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.”
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 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 he 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 that so far as every sort of religious yearning or aspiration is concerned, his poverty was almost unique. Gibbon was such a man as Horace might have been, had the Roman Epicurean
- ↑ 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.
