first days of October; and you will, meanwhile, have time enough to charge me with any commissions. Do not again say," Sir, and dear friend;" the first is cold, the second is superfluous.

CLIII.-MR. GIBBON TO MR. DEYVERDUN.

Hampton Court, July 1st, 1783.

After having made up my mind, honour and, what is still better, friendship, forbid me to leave you a moment in uncertainty. I come. I give you my word for it, and, as I am very glad to strengthen myself by a new bond, I pray you very seriously not to release me from it. The possession of me will not, doubtless, be so valuable as that of Julia, but you will be more inexorable than St. Preux. My only feeling now, is that of a lively impatience for our union. But the month of October is still far distant; ninety-two days; and we shall have plenty of time to give and receive all the elucidations we may want. After mature consideration, I give up the Swiss George's journey, which appears to me uncertain, expensive, and difficult. After all, my valet and my library are the two most troublesome articles. If I did not restrain my pen, I could easily fill a sheet; but I must not pass from silence to an inexhaustible chatter. Only if I knew the Comte de Cagliostro, that extraordinary man, &c. Do you understand Latin? Yes, no doubt; but act as though I did not understand it. When shall you return to Lausanne yourself? I think you will there find a lovely little creature, but a rather wicked one, named Lady Elizabeth Foster; speak to her about me, but do it with discretion; she has correspondences in every place. Vale.

CLIV. MR. DEYVERDUN TO MR. GIBBON.

you

"Sir"

Truly now I am a little puzzled; I must neither call nor "Friend." Well! you must know that, having set out on Saturday from Strasburg, while I came here, your second letter went there; and so I received your third on Sunday, and your second yesterday. The mention you made in the third of the Swiss George, of whom I could find nothing said in the first, gave me to understand that there was a second, and I thought I had better wait the arrival of another courier, as the third did not require any

answer.

As for your word of honour, allow me again to release you from it, and so even up to the last day; I know very well that a contrary proceeding would suit you, but certainly it would not suit me at all. This is, as you say, a sort of marriage, and do you think that, notwithstanding the most solemn engagements, I would not reconduct to her own house, from the very foot of the altar, the most amiable woman who should testify regret at the transaction? I shall never be comfortable if I see you at last discontented, and in the mind to reproach me. It is for you to take any steps you deem necessary on your side, which may strengthen your resolution; for

myself, I shall make no essential difference till I have received one more letter from you. After this little preamble, we will talk as if the business was decided upon; and let us go over your letter again. All that you say about large and small towns, is very true, and nothing can be more just or appropriate than your comparison of straits and the open sea; but, after all, "As you make your bed, so you must lie," said Sancho Panza of pleasant memory, and who is better able to make his bed to his own liking than a stranger, who, having no duties, either of occupation or consanguinity to fulfil, can live entirely isolated, without any one's having a right to find fault with it? I myself, though a burgess and a citizen of the town, am almost entirely free. In summer, for example, I hate to shut myself in hot rooms to make one of a party. Well! I was a little persecuted the first year; now they leave me in peace. There will, undoubtedly, be some alteration in your manner of living, but it appears to me that it will be easy to accommodate yourself to it. Dinners, particularly to ladies, are very rare; suppers not large; they are more for the sake of being together than for eating, and many persons do not sit down. I think that, after every allowance and deduction, you will have more time in your study than at London. There is little going out during the morning, and when our mutual friends come to my house and ask for you, I shall say, "He is not idle like you fellows, he is at work in his study," and they will observe a respectful silence.

As for public libraries, your idea could not, I think, be realised for a reader, or even for an ordinary writer; but a man who sustains a part in the republic of letters, a man loved and had in reputation, will find, I should imagine, many facilities; moreover, I have good friends at Berne, and I will obtain some information on this point.

Let us pass on to our living. If I were at Lausanne this particular might be more certain and precise, I could look over my papers and reckon I have a most wretched memory. At a guess, I should say it might be from 20 to 30 louis a month, more or less, you will of course perceive, according to its quality, and the number of guests. Let me know in your next how much yours costs.

