allegorize, in the visit of his hero and the Sibyl to the

The course of his study was for some time seriously interrupted by his father's illness and death in 1770, and by the many distractions connected with the transference of his residence from Buriton to London. It was not, indeed, until October 1772 that he found himself at last independent, and fairly settled in his house and library, with full leisure and opportunity to set about the composition of the first volume of his history. Even then it appears from his own confession that he long brooded over the chaos of materials he had amassed before light dawned upon At the commencement, he says, "all was dark and doubtful"; the limits, divisions, even the title of his work were undetermined; the first chapter was composed three times, and the second and third twice, before he was satisfied with his efforts. This prolonged meditation on his design and its execution was ultimately well repaid by the result: so methodical did his ideas become, and so readily did his materials shape themselves, that, with the above exceptions, the original MS. of the entire six quartos was sent uncopied to the printers. He also says that not a sheet had been seen by any other eyes than those of author and printer, a statement indeed which must be taken with a small deduction; or rather we must suppose that a few chapters had been submitted, if not to the "eyes," to the "ears" of others; for he elsewhere tells us that he was soon disgusted with the modest practice of reading the manuscript to his friends." Such, however, were his preliminary difficulties that he confesses he was often "tempted to cast away the labour of seven years "; and it was not until February 1776 that the first volume was published. The success was instant, and, for a quarto, probably unprecedented. The entire impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and a third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand. The author might almost have said, as Lord Byron after the publication of Childe Harold,

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that "he awoke one morning and found himself famous." In | addition to public applause, he was gratified by the more select praises of the highest living authorities in that branch of literature: "the candour of Dr Robertson embraced his disciple"; Hume's letter of congratulation "overpaid the labour of ten years." The latter, however, with his usual sagacity, anticipated the objections which he saw could be urged against the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters. "I think you have observed a very prudent temperament; but it was impossible to treat the subject so as not to give grounds of suspicion against you, and you may expect that a clamour will arise."

The clamour" thus predicted was not slow to make itself heard. Within two years the famous chapters had elicited what might almost be called a library of controversy. The only attack, however, to which Gibbon deigned to make any reply was that of Davies, who had impugned his accuracy or good faith. His Vindication appeared in February 1779; and, as Milman remarks, "this single discharge from the ponderous artillery of learning and sarcasm laid prostrate the whole disorderly squadron " of his rash and feeble assailants.1

Two years before the publication of this first volume Gibbon was elected member of parliament for Liskeard (1774). His political duties did not suspend his prosecution of his history, except on one occasion, and for a little while, in 1779, when he undertook, on behalf of the ministry, a task which, if well performed, was also, it must be added, well rewarded. The French government had issued a manifesto preparatory to a declaration of war, and Gibbon was solicited by Chancellor Thurlow and Lord Weymouth, secretary of state, to answer it. In compliance with this request he produced the able Mémoire justificatif, composed in French, and delivered to the courts of Europe; and shortly afterwards he received a seat at the Board of Trade and Plantations-little more than a sinecure in itself, but with a very substantial salary of nearly £800 per annum. His acceptance displeased some of his former political associates, and he was accused of "deserting his party." In his Memoir, indeed, Gibbon denies that he had ever enlisted with the Whigs. A note of Fox, however, on the margin of a copy of The Decline and Fall records a very distinct remembrance of the historian's previous vituperation of the ministry; within a fortnight of the date of his acceptance of office, he is there alleged to have said that "there was no salvation for this country until six heads of the principal persons in administration were laid upon the table." Lord Sheffield merely replies, somewhat weakly it must be said, that his friend never intended the words to be taken literally. More to the point is the often-quoted passage from Gibbon's letter to Deyverdun, where the frank revelation is made: "You have not forgotten that I went into parliament without patriotism and without ambition, and that

