survived her husband, is still a graceful, I had almost said a handsome woman. She was alike qualified to preside in her kitchen and her drawing-room; and such was the equal propriety of her conduct, that of two or three hundred foreigners, none ever failed in respect, none could complain of her neglect, and none could ever boast of her favour. Mesery himself, of the noble family of De Crousaz, was a man of the world, a jovial companion, whose easy manners and natural sallies maintained the cheerfulness of his house. His wit could laugh at his own ignorance: he disguised, by an air of profusion, a strict attention to his interest; and in this situation, he appeared like a nobleman who spent his fortune and entertained his friends. In this agreeable society I resided nearly eleven months (May, 1763-April, 1764); and in this second visit to Lausanne, among a crowd of my English companions, I knew and esteemed Mr. Holroyd (now Lord Sheffield); and our mutual attachment was renewed and fortified in the subsequent stages of our Italian journey. Our lives are in the power of chance, and a slight variation on either side, in time or place, might have deprived me of a friend, whose activity in the ardour of youth was always prompted by a benevolent heart, and directed by a strong understanding.*

* JOURNAL, September 16, 1763.]—**** and **** have left us. The former is a vile beast, gross, ignorant, and unmannerly. His violence has got him into twenty scrapes here. However, they would have had him make the journey to Italy, but **** refusing to accompany him, they have resolved to send for him back again to England via Paris. **** is a philosopher, and very well read, but cold, and not at all a man of talent. He is weary of running over the world with young blockheads. After having returned this one back to his family, he expects to come and seek repose and seclusion in this country. How right he is!

September 21.]—I have sustained a slight mortification at the society. Frey's departure had occasioned the office of strangers' director to be vacant. It was intimated that it was intended for me, and my natural frankness had not permitted me to conceal that I should be glad to accept it, and that I was in expectation of it. Nevertheless, the majority of votes gave it to M. Roel Hollandois. I saw that they had taken advantage of the very first moment the laws allowed for balloting, and that, if I had wished to assemble my friends, I might have gained it; but I know, at the same time, that I should have had it three months ago without a moment's care about it. My reputation is, with some reason, declining here, and I have enemies.

September 25.]-I have passed the afternoon at Madame de ****'s. I had not seen her since the 14th of this month. She has not spoken a single word about me, or appeared to have noticed my absence. This silence has hurt me. I had a very good reputation here for morality, but I see they now begin to confound me with my fellowcountrymen, and to look on me as a man who loves wine and dissipation.

October 15.]-I have passed the afternoon at Madame de Mesery's. She wished to introduce me to a young French lady, whom she had invited to supper. This young lady, who calls herself Le Franc, is six feet high. Her stature, countenance, voice, and conversation, all announce the most determined grenadier, but a grenadier who has talent, intelligence, and knowledge of the world. So that her sex, name, and condition are all a mystery. She says she is a Parisian lady of quality, who has retired into this country on account of her religion. May it not rather be on account of an affair of honour?

Lausanne, December 1763.]—I got up late, and a very friendly visit from M. de Chandieu Villars* took away what was left of the morning. M. de Chandieu has served with distinction in France, and retired with the rank of field-marshal. He is a man of great politeness, of a free and lively spirit; and now, at sixty, he would form the agree

*The father of Madame de Severy, whose family were Mr. Gibbon's most intimate friends, after he had settled at Lausanne in the year 1783.-S.

If my studies at Paris had been confined to the study of the world, three or four months would not have been unprofitably spent.

able attraction in a company of young ladies. He is almost the only foreigner who has succeeded in acquiring the ease of French manners, without at the same time falling into bullying and blustering airs.

Lausanne, December 18, 1763.]—This was Communion Sunday. Religious ceremonies are well observed in this country. They are rare, and on that very account more respected. Old folks complain, indeed, of the cooling of devotion; but a day like this still affords an edifying spectacle. There is neither business nor parties; and they interdict even whist, so necessary to the very existence of a Lausannese.

