best furnished tables. Such is the skeleton of my life; it is impossible to communicate a perfect idea of the vital and substantial parts, the characters of the men and women with whom I have very easily connected myself in looser and closer bonds, according to their inclination and my own. If I do not deceive myself, and if Deyverdun does not flatter me, I am already a general favourite; and as our likings and dislikes are commonly mutual, I am equally satisfied with the freedom and elegance of manners, and (after proper allowances and exceptions) with the worthy and amiable qualities of many individuals. The autumn has been beautiful, and the winter hitherto mild, but in January we must expect some severe frost. Instead of rolling in a coach, I walk the streets, wrapped up in a fur cloak; but this exercise is wholesome, and except an accidental fit of the gout of a few days, I never enjoyed better health. I am no longer in Pavilliard's house, where I was almost starved with cold and hunger, and you may be assured that I now enjoy every benefit of comfort, plenty, and even decent luxury. You wish me happy; acknowledge that such a life is more conducive to happiness, than five nights in the week passed in the house of commons, or five mornings spent at the custom house. Send me, in return, a fair account of your own situation in mind and body. I am satisfied your own good sense would have reconciled you to inevitable separation; but there never was a more suitable diversion than your visit to Sheffield-place. Among the innumerable proofs of friendship which I have received from that family, there are none which affect me more sensibly than their kind civilities to you, though I am persuaded that they are at least as much on your account as on mine. At length Madame de **** is delivered by her tyrant's death; her daughter, a valuable woman of this place, has made some enquiries, and though her own circumstances are narrow, she will not suffer her father's widow to be left totally destitute. I am glad you derived so much melancholy pleasure from the letters, yet had I known it, I should have withheld * *

CLXXIV. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, January 24th, 1784. Within two or three days after your last gracious epistle, your complaints were silenced, and enquiries were satisfied, by an ample dispatch of four pages, which overflowed the inside of the cover, and in which I exposed my opinions of things in general, public as well as private, as they existed in my mind, in my state of ignorance and error, about the eighteenth or twentieth of last month. Within a week after that date I epistolised, in the same rich and copious strain, the two venerable females of Newman-street and Bath, whose murmurings must now be changed into songs of gratitude and applause. My correspondence with the holy matron of Northamptonshire has been less lively and loquacious. You have not forgotten the author's vindication of himself from the foul calum

nies of pretended Christians. Within a fortnight after his arrival at Lausanne, he communicated the joyful event to Mrs. Esther Gibbon. She answered per return of post, both letters at the same time, and in very dutiful language, almost excusing her advice, which was intended for my spiritual, as well as temporal, good, and assuring me that nobody should be able to injure me with her. Unless the saint is an hypocrite, such an expression must convey a favourable and important meaning. At all events, it is worth giving ourselves some trouble about her, without indulging any sanguine expectations of inheritance. So much for my females. With regard to my male correspondents, you are the only one to whom I have given any signs of my existence, though I have formed many a generous resolution. Yet I am not insensible of the kind and friendly manner in which Lord Loughborough has distinguished me. He could have no inducements of interest, and now that I view the distant picture with impartial eyes, I am convinced that (for a statesman) he was sincere in his wishes to serve me. When you see him, the Paynes, Eden, Crauford, &c., tell them that I am well, happy, and ashamed. On your side, the zeal and diligence of your pen has surprised and delighted me, and your letters, at this interesting moment, are exactly such as I wished them to be-authentic anecdotes, and rational speculations, worthy of a man who acts a part in the great theatre, and who fills a seat, not only in the general pandæmonium, but in the private council of the princes of the infernal regions. With regard to the detail of parliamentary operations, I must repeat my request to you, or rather to my lady, who will now be on the spot, that she will write, not with her pen, but with her scissars, and that after every debate which deserves to pass the sea and the mountains, she will dissect the faithful narrative of Woodfall, and send it off by the next post, as an agreeable supplement to the meagre accounts of our weekly papers. The wonderful revolutions of last month have sounded to my ear more like the shifting scenes of a comedy or comic opera, than like the sober events of real and modern history; and the irregularity of our winter posts, which sometimes retarded, and sometimes hastened, the arrival of the dispatches, has increased the confusion of our ideas. Surely the Lord has blinded the eyes of Pharaoh and of his servants; the obstinacy of last spring was nothing compared to the headstrong and headlong madness of this winter. I expect with much impatience the first days of your meeting: the purity and integrity of the coalition will suffer a fiery trial; but if they are true to themselves and to each other, a majority of the house of commons must prevail; the rebellion of the young gentlemen will be crushed, and the masters will resume the government of the school. After the address and answer, I have no conception that parliament can be dissolved during the session; but if the present ministry can outlive the storm, I think the death warrant will infallibly be signed in the summer. Here I blush for my country, without confessing her shame. Fox acted like a man of honour,