1 For a very full list of publications in answer to Gibbon's attack on Christianity reference may be made to the Bibliographer's Manual, pp. 885-886 (1858). Of these the carliest were Watson's Apology (1776), Salisbury's Strictures (1776) and Chelsum's (anonymous) Remarks (1776). In 1778 the Few Remarks by a Gentleman (Francis Eyre), the Reply of Loftus, the Letters of Apthorpe and the Examination of Davies appeared. Gibbon's Vindication (1779) called forth a Reply by Davies (1779), and A Short Appeal to the Public by Francis Eyre (1779). Laughton's polemical treatise was published in 1780, and those of Milner and Taylor in 1781. Chelsum returned to the attack in 1785 (A Reply to Mr Gibbon's Vindication), and Sir David Dalrymple (An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes, &c.) made his first appearance in the controversy in 1786. Travis's Letters on John v. 7 are dated 1784; and Spedalieri's Confutazione delPesame del Cristianismo fatto da Gibbon was published at Rome (2 vols. 4to) in the same year. It is impossible not to concur in almost every point with Gibbon's own estimate of his numerous assailants. Their crude productions, for the most part, were conspicuous rather for insolence and abusiveness than for logic or learning. Those of Bishop Watson and Lord Hailes were the best, but simply because they contented themselves with a dispassionate exposition of the general argument in favour of Christianity. The most foolish and discreditable was certainly that of Davies; his unworthy attempt to depreciate the great historian's learning, and his captious, cavilling, ecrimonious charges of petty inaccuracies and discreditable falsification gave the object of his attack an easy triumph.

all my views tended to the convenient and respectable place of a lord of trade."

In April 1781 the second and third quartos of his History were published. They excited no controversy, and were comparatively little talked about--so little, indeed, as to have extorted from him a half murmur about " coldness and prejudice." The volumes, however, were bought and read with silent avidity. Meanwhile public events were developing in a manner that had a considerable influence upon the manner in which the remaining years of the historian's life were spent. At the general election in 1780 he had lost his seat for Liskeard, but had subsequently been elected for Lymington. The ministry of Lord North, however, was tottering, and soon after fell; the Board of Trade was abolished by the passing of Burke's bill in 1782, and Gibbon's salary vanished with it-no trifle, for his expenditure had been for three years on a scale somewhat disproportionate to his private fortune. He did not like to depend on statesmen's promises, which are proverbially uncertain of fulfilment; he as little liked to retrench; and he was wearied of parliament, where he had never given any but silent votes. Urged by such considerations, he once more turned his eyes to the scene of his early exile, where he might live on his decent patrimony in a style which was impossible in England, and pursue unembarrassed his literary studies. He therefore resolved to fix himself at Lausanne.

A word only is necessary on his parliamentary career. Neither nature nor acquired habits qualified him to be an orator; his late entrance on public life, his natural timidity, his feeble voice, his limited command of idiomatic English, and even, as he candidly confesses, his literary fame, were all obstacles to success. "After a fleeting, illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute.2 .. I was not armed by nature and education with the intrepid energy of mind and voice-Vincentem strepitus et natum rebus agendis.' Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice." His repugnance to public life had been strongly expressed to his father in a letter of a very early date, in which he begged that the money which a seat in the House of Commons would cost might be expended in a mode more agreeable to him. Gibbon was eight-and-thirty when he entered parliament; and the obstacles which even at an earlier period he had not had courage to encounter were hardly likely to be vanquished then. Nor had he much political sagacity. He was better skilled in investigating the past than in divining the future. While Burke and Fox and so many great statesmen proclaimed the consequences of the collision with America, Gibbon saw nothing but colonies in rebellion, and a paternal government justly incensed. His silent votes were all given on that hypothesis. In a similar manner, while he abhorred the French Revolution when it came, he seems to have had no apprehension, like Chesterfield, Burke, or even Horace Walpole, of its approach; nor does he appear to have at all suspected that it had had anything to do with the speculations of the philosophic coteries in which he had taken such delight. But while it may be doubted whether his presence in parliament was of any direct utility to the legislative business of the country, there can be no question of the present advantage which he derived from it in the prosecution of the great work of his life-an advantage of which he was fully conscious when he wrote: "The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian."

