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

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.

A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers; it is the labor and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which Nature has confined us. Fifty or a hundred years may be allotted to an individual; but we step forward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but Reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind. Few there are who can sincerely despise in others an advantage of which they are secretly ambitious to partake. The knowledge of our own family from a remote period will be always esteemed as an abstract pre-eminence, since it can never be promiscuously enjoyed; but the longest series of peasants and mechanies would not afford much gratification to the pride of their descendant. We wish to discover our ancestors, but we wish to discover them possessed of ample fortunes, adorned with honorable titles, and holding an eminent rank in the class of hereditary nobles, which has been maintained for the wisest and most beneficial purposes, in almost every climate of the globe and in almost every modification of political society.

Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior order in the State, education and example should always, and will often, produce amongst them a dignity of sentiment and propriety of conduct, which is guarded from dishonor by their own and the public esteem. If we read of some illustrious line, so ancient that it has no beginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize in its various fortunes; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm,

a Gibbon probably alludes to the splendid eighth Satire of Juvenal.-M.

or even the harmless vanity, of those who are allied to the honors of its name. For my own part, could I draw my pedigree from a general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, I should study their lives with the diligence of filial love. In the investigation of past events our curiosity is stimulated by the immediate or indirect reference to ourselves; but in the estimate of honor we should learn to value the gifts of Nature above those of Fortune; to esteem in our ancestors the qualities that best promote the interests of society; and to pronounce the descendant of a king less truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius, whose writings will instruct or delight the latest posterity. The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world. After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Europe are lost in the darkness of the Middle Ages; but in the vast equality of the empire of China, the posterity of Confucius have maintained, above two thousand two hundred years, their peaceful honors and perpetual succession. The chief of the family is still revered by the sovereign and the people as the lively image of the wisest of mankind. The nobility of the Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider the Fairy Queen' as the most precious jewel of their coronet. Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who draw their origin from the Counts of Habsburg, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, in the seventh century Duke of Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family of Habsburg: the former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage; the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the old and invaded the treasures of the new world. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of Tom

" Nor less praiseworthy are the sisters three,

The honor of the noble familie,

Of which I meanest boast myself to be.

SPENCER, Colin Clout, etc., v. 538.