any thing we had at the masquerade her language and ideas belong to the last century. However, in point of religion she was rational, that is to say, silent. I do not believe that she asked a single question, or said the least thing concerning it. To me she behaved with great cordiality, and in her way, expressed a great regard.

Mrs. Porten tells me, that she has just written to you. She ought to go to a masquerade once a-year. Did you think her such a girl? I am, dear madam, most truly yours.

LIII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO J. HOLROYD, ESQ.

Boodle's, May 24th, 1774.

I wrote three folio pages to you this morning, and yet you complain. Have reason, and have mercy; consider all the excellent reasons for silence which I gave you in one of my last, and expect my arrival in Sussex, when I shall talk more in a quarter of an hour than I could write in a day. A propos of that arrival; never pretend to allure me, by painting in odious colours the dust of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Weald, it is to visit you and my lady, and not your trees. About this day month I mean to give you a visitation. I leave it to Guise, Clarke, and the other light horse, to prance down for a day or two. They all talk of mounting, but will not fix the day. Sir John Russell, whom I salute, has brought you, I suppose, all the news of Versailles. Let me only add, that the mesdames, by attending their father, have both got the small-pox. I can make nothing of ***, or his lawyer. You will swear at the shortness of this letter.-Swear.

LIV. THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Saturday evening, August 27th, 1774. By your submission to the voice of reason, you eased me of a very heavy load of anxiety. I did not like your enterprise. ***

*** As to papers, I will show you that I can keep them safe till we meet. What think you of the Turks and Russians? Romanzow is a great man. He wrote an account of his amazing success to Mouskin Pouskin here, and declared his intention of retiring as soon as he had conducted the army home; desiring that Pouskin would send him the best plan he could procure of an English gentleman's farm. In his answer, Pouskin promised to get it; but added, that at the same time he should send the Empress a plan of Blenheim. A handsome compliment, I think.

My lady and Maria, as usual.

LV. THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Bentinck-street, Sept. 10th, 1774.

Since Heberden is returned, I think the road lies plain before you; I mean the turnpike road. The only party which in good sense can be embraced is, without delay, to bring my lady to Ben

tinck-street, where you may inhabit two or three nights, and have any advice (Turton, Heberden, &c.) which the town may afford, in a case that most assuredly ought not to be trifled with. Do this as you value our good opinion. The Cantabs are strongly in the same sentiments. There can be no apprehension of late hours, &c. as none of Mrs. H.'s raking acquaintance are in town.

*

*

* You give me no account of the works. When do you inhabit the library? Turn over-great things await you.

It is surely infinite condescension for a senator to bestow his attention on the affairs of a juryman. A senator? Yes, sir, at last -Quod . . . . Divûm promittere nemo Auderet, volvenda dies en attulit ultro.

Yesterday morning, about half an hour after seven, as I was destroying an army of barbarians, I heard a double rap at the door, and my friend **** was soon introduced. After some idle conversation he told me, that if I was desirous of being in parliament, he had an independent seat very much at my service. *. This

is a fine prospect opening upon me, and if next spring I should take my seat, and publish my book, it will be a very memorable era in my life. I am ignorant whether my borough will be * * *. You despise boroughs, and fly at nobler game. Adieu.

LVI. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO J. B. HOLROYD, ESQ.

December 2nd, 1774.

I send you inclosed a dismal letter from Hugonin. Return it without delay, with observations. A manifesto has been sent to

*, which must, I think, produce immediate peace or war. Adieu. We shall have a warm day on the address next Monday. A number of young members! Whitshed, a dry man, assured me, that he heard one of them ask, whether the king always sat in that chair, pointing to the speaker's. Adieu.

LVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Boodle's, Jan. 31st, 1775.

Sometimes people do not write because they are too idle, and sometimes because they are too busy. The former was usually my case, but at present it is the latter. The fate of Europe and America seems fully sufficient to take up the time of one man; and especially of a man who gives up a great deal of time for the purpose of public and private information. I think I have sucked Mauduit and Hutcheson very dry; and if my confidence was equal to my eloquence, and my eloquence to my knowledge, perhaps I might make no very intolerable speaker. At all events, I fancy I shall try to expose myself.

Semper ego auditor tantùm? nunquamne reponam?

For my own part, I am more and more convinced that we have both the right and the power on our side, and that, though the event may be accompanied with some melancholy circumstances, we are

now arrived at the decisive moment of preserving, or of losing for ever, both our trade and empire. We expect next Thursday or Friday to be a very great day. Hitherto we have been chiefly employed in reading papers, and rejecting petitions. Petitions were brought from London, Bristol, Norwich, &c., framed by party, and designed to delay. By the aid of some parliamentary quirks, they have been all referred to a separate inactive committee, which Burke calls a committee of oblivion, and are now considered as dead in law. I could write you fifty little house of commons stories, but from their number and nature they suit better a conference than a letter. Our general divisions are about two hundred and fifty to eighty or ninety. Adieu.

LVIII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MRS. GIBBON, BATH.

London, Jan. 31st, 1775.

Dear Madam,-An idle man has no time, and a busy man very little. As yet the house of commons turns out very well to me, and though it should never prove of any real benefit to me, I find it at least a very agreeable coffee-house. We are plunging every day deeper and deeper into the great business of America; and I have hitherto been a zealous, though silent, friend to the cause of government, which, in this instance, I think the cause of England. I passed about ten days, as I designed, at Uppark. I found Lord * and fourscore fox-hounds.

