if such kind of Satyr has its incontestable Greatness; if its exemplary Brightness may not mislead inferior Wits into a barbarous Imitation of its Severity, then I have only admir'd the Verses, and expos'd myself by bringing them under so scrupulous a Reflexion: But the Pain which the Acrimony of those Verses gave me is, in some measure, allay'd in finding that this inimitable Writer, as he advances in Years, has since had Candour enough to celebrate the same Person for his Visible Merit. Happy Genius! whose Verse, like the Eye of Beauty, can heal the deepest Wounds with the least Glance of Favour. . . . This so singular Concern which I have shown for others may naturally lead you to ask me what I feel for myself when I am unfavourably treated by the elaborate Authors of our daily Papers. Shall I be sincere? and own my frailty? Its usual Effect is to make me vain! For I consider if I were quite good for nothing these Pidlers in Wit would not be concerned to take me to pieces, or (not to be quite so vain) when they moderately charge me with only Ignorance or Dulness, I see nothing in That which an honest. Man need be asham'd of: There is many a good Soul who from those sweet Slumbers of the Brain are never awaken'd by the least harmful Thought; and I am sometimes tempted to think those Retailers of Wit may be of the same Class; that what they write proceeds not from Malice, but Industry; and that I ought no more to reproach them than I would a Lawyer that pleads against me for his Fee; that their Detraction, like Dung thrown upon a Meadow, tho' it may seem at first to deform the Prospect, in a little time it will disappear of itself and leave an involuntary Crop of Praise behind it. When they confine themselves to a sober Criticism upon what I write; if their Censure is just, what answer can I make to it? If it is unjust, why should I suppose that a sensible Reader will not see it, as well as myself? Or, admit I were able to expose them by a laughing Reply, will not that Reply beget a Rejoinder? And though they may be Gainers by having the worst on't in a Paper War, that is no Temptation for me to come into it. Or (to make both sides less considerable) would not my bearing Ill-language from a Chimney-sweeper do me less harm than it would be to box with him, tho' I were sure to beat him? Nor indeed is the little Reputation I have as an Author worth the trouble of a De fence. Then, as no Criticism can possibly make me worse than I really am; so nothing I can say of myself can possibly make me better: When therefore a determin'd Critick comes arm'd with Wit and Outrage to take from me that small Pittance I have, I wou'd no more dispute with him than I wou'd resist a Gentleman of the Road to save a little Pocket-Money. Men that are in want themselves seldom make a Conscience of taking it from others. Whoever thinks I have too much is welcome to what share of it he pleases: Nay, to make him more merciful (as I partly guess the worst he can say of what I now write) I will prevent even the Imputation of his doing me Injustice, and honestly say it myself, viz. That of all the Assurances I was ever guilty of, this of writing my own Life is the most hardy. I beg his Pardon ! — Impudent is what I should have said! That through every Page there runs a Vein of Vanity and Impertinence which no French Ensigns memoires ever came up to; but, as this is a common Error, I presume the Terms of Doating Trifler, Old Fool, or Conceited Coxcomb will carry Contempt enough for an Impartial Censor to bestow on me; that my style is unequal, pert, and frothy, patch'd and party-colour'd like the Coat of an Harlequin; low and pompous, cramm'd with Epithets, strew'd with Scraps of second-hand Latin from common Quotations; frequently aiming at Wit, without ever hitting the Mark; a mere Ragoust toss'd up from the offals of other authors: My Subject below all Pens but my own, which, whenever I keep to, is flatly daub'd by one eternal Egotism: That I want nothing but Wit to be as accomplish'd a Coxcomb here as ever I attempted to expose on the Theatre: Nay, that this very Confession is no more a Sign of my Modesty than it is a Proof of my Judgment, that, in short, you may roundly tell me, that - Cinna (or Cibber) vult videri Pauper, et est Pauper. When humble Cinna cries, I'm poor and low, Well, Sir Critick! and what of all this? Now I have laid myself at your feet, what will you do with me? Expose me? Why, dear Sir, does not every Man that writes expose himself? Can you make me more ridiculous than Nature has made me? You cou'd not sure suppose that I would lose the Pleasure of Writing because you might possibly judge me a Blockhead, or perhaps might pleasantly tell other People they ought to think me so too. Will not they judge as well from what I say as what You say? If then you attack me merely to divert yourself, your excuse for writing will be no better than mine. But perhaps you may want Bread: If that be the Case, even go to Dinner, i' God's name! If our best Authors, when teiz'd by these Triflers, have not been Masters of this Indifference, I should not wonder if it were disbeliev'd in me; but when it is consider'd that I have allow'd my never having been disturb'd into a Reply has proceeded as much from Vanity as from Philosophy, the Matter then may not seem so incredible: And tho' I confess the complete Revenge of making them Immortal Dunces in Immortal Verse might be glorious; yet, if you will call it insensibility in me never to have winc'd at them, even that Insensibility has its happiness, and what could Glory give me more? For my part, I have always had the comfort to think, whenever they design'd me a Disfavour, it generally flew back into their own Faces, as it happens to Children when they squirt at their Play-fellows against the Wind. If a Scribbler cannot be easy because he fancies I have too good an Opinion of my own Productions, let him write on and mortify; I owe him not the Charity to be out of temper myself merely to keep him quiet or give him Joy: Nor, in reality, can I see why anything misrepresented, tho' believ'd of me by Persons to whom I am unknown, ought to give me any more Concern than what may be thought of me in Lapland: 'Tis with those