Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/593

Rh GIBBON 575 advice and experience of Lord Eliot, was that it was almost innnediately decided to fix Gibbon for some years abroad under the roof of M. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister at Lausanne. In as far as regards the instructor and guide thus selected, a 111ore fortunate choice could scarcely have been made. From the testimony of his pupil, and the still more conclusive evidence of his own correspondence with the father, Pavilliard seems to have been a man of singular good sense, temper, and tact. At the outset, indeed, there was one considerable obstacle to the free intercourse of tutor and pupil : M. 1’-avilliard appears to have known little of Eng- lish, and young Gibbon knew practically nothing of French. lint this difficulty was soon removed by the pupil’s dili- gence ; the very exigencies of his situation were of service in him in calling forth all his powers, and he studied the language with such success that at the close of his ﬁve years’ exile he declares that he “ spontaneously thought” in l_"rench rather than in English, and that it had become 111ore famili ll‘ to " ear, tongue, and pen.” It is well known that in after years he had doubts whether he should 11ot compose his great work ' in French 3 and" it is certain that his l'.nniliarity with that language, in spite of considerable efforts to counteract its effects, tinged his style to the last. l'nder the judicious regulations of his new tutor a I11-.)tl10LllC.'tl course of reading was marked out, and most artlently prosecuted; the pupil’s progress was proportion- ably rapid. With the systematic study of the Latin, and to a slight extent also of the Greek classics, he con- joined that of logic in the prolix system of C‘ronsaz; and he further invigorated his reasoning powers, as well as enlarged his knowledge of metaphysics and jurisprudence, by the perusal of Locke, Grotius, and Montesquieu. He also read largely, though somewhat indiscriminately, in French literature, and appears to have been particularly struck with l’ascal’s Provincial Letters, which he tells 11s he re-perused almost every year of his subsequent life with new p'.e-asure, and which he particularly mentions as having been, along with l3leterie’s Life qf Julian and Gi-annone’s I[z'stor_2/ of .'._zp!cs, a book which probably contributed in a special sense to form the historian of the Roman empire. The comprehensive scheme of study included mathematics also, in which he advanced as far as the conic sections in the treatise of L’HOpital. IIe assures us that his tutor did not complain of any ineptitude on the pupil's part, and that the pupil was as happily unconscious of any on his own; but here he broke off. He adds, what is not quite clear f r: an one who so frankly acknowledges his limited acquaint- ance with the science, that he had reason to congratulate himself that he knew no more. “As soon,” he says, “as I understood the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of the mathematics ; nor can I lament that I desisted before my mind was hardened by the habit of rigid d .-monstration, so destructive of the ﬁner feelings of moral evidence, which must, however, determine the actions and opinions of our lives.” Under the new influences which were brought to bear on him, he in less than two years resumed his Protestantism. "He is willing,” he says, to allow M. Pavilliard a “l1and— some share in his reconversion,” though he maintains, and no doubt rightly, that it was principally due “to his own solitary reflections.” IIe particularly congratulated himself on having discovered the “philosophical argument” against tr-ansubstantiation, “that the text of Scripture which seems to inculcate the real presence is attested only by a single sen.-'e—our sight, while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our senses——the sight-, the touch, and the taste." Before a similar mode of reasoning, all the other distinctive articles of the Romish creed “disappeared like a dream” ; and “after a full conviction,” on Christmas day, 1754, he ' rceeivel the sacrament in the church of Lausanne. Although, however, he adds that at this point he suspended his religious inquiries, “ acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent of Catholics and Protestants,” his readers will pro- bably do him no great injustice if they assume that even then it was rather to the negations than to the aftirmations of I’rotestantism that he most heartily assented. With all his devotion to study at Lausannel (he read ten or twelve hours a day), he still found some time for the acqui- sition of some of the lighter accomplishments, such as riding, dancing, drawing, and also for mingling in such society as" the place had to offer. In September 1755 he writes to his aunt, “ I find a great many agreeable people here, see them sometimes, and can say upon the whole, “'llIIlt-Ill} vanity, that, though I am the Iinglishman here who spends the least money, I am he who is most generally liked.” Thus his “studious and sedentary life” passed pleasantly enough, interrupted only at rare intervals by boyish ex- cursions of a day or a week in the neighbourhood, and by at least one memorable tour of Switzerland, by Basel, Ziirich, Lucerne, and Bern, made along with Pavilliard iii the autumn of 1755. The last eighteen months of this residence abroad saw the infusion of two new elements——one of them at least of considerable i1nport— ance——into his life. I11 1757 Voltaire came to reside at Lausanne; and although he took but little notice of the young Englishman of twenty, who eagerly sought and easily obtained a11 introduction, the establislnnent of the theatre at llonrepos, where the brilliant versiﬁer himself declaimed before select audiences his own pro- ductions on the stage, had no small inﬂuence i11 forti- fying Gibbon’s taste for the French theatre, and in at the same time abating that “idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare which is inculcated from our in- fancy as the first duty of an Englishman.” In the same year——apparently about June—he saw for the first time, and forthwith loved, the beautiful, intelligent, and accom- plished lIademoiselle Susan Curchod, daughter" of the pasteur of Crassier. That the passion which she inspired i11 him was tender, pure, and fitted to raise to a higher level a nature which in some respects was n1ucl1 in need of such elevation will be doubted by none but the hopelessly cynical 3 and probably there are few readers who can peruse the paragraph in which Gibbon “approaches the delicate subject of his early love” without discerning in it a pathos much deeper than that of which the writer was himself aware. During the remainder of his residence at Lausanne he had good reason to “indulge his dream of felicity”; but on his return to England, “ I soon discovered that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute and helpless. 1 The Journal for 1755 records that during that year, besides writing and translating a great deal in Latin and French, he had read, amongst other works, Cicero's Epis-loltc ad Fa7n2'Iim1's, his Ilrulus, all his Oralions, his dialogues Dc .4nn'citia and De .S'u1ccIuI.P, Terence (tviec), and I’liny’s Epistles. In January 1756 he says :-— “ I determined to read over the Latin authors in order, and read this year Virgil, Sallust, Livy, Yclleius Paterculus, Valerins Maxiinns, Tacitus, Suetonius, Quintus Curtius, Justin, Florus, Plautus, Terence, and Lucretius. I also read and nieditated Locke Upon the l'm7crsIam7- '[n_r/." Again in January 1757 he writes:——“ I began to study algebra under M. de Traytorrens, went through the elements of algebra and geometry, and the three first books of the Marquis de 1’H0pital's (‘mile Sections. I also read Tibullus, Catullus, Propertius, Horace (with Dacier’s and 'I'orrentius’s notes), Virgil, Ovid’s I-.'pz'stIc's, with Mozi- riac’s coIn1ncnta1'_v, the --[rs Aincu J1", and the lilqr/1'33; likewise the Au;/ustns and T[7»e.'{~s of Suetonius, and a Latin translation of Dion Cassius from the death of Julius Ca-:-ar to the death of Augustus. I also continued my corrcspordencc, begun last year, with M. Allamand of Bex, and the Professor Breitingcr of Ziirich, and 01 ened a new one with the Professor Gesner of Gottingen. N. B. —Last year and this I read St J oln1’s Gosptl, with part of Xcnophon’s C';1/roprrrﬁa, the I/r'r_u7, and Herodotus; hnt_. upon the whole, I rather neglected my Greek. '