Having sold all his property except his library-to him equally a necessary and a luxury-Gibbon repaired to Lausanne in September 1783, and took up his abode with his early friend Deyverdun, now a resident there. Perfectly free from every engagement but those which his own tastes imposed, easy in his circumstances, commanding just as much society, and that as select, as he pleased, with the noblest scenery spread out at his feet, no situation can be imagined more favourable for the

In 1775 he writes to Holroyd: "I am still a mute; it is more tremendous than I imagined; the great speakers fill me with despair; the bad ones with terror."

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prosecution of his literary enterprise; a hermit in his study as long as he chose, he found the most delightful recreation always | ready for him at the threshold. "In London," says he, "I was lost in the crowd; I ranked with the first families in Lausanne, and my style of prudent expense enabled me to maintain a fair balance of reciprocal civilities. 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 M. 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," In this enviable retreat, it is no wonder that a year should have been suffered to roll round before he vigorously resumed his great work-and with many men it would never have been resumed in such a paradise. We may remark in passing that the retreat was often enlivened, or invaded, by friendly tourists from England, whose "frequent incursions" into Switzerland our recluse seems half to lament as an evil. Among his more valued visitors were M. and Mme Necker; Mr Fox also gave him two welcome "days of free and private society" in 1788. Differing as they did in politics, Gibbon's testimony to the genius and character of the great statesman is highly honourable to both: "Perhaps no human being," he says, was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood."

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When once fairly reseated at his task, he proceeded in this delightful retreat leisurely, yet rapidly, to its completion. The fourth volume, partly written in 1782, was completed in June 1784; the preparation of the fifth volume occupied less than two years; while the sixth and last, begun 18th May 1786, was finished in thirteen months. The feelings with which he brought his labours to a close must be described in his own inimitable words: "It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious."

Taking the manuscript with him, Gibbon, after an absence of four years, once more visited London in 1787; and the 51st anniversary of the author's birthday (27th April 1788) witnessed the publication of the last three volumes of The Decline and Fall. They met with a quick and easy sale, were very extensively read, and very liberally and deservedly praised for the unflagging industry and vigour they displayed, though just exception, if only on the score of good taste, was taken to the scoffing tone he continued to maintain in all passages where the Christian religion was specially concerned, and much fault was found with the indecency of some of his notes.1

He returned to Switzerland in July 1788, cherishing vague schemes of fresh literary activity; but genuine sorrow caused by the death of his friend Deyverdun interfered with steady work, nor was it easy for him to fix on a new subject which should be at once congenial and proportioned to his powers; while the premonitory mutterings of the great thunderstorm of the French Revolution, which reverberated in hollow echoes even through 1 An anonymous pamphlet, entitled Observations on the three last volumes of the Roman History, appeared in 1788; Disney's Sermon, with Strictures, in 1790; and Whitaker's Review, in 1791. With regard to the second of the above complaints, surprise will probably

be felt that it was not extended to portions of the text as well as to the notes.

the quiet valleys of Switzerland, further troubled his repose. For some months he found amusement in the preparation of the delightful Memoirs (1789) from which most of our knowledge of his personal history is derived; but his letters to friends in England, written between 1788 and 1793 occasionally betray a slight but unmistakable tone of ennui. In April 1793 he unexpectedly received tidings of the death of Lady Sheffield; and the motive of friendship thus supplied combined with the pressure of public events to urge him homewards. He arrived in England in the following June, and spent the summer at Sheffield Place, where his presence was even more highly prized than it had ever before been. Returning to London early in November, he found it necessary to consult his physicians for a symptom which, neglected since 1761, had gradually become complicated with hydrocele, and was now imperatively demanding surgical aid; but the painful operations which had to be performed did not interfere with his customary cheerfulness, nor did they prevent him from paying a Christmas visit to Sheffield Place. Here, however, fever made its appearance; and a removal to London (January 6, 1794) was considered imperative. Another operation brought him some relief; but a relapse occurred during the night of the 15th, and on the following day he peacefully breathed his last. His remains were laid in the burial place of the Sheffield family, Fletching, Sussex, where an epitaph by Dr Parr describes his character and work in the language at once of elegance, of moderation and of truth.