The troubles of Beriton are perfectly composed, and the insurgents reduced to a state, though not a temper, of submission. You may suppose I heard a great deal of Petersfield. L** means to convict your friend of bribery, to transport him for using a second time old stamps, and to prove that Petersfield is still a part of the manor of Beriton. I remain an impartial spectator. I am, dear madam, most truly yours.

LIX. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO J. B. HOLROYD, ESQ.

February 8th, 1775.

I am not dd, according to your charitable wishes, because I have not acted; there was such an inundation of speakers, young speakers in every sense of the word, both on Thursday in the grand committee, and Monday on the report to the house, that neither Lord George Germaine nor myself could find room for a single word. The principal men both days were Fox and Wedderburne, on the opposite sides; the latter displayed his usual talents; the former taking the vast compass of the question before us, discovered powers for regular debate, which neither his friends hoped, nor his enemies dreaded. We voted an address (three hundred and four to one hundred and five), of lives and fortunes, declaring Massachusets Bay in a state of rebellion. More troops, but I fear not enough, go to America, to make an army of 10,000 men at Boston; three generals, Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton. In a few days we stop the

ports of New England. I cannot write volumes: but I am more and more convinced, that with firmness all may go well; yet I sometimes doubt. I am now writing with ladies (Sir S. Porten and his bride), and two card tables, in the library. As to my silence, judge of my situation by last Monday. I am on the Grenvillian committee of Downton. We always sit from ten to three and a half; after which, that day, I went into the house, and sat till three in the morning. Adieu.

LX.-EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO J. B. HOLROYD, ESQ.

February 25th, 1775.

We go on with regard to America, if we can be said to go on; for on last Monday a conciliatory motion of allowing the colonies to tax themselves, was introduced by Lord North, in the midst of lives and fortunes, war and famine. We went into the house in confusion, every moment expecting that the Bedfords would fly into rebellion against those measures. Lord North rose six times to appease the storm, but all in vain; till at length Sir Gilbert declared for administration, and the troops all rallied under their proper standard. On Wednesday we had the Middlesex election. I was a patriot; sat by the lord mayor, who spoke well, and with temper, but before the end of the debate fell fast asleep. I am still a mute; it is more tremendous than I imagined; the great speakers fill me with despair, the bad ones with terror.

When do you move? My lady answered like a woman of sense, spirit, and good nature. Neither she nor I could bear it. She was right, and the Duchess of Braganza would have made the same answer. Adieu.

LXI. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MRS. GIBBON.

March 30th, 1775.

Dear Madam,-I hardly know how to take up the pen. I talked in my last of two or three posts, and I am almost ashamed to calculate how many have elapsed. I will endeavour for the future to be less scandalous. Only believe that my heart is innocent of the laziness of my hand. I do not mean to have recourse to the stale and absurd excuse of business, though I have really had a very considerable hurry of new parliamentary business: one day, for instance, of seventeen hours, from ten in the morning till between three and four the next morning. It is, upon the whole, an agreeable improvement in my life, and forms just the mixture of business, of study, and of society, which I always imagined I should, and now find I do, like. Whether the house of commons may ever prove of benefit to myself or country is another question. As yet I have been mute. In the course of our American affairs, I have sometimes had a wish to speak, but though I felt tolerably prepared as to the matter, I dreaded exposing myself in the manner, and remained in my seat safe, but inglorious. Upon the whole (though I still believe I shall

try), I doubt whether nature, not that in some instances I am ungrateful, has given me the talents of an orator, and I feel that I came into parliament much too late to exert them. Do you hear of Port Eliot coming to Bath? and, above all, do you hear of Charles-street coming to Bentinck-street, in its way to Essex, &c. Adieu. Dear madam, I am most truly yours.

LXII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MRS. GIBBON.

House of Commons, May 2nd, 1775.

Dear Madam,-I accept of the Pomeranian lady with gratitude and pleasure, and shall be impatient to form an acquaintance with her. My presentations at St. James's passed graciously. My dinner at Twickenham was attended with less ceremony and more amusement. If they turned out Lord North to-morrow, they would still leave him one of the best companions in the kingdom. By this time I suppose the Eliots are with you. I am sure you will say every thing kind and proper on the occasion. I am glad to hear of the approbation of my constituents for my vote on the Middlesex election. On the subject of America, I have been something more of a courtier. You know, I suppose, that Holroyd is just stepped over to Ireland for a fortnight. He passed three days with me on his way. Deyverdun had left me just before your letter arrived, which I shall soon have an opportunity of conveying to him. Though, I flatter myself, he broke from me with some degree of uneasiness, the engagement could not be declined. At the end of four years he has an annuity of one hundred pounds for life, and may, for the remainder of his days, enjoy a decent independence in that country, which a philosopher would perhaps prefer to the rest of Europe. For my own part, after the hurry of the town and of parliament, I am now retired to my villa in Bentinck-street, which I begin to find a very pleasing solitude, at least as well as if it were two hundred miles from London; because when I am tired of the Roman Empire, I can laugh away the evening at Foote's theatre, which I could not do in Hampshire or Cornwall. I am, dear madam, most truly

yours.

LXIII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO J. B. HOLROYD, ESQ.

Bentinck-street, August 1st, 1775.

Your apprehensions of a precipitate work, &c., are perfectly groundless. I should be much more addicted to a contrary extreme. The head is now printing: true, but it was written last year and the year before. The first chapter has been composed de nouveau three times; the second twice, and all the others have undergone reviews, corrections, &c. As to the tail, it is perfectly formed and digested (and were I so much given to self-content and haste), it is almost all written. The ecclesiastical part, for instance, is written out in fourteen sheets, which I mean to refondre from beginning to

Mrs. Gibbon's residence at Bath.