heart, a strong and clear understanding, a most invaluable happiness of temper, which showed her the agreeable or comfortable side of every object, and every situation; an easy competency, the reward of her own attention; private friendship, general esteem, a mature age, and a placid decline. But these rational motives of consolation are insufficient to check a thousand soft and sad remembrances that rush into my mind; the intimacy of a whole life; of mine, at least, from the earliest dawn of my infancy; the maternal and assiduous care of my health, and afterwards of my mind; the freedom and frequency of our conversations; the regret which I felt in our last separation, and the hope, however faint and precarious, of seeing her again. Time alone can reconcile us to this irreparable loss, and to his healing power I must recommend your grief, as well as my own. I sincerely applaud her very proper and natural disposal of her effects, and am proud of the pre-eminence which she has allowed me in a list of dear and worthy relations.

I am too full of a single idea to expatiate, as I should otherwise do, on indifferent matters; yet not totally indifferent to my friends, since they relate to my present situation. My health is in general perfectly good, and the only drawbacks some occasional visits of the gout, which abate, however, in strength, and are grown, I think, less frequent and lasting. The life which I lead is temperate and tranquil, and the distemper itself is not common in the purity and dryness of the climate. After a long trial, I can now approve my own choice of retiring to Switzerland. My delightful habitation, at once in town and country; my library, and the society of agreeable men and women, compose a very eligible plan of life, which is shaded with very few, and very slight exceptions. I prosecute with ease, and regular diligence, the conclusion of my History; and, as far as I can judge, I may hope to deliver it to the press in the course of next year. That important business will recall me to England, and detain me there some months; and I shall rejoice in the opportunity of revisiting my country and my friends; among them those of Kensington Palace hold a high and distinguished place.

I truly sympathise, my dear sir, in your paternal feelings, in the health and progress of your very promising children. May that, and every other blessing, attend both yourself and Lady Porten. My friend, M. Deyverdun, desires to assure you of his respect and good wishes. I am, dear sir, most affectionately yours.

CLXXXVI. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, July 22nd, 1786.

Since I have another page, and some leisure moments, we may as well employ it in friendly converse; the more so, as the great letter to which I alluded is wonderfully precarious and uncertain the more so likewise, as our correspondence for some time past has been of an abrupt and disagreeable cast. Let us first talk of Sheffield's works; they are of two sorts: Primo, Two nymphs,

The

your

whom I much desire to see; the sprightly Maria and the gentle Louisa. I perfectly represent them both in the eye of fancy; each of them accomplished according to her age and character, yet totally different in their external and internal forms. Secundo, Three pamphlets; pamphlets! I cry your mercy; three weighty treatises, almost as useful as an inquiry into the state of the primitive church. And here let me justify, if I have not before, my silence on a subject which we authors do not easily forgive. The first, whose first editions had seen the light before I left England, followed me here in a more complete edition; and that Treatise on the American Trade has been read, judged, approved, and reported. The second, on Ireland, I have seen by accident the copy you sent to Mr. Trevor, who passed last summer (eighty-five) here. third, and in my present situation the most interesting, on the French Commerce,* I have not yet seen by any means whatsoever, and you who know what orders you have given to Elmsly or others, will best discern on whom should be laid the fault and the blame. By the by, Mrs. Trevor is now here without her husband, and I am just going to see her, about a mile out of town: she is judged elegant and amiable. But to return to your books, all that I have seen must do you honour, and might do the public service; you are above the trifling decorations of style; but your sense is strong, your views impartial, and your industry laudable. I find that American Tract is just translated into German. Do you still correspond with *? If he could establish a beneficial intercourse between the two first nations in the world, I would excuse him some little political tergiversation. At some distance of time and place, those domestic squabbles lose much of their importance; and though I should not forgive him any breach of private friendship or confidence, I cannot much blame him if he chose rather to serve his family and his country, than to persevere in a hopeless and, as I suspect, an unpopular opposition. You have never told me clearly and correctly how you support your inactive retreat from the house of commons; whether you have resumed your long forgotten taste for rural and domestic pleasures, and whether you have never cast a look towards Coventry, or some other borough equally pure and respectable. In the short space that is left I will only repeat more distinctly, that in the present contemplation of my work, June or July of next year is the earliest term at which I can hope to see England; and if I have a fit of the gout-I have, indeed, been free from the monster this last twelvemonth; but he is most arbitrary and capricious. Of my own situation let me say with truth that it is tranquil, easy, and well adapted to my character. All enthusiasm is now at an end; I see things in their true light, and I applaud the judgment and choice of my retirement. I am well, happy, and diligent; but your kind hint of the London house is perfectly superfluous; as instead of the spring, we must already read the summer of next year. Do not be childish or passionate; trust me, I wish to appear in England; but it must be with my book in my hand; and A mistake-Lord Sheffield did not PUBLISH any tract on French Commerce.

