"As I ran through your volume of history with great avidity and impatience, I cannot forbear discovering somewhat of the same impatience in returning you thanks for your agreeable present, and expressing the satisfaction which the performance has given me. Whether I consider the dignity of your style, the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness of your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object of esteem; and I own, that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance from an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment; but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them. I know it will give you pleasure (as it did me) to find that all men of letters in this place, concur in their admiration of your work, and in their anxious desire of your continuing

it."

The next from Dr. Robertson to Mr. Strachan,

"Since my last, I have read Mr. Gibbon's history with much attention, and great pleasure. It is a work of very high merit indeed. He possesses that industry of research, without which no man deserves the name of an historian. His narrative is perspicuous and interesting; his style is elegant and forcible, though in some passages I think rather too laboured, and in others too quaint. But these defects are amply compensated by the beauty of the general flow of language, and a very peculiar happiness in many of his expressions. I have traced him in many of his quotations (for experience has taught me to suspect the accuracy of my brother penmen), and I find he refers to no passage but what he has seen with his own eyes. I hope the book will be as successful as it deserves to be. I have not yet read the two last chapters, but am sorry,

from what I have heard of them, that he has taken such a tone in them as will give great offence, and hurt the sale of the book."

The last from Mr. Ferguson to Mr. Gibbon himself. "I received, about eight days ago, after I had been reading your history, the copy which you have been so good as to send me, and for which I now trouble you with my thanks. But even if I had not been thus called upon to offer you my respects, I could not have refrained from congratulating you on the merit, and undoubted success, of this valuable performance. The persons of this place whose judgment you will value most, agree in opinion, that you have made a great addition to the classical literature of England, and given us what Thucydides proposed leaving with his own countrymen, a possession in perpetuity. Men of a certain modesty and merit always exceed the expectations of their friends; and it is with very great pleasure I tell you, that although you must have observed in me every mark of consideration and regard, that this is, nevertheless, the case, I receive your instruction, and study your model, with great deference, and join with every one else, in applauding the extent of your plan, in hands so well able to execute it. Some of your readers, I find, were impatient to get at the fifteenth chapter, and began at that place. I have not heard much of their criticism, but am told that many doubt of your orthodoxy. I wish to be always on the charitable side, while I own you have proved that the clearest stream may become foul when it comes to run over the muddy bottom of human nature. I have not stayed to make any particular remarks. If any should occur on the second reading, I shall not fail to lay in my claim to a more needed, and more usesul admonition from you, in case I ever produce any thing that merits your attention."

Gibbon, however, was soon assailed in a different manner. His work bore strongly the stamp of scepti

cal opinions, which he had unfortunately imbibed, though at what period of his life does not precisely appear. This roused the pens of a multitude of adver saries, many doubtless prompted by the best motives, though the intemperance of some did little honour to the 'cause which they defended. The following sentiments of Mr. Gibbon, and his estimate of the merit of his opponents, is curious from the mixture of candour and irritability which it exhibits.

"Had I believed that the majority of English readers were so fondly attached even to the name and shadow of christianity; had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility; I might, perhaps, have softened the two invidious chapters, which would create many enemies, and conciliate few friends. But the shaft was shot, the alarm was sounded, and I could only rejoice, that if the voice of our priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands were disarmed from the powers of persecution. I adhered to the wise resolution of trusting myself and my writings to the candour of the public, till Mr. Davies of Oxford presumed to attack, not the faith, but the fidelity, of the historian. My vindication, expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a moment the busy and idle metropolis; and the most rational part of the laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been satisfied of my innocence and ac curacy. I would not print this vindication in quarto, lest it would be bound and preserved with the history itself. At the distance of twelve years, I calmly affirm my judgment of Davies, Cheisum, &c. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They, however, were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was indeed neglected; and I dare not boast the mak ing Dr. Watson a bishop; he is a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit; but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal pension to Mr Davies, and of collating Dr. Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. Their suc

ess encouraged the zeal of Taylor the Arian,* and Milner the methodist,† with many others, whom it would be difficult to remember, and tedious to rehearse. The list of my adversaries, however, was graced with the more respectable names of Dr. Priestley, Sir David: Dalrymple, and Dr. White; and every polemic,” of either university, discharged his sermon or pamphlet against the impenetrable silence of the Roman historian. In his History of the Corruptions of Christi--anity, Dr. Priestley threw down his two gauntlets to Bishop Hurd and Mr. Gibbon. I declined the challenge in a letter, exhorting my opponent to enlighten the world by his philosophical discoveries, and to remember that the merit of his predecessor Servetus is now reduced to a single passage, which indicates the. smaller circulation of the blood through the lungs, from and to the heart. Instead of listening to this friendly advice, the dauntless philosopher of Birmingham continued to fire away his double battery against those who believed too little, and those who believed too much. From my replies he has nothing to hope or fear; but his Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the spear of Horsley, and his trumpet of sedition may at length awaken the magistrates of a free country.

"The profession and rank of Sir David Dalrymple (now a lord of session) has given a more decent colour

The stupendous title, Thoughts on the Causes of the grand Apostacy, at first agitated my nerves, till I discovered that it was the apostacy of the whole church, since the Council of Nice, from Mr. Taylor's private religion. His book is a thorough mixture of high enthusiasm and low buffoonery, and the Millenium is a fundamental article of his creed.

From his grammar-school at Kingston upon Hull, Mr. Joseph Milner pronounces an anathema against all rational religion, His faith is a divine taste, a spiritual inspiration; his church is a mystic and invisible body; the natural christians, such as Mr. Locke, who believe and interpret the scriptures, are, in his judgment, no better than profane infidels.

to his style. But he scrutinized each separate passage of the two chapters with the dry minuteness of a special pleader; and as he was always solicitous to make, he may have succeeded sometimes in finding, a flaw. In his Annals of Scotland, he has shewn himself a diligent collector and an accurate critic.

"I have praised, and I still praise, the eloquent ser mons which were preached in St. Mary's pulpit at Oxford by Dr. White. If he assaulted me with some degree of illiberal acrimony, in such a place, and before such an audience, he was obliged to speak the language of the country. I smiled at a passage in one of his private letters to Mr. Badcock: "The part where we encounter Gibbon must be brilliant and striking."

Mr. Gibbon was soon after employed by ministers to draw up a manifesto against France, on the breaking out of war with that country. In reward for this service, he was appointed one of the Lords of Trade, with a salary of 7 or L.800 a-year. His connection with ministers, however, lost him his seat in parlia, ment; and in three years the Board of Trade was abolished by Mr. Burke's reform bill, the operation of which, he has the candour to acknowledge, was in this instance salutary, He was thus, however, deprived of the means of supporting the style of expence to which he had become accustomed; which, with a variety of other considerations, determined him to extricate himself, and fix his residence again at Lausanne. Before his departure, in April 1781, he bad published the second and third volumes of his history, which were received with attention, though somewhat more coldly than the first. This, it is probable, was the mere natural consequence of the gloss of novelty being worn off.

Our readers will probably be desirous of seeing Mr. Gibbon's own account of his mode of life, and the attractions which fixed him at Lausanne.