December 31.]-Let us glance back at this year 1763, and see how I have employed this portion of my existence, which is passed away, and will never return. The month of January was spent in the bosom of my family, to whom I was forced to sacrifice all my time, for it was the last part of my stay, and mingled with the cares of departure and the bustle of a journey. In that journey, however, I found means of reading the letters of Busbequius, imperial minister at the Porte. They are equally interesting and instructive. I remained at Paris from the 28th of January to the 9th of May. During all this time, I did not study at all. Amusements took up a great deal of my time, and the habit of dissipation, which is so easily acquired in large cities, did not allow me to profit by what remained. Indeed, if I turned over but few books, the observation of all the curious objects which are presented to view in a large metropolis, and conversation with the greatest men of the age, taught me many things that are not to be found in books. The last seven or eight months of the year have been more tranquil. When I found myself settled at Lausanne, I undertook a consecutive course of study on the ancient geography of Italy. My enthusiasm kept up very well for six weeks, till the end of the month of June. Then, a journey to Geneva a little interrupted my diligence. Mesery's dwelling presented a thousand attractions, and Saussure's society put the finishing stroke to the loss of my time. I resumed my work at this Journal about the middle of August, and from that time to the beginning of November, I put every instant to profit. I must confess, that during the last two months my ardour is a little slackened. I. In this course of study I read, 1. Nearly two books of Strabo's Geography upon Italy, twice over. 2. Part of the second book of Pliny's Natural History. 3. The fourth chapter of the second book of Pomponius Mela. 4. The Itineraries of Antoninus and Jerusalem, as far as regards Italy. I read them with the Commentaries of Wesseling, &c. I have extracted tables of all the great roads in Italy, everywhere reducing the Roman into English miles, according to the calculations of M. d'Anville. 5. The History of the Great Roads of the Roman Empire, by M. Bergier, 2 vols. 4to. 6. Some select extracts from Cicero, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, and the two Plinies. The Roma Vetus of Nardini, and several other little treatises on the same subject, which compose almost all the fourth volume of Grævius' Trésor des Antiquités Romaines. 7. The Italia Antiqua of Cluverius, 2 vols. folio. 8. The Iter (or Journey) of Claudius Rutilius Numatianus among the Gauls. 9. Virgil's Catalogues. 10. That of Silius Italicus. 11. Horace's Journey to Brundusium. N. B. These last three I read twice over. 12. D'Anville's Treatise on the Itinerary Measures, and some Memoirs of the Académie des Belles Lettres. II. I had to wait for Nardini from the library of Geneva; I wished to fill up this spare moment in reading Juvenal, a poet whom I as yet knew only by reputation. I read him twice over carefully, and with pleasure. III. During the year, I have read some periodicals; among others, the Journal Etranger, from its commencement, a volume of Bayle's Nouvelles, and the first 35 volumes of the Bibliothèque raisonnée. IV. I have written a great deal of my Recueil Géographique d'Italie, which is already very ample, and tolerably curious. V. I ought not to forget this very Journal, which has grown into a book; 214 well filled pages, in four months and a half, are a considerable object. For, without reckoning a great number of detached observations, there are in it several learned and orderly dissertations. That upon Hannibal's expedition includes ten pages, and that on the civil war twelve. But these pieces are too long, and the Journal itself stands in need of a reform, which should retrench from it a number of pieces that are foreign to its real plan. After having reflected some time upon the subject, here are some rules that I have made on the objects that are proper for it. I. All my domestic and private life, my amusements, connexions, and even my rambles; as well as all the reflections that strike me on subjects that are merely personal. I allow that all this is interesting only to myself, but then it is only for myself that I write this Journal. II. All that I learn by observation and conversation. With respect to this, I shall only put down what I have from persons, who are at once both perfectly

My visits, however superficial, to the Academy of Medals and the public libraries, opened a new field of inquiry; and the view of so many manuscripts of different ages and characters induced me to consult the two great Benedictine works, the Diplomatica of Mabillon, and the Palæographia of Montfaucon. I studied the theory without attaining the practice of the art; nor should I complain of the intricacy of Greek abbreviations and Gothic alphabets, since every day, in a familiar language, I am at a loss to decypher the hieroglyphics of a female note. In a tranquil scene, which revived the memory of my first studies, idleness would have been less pardonable: the public libraries of Lausanne and Geneva liberally supplied me with books; and if many hours were lost in dissipation,