a book takes more time in making than a pudding. Adieu. Will my lady never write?

You see why I have left a blank in the first page; and when I begun I had no design of going beyond it; and now, unless I have some extraordinary fit of diligence and zeal, shall probably wait till the return of your epistle. A word before we part, about the least unpleasant of my business; my library in Downing-street. Excuse the accidental derangement; I shall send for no more books, and only beg you to give them shelter in your uninhabited parlour till my arrival. Two or three mornings will suffice for personal review, and the subsequent steps of sale or travel will most properly be executed under my own eye. Once more adieu.

CLXXXVII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MR. CADELL, BOOKSELLER,

LONDON.

Lausanne, December 16th, 1786.

Dear Sir, I received your letter this morning (the 16th instant), and answer it the same day. I am a sad correspondent, but it has been my constant endeavour that my negligence should never affect the interest or happiness of my friends.

The report you so kindly mention is somewhat incorrect. I never could fix a particular day for dining with Lord Sheffield, nor should I think of performing the journey in the winter month of February. The last autumn was the term which I had fixed in my hopes, and long since in my letters to him. It has been changed to next spring, and by the spring I must now understand the middle of the summer, which I can at present ascertain with some confidence, from a nearer prospect of the end of my work, which I shall bring over for the press. It will consist of three more quarto volumes, somewhat thinner, perhaps, than their predecessors; but as that difference cannot be enough to affect the price, it will be so much saved on the author's pains, and the printer's expenses. I am happy to understand the public entertain the same opinion of the past, and the same impatience for the remainder; and, unless I am strangely deceived, their expectation will not be disappointed. The three last volumes are laboured at least with equal diligence; they contain a longer period of time, and a far greater variety of events; and the whole will comprise a general series of history, from the reign of Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by Mahomet the Second; with a review of Mahomet and his successors, the Crusades and the Turks, as far as in their utmost latitude they are connected with the fate of the Eastern or Western Empire. With regard to our pecuniary arrangements, I persuade myself that we shall have no more difficulties, now than heretofore; that you will cheerfully assign the same value to the three younger as to the three elder brothers; and that so important a transaction will have been concluded in the first instance by three minutes conversation, and in the second by three lines of a letter; a memorable example in the annals of authors and booksellers. If you agree with me on this

subject, you may provide paper, &c. as soon as you please in the spring, in the full confidence of seeing me with my book in the summer; and I should not be sorry to learn what time (in using the utmost expedition) would be sufficient for printing, and how late you would consent to publish in the ensuing spring. At this moment, when I am straining every nerve to comclude my living labours, I am ill disposed to lose any time in the dull dead work of correcting a new edition. When I am in England, quiet in the country, there would be room and leisure, for a complete revision; and I should have no objection to place at the end of the sixth volume a string of amendments and improvements, which hereafter might be inserted in their proper places. We shall likewise have occasion for a good and general index to the whole.