yet surely his union with Pitt affords the only hope of salvation. How miserably are we wasting the season of peace!

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*

I have written three pages before I come to my own business and feelings. In the first place, I most sincerely rejoice that I left the ship, and swam ashore on a plank; the daily and hourly agitation in which I must have lived would have made me truly miserable; and if I had obtained a place during pleasure, * * *, for instance. On the first news of the dissolution, I considered my seat as so totally and irrecoverably gone, that I have been less afflicted with *'s obstinacy. * * On this occasion remember you are acting for a poor friend; dismiss a little of the spirit of faction and patriotism, and stoop to a prudential line of conduct, which in your own case you might possibly disdain. Perhaps you will abuse my prudence and patriotism, when I inform you, that I have already vested a part (thirty thousand livres, about one thousand three hundred pounds) in the new loan of the King of France. I get eight per cent. on the joint lives of Deyverdun and myself, besides thirty tickets in a very advantageous lottery, of which the highest prize is an annuity of forty thousand livres (one thousand seven hundred pounds) a year. At this moment, the beginning of a peace, I think (and the world seems to think) the French funds at least as solid as our own. I have empowered my agent, M. de Lessart, a capital banker at Paris, to draw upon Gosling for the money two months hence; and to avoid all accidents that may result from untoward delays, and mercantile churlishness, I expect that you will support my credit in Fleet-street with your own more respectable name. What say you now? Am I not a wise man? My letter is enormous, and the post on the wing. In a few days I will write to my lady herself, and enter something more into the details of domestic life. Suffice it to say, that the scene becomes each day more pleasant and comfortable, and that I complain only of the dissipation of Lausanne. In the course of March or April we shall take possession of Deyverdun's house. My books, which by some strange neglect, did not leave Paris till the third of this month, will arrive in a few weeks; and I shall soon resume the continuation of my History, which I shall prosecute with the more vigour, as the completion affords me a distant prospect of a visit to England. Adieu. Ever yours.

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CLXXV. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, February 2nd, 1784. Baron!-After my last enormous dispatch, nothing can remain, except some small gleanings, or occasional hints; and thus in order : I am not conscious that any of your valuable MSS. have miscarried, or that I have omitted to answer any essential particulars. They stand in my bureau carefully arranged, and docketed under the following dates; September twenty-three, October twenty-three, November eighteen, December two, December fifteen, December

nineteen, December twenty-three, December twenty-nine, January sixteen, which last I have received this day, February the 2nd. For greater perspicuity, it will not be amiss (on either side) to number our future epistles, by a conspicuous Roman character inscribed in the front, to which we may at any time refer. But instead of writing by Ostend, the shorter and surer way, especially on all occasions that deserve celerity, will be to enclose them to my banker, M. de Lessart, at Paris, who will forward them to me. Through Germany the passage by sea is more uncertain, the roads worse, and the distance greater: we often complain of delay and irregularity at this interesting moment. By your last I find that you have boldly and generously opened a treaty with the enemy, which I proposed with fear and hesitation. I impatiently expect the result; and again repeat, that whatever you can obtain for