well informed and honest, when it regards facts, or from that small number who merit the title of great men, when it regards sentiments and opinions. III. I shall carefully put in it all that may be termed the material part of my studies; how many hours I have worked, how many pages I have written or read, with a short notice of their contents. IV. I should be sorry to read without reflecting on my readings, giving correct judgments upon my authors, and carefully culling their ideas and expressions. But all reading does not alike furnish them. There are books to be skimmed over, and books to be read. My observations on those of the first class can only be short and detached. These will be proper for the Journal. Those on the second class will only enter it so far as they may come under the same character. V. My reflections on those few classic authors that are to be carefully meditated upon, will naturally be deeper, and more consecutive. For them, and for more lengthy and original dissertations, which reading or reflection may give rise to, I shall make a separate collection. I shall, nevertheless, preserve its connexion with the Journal by constant references, which will mark the number of each treatise, together with the time and occasion of its composition. Making use of these precautions, my Journal cannot but be useful to me. This exact account of my time will make me more justly appreciate its value; it will, by its minuteness, dissipate the illusion that we fall into of looking only at months and years, and neglecting hours and days. I say nothing of the pleasure of it. It is, however, a very great one to be able to review each epoch of one's life, and, whenever we please, to place ourselves in the midst of all the little scenes that we have formerly acted, or seen acted.

April 6, 1764.]—I was awakened by Pavilliard and H****, in order to put a stop to an unfortunate affair, which took place at the ball after we left. G****, who has for a long time paid his addresses to Miss ****, was grieved to see that **** threatened to supplant him. He replied to his rival's politeness only by rudeness; and, at last, on a dispute for Miss ****'s hand, he treated him in the worst possible manner, and called him, before every body, 64 a fool," &c. I understood from Pavilliard, that **** had sent him a challenge, and, that G**** 's answer not having satisfied him, they were to have a meeting at five o'clock this evening. Being exceedingly vexed to see my friend engaged in an affair which could not but do him wrong, I hastened to the house of M. de Crousaz, where **** lived. I soon saw that it merely needed a very slight explanation, added to some sort of apology from G****, to appease him, and I went to the house of the latter with H****, to request him to give it. We convinced him that the acknowledgment of a real fault was never injurious to honour, and that his insult to the ladies, as well as to ****, was inexcusable. I dictated to him an appropriate note, but without the least meanness, which I carried to the Dutchman. He laid down his arms immediately, returned him the most polite answer, and thanked me a thousand times for the part I had acted. Indeed, he is by no means an untractable man. After dinner, I saw the ladies. to whom I took an apologizing note. The mother was willing to accept G****'s excuses; but Miss **** is affiicted at the injury this affair may do her with the world. This business has occupied me the whole day; but could it have been better employed than in saving the life, perhaps, of two persons, and in preserving a friend's reputation? Besides, I have seen deeply into more than one character. G**** is brave, true, and sensible, but has an impetuosity that is only the more dangerous for being ordinarily suppressed. C**** is as rude as a school-boy. De S**** has an indifference, which is much more attributable to a defect of sensibility than to an excess of reason. I have conceived a real friendship for H****. He has a high degree of rationality and honourable sentiments, with one of the best regulated hearts.

many more were employed in literary labour. In the country, Horace and Virgil, Juvenal and Ovid, were my assiduous companions: but, in town, I formed and executed a plan of study for the use of my transalpine expedition: the topography of old Rome, the ancient geography of Italy, and the science of medals. 1. I diligently read, almost always with my pen in my hand, the elaborate treatises of Nardini, Donatus, &c., which fill the fourth volume of the Roman Antiquities of Grævius. 2. I next undertook and finished the Italia Antiqua of Cluverius, a learned native of Prussia, who had measured, on foot, every spot, and has compiled and digested every passage of the ancient writers. These passages in Greek or Latin authors I perused in the text of Cluverius, in two folio volumes; but I separately read the descriptions of Italy by Strabo, Pliny, and Pomponius Mela, the Catalogues of the Epic poets, the Itineraries of Wesseling's Antoninus, and the coasting Voyage of Rutilius Numatianus; and I studied two kindred subjects in the Mesures Itinéraires of D'Anville, and the copious work of Bergier, Histoire des grands Chemins de l'Empire Romain. From these materials I formed a table of roads and distances reduced to our English measure; filled a folio common-place book with my collections and remarks on the geography of Italy, and inserted in my journal many long and learned notes on the insula and populousness of Rome, the social war, the passage of the Alps by Hannibal, &c. 3. After glancing my eye over Addison's agreeable dialogues, I more seriously read the great work of Ezechiel Spanheim de Præstantiâ et Usû Numismatum, and applied with him the medals of the kings and emperors, the families and colonies, to the illustration of ancient history. And thus was I armed for my Italian journey.*

