My father's refidence in Hampshire, where I have paffed many light, and fome heavy hours, was at Buriton, near Petersfield, one mile from the Portsmouth road, and at the eafy distance of fifty-eight miles from London. An old manfion, in a state of decay, had been converted into the fashion and convenience of a modern house: and if strangers had nothing to fee, the inhabitants had little to defire. The fpot was not happily chofen, at the end of the village and the bottom of the hill but the afpect of the adjacent grounds was various and cheerful; the downs commanded a noble prospect, and the long hanging woods in fight of the house could not perhaps have been improved by art or expence. My father kept in his own hands the whole of the estate, and even rented fome additional land; and whatsoever might be the balance of profit and loss, the farm supplied him with amusement and plenty. The produce maintained a number of men and horfes, which were multiplied by the intermixture of domestic and rural fervants; and in the intervals of labour the favourite team, a handsome set of bays or greys, was harneffed to the coach. The economy of the houfe was regulated by the taste and prudence of Mrs. Gibbon. She prided herself in the elegance of her occafional dinners; and from the uncleanly avarice of Madame Pavilliard, I was fuddenly transported to the daily neatnefs and luxury of an English table. Our immediate neighbourhood was rare and ruftic; but from the verge of our hills, as far as Chichester and Goodwood, the western diftrict of Suffex was interfperfed with noble feats. and hofpitable families, with whom we cultivated a friendly, and might have enjoyed a very frequent, intercourse. As my ftay at Buriton was always voluntary, I was received and difmiffed with fmiles; but the comforts of my retirement did not depend on the ordinary pleasures of the country. My father could never inspire me with his love

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The estate and manor of Beriton, otherwife Buriton, were confiderable, and were fold a few years ago to Lord Stawell. S.

I fel

and knowledge of farming. I never handled a gun, dom mounted an horfe; and my philofophic walks were foon terminated by a fhady bench, where I was long detained by the fedentary amusement of reading or meditation. At home I occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment; the library on the fame floor was foon confidered as my peculiar domain; and I might fay with truth, that I was never lefs alone than when by myfelf. My fole complaint, which I pioufly fuppreffed, arofe from the kind reftraint impofed on the freedom of my time. By the habit of early rifing I always fecured a facred portion of the day, and many scattered moments were ftolen and employed by my ftudious industry. But the family hours of breakfast, of dinner, of tea, and of fupper, were regular and long after breakfaft Mrs. Gibbon expected my company in her dreffing-room; after tea my father claimed my converfation and the perufal of the newspapers; and in the midft of an interefting work I was often called down to receive the vifit of fome idle neighbours. Their dinners and vifits required, in due feafon, a fimilar return; and I dreaded the period of the full moon, which was ufually referved for our more diftant excurfions. I could not refuse attending my father, in the fummer of 1759, to the races at Stockbridge, Reading, and Odiam, where he had entered a horfe for the hunter's plate; and I was not displeased with the fight of our Olympic games, the beauty of the spot, the fleetnefs of the horses, and the gay tumult of the numerous fpectators. As foon as the militia business was agitated, many days were tediously confumed in meetings of deputy-lieutenants at Petersfield, Alton, and Winchester. In the clofe of the fame year, 1759, Sir Simeon (then Mr.) Stewart attempted an unfuccefsful conteft for the county of Southampton, against Mr. Legge, Chancellor of the Exchequer a well-known conteft, in which Lord Bute's influence was first exerted and cenfured. Our canvas at Portsmouth and Gosport lafted feveral days; but the interruption of my ftudies

was compenfated in fome degree by the fpectacle of Englifh manners, and the acquifition of fome practical knowledge.