The personal appearance of Gibbon as a lad of sixteen is brought before us somewhat dimly in M. Pavilliard's description of the "thin little figure, with a large head, disputing and arguing, with the greatest ability, all the best arguments that had ever been used in favour of popery." What he afterwards became has been made more vividly familiar by the clever silhouette prefixed to the Miscellaneous Works (Gibbon himself, at least, we know, did not regard it as a caricature), and by Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait so often engraved. It is hardly fair perhaps to add a reference to Suard's highly-coloured description of the short Silenus-like figure, not more than 56 in. in height, the slim legs, the large turned-in feet, the shrill piercing voice; but almost every one will remember, from Croker's Boswell, Colman's account of the great historian "tapping his snuff-box, smirking and smiling, and rounding his periods " from that mellifluous mouth. It has already been seen that Gibbon's early ailments all left him on the approach of manhood; thenceforward, till admonished by the gout," he could truly boast of an immunity well-nigh perfect from every bodily complaint; an exceptionally vigorous brain, and a stomach almost too good," united to bestow upon him a vast capacity alike for work and for enjoyment. This capacity he never abused so as to burden his conscience or depress his spirits. "The madness of superfluous health I have never known." To illustrate the intensity of the pleasure he found alike in the solitude of his study and in the relaxations of genial social intercourse, almost any page taken at random, either from the Life or from the Letters, would suffice; and many incidental touches show that he was not a stranger to the delights of quiet contemplation of the beauties and grandeurs of nature. His manners, if formal, were refined; his conversation, when he felt himself at home, interesting and unaffected; and that be was capable alike of feeling and inspiring a very constant friendship there are many witnesses to show. That his temperament at the same time was frigid and comparatively passionless cannot be denied; but neither ought this to be imputed to him as a fault; hostile criticisms upon the grief for a father's death, that "was soothed by the conscious satisfaction that I had discharged all the duties of filial piety," seem somewhat out of place. His most ardent admirers, however, are constrained to admit that he was deficient in large-hearted benevolence; that he was destitute of any "enthusiasm of humanity "; and concerned, his poverty was almost unique. Gibbon was such that so far as every sort of religious yearning or aspiration is a man as Horace might have been, had the Roman Epicurean

been fonder of hard intellectual work, and less prone than he | fifteenth and sixteenth, in which the historian traces the early was to the indulgence of emotion. (H. Ro.; J. S. BL.)

Gibbon's literary art, the sustained excellence of his style, his piquant epigrams and his brilliant irony, would perhaps not secure for his work the immortality which it seems likely to enjoy, if it were not also marked by ecumenical grasp, extraordinary accuracy and striking acuteness of judgment. It is needless to say that in many points his statements and conclusions must now be corrected. He was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sources were accessible; "I have always endeavoured," he says, to draw from the fountainhead; my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." Since he wrote, new authorities have been discovered or rendered accessible; works in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Armenian, Syriac, Arabic and other languages, which he was unable to consult, have been published. Again, many of the authorities which he used have been edited in superior texts. The relative weights of the sources have been more nicely determined by critical investigation. Archaeology has become a science. In the immense region which Gibbon surveyed there is hardly a section which has not been submitted to the microscopic examination of specialists.

