tude and emulation, by the mutual exchange of fervices and favours. From the emoluments of a profeffion I might have derived an ample fortune, or a competent income, inftead of being stinted to the fame narrow allowance, to be increased only by an event which I fincerely deprecated. The progrefs and the knowledge of our domeftic disorders aggravated my anxiety, and I began to apprehend that I might be left in my old age without the fruits either of industry or inheritance.

In the first fummer after my return, whilft I enjoyed at Beriton the fociety of my friend Deyverdun, our daily converfations expatiated over the field of antient and modern literature; and we freely difcuffed my ftudies, my first Esfay, and my future projects. The Decline and Fall of Rome I still contemplated at an awful distance: but the two historical designs which had balanced my choice were fubmitted to his tafte; and in the parallel between the Revolutions of Florence and Switzerland, our common partiality for a country which was his by birth, and mine by adoption, inclined the scale in favour of the latter. According to the plan, which was foon conceived and digested, I embraced a period of two hundred years, from the affociation of the three peafants of the Alps to the plenitude and profperity of the Helvetic body in the fixteenth century. I fhould have described the deliverance and victory of the Swifs, who have never shed the blood of their tyrants but in a field of battle; the laws and manners of the confederate ftates; the fplendid trophies of the Auftrian, Burgundian, and Italian wars; and the wifdom of a nation, who, after fome fallies of martial adventure, has been content to guard the bleffings of peace with the fword of freedom.

Manus hæc inimica tyrannis

Enfe petit placidam sub libertate quietem.

My judgment, as well as my enthusiasm, was satisfied with the glorious theme; and the affiftance of Deyverdun seemed to remove an infuperable obftacle. The French or Latin

memo

memorials, of which I was not ignorant, are inconfiderable in number and weight; but in the perfect acquaintance of my friend with the German language, I found the key of a more valuable collection. The moft neceffary books were procured; he translated, for my use, the folio volume of Schilling, a copious and contemporary relation of the war of Burgundy; we read and marked the most interesting parts of the great chronicle of Tschudi; and by his labour, or that of an inferior affiftant, large extracts were made from the Hiftory of Lauffer and the Dictionary of Lew: yet such was the distance and delay, that two years elapfed in these preparatory steps; and it was late in the third fummer (1767) before I entered, with these flender materials, on the more agreeable task of compofition. A fpecimen of my Hiftory, the first book, was read the following winter in a literary fociety of foreigners in London; and as the author was unknown, I liftened, without obfervation, to the free frictures, and unfavourable fentence, of my judges*. The

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* Mr. Hume seems to have had a different opinion of this work.

SIR,

From Mr. HUME to Mr. GIBBON.

It is but a few days ago fince Mr. Deyverdun put your manuscript into my hands, and I have perused it with great pleasure and fatisfaction. I have only one objection, derived from the language in which it is written. Why do you compofe in French, and carry faggots into the wood, as Horace fays with regard to Romans who wrote in Greek? I grant that you have a like motive to thofe Romans, and adopt a language much more generally diffused than your native tongue: but have you not remarked the fate of those two an-cient languages in following ages? The Latin, though then lefs celebrated, and confined to more narrow limits, has in some measure outlived the Greek, and is now more generally understood by men of letters. Let the French, therefore, triumph in the present diffufion of their tongue. Our folid and increasing establishments in America, where we need lefs dread the inundation of Barbarians, promise a superior stability and duration to the English language.

Your use of the French tongue has also led you into a style more poetical and figurative, and more highly coloured, than our language feems to admit

of

momentary fenfation was painful; but their condemnation was ratified by my cooler thoughts. I delivered my imperfect sheets to the flames †, and for ever renounced a defigri In which fome expence, much labour, and more time, had been fo vainly consumed. I cannot regret the loss of a slight and superficial essay; for fuch the work must have been in the hands of a stranger, uninformed by the fcholars and statesmen, and remote from the libraries and archives of the Swiss republics. My antient habits, and the presence of Deyverdun, encouraged me to write in French for the continent of Europe; but I was confcious myfelf that my style, above profe and below poetry, degenerated into a verbofe and turgid declamation. Perhaps I may impute the failure to the injudicious choice of a foreign language. Perhaps I may fufpect that the language itself is ill adapted to fuftain the vigour and dignity of an important narrative. But if France, fo rich in literary merit, had produced a great original hiftorian, his genius would have formed and

fixed

of in historical productions: for fuch is the practice of French writers, particularly the more recent ones, who illuminate their pictures more than cuftom will permit us. On the whole, your History, in my opinion, is written with spirit and judgment; and I exhort you very earnestly to continue it. The objections that occurred to me on reading it, were so frivolous, that I fhall not trouble you with them, and should, I believe, have a difficulty to recollect them. I am, with great esteem,