If in a more domeftic or more diffipated fcene my application was fomewhat relaxed, the love of knowledge was inflamed and gratified by the command of books; and I compared, the poverty of Laufanne with the plenty of London. My father's ftudy at Buriton was stuffed with much trash of the laft age, with much high church divinity and politics, which have long fince gone to their proper place: yet it contained fome valuable editions of the claffics and the fathers, the choice, as it fhould feem, of Mr. Law; and many English publications of the times had been occafionally added. From this flender beginning I have gradually formed a numerous and felect library, the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my life, both at home and abroad. On the receipt of the first quarter, a large fhare of my allowance was appropriated to my literary wants. I cannot forget the joy with which I exchanged a bank-note of twenty pounds for the twenty volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Infcriptions; nor would it have been eafy, by any other expenditure of the fame fum, to have procured fo large and lafting a fund of rational amusement. At a time when I most affiduously frequented this fchool of antient literature, I thus expreffed my opinion of a learned and various collection, which fince the year 1759 has been doubled in magnitude, though not in merit-" Une de ces fociétes, qui ont "mieux immortalifé Louis XIV. qu'un ambition fouvent " pernicieufe aux hommes, commençoit deja ces recherches "qui réuniffent la jufteffe de l'efprit, l'ameneté & l'erudi❝tion: où l'on voit tant des decouvertes, et quelquefois, "ce qui ne cede qu'à peine aux decouvertes, une ignorance "modefte et favante." The review of my library muft be referved for the period of its maturity; but in this place I may allow myself to observe, that I am not confcious of having ever bought a book from a motive of oftentation,

that

that every volume, before it was depofited on the fhelf, was either read or fufficiently examined, and that I foon adopted the tolerating maxim of the elder Pliny, " nullum "effe librum tam malum ut non ex aliquâ parte prodeffet." I could not yet find leifure or courage to renew the purfuit of the Greek language, excepting by reading the leffons of the Old and New Teftament every Sunday, when I attended the family to church. The series of my Latin authors was lefs ftrenuously completed; but the acquifi-· tion, by inheritance or purchase, of the beft editions of Cicero, Quintilian, Livy, Tacitus, Ovid, &c. afforded a fair prospect, which I feldom neglected. I perfevered in the useful method of abftracts and obfervations; and a fingle example may fuffice, of a note which had almost fwelled into a work. The folution of a paffage of Livy (xxxviii. 38.) involved me in the dry and dark treatises of Greaves, Arbuthnot, Hooper, Bernard, Eisenschmidt, Gronovius, La Barré, Freret, &c.; and in my French essay (chap. 20.) I ridiculously fend the reader to my own manufcript remarks on the weights, coins, and measures of the ancients, which were abruptly terminated by the militia drum.

As I am now entering on a more ample field of fociety and study, I can only hope to avoid a vain and prolix garrulity, by overlooking the vulgar crowd of my acquaintance, and confining myself to fuch intimate friends among books and men, as are best entitled to my notice by their own merit and reputation, or by the deep impreffion which they have left on my mind. Yet I will embrace this occafion of recommending to the young ftudent a practice, which about this time I myself adopted. After glancing my eye over the defign and order of a new book, I fufpended the perufal till I had finifhed the task of felf-examination, till I had revolved, in a folitary walk, all that I knew or believed, or had thought on the fubject of the whole work, or of fome particular chapter: I was then qualified to difcern how uch the author added to my ori

ginal flock; and I was fometimes fatisfied by the agree ment, I was fometimes armed by the oppofition, of our ideas. The favourite companions of my leifure were our English writers fince the Revolution; they breathe the spirit of reafon and liberty; and they most seasonably contributed to restore the purity of my own language, which had been corrupted by the long use of a foreign idiom: by the judicious advice of Mr. Mallet, I was directed to the writings of Swift and Addifon; wit and fimplicity are their common attributes: but the ftyle of Swift is fupported by manly original vigour; that of Addison is adorned by the female graces of elegance and mildness. The old reproach, that no British altars had been raised to the muse of history, was recently difproved by the first performances of Robertfon and Hume, the hiftories of Scotland and of the Stuarts. I will affume the prefumption of saying, that I was not un-worthy to read them: nor will I difguife my different feelings in the repeated perufals. The perfect compofition, the nervous language, the well-tuned periods of Dr. Robertson, inflamed me to the ambitious hope that I might one day tread in his footsteps: the calm philosophy, the careless inimitable beauties of his friend and rival, often forced me to close the volume with a mixed fenfation of delight and defpair.

The defign of my firft work, the Effay on the Study of Literature, was fuggefted by a refinement of vanity, the defire of justifying and praifing the object of a favourite purfuit. In France, to which my ideas were confined, the learning and language of Greece and Rome were neglected by a philofophic age, The guardian of those studies, the Academy of Infcriptions, was degraded to the lowest rank among the three royal focieties of Paris: the new appellation of Erudits was contemptuously applied to the fucceffors of Lipfius and Cafaubon; and I was provoked to hear (fee M. d'Alembert Difcours preliminaire à l'Encyclopedie) that the exercife of the meinory, their fole merit, had been fuperfeded by the nobler faculties of the imagination and the judgment.