But apart from the inevitable advances made in the course of a century during which historical research entered upon a new phase, the reader of Gibbon must be warned against one capital defect. In judging the Decline and Fall it should carefully be observed that it falls into two parts which are heterogeneous in the method of treatment. The first part, a little more than five-eighths of the work, supplies a very full history of 460 years (A.D. 180-641); the second and smaller part is a summary history of about 800 years (A.D. 641-1453) in which certain episodes are selected for fuller treatment and so made prominent. To the first part unstinted praise must be accorded; it may be said that, with the materials at the author's disposition, it hardly admitted of improvement, except in trifling details. But the second, notwithstanding the brilliancy of the narrative and the masterly art in the grouping of events, suffers from a radical defect which renders it a misleading guide. The author designates the story of the later empire at Constantinople (after Heraclius) as "a uniform tale of weakness and misery," a judgment which is entirely false; and in accordance with this doctrine, he makes the empire, which is his proper subject, merely a string for connecting great movements which affected it, such as the Saracen conquests, the Crusades, the Mongol invasions, the Turkish conquests. He failed to bring out the momentous fact that up to the 12th century the empire was the bulwark of Europe against the East, nor did he appreciate its importance in preserving the heritage of Greek civilization. He compressed into a single chapter the domestic history and policy of the emperors from the son of Heraclius to Isaac Angelus; and did no justice to the remarkable ability and the indefatigable industry shown in the service of the state by most of the sovereigns from Leo III. to Basil II. He did not penetrate into the deeper causes underlying the revolutions and palace intrigues. His eye rested only on superficial characteristics which have served to associate the name Byzantine" with treachery, cruelty, bigotry and decadence. It was reserved for Finlay to depict, with greater knowledge and a juster perception, the lights and shades of Byzantine history. Thus the later part of the Decline and Fall, while the narrative of certain episodes will always be read with profit, does not convey a true idea of the history of the empire or of its significance in the history of Europe. It must be added that the pages on the Slavonic peoples and their relations to the empire are conspicuously insufficient; but it must be taken into account that it was not till many years after Gibbon's death that Slavonic history began to receive due attention, in consequence of the rise of competent scholars among the Slavs themselves.

The most famous chapters of the Decline and Fall are the

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progress of Christianity and the policy of the Roman government towards it. The flavour of these chapters is due to the irony which Gibbon has employed with consummate art and felicity. There was a practical motive for using this weapon. An attack on Christianity laid a writer open to prosecution and penalties under the statutes of the realm (9 and 10 William III. c. 22, still unrepealed). Gibbon's stylistic artifice both averted the peril of prosecution and rendered the attack more telling. In his Autobiography he alleges that he learned from the Provincial Letters of Pascal " to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity." It is not easy, however, to perceive much resemblance between the method of Pascal and that of Gibbon, though in particular passages we may discover the influence which Gibbon acknowledges. For instance, the well-known description (in chap. xlvii.) of the preposition "in" occurring in a theological dogma as a momentous particle which the memory rather than the understanding must retain" is taken directly from the first Provincial Letter. The main points in the general conclusions of these chapters have been borne out by subsequent research. The account of the causes of the expansion of Christianity is chiefly to be criticized for its omissions. There were a number of important contributory conditions (enumerated in Harnack's Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums) which Gibbon did not take into account. He rightly insisted on the facilities of communication created by the Roman empire, but did not emphasize the diffusion of Judaism. And he did not realize the importance of the kinship between Christian doctrine and Hellenistic syncretism, which helped to promote the reception of Christianity. He was ignorant of another fact of great importance (which has only in recent years been fully appreciated through the researches of F. Cumont), the wide diffusion of the Mithraic religion and the close analogies between its doctrines and those of Christianity. In regard to the attitude of the Roman government towards the Christian religion, there are questions still sub judice; but Gibbon had the merit of reducing the number of martyrs within probable limits.