with whom I am to live only, where my character can affect me; and I will venture to say, he must find out a new way of Writing that will make pass my Time there less agreeably. You see, Sir, how hard it is for a man that is talking of himself to know when to give over; but if you are tired, lay me aside till you have a fresh Appetite. EDWARD GIBBON [From The Memoirs of the Life of Edward Gibbon with Various Observations and Excursions by Himself, 1795. Edited by G. B. Hill, Methuen & Co., London, 1900. GIBBON, EDWARD (1737-1794), historian; educated at Westminster; owed his taste for books to his aunt, Catherine Porten; spent fourteen 'unprofitable' months at Magdalen College, Oxford, 1752-3; became a Romanist after reading Middleton's 'Free Inquiry' and works by Bossuet and Parsons, 1753; at Lausanne. (1753-8), where his tutor, Pavillard, drew him back to protestantism, and where he made friends with Deyverdun and read widely; became attached to Susanne Curchod (afterwards Madame Necker), but in deference to his father broke off the engagement, 1757; published 'Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature,' 1761 (English version, 1764); served in Hampshire militia, 1759-70, and studied military literature; at Lausanne met Holroyd (afterwards Lord Sheffield); during a tour in Italy, 1764-5, formed plan of his 'History' amid the ruins of the Capitol; with Deyverdun published 'Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande-Bretagne,' 1767-8, contributing a review of Lyttelton's 'Henry II': issued 'Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Æneid,' attacking Warburton, 1770; settled in London, 1772; joined Dr. Johnson's Club, 1774; became professor in ancient history at the Royal Academy in succession to Goldsmith; M.P., Liskeard, 1774-80, Lymington, 1781-3; drew up a state paper against France, and was commissioner of trade and plantations, 1779-82; issued in 1776 the first volume of his 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' which passed into three editions, and obtained the favourable verdict of Hume, Robertson, Warton, and Walpole; defended the chapters on growth of Christianity in his 'Vindication,' 1779; issued the second and third volumes, 1781, after a visit to Paris, where he met Buffon and disputed with De Mably; retired with Deyverdun to Lausanne, 1783, where he finished the work, 1787 (published, 1788); returned to England, 1793; died suddenly in London; a Latin epitaph written for his monument at Fletching, Sussex, by Dr. Samuel Parr [q. v.]. His 'Miscellaneous Works' (edited by his friend Lord Sheffield, 1796) contained an autobiographical memoir, and 'Antiquities of the House of Brunswick' (1814). — Index and Epitome of D. N. B. "If, as Johnson said, there had been only three books 'written by man that were wished longer by their readers,' the eighteenth century was not to draw to its close without seeing a fourth added. With Don Quixote, The Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe, the Autobiography of Edward Gibbon was henceforth to rank as 'a work whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day.' It is indeed so short that it can be read by the light of a single pair of candles; it is so interesting in its subject, and so alluring in its turns of thought and its style, that in a second and third reading it gives scarcely less pleasure than in the first. Among the books in which men have told the story of their own lives it stands in the front rank. It is a striking fact that one of the first of autobiographies and the first of biographies were written in the same years. Boswell was still working at his Life of Johnson when Gibbon began those memoirs from which his autobiography, in the form in which it was given to the world, was so skilfully pieced together. But a short time had gone by since Johnson had said that he did not think that the life of any literary man in England had been well written.' That reproach against our writers he himself did much to lessen by his Lives of Cowley and of Milton, of Dryden and of Pope. It was finally removed by two members of that famous club which he had helped to found. However weak was the end of the eighteenth century in works of imagination, in one great branch of literature it faded nobly away. Both in the Life of Johnson and in the Autobiography of Edward Gibbon it 'left something so written to after-times as they should not willingly let it die.'” GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, The Memoirs of the Life of Edward Gibbon, Preface, p. v. AT OXFORD A traveller who visits Oxford or Cambridge is surprised and edified by the apparent order and tranquillity that prevail in the seats of the English Muses. In the most celebrated universities of Holland, Germany, and Italy, the students, who swarm from different countries, are loosely dispersed in private lodgings at the houses of the burghers: they dress according to their fancy and fortune; and in the intemperate quarrels of youth and wine, their swords, though less frequently than of old, are sometimes stained with each other's blood. The use of arms is banished from our English universities; the uniform habit of the academics, the square cap and black gown, is adapted to the civil and even clerical professions; and from the doctor in divinity to the undergraduate, the degrees of learning and age are externally distinguished. Instead of being scattered in a town, the students of Oxford and Cambridge are united in colleges; their maintenance is provided at their own expense, or that of the founders; and the stated hours of the hall and chapel represent the discipline of a regular and, as it were, a religious community. The eyes of the traveller are attracted by the size or beauty of the public edifices; and the principal colleges appear to be so many palaces which a liberal nation has erected and endowed for the habitation of science. My own introduction to the University of Oxford forms a new era in my life, and at the distance of forty years I still remember my first emotions of surprise and satisfaction. In my fifteenth year I felt myself suddenly raised from a boy to a man: the persons whom I respected as my superiors in age and |