will return to his den. It would suit me better that it should hapAdieu. pen soon.

CXXIX. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO COLONEL HOLROYD.

*

Brookes's, November 28th, 1780.

Perhaps the sheriffs, the tools of your enemies, may venture to make a false and hostile return, on the presumption that they shall have a whole year of impunity; and that the merits of your petition cannot be heard this session. Some of your most respectable friends in the house of commons are resolved, (if the return should be such) to state it forcibly as a special and extraordinary case; and to exert all proper strength for bringing on the trial of your petition without delay. The knowledge of such a resolution may awe the sheriffs; and it may be prudent to admonish them of the impending danger, in the way that you judge most advisable. Adieu. God send a good deliverance.

CXXX.-MR. GIBBON TO MRS. GIBBON, BELVEDERE, BATH.

you

Bentinck-street, December 21st, 1780.

Dear Madam,-The constant attendance on the board of trade almost every day this week, has obliged me to defer till next Monday a visit of inclination and propriety to Lord Loughborough (at Mitcham, in Surry). I shall not return till Wednesday or Thursday; and, instead of my Christmas, I shall eat my new year's dinner, at the Belvedere, Bath. May that new year prove fortunate to you, to me, and to this weary country, which is this day involved in a new war! I shall write again about the middle of next week, with a precise account of my motions. I think the gallant colonel, who is now Lord Sheffield, will succeed at Coventry; perhaps on the return, certainly on the petition. I am, dear madam, ever yours.

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

Bentinck-street, February 24th, 1781. Dear Madam,-As you have probably received my last letter of thirteen hundred pages,† I shall be very concise; read, judge, pronounce and believe that I sincerely agree with my friend Julian, in esteeming the praise of those only who will freely censure my defects. Next Thursday I shall be delivered to the world, for whose inconstant and malicious levity I am coolly but firmly prepared. Excuse me to Sarah. I see more clearly than ever the absolute necessity of confining my presents to my own family; that, and that only, is a determined line, and Lord S. is the first to approve his exclusion. He has a strong assurance of success, and some hopes of a speedy decision. How suddenly your friend General Pierson disappeared! You thought him happy. What is happiness? My dear madam, ever yours.

*The sheriffs of Coventry.

+ Second and third volumes of the Decline and Fall.

CXXXII.-DR. WILLIAM ROBERTSON TO MR. GIBBON.

College of Edinburgh, May 12th, 1781. Dear Sir, I am ashamed of having deferred so long to thank you for the agreeable presents of your two new volumes; but just as I had finished the first reading of them, I was taken ill, and continued, for two or three weeks, nervous, deaf, and languid. I have now recovered as much spirit as to tell you, with what perfect satisfaction I have not only perused, but studied, this part of your work. I knew enough of your talents and industry to expect a great deal, but you have gone far beyond my expectations. I can recollect no historical work from which I ever received so much instruction; and, when I consider in what a barren field you had to glean and pick up materials, I am truly astonished at the connected and interesting story you have formed. I like the style of these volumes better than that of the first; there is the same beauty, richness, and perspicuity of language, with less of that quaintness, into which your admiration of Tacitus sometimes seduced you. I am highly pleased with the reign of Julian. I was a little afraid that you might lean with some partiality towards him; but even bigots, I should think, must allow, that you have, delineated his most singular character with a more masterly hand than it was ever touched before. You set me a reading his works, with which I was very slenderly acquainted; and I am struck with the felicity wherewith you have described the odd infusion of heathen fanaticism and philosophical coxcombry, which mingled with the great qualities of a hero and a genius. Your chapter concerning the pastoral nations is admirable; and, though I hold myself to be a tolerably good general historian, a great part of it was new to me. As soon as I have leisure, I purpose to trace you to your sources of information; and I have no doubt of finding you as exact there, as I have found you in other passages where I have made a scrutiny. It was always my idea that an historian should feel himself a witness giving evidence upon oath. I am glad to perceive by your minute scrupulosity, that your notions are the same. The last chapter in your work is the only one with which I am not entirely satisfied. I imagine you rather anticipate, in describing the jurisprudence and institutions of the Franks; and should think that the account of private war, ordeals, chivalry, &c. would have come in more in its place about the age of Charlemagne, or later but with respect to this, and some other petty criticisms, I will have an opportunity of talking fully to you soon, as I propose setting out for London on Monday. I have, indeed, many things to say to you and as my stay in London is to be very short, I shall hope to find your door (at whieh I will be very often) always open to me. I cannot conclude without approving of the caution with which the new volumes are written; I hope it will exempt you from the illiberal abuse the first volume drew upon you. I ever am, yours, faithfully and affectionately, WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