*

*, I shall consider it as so much saved out of the fire, &c. &c. Do you remember Dunning's motion (in the year 1780) to address the crown against a dissolution of Parliament? a simple address we rejected, as an infringement on the prerogative; yet how far short of these strong democratical measures, for which you have probably voted, as I should have probably have done such is the contagion of party. Fox drives most furiously, yet I should not be surprised if Pitt's moderation and character should insensibly win the nation, and even the house, to espouse his cause. * * Unless when

I look back on England with a selfish or a tender regard, my hours roll away very pleasantly, and I can again repeat with truth, that I have not regretted one single moment the step which I have taken. We are now at the height of the winter dissipation, and I am peculiarly happy when I can steal away from great assemblies, and suppers of twenty or thirty people, to a more private party, of some of those persons whom I begin to call my friends. Till we are settled in our house little can be expected on our side; yet I have already given two or three handsome dinners; and though everything is grown dearer, I am not alarmed at the general view of my expense. Deyverdun salutes you; and we are agreed that few married couples are better entitled to the flitch of bacon than we shall be at the end of the year. When I had written about half this epistle my books arrived; at our first meeting all was rapture and confusion, and two or three posts, from the second to this day, the fourteenth, have been suffered to depart unnoticed. Your letter of the twenty-seventh of January, which was not received till yesterday, has again awakened me, and I thought the surest way would be to send off this single sheet without any farther delay.

I sincerely rejoice in the stability of parliament; and the first faint dawn of reconciliation, which must however be effected by the equal balance of parties, rather than by the wisdom of the country gentlemen.+

My lady-But it would be highly incongruous to begin my letter at the bottom of the page. Adieu, therefore, till next post.

*This supposition was founded on Mr. Banks's declaration in the name of Mr. Pitt. + At the St. Alban's Tavern.

CLXXVI.—EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, May 11th, 1784.

Alas! alas! alas! We may now exchange our mutual condolence. Last Christmas, on the change of administration, I was struck with the thunderbolt of the unexpected event, and in the approaching dissolution I foresaw the loss of * * *. The long continuance and various changes of the tempest rendered me by degrees callous and insensible: when the art of the mariners was exhausted, I felt that we were sinking; I expected the ship to founder; and when the fatal moment arrived, I was even pleased to be delivered from hope and fear, to the calmness of despair. I now turn my eyes, not on the past, but on the present and the future; what is lost I try to consider as if it never had existed; and every day I congratulate my own good fortune, let me say my prudence and resolution, in migrating from your noisy stage to a scene of repose and content. But even in this separate state, I was still anxious for my friend upon English earth, and at first was much delighted with your hint, that you were setting off for Coventry, without any prospect of an opposition. Every post, Wednesdays and Saturdays, I eagerly looked for the intelligence of your victory; and in spite of my misbehaviour, which I do not deny, I must abuse my lady, rather than you, for leaving me in so painful a situation. painful a situation. Each day raised and increased my apprehension; the Courier de l'Europe first announced the contest, the English papers proclaimed your defeat, and your last letter, which I received four days ago, showed me that you exerted first the spirit, and at last the temper, of a hero. I am not much surprised that you should have been swept away in the general unpopularity, since even in this quiet place, your friends are considered as a factious crew, acting in direct opposition both to the king and people. For yourself I am at a loss what to say. If this repulse should teach you to renounce all connexion with kings and ministers, and patriots, and parties, and parliaments; for all of which you are by many degrees too honest; I should exclaim, with Teague of respectable memory, "By my shoul, dear joy, you have gained a loss." Private life, whether contemplative or active, has surely more solid and independent charms; you have some domestic comforts; Sheffield-place is still susceptible of useful and ornamental improvements, (alas! how much better might even the last * have been laid out !) and if these cares are not sufficient to occupy your leisure, I can trust your restless and enterprising spirit to find new methods to preserve you from the insipidity of repose. But I much fear your discontent and regret at being excluded from that pandæmonium which we have so often cursed, as long as you were obliged to attend it. The leaders of the party will flatter you with the opinion of their friendship and your own importance; the warmth of your temper makes you credulous and unsuspicious; and, like the rest of our species, male and female, you are not absolutely