She reigns over the East and 597 597 583 584 273. Aurelian becomes Master of It is besieged by Aurelian. CONDUCT OF THE ARMY AND SENATE AFTER THE DEATH OF AURELIAN. and marches into the East. 639 622 283. He gives Audience to the Persian Ambassadors....... 640 Usurpation and Death of his Their Family subsists in Ob- THE REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN AND HIS THREE ASSOCIATES, MAXIMIAN, GALE- RIUS, AND CONSTANTIUS.—GENERAL RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF ORDER AND TRANQUILLITY.—THE PERSIAN WAR, VICTORY, AND TRIUMPH.—THE NEW FORM OF ADMINISTRATION.-ABDICATION AND RETIREMENT OF DIOCLE- MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE AND WRITINGS. [THE following Autobiography was published after Gibbon's death, with his other miscellaneous works, by his friend and executor, Lord Sheffield, in 1795. In the Preface, Lord Sheffield remarks: "The most important part consists of 'Memoirs of Mr. Gibbon's Life and Writings,' a work which he seems to have projected with peculiar solicitude and attention, and of which he left six different sketches, all in his own handwriting. One of the sketches, the most diffuse and circumstantial, so far as it proceeds, ends at the time when he quitted Oxford. Another at the year 1764, when he travelled to Italy. A third at his father's death, in 1770. A fourth, which he continued to March, 1791, appears in the form of Annals, much less detailed than the others. The two remaining sketches are still more imperfect. But it is difficult to discover the order in which these several pieces were written. From all of them the following Memoirs have been carefully selected and put together." The admirable manner in which Gibbon executed the sketch of his own Life, as well as the total deficiency of materials for a new Biography, altogether preclude the attempt to recompose the Life of the Author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The writer of a very able criticism on Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xii., p. 375 (the late Dr. Whitaker, the historian of Craven, and the editor of "Piers Ploughman's Vision and Creed"), thus felicitously and justly characterizes the Life of Gibbon: "It is perhaps the best specimen of autobiography in the English language. Descending from the lofty level of his History, and relaxing the stately march which he maintains throughout that work, into a more natural and easy pace, this enchanting writer, with an ease, spirit, and vigor peculiar to himself, conducts his readers through a sickly child し hood, a neglected and desultory education, and a youth wasted in the unpromising and unscholar-like occupation of a militia officer, to the period when he resolutely applied the energies of his genius to a severe course of voluntary study, which in the space of a few years rendered him a consummate master of Roman antiquity, and lastly produced the history of the decline and fall of that mighty empire."] In the fifty-second year of my age, after the completion of an arduous and successful work, I now propose to employ some moments of my leisure in reviewing the simple transactions of a private and literary life. Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of more serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative. The style shall be simple and familiar: but style is the image of character; and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labor or design, the appearance of art and study. My own amusement is my motive, and will be my reward: and if these sheets are communicated to some discreet and indulgent friends, they will be secreted from the public eye till the author shall be removed beyond the reach of criticism or ridicule.' 1 This passage is found in one only of the six sketches, and in that which seems to have been the first written, and which was laid aside amongst loose papers. Mr. Gibbon, in his communications with me on the subject of his Memoirs, a subject which he had not mentioned to any other person, expressed a determination of publishing them in his lifetime, and never appears to have departed from that resolution, excepting in one of his letters, in which he intimates a doubt, though rather carelessly, whether in his time, or at any time, they would meet the eye of the public. In a conversation, however, not long before his death, I suggested to him that, if he should make them a full image of his mind, he would not have nerves to publish them, and, therefore, that they should be posthumous. He answered, rather eagerly, that he was determined to publish them in his lifetime.— SHEFFIELD, a a The late Lord Sheffield, by a clause in his will, positively prohibited the publication of any more out of the mass of Gibbon's papers in the possession of his family. By the kind favor of the present Lord Sheffield, I have been permitted (of course with the distinct understanding that the will of his father should be rigidly respected) to see these six sketches of the life, written in Gibbon's own clear and elaborate hand. I may venture, however, to bear my testimony to the great judgment with which the late Lord Sheffield exercised his office of editor in this part of Gibbon's works: much has been rejected in which the public would not have felt the slightest interest; and I found not above two or three sentences which I should have wished to rescue from oblivion.-M. |