I can very well understand all the "night-caps." There are no great changes made without trouble or even without regret; you will, doubtless, sometimes experience this. For instance, if your dining and drawing rooms are more cheerful, you will miss the dust of your library. As for that part which consists in persuasions, at best but useless talk, the best way would be, I think, to disguise your grand operations, and to speak only of a tour, of a visit to me for six months, more or less. You would do well, I think, to go to my friend Louis Teissier; he is a good, honest man, who is attached to me and loves our country; he will zealously give you plenty of good advice, and will keep your secret.

You will sometimes have a poet on your table-yes, sir, a poet; -we have one at last. Get an octavo volume, Poësies Helvetiennes, imprimées l'année passée chez Mouser, à Lausanne.

You

will find, among others, in "the epistle to the gardener of the grot,” your friend and your park. All the prose is your humble servant's, who hopes it will find favour in your sight.

The Comte de Cagliostro has taken up his abode at London. Nobody knows who he is, or where he gets his money from; he exercises his medical talents gratis, and has performed some wonderful cures; but in other respects he is the strangest composition. I have left off his medicines, for they heated me;-besides, the man, in him, disgusted me with the physician. I am come back to Basle with my friend. Adieu. friend. Adieu. Write to me again as soon as you possibly can.

CLV. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD SHEFFIELD.

July 10th, 1783.

You will read the following lines with more patience and attention than you would probably give to a hasty conference, perpetually interrupted by the opening of the door, and perhaps by the quickness of our own tempers. I neither expect nor desire an answer on a subject of extreme importance to myself, but which friendship alone can render interesting to you. We shall soon meet at Shef

field.

* * * * *

It is needless to repeat the reflections which we have sometimes debated together, and which I have often seriously weighed in my silent solitary walks. Notwithstanding your active and ardent spirit, you must allow that there is some perplexity in my present situation, and that my future prospects are distant and cloudy. I have lived too long in the world to entertain a very sanguine idea of the friendship or zeal of ministerial patrons; and we are all sensible how much the powers of patronage are reduced. * At the end of the parliament, or rather long before that time (for their lives are not worth a year's purchase), our ministers are kicked down stairs, and I am left their disinterested friend to fight through another opposition, and to expect the fruits of another revolution. But I will take a more favourable supposition, and conceive myself, in six months, firmly seated at the board of customs; before the end of the next six months, I should infallibly hang myself. Instead of regretting my disappointment, I rejoice in my escape; as I am satisfied that no salary could pay me for the irksomeness of attendance, and the drudgery of business so repugnant to my taste, (and I will dare to say) so unworthy of my character. Without looking forwards to the possibility, still more remote, of exchanging that laborious office for a smaller annuity, there is surely another plan, more reasonable, more simple, and more pleasant; a temporary retreat to a quiet and less expensive scene. In a four years' residence at Lausanne, I should live within my income, save, and even accumulate, my ready money; finish my history, an object of profit as well as fame, expect the contingencies of elderly lives, and return to England at the age of fifty, to form a lasting independent estab

lishment, without courting the smiles of a minister, or apprehending the downfall of a party. Such have been my serious sober reflections. Yet I much question whether I should have found courage to follow my reason and my inclination, if a friend had not stretched his hand to draw me out of the dirt. The twentieth of last May I wrote to my friend Deyverdun, after a long interval of silence, to expose my situation, and to consult in what manner I might best arrange myself at Lausanne. From his answer, which I received about a fortnight ago, I have the pleasure to learn, that his heart and his house are both open for my reception; that a family which he had lodged for some years is about to leave him, and that at no other time my company would have been so acceptable and convenient. I shall step, at my arrival, into an excellent apartment and a delightful situation; the fair division of our expenses will render them very moderate, and I shall pass my time with the companion of my youth, whose temper and studies have always been congenial to my own. I have given him my word of honour to be at Lausanne in the beginning of October, and no power or persuasion can divert me from this IRREVOCABLE resolution, which I am every day proceeding to execute.