CXXXIII.—EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO LADY SHEFFIELD, at sheffIELD-PLACE. Bentinck-street, Friday evening, 10 o'clock, 1781.

Oh, oh! I have given you the slip; saved thirty miles, by proceeding this day directly from Eartham to town, and am now comfortably seated in my library, in my own easy chair, and before my own fire; a style which you understand, though it is unintelligible to your lord. The town is empty; but I am surrounded with a thousand old acquaintance of all ages and characters, who are ready to answer a thousand questions which I am impatient to ask. I shall not easily be tired of their company; yet I still remember, and will honourably execute, my promise of visiting you at Brighton about the middle of next month. I have seen nobody, nor learned anything, in four hours of a town life; but I can inform you, that Lady * ***** is now the declared mistress of Prince Henry of Prussia, whom she encountered at Spa; and that the emperor has invited the amiable couple to pass the winter at Vienna; fine encouragement for married women who behave themselves properly! I spent a very pleasant day in the little paradise of Eartham, and the hermit expressed a desire (no vulgar compliment) to see and to know Lord S. Adieu. I cordially embrace, &c.

CXXXIV.SIR WILLIAM JONES TO MR. GIBBON.

Lamb's Buildings, June 30th, 1781.

Dear Sir, I have more than once sought, without having been so fortunate as to obtain, a proper opportunity of thanking you very sincerely for the elegant compliment which you pay me, in a work abounding in elegance of all kinds.

My "Seven Arabian Poets" will see the light before next winter, and be proud to wait upon you in their English dress. Their wild productions will, I flatter myself, be thought interesting, and not venerable merely on account of their antiquity.

In the mean while, let me request you to honour me with accepting a copy of a Law Tract, which is not yet published: the subject is so generally important, that I make no apology for sending you a professional work.

You must pardon my inveterate hatred of C. Octavianus, basely surnamed Augustus. I feel myself unable to forgive the death of Cicero, which, if he did not promote, he might have prevented. Besides, even Mæcenas knew the cruelty of his disposition, and ventured to reproach him for it. In short I have not Christian charity for him.

With regard to Asiatic letters, a necessary attention to my profession will compel me wholly and eternally to abandon them, unless Lord North (to whom I am already under no small obligation) should think me worthy to concur in the improved administration of justice in Bengal, and should appoint me to supply the vacancy of the India Bench. Were that appointment to take place this year, I should

probably travel, for speed, through part of Egypt and Arabia, and should be able, in my way, to procure many Eastern tracts of literature and jurisprudence. I might become a good Mahomedan lawyer before I reached Calcutta, and, in my vacations, should find leisure to explain, in my native language, whatever the Arabs, Persians, and Turks, have written on science, history, and the fine arts.

