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 judgment of the case. Rousseau pitied poor Susanne, but thought that Gibbon had shown himself unworthy of her, and would only have made her 'rich and miserable' in England. As Mlle. Curclod soon became Mme. Necker, and forgave the lover who had jilted her, we may forgive a misdoing which caused no permanent misery. This passing collocation of the two great men, the sentimentalist who represents the passion, and the calm, not to say cynical, historian who represents the reflection of the period, is curiously characteristic; and I leave the ethical question to be settled by my readers. Perhaps Gibbon was not of the finest human clay; but the problem, I repeat, was not how to make a perfect man, but how to make a great historian. Had Gibbon become a husband there can be little doubt as to the material consequences. He had difficulties enough in keeping up a bachelor establishment; and with a wife by his side, he would have been forced to accept an appointment—such as he actually contemplated—in the Excise, and to labour five days a week in official routine. Julian and Athanasius and Justinian must have waited to be appreciated by somebody else. The effect upon Gibbon's character was exactly what was