I wish, but I scarcely hope, to convince you of the propriety of my scheme; but at least you will allow, that when we are not able to prevent the follies of our friends, we should strive to render them as easy and harmless as possible. The arrangement of my house, furniture and books will be left to meaner hands, but it is to your zeal and judgment alone that I can trust the more important disposal of Lenborough' and *. On these subjects we may go into a committee at Sheffield-place, but you know it is the rule of a committee not to hear any arguments against the principle of the bill. At present I shall only observe, that neither of these negotiations ought to detain me here; the former may be dispatched as well, the latter much better, in my absence. Vale.

*

* * *

CLVI.-MR. GIBBON TO MR. DEYVERDUN.

Sheffield-place, July 31st, 1783.

Your paper is furiously clipped; you have retrenched the superfluous with such vigour that you have forgotten the essential; and it is only by learned and refined conjectures that I can divine the date of time and place. As for myself, I am now at Lord Sheffield's country seat, forty miles from London, which adds two days to the arrival and departure of intelligence. I received your letter (of what date I know not) on the 30th of July in the year of grace 1783, I answer it on the 31st of the said month, and in the aforesaid year. My zeal for the consummation of our grand design is not at all abated. I feel the delicacy and generosity of your proceedings, and though I should not have been sorry to have found in your firmness a support for my own, my resolution is now so firmly established on the immovable basis of inclination and reason, that I am no longer afraid either of internal or external obstacles. As soon as I dared

to fix on my departure, the clouds that hung over it vanished, the mountains sunk down before me, and the dragons that stood in my way, grew tame. Last week I struck the grand stroke, by cancelling the lease of my house in Bentinck-street, and after the month of September if I do not sleep at Lausanne, I must lie in the street. My different night-caps are every day arranged with more order and facility. Lord Sheffield himself, that terrible St. George, the true champion of England, has yielded to my reasons, or rather to yours. He is delighted with the picture in your first letter, and notwithstanding the activity of his mind, instead of condemning he envies me and we debate (a little aerially perhaps) about a projected visit, which he, his amiable wife, and his eldest daughter, intend to make us, in about two years' time, on the banks of Lake Leman. Far from opposing my design, he advises and assists me in its execution, and I shall not want to have recourse to the instructions of your friend Louis Teissier, more especially as in the minor details of foreign communication, I have in the bookseller Elmsly a wise, experienced, and discreet counsellor. *

*

*

Your calculation of the expense of housekeeping surpasses, not exactly my means, but my hopes and conjectures. Consumption in Switzerland is not burdened with taxes; wine is as plentiful there as spring water: your garden produces fruit and vegetables. Can it be possible that 20 or 30 louis are spent every month for bread, meat, wood, candles, a little foreign wine, kitchen servants, &c.? I flatter myself that in a state of uncertainty you have leaned to the most considerable sum; but, after all, this detail will be regulated by our tastes and means; and one month's experience will be of more use than a hundred pages of calculations. The comparison you ask for, of my expenses at London, will be of no service. Strictly speaking, I do not keep house; I scarcely ever give entertainments; in winter I very seldom dine at home; I never take supper; and a considerable part of my expenditure (that of clubs and taverns) does not enter into the household account. My private board does not, however, exceed your Lausannese calculation; but I am aware of the difference between the small, mean, and pitiful dinner of a bachelor, and the decent and hospitable table of two friends who will have other friends, &c.

Your idea of disguising my grand operations is most profoundly politic; but the declarations, and even the preparatory steps necessary for my retiring from the house of commons, would too prematurely disclose the extent of my projects. Nevertheless, one may borrow a part of this honest dissimulation, to quiet the scruples and regrets of those elderly ladies, whom you do, and whom you do not, know. But the most efficacious method of stopping or avoiding disagreeable speeches, is to escape from them by a rapid flight, and since I have taken my resolution I count every day and every moment. The tenth of next month I shall return to London, where I shall labour assiduously to prepare for this great change of condition. I am looking every day for Mrs. Gibbon's answer, whom I have endeavoured to persuade that an interview of three or four