Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/595

Rh GIBBON had entered a new and, one might suppose, a very uncon- genial scene of life. In an hour of patriotic ardour he became (June 12, 1759) a captain in the Hampshire militia, and for more than two y'ears May 10, 1760, to December 23, 1762) led a wandering lif(e of “military ser- vitude.” l-Iampshire, Kent, Viltshire, and Dorsetshire formed the successive theatres of what he calls his “ blood- less and inglorious campaigns.” He complains of the busy idleness in which his time was spent; but, con- sidering the circumstances, so adverse to study, one is rather surprised that the military student should have done so much, than that he did so little; and never pro- bably before were so many hours of literary study spent in a tent. In estimating the comparative advantages and dis- advantages of this wearisome period of his life, he has summed up with the impartiality of a philosopher and the sagacity of a man of the world. Irksome as were his employments, grievous as was the waste of time, uncongenial as were his companions, solid beneﬁts were to be set off against these things: his health became robust, his know- ledge of the world was enlarged, he wore off some of his foreign idiom, got rid of much of his reserve; he adds—— and perhaps in his estimate it was the beneﬁt to be most prized of all——“ the discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion, and the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader may smile) has not been useless to the historian of the lloman empire.” It was during this period that he read Homer and Lon- ginus, having for the first time acquired some real mastery of Greek ; and after the publication of the Essai, his mind was full of projects for a new literary effort. The Italian expedition of Charles VIII. of France, the crusade of llichard I., the wars of the barons, the lives and com- parisons of Henry V. and the emperor Titus, the history of the Black Prince, the life of Sir Philip Sydney, that of llontrose, and ﬁnally that of Sir W. Raleigh, were all of them seriously contemplated and successively rejected. lly their number they show how strong was the impulse to literature, and by their character, how determined the bent of his mind in the direction of history; while their variety makes it manifest also tl1-at he had then at least no s ecial purpose to serve, no preconceived theory to suppoiit, no particular prejudice or belief to overthrow. The militia was disbanded in 1762, and Gibbon joyfully shook off his bonds; but his literary projects were still to be postponed. Following his own wishes, though with his fatl1er’s consent, he had early in 1760 projected a Conti- nental tour as the completion “ of an English gentleman's education.” This had been interrupted by the episode of the militia ; now, however, he resumed his purpose, and left England in January 1763. Two years were “loosely de- ﬁned as the term of his absence,” which he exceeded by half a year—returning June 1765. He first visited Paris, where he saw a good deal of D’Alembert, Diderot, Bar- thélemy, Raynal, Helvétius, Baron d’Holbach, and others of that circle, and was often a welcome guest in the saloons of Madame Geoffrin and Madame du Deffand} Voltaire was at Geneva, Rousseau at Montmorency, and Butfon he neglected to visit; but so congenial did he ﬁnd the society for which his education had so well prepared him, and into which some literary reputation had already preceded him, that he declared, “ Had I been rich and inde- lecture en est assez diflicile et parfois obscure, la liaison des idées cchappe souvent par trop de concision et par le désir qu’a en lo jeune
 * 111teur“dy faire entrer, d’y condenser la plupart de ses notes,” he

“d'l_-9: ’ 11 y a, chemin faisant, des vues neuves et qni sententl’l1is- tonen. ’ 1 Her letters to Valpole about Gibbon contain some interesting remarks by this “ aveugle clairvoyante,” as Voltaire calls her; but they belong to a later period (1777). 577 pendent, I should have prolonged and perhaps have ﬁxed my residence at Paris.” From France he proceeded to Switzerland, and spent nearly a year at Lausanne, where many old friendships and studies were resumed, and new ones begun. His reading was largely designed to enable him fully to proﬁt by the long contemplated Italian tour which began in April 1764, and lasted somewhat more than a year. He has recorded one or two interesting notes on Turin, Genoa, Florence, and other towns at which halt was made on his route ; but Rome was the great object of his pilgrimage, and the words in which he has alluded to the feelings with which he approached it are such as cannot be omitted from any sketch of Gibbon, however brief. “My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm, and the enthusiasm which I donot 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.” The ﬁve years and a half which intervened between his return from this tour, in J11ne 176-3, and the death of his father, in November 17 70, seem to have formed the por- tion 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 a11d lieutenant- colonel commandant ; but was each year “ more disgusted with the inn, the wine, the company, and the tiresome re petition 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 ambi- tion also troubled his repose. He was still contemplat- ing “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 Switzer- land, 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 i11 French; it was read (in 1767), as an anonymous produc- tion, before a literary society of foreigners in London, and condenmed. Gibbon sat and listened unobserved to their strictures. It never got beyond that rehearsal; Hume, indeed, approved of the performance, only deprecating as 3&-—73