you are so superior in argument, it would look like insensibility to the power of your reasoning, to select transient passages for commendation; and yet I must mention one that pleased me particularly, from the delicacy of the severity, and from its novelty too; it is, bold is not the word. This is the feathered arrow of Cupid that is more formidable than the club of Hercules. I need not specify thanks, when I prove how much I have been pleased.

Your most obliged,

H. WALPOLE.

N° LXXVIII.

Extract of a Letter from Dr. ROBERTSON to Mr, STRAHAN, dated Edinburgh College, March 15, 1776.

SINCE my last I have read Mr. Gibbon's History with much attention, and great pleasure. It is a work of very high merit indeed. He possesses that industry of research, without which no man deserves the name of an historian. His narrative is perspicuous and interesting; his style is elegant and forcible, though in some passages I think rather too laboured, and in others too quaint. But these defects are amply compensated by the beauty of the general flow of language, and a very peculiar happiness in many of his expressions. I have traced him in many of his quotations, (for experience has taught me to suspect the

accuracy

accuracy of my brother penmen,) and I find he refers to no passage but what he has seen with his own eyes. I hope the book will be as successful as it deserves to be. I have not yet read the two last chapters, but am sorry, from what I have heard of them, that he has taken such a tone in them as will give great offence, and hurt the sale of the book.

N° LXXIX.

ADAM FERGUSON, Esq. to Mr. GIBBON.

DEAR SIR,

Edinburgh, March 19th, 1776. I RECEIVED, about eight days ago, after I had been reading your History, the copy which you have been so good as to send me, and for which I now trouble you with my thanks. But even if I had not been thus called upon to offer you my respects, I could not have refrained from congratulating you on the merit, and undoubted success, of this valuable performance. The persons of this place whose judgment you will value most, agree in opinion, that you have made a great addition to the classical literature of England, and given us, what Thucydides proposed leaving with his own countrymen, a possession in perpetuity. Men of a certain modesty and merit always exceed the expectations of their friends; and it is with very great pleasure I tell you, that although you must have observed in me every mark of consideration and regard, that this is, nevertheless, the case, I

receive

receive your instruction, and study your model, with great deference, and join with every one else, in applauding the extent of your plan, in hands so well able to execute it. Some of your readers, I find, were impatient to get at the fifteenth chapter, and began at that place. I have not heard much of their criticism, but am told that many doubt of your orthodoxy. I wish to be always of the charitable side, while I own you have proved that the clearest stream may become foul when it comes to run over the muddy bottom of human nature. I have not stayed to make any particular remarks. If

any should occur on the second reading, I shall not fail to lay in my claim to a more needed, and more useful admonition from you, in case I ever produce any thing that merits your attention.

And am, with the greatest respect, dear Sir, Your most obliged, and most humble Servant, ADAM FERGUSON.

N° LXXX.

Extract of a Letter from Mr. DAVID HUME to Mr. STRAHAN, dated

Edinburgh, April 8th, 1776.

* * I AM very much taken with

Mr. Gibbon's Roman History, which came from your press, and am glad to hear of its success. There will no books of reputation now be printed in London but through your hands and Mr. Cadell's. The Author tells me, that he is already preparing a second edition. I resolved to have given him my advice with regard to the manner of printing

VOL. II.

M

printing it; but as I am now writing to you, it is the same thing. He ought certainly to print the number of the chapter at the head of the margin; and it would be better if something of the contents could also be added. One is also plagued with his notes, according to the present method of printing the book: when a note is announced, you turn to the end of the volume; and there you often find nothing but a reference to an authority. All these authorities ought only to be printed at the margin; or the bottom of the page. I desire a copy of my new edition should be sent to Mr. Gibbon; as wishing that gentleman, whom I so highly value, should peruse me in a form the least imperfect to which I can bring my work.

* *

* * Dr. Smith's performance is another excellent work that has come from your press this winter; but I have ventured to tell him, that it requires too much thought to be as popular as Mr. Gibbon's.

N° LXXXI.

Mr. FERGUSON to Mr. GIBBON.
DEAR SIR,

Edinburgh, April 18th, 1776. I SHOULD make some apology for not writing you sooner an answer to your obliging letter; but if

you should honour me frequently with such requests, you will find, that, with very good inten tions, I am a very dilatory and irregular correspondent. I am sorry to tell you, that our respectable friend * is still declining in his health; he is greatly

*Mr. Hume.

emaciated,

emaciated, and loses strength. He talks familiarly of his near prospect of dying. His mother, it seems, died under the same symptoms; and it appears so little necessary, or proper, to flatter him, that no one attempts it. I never observed his understanding more clear, or his humour more pleasant and lively. He has a great aversion to leave the tranquillity of his own house, to go in search of health among inns and hostlers. And his friends here gave way to him for some time; but now think it necessary that he should make an effort to try what change of place and air, or any thing else Sir John Pringle may advise, can do for him. I left him this morning in the mind to comply in this article, and I hope that he will be prevailed on to set out in a few days. He is just now sixtyfive.

I am very glad that the pleasure you give us recoils a little on yourself, through our feeble testimony. I have, as you suppose, been employed, at any intervals of leisure or rest I have had for some years, in taking notes, or collecting materials, for a History of the distractions that broke down the Roman Republic, and ended in the establishment of Augustus and his immediate successors. The compliment you are pleased to pay, I cannot accept of, even to my subject. Your subject now appears with advantages it was not supposed to have had; and I suspect that the magnificence of the mouldering ruin will appear more striking, than the same building when the view is perplexed with scaffolding, workmen, and disorderly lodgers, and