Gibbon's verdict on the history of the middle ages is contained in the famous sentence, "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion." It is important to understand clearly the criterion which he applied; it is frequently misapprehended. He was a son of the 18th century; he had studied with sympathy Locke and Montesquieu; no one appreciated more keenly than he did political liberty and the freedom of an Englishman. This is illustrated by his love of Switzerland, his intense interest in the fortunes of that country, his design of writing "The History of the Liberty of the Swiss "—a theme, he says "from which the dullest stranger would catch fire." Such views and sentiments are incompatible with the idealization of a benevolent despotism. Yet in this matter Gibbon has been grossly misapprehended and misrepresented. For instance, Mirabeau wrote thus to Sir Samuel Romilly: "I have never been able to read the work of Mr Gibbon without being astounded that it should ever have been written in English; or without being tempted to turn to the author and say, 'You an Englishman? No, indeed.' That admiration for an empire of more than two hundred millions of men, where not one had the right to call himself free; that effeminate philosophy which has more praise for luxury and pleasures than for all the virtues; that style always elegant and never energetic, reveal at the most the elector of Hanover's slave." This criticism is based on a perverse misreading of the historian's observations on the age of Trajan, Hadrian and the Antonines. He enlarges, as it was his business to do, on the tranquillity and prosperity of the empire in that period, but he does not fail to place his finger on the want of political liberty as a fatal defect. He points out that under this benevolent despotism, though men might be happy, their happiness was unstable, because it depended on the character of a single man; and the highest praise he can give to those virtuous princes is that they "deserved the honour of restoring the republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of a rational freedom." The criterion by which

Gibbon judged civilization and progress was the measure in which | Assam, H. lar of Arakan and Pegu, H. entelloides of Tenasserim

the happiness of men is secured, and of that happiness he considered political freedom an essential condition. He was essentially humane; and it is worthy of notice that he was in favour of the abolition of slavery, while humane men like his friend Lord Sheffield, Dr Johnson and Boswell were opposed to the antislavery movement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Of the original quarto edition of The Decline and Fall, vol. i. appeared, as has already been stated, in 1776, vols. ii. and iii. in 1781 and vols. iv.-vi, (inscribed to Lord North) in 1788. In later editions vol. i. was considerably altered by the author; the others hardly at all. The number of modern reprints has been very considerable. For many years the most important and valuable English edition was that of Milman (1839 and 1845), which was reissued with many critical additions by Dr W. Smith (8 vols. 8vo, 1854 and 1872). This has now been superseded by the edition, with copious notes, by Professor J. B. Bury (7 vols. 8vo, 18961900). The edition in Bohn's British Classics (7 vols., 1853) deserves mention. See also the essay on Gibbon in Sir Spencer Walpole's Essays and Biographies (1907). As a curiosity of literature Bowdler's edition," adapted to the use of families and young persons," by the expurgation of "the indecent expressions and all allusions of an improper tendency" (5 vols. 8vo, 1825), may be noticed. The French translation of Le Clerc de Septchênes, continued by Démeunier, Boulard and Cantwell (1788-1795), has been frequently reprinted in France. It seems to be certain that the portion usually attributed to Septchênes was, in part at least, the work of his distinguished pupil, Louis XVI. A new edition of the complete translation, prefaced by a letter on Gibbon's life and character, from the pen of Suard, and annotated by Guizot, appeared in 1812 (and again in 1828). There are at least two German translations of The Decline and Fall, one by Wenck, Schreiter and Beck (1805-1807), and a second by Johann C. Sporschil (1837, new ed. 1862). The Italian translation (alluded to by Gibbon himself) was, along with Spedalieri's Confulazione, reprinted at Milan in 1823. There is a Russian translation by Neviedomski (7 parts, Moscow, 1883-1886), and an Hungarian version of cc. 1-38 by K. Hegyessy (Pest, 1868-1869). Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, composed by himself; illustrated from his Letters, with occasional Notes and Narrative, published by Lord Sheffield in two volumes in 1796, has been often reprinted. The new edition in five volumes (1814) contained some previously unpublished matter, and in particular the fragment on the revolutions of Switzerland. A French translation of the Miscellaneous Works by Marigné appeared at Paris in 1798. There is also a German translation (Leipzig, 1801). It may be added that a special translation of the chapter on Roman Law (Gibbon's historische Übersicht des römischen Rechts) was published by Hugo at Göttingen in 1839, and has frequently been used as a text-book in German universities. This chapter has also appeared in Polish (Cracow, 1844) and Greek (Athens, 1840). centenary of Gibbon's death was celebrated in 1894 under the auspices of the Royal Historical Society: Proceedings of the Gibbon Commemoration, (J. B. B.) 1794-1894, by R. 1: T. Ball (1895).