He neglected to burn them. He left at Sheffield-Place the introduction, or first book, in forty-three pages folio, written in a very small hand, befides a confiderable number of notes. If Mr. Gibbon had not declared his judgment, perhaps Mr. Hume's opinion, expreffed in the letter in the last note, might have juftified the publication of it.

S.

fixed the idiom to the proper tone, the peculiar mode of hif torical eloquence.

It was in fearch of fome liberal and lucrative employment that my friend Deyverdun had vifited England. His remittances from home were fcanty and precarious. My purfe was always open, but it was often empty; and I bitterly felt the want of riches and power, which might have enabled me to correct the errors of his fortune. His wishes and qualifications folicited the ftation of the travelling governor of fome wealthy pupil; but every vacancy provoked fo many eager candidates, that for a long time I ftruggled without fuccefs; nor was it till after much application that I could even place him as a clerk in the office of the fecretary of state. In a refidence of feveral years he never acquired the juft pronunciation and familiar ufe of the English tongue, but he read our most difficult authors with ease and tafte: his critical knowledge of our language and poetry was such as few foreigners have poffeffed; and few of our countrymen could enjoy the theatre of Shakespeare and Garrick with more exquifite feeling and difcernment. The consciousness of his own ftrength, and the affurance of my aid, emboldened him to imitate the example of Dr. Maty, whole Journal Britannique was efteemed and regretted; and to improve his model, by uniting with the transactions of literature a philofophic view of the arts and manners of the British nation. Our Journal for the year 1767, under the title of Memoires Literaires de la Grand Bretagne, was foon finifhed and fent to the prefs. For the first article, Lord Lyttelton's Hiftory of Henry II. I must own myself refponfible; but the public has ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in which fenfe and learning are not illuminated by a ray of genius. The next fpecimen was the choice of my friend, the Bath Guide, a light and whimfical performance, of local, and even verbal, pleafantry. Iftarted at the attempt: he fmiled at my fears: his courage was juftified by fuccefs; and a mafter of both languages will ap

plaud

plaud the curious felicity with which he has transfufed into French profe the fpirit, and even the humour, of the Englifh verfe. It is not my wish to deny how deeply I was interested in these Memoirs, of which I need not surely be ashamed; but at the distance of more than twenty years, it would be impoffible for me to ascertain the refpective shares of the two affociates. A long and intimate communication of ideas had caft our fentiments and ftyle in the fame mould. In our focial labours we compofed and corrected by turns; and the praife which I might honeftly beftow, would fall perhaps on fome article or paffage moft properly my own. A fecond volume (for the year 1768) was published of thefe Memoirs. I will prefume to fay, that their merit was fuperior to their reputation; but it is not lefs true, that they were productive of more reputation than emolument. They introduced my friend to the protection, and myself to the acquaintance, of the Earl of Chefterfield, whofe age and infirmities fecluded him from the world; and of Mr. David Hume, who was under-fecretary to the office in which Deyverdun was more humbly employed. The former accepted a dedication, (April 12th, 1769,) and referved the author for the future education of his fucceffor: the latter enriched the Journal with a reply to Mr. Walpole's Hiftorical Doubts, which he afterwards fhaped into the form of a note. The materials of the third volume were almost completed, when I recommended Deyverdun as governor to Sir Richard Worfley, a youth, the fon of my old Lieutenant-colonel, who was lately deceased. They fet forwards on their travels; nor did they return to England till fome time after my father's death,

My next publication was an accidental fally of love and refentment; of my reverence for modeft genius, and my averfion for infolent pedantry. The fixth book of the Eneid is the most pleasing and perfect composition of Latin poetry. The descent of Æneas and the Sybil to the infernal regions, to the world of fpirits, expands an awful

and