My happiness by no means depends on obtaining this appointment, as I am in easy circumstances without my profession, and have flattering prospects in it; but if the present summer and the ensuing autumn elapse without my receiving any answer, favourable or unfavourable, I shall be forced to consider that silence as a polite refusal, and, having given sincere thanks for past favours, shall entirely drop all thoughts of Asia, and, "deep as ever plummet sounded, shall drown my Persian books." If my politics have given offence, it would be manly in ministers to tell me so. I shall never be personally hostile to them, nor enlist under party banners of any colour; but I will never resign my opinions for interest, though I would cheerfully abandon them on conviction. My reason, such as it is, can only be controlled by better reason, to which I am ever open. As to my freedom of thought, speech, and action, I shall what Charles XII. wrote under the map of Riga, “Dieu me l'a donnée; le diable ne me l'ôtera pas.' ."* But the fair answer to this objection is, that my system is purely speculative, and has no relation to my seat on the bench in India, where I should hardly think of instructing the Gentoos in the maxims of the Athenians. I believe I should not have troubled you with this letter, if I did not fear that your attendance in parliament might deprive me of the pleasure of meeting you at the club next Tuesday; and I shall go to Oxford a few days after. At all times, and in all places, I shall ever be, with undissembled regard, dear sir, your much obliged and faithful servant,

ever say

CXXXV.-LORD HARDWICKE TO MR. GIBBON.

W. JONES.

Wimple, September 20th, 1781.

Sir,-As I have perused your History of the Decline, &c., with the greatest pleasure and instruction, I cannot help wishing that, as health and leisure permit, you would gratify your numerous readers and admirers, by continuing it at least, till the irruption of the Arabs after Mahomet. From that period the History of the East is not very interesting, and often disgusting. I particularly wish to see the reigns of Justin, Justinian, and I think Justin the Second, written by so masterly a hand. There are striking facts and remarkable characters in all those reigns, which have not yet met with an able and sagacious historian. You seemed (as well as I recollect) to think the anecdotes of Procopius spurious; there are strange anecdotes in them, and of a very different cast from his History. Can it be traced up when they first came to light?

* "God has given it me; the devil shall not take it from me."

Excuse this short interruption from much better employments or amusements; and believe me, sir, with the greatest regard, your most obedient humble servant, HARDWICKE.

P. S. It has occurred to me, that a map of the progress and native seat of the northern hives would greatly elucidate and explain that part of your History. It may be done in a second edition.

CXXXVI.DR. ROBERTSON TO MR. GIBBON.

College of Edinburgh, November 6th, 1781. Dear Sir,-Soon after my return I had a long conversation with our friend Mr. Smith, in which I stated to him every particular you mentioned to me, with respect to the propriety of going on with your great work. I was happy to find, that his opinion coincided perfectly with that which I had ventured to give you. His decisions, you know, are both prompt and vigorous: and he would not allow that you ought to hesitate a moment in your choice. He promised to write his sentiments to you very fully. But as he may have neglected to do this, for it is not willingly that he puts pen to paper, I thought it might be agreeable to you to know his opinion, though I imagine you could hardly entertain any doubt concerning it. I hope you have brought such a stock of health and spirits from Brighthelmstone, that you are set seriously at your desk, and that in two winters or so, you will display the crescent of Mahomet on the dome of St. Sophia. I met t'other day, in a work addressed to yourself, a sensible passage from F. Paul, which perfectly removes one of your chief difficulties, as to the barrenness of some parts of your period. Hayley's Essay on History, p. 133. By the by, who is this Mr. Hayley? His poetry has more merit than that of most of his contemporaries; but his whiggism is so bigoted, and his Christianity so fierce, that he almost disgusts one with two very good things.

I have got quite well long ago, and am perfectly free from deafness; but I cannot yet place myself in any class but that of the multa et præclara minantes. Be so kind as to remember me to Lord Loughborough and Mr. Craufurd, and believe me to be, with most sincere respect and attachment, yours, very faithfully,

WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

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

Brighthelmstone, Nov. 2nd, 1781.

Dear Madam,-I returned to this place with Lord and Lady Sheffield, with the design of passing two or three weeks in a situation which had so highly delighted me. But how vain are all sublunary hopes! I had forgot that there is some difference between the sunshine of August and the cold fogs (though we have uncommon good weather) of November. Instead of my beautiful sea-shore, I am

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