GIBBON, the collective title of the smaller man-like apes of the Indo-Malay countries, all of which may be included in the single genus Hylobates. Till recently these apes have been generally included in the same family (Simiidae) with the chimpanzee, gorilla and orang-utan, but they are now regarded by several naturalists as representing a family by themselvesthe Hylobatidae.. One of the distinctive features of this family is the presence of small naked callosities on the buttocks; another being a difference in the number of vertebrae and ribs as compared with those of the Simiidae. The extreme length of the limbs and the absence of a tail are other features of these small apes, which are thoroughly arboreal in their habits, and make the woods resound with their unearthly cries at night. In agility they are unsurpassed; in fact they are stated to be so swift in their movements as to be able to capture birds on the wing with their paws. When they descend to the ground-which they must often do in order to obtain water-they frequently walk in the upright posture, either with the hands crossed behind the neck, or with the knuckles resting on the ground. Their usual food consists of leaves and fruits. Gibbons may be divided into two groups, the one represented by the siamang, Hylobates (Symphalangus) syndactylus, of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and the other by a number of closely allied species. The union of the index and middle fingers by means of a web extending as far as the terminal joints is the distinctive feature of the siamang, which is the largest of the group, and black in colour with a white frontal band. Black or puce-grey is the prevailing colour in the second group, of which the hulock (H. hulock) of

(fig.), and H. agilis of Sumatra are well-known representatives. A female of the Hainan gibbon (H. hainanus) in confinement changed from uniform sooty-black (without the white frontal

[graphic][subsumed]

The Tenasserim Gibbon (Hylobates entellöides). band of the black phase of the hulock) to puce-grey; but it is probable that this was only an individual, or at most a sexual, peculiarity. The range of the genus extends from the southern bank of the Bramaputra in Assam to southern China, the Malay (R. L.) Peninsula, Java, Sumatra and Bornco.

GIBBONS, GRINLING (1648-1721), English wood-carver, was born in 1648, according to some authorities of Dutch parents at Rotterdam, and according to others of English parents at London. By the former he is said to have come to London after the great fire in 1666. He early displayed great cleverness and ingenuity in his art, on the strength of which he was recommended by Evelyn to Charles II., who employed him in the execution both of statuary and of ornamental carving in wood. In the early part of the 18th century he worked for Sir Christopher Wren. In statuary one of his principal works is a life-size bronze statue in the court of Whitehall, representing James II. in the dress of a Roman emperor, and he also designed the base of the statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross. It is, however, chiefly as a sculptor in wood that he is famous. He was employed to execute the ornamental carving for the chapel at Windsor, the foliage and festoons in the choir of St Paul's, the baptismal fonts in St James's, and an immense quantity of ornamental work at Burleigh, Chatsworth, and other aristocratic mansions. The finest of all his productions in this style is believed to be the ceiling which he devised for a room at Petworth. His subjects are chiefly birds, flowers, foliage, fruit and lace, and many of his works, for delicacy and elaboration of details, and truthfulness of imitation, have never been surpassed. He, however, sometimes wasted his ingenuity on trifling subjects; many of his flowers used to move on their stems like their natural prototypes when shaken by a breeze. In 1714 Gibbons was appointed master carver in wood to George I. He died at London on the 3rd of August 1721.

GIBBONS, JAMES (1834- ), American Roman Catholic cardinal and archbishop, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 23rd of July 1834, and was educated at St Charles College, Ellicott City, Maryland, and St Mary's Seminary, Baltimore, where he finished his theological training and was ordained priest

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