I sincerely condole with you in your various losses: Rose and Strahan were indeed valuable men. For myself, you will rejoice to hear that I am satisfied with my Swiss retirement; and that except some mild and transient fits of the gout, I enjoy as much health and happiness as is compatible with the lot of man. I expect with much impatience Dr. Robertson's improved edition. There are three or four books which I should like to have without delay: that work, Pennant's Arctic Zoology, White's Sermons (the Arabic professor), the Annual Registers since the year 1782. With Elmsly's assistance (he is a sad dog, but I will write to him soon) could you not inclose them in a small box, with any other recent publications of merit, and dispatch them instantly by some more costly and expeditious mode of conveyance? I am, most faithfully yours.

CLXXXVIII. -EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, January 20th, 1787.

After some sallies of wrath, you seem at length to have subsided in sullen silence, and I must confess not totally without reason. Yet if your mind be still open to truth, you will confess that I am not so black as I appear. 1. Your lordship has shown much less activity and eloquence than formerly, and your last letter was an answer to mine, which I had expected some time with impatience. Bad examples are dangerous to young people. 2. Formerly I have neglected answering your epistles on essential, though unpleasant, business; and the res-publica or privata may have suffered by my neglect. Supposing, therefore, we had no transactions, why should I write so often? To exchange sentimental compliments, or to relate the various and important transactions of the republic of Lausanne. As long as I do not inform you of my death, you have good grounds to believe me alive and well. You have a general, and will soon have a more particular, idea of my system and arrangement here. One day glides away after another in tranquil uniformity. Every object must have sides and moments less luminous than others; but, upon the whole, the life and the place which I have chosen are most happily adapted to my character and circumstances;

and I can now repeat, at the end of three years, what I soon and sincerely affirmed, that never, in a single instant, have I repented of my scheme of retirement to Lausanne; a retirement which was judged by my best and wisest friend a project little short of insanity. The place, the people, the climate, have answered or exceeded my warmest expectations. And though I truly rejoice in my approaching visit to England, Mr. Pitt, were he your friend and mine, would not find it an easy task to prevent my return. 3. And now let me add a third reason, which often diverted me from writing; namely, my impatience to see you this next summer. I am building a great book, which, besides the three stories already exposed to the public eye, will have three stories more before we reach the roof and battlements. You too have built or altered a great Gothic castle with baronial battlements. Did you finish it within the time you intended? As that time drew near, did you not find a thousand nameless and unexpected works that must be performed; each of them calling for a portion of time and labour? and had you not despised, nobly despised, the minute diligence of finishing, fitting up, and furnishing the apartments, you would have discovered a new train of indispensable business. Such, at least, has been my case. A long while ago, when I contemplated the distant prospect of my work, I gave you and myself some hopes of landing in England last autumn; but, alas! when autumn grew near, hills began to rise on hills, Alps on Alps, and I found my journey far more tedious and toilsome than I had imagined. When I look back on the length of the undertaking, and the variety of materials, I cannot accuse, or suffer myself to be accused, of idleness; yet it appeared that unless I doubled my diligence, another year, and perhaps more, would elapse before I could embark with my complete manuscript. Under these circumstances I took, and am still executing, a bold and meritorious resolution. The mornings in winter, and in a country of carly dinners, are very concise; to them, my usual period of study, I now frequently add the evenings, renounce cards and society, refuse the most agreeable evenings, or perhaps make my appearance at a late supper. By this extraordinary industry, which I never practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced, I see the last part of my History growing apace under my hands; all my materials are collected and arranged; I can exactly compute, by the square foot, or the square page, all that remains to be done; and after concluding text and notes, after a general review of my time and my ground, I can now decisively ascertain the final period of the Decline and Fall, and can boldly promise that I will dine with you at Sheffield-place in the month of August, or perhaps of July, in the present year; within less than a twelvemonth of the term which I had loosely and originally fixed; and perhaps it would not be easy to find a work of that size and importance in which the workman has so tolerably kept his word with himself and the public. But in this situation, oppressed with this particular object, and stealing every hour from my amusement, to the fatigue of the pen and the eyes, you will conceive, or you might conceive, how little stomach I have for the epistolary style;