JOURNAL, Lausanne, April 17, 1764.]—Guise and myself gave an excellent dinner and plenty of wine to Dupleix and several others. After dinner, we made our escape to pay some visits to the ****, the ****, and the ****. I leave with some regret but a little wine, and a cheerfulness that I could not account for, gave me an unparalleled impudence with these little lasses. I said a hundred nonsensical things to them, and we embraced each other with a laugh. Mesery gave us a very prime supper, with some of the morning's company, increased by the addition of Bourgeois and Pavilliard. This supper, the adieux to Pavilliard especially, (whom I sincerely love,) and the preparations for departure, occupied me till two in the morning. I leave Lausanne with less regret than at the first time. I now only leave acquaintances there. Then, it was the loss of the mistress and the friend that I deplored. Formerly, I saw Lausanne with the inexperienced eyes of a youth, who owed to it the rational part of his existence, and who judged without comparison of objects. Now, I see in it an ill-built town, in the midst of a delightful country, which enjoys peace and repose, and takes them to be liberty; a numerous and well-educated population, who are fond of society, and judicious in the conduct of it, and who admit strangers into their circles, which would be much more agreeable if conversation had not given place to play. The women are pretty, and notwithstanding their extensive liberty, are very prudent. At the farthest, they can only be a little complaisant in the innocent but uncertain hope of entangling a stranger in their nets. Affectation is the original sin of the Lausannese; affectation of magnificence, nobility, and talent; the two first are very common, while the latter is extremely rare. As this vice is constantly clashing with the same quality in others, Lausanne is divided into a great number of states, whose principles and language are infinitely varied, and which have nothing in common but their reciprocal hatred for each other. Their taste for expense accords but badly with that for nobility. They would perish sooner than renounce their grandeur, or embrace the only profession that would support them.

I shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this tour, in which somewhat more than a year (April, 1764-May, 1765) was agreeably employed. Content with tracing my line of march, and slightly touching on my personal feelings, I shall wave the minute investigation of the scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and described by hundreds, of our modern travellers. Rome is the great object of our pilgrimage: and 1st, the journey; 2d, the residence; and 3d, the return, will form the most proper and conspicuous division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a light osier seat, in the hands of the dexterous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. The architecture and government of Turin presented the same aspect of tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was regulated with decent and splendid economy; and I was introduced to his Sardinian Majesty,* Charles Emanuel, who, after the incomparable Frederic, held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo) among the kings of Europe. The size and populousness of Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of London: but the fancy is amused by a visit to the Borromean islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far removed from the haunts of men. I was less amused by the marble palaces of Genoa than by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in December, 1746) from the Austrian tyranny; and I took a military survey of every scene of action within the enclosure of her double walls. My steps were detained at Parma and Modena, by the precious relics of the Farnese and Este collections: but, alas! the far greater part had been already transported, by inheritance or purchase, to Naples and Dresden. By the road of Bologna and the Apennines I at last reached Florence, where I reposed from June to September, during the heat of the summer months. In the Gallery, and especially in the Tribune, I first acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus of Medicis, that the chisel may dispute the pre-eminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or understood. At home I had taken some lessons of Italian: on the spot I read, with a learned native, the classics of the Tuscan idiom: but the shortness of my time, and the use of the French language, prevented my acquiring any facility of speaking; and I was a silent spectator in the conversations of our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose most serious business was that of entertaining the English at his hospitable table.* After leaving Florence, I compared the solitude

M. Mesery's is a delightful house; the open and generous character of the husband, the engaging qualities of the wife, a charming situation, excellent cheer, the company of his fellow-countrymen, and an unrestrained freedom, make every English love the dwelling. Oh, that I could find a similar one in London! I regret leaving Holroyd, who is, however, following us close.

* See Letter, No. XVIII.

+JOURNAL, Florence, August 9, 1764.]-Cocchi dined with us. We chatted a good deal, but I did not find in him the genius that is attributed to him; perhaps because our minds are not analogous. I can perceive extravagance in his ideas, and affectation in his manners. He is every moment complaining of his poverty. He knows but little