In 1758, he was permitted to return to England, after an absence of nearly five years. His father received him with more kindness than he expected, and rejoiced in the fuccefs of his plan of education. During his absence, his father had married his fecond wife, Mifs Dorothea Patton, whom his fon was prepared to dislike, but found an amiable and deserving woman. At home he was left at liberty to confult his taste in the choice of place, company, and amufements; and his excurfions were bounded only by the limits of the island, and the measure of his income. He had now reached his twenty-first year; and fome faint efforts were made to procure him the employment of fecretary to a foreign embaffy. His ftep-mother recommended the ftudy of the law; but the former scheme did not fucceed, and the latter he declined. Of his first two years in England, he paffed about nine months in London, and the remainder in the country. But London had few charms, except the common ones that can be purchafed. His father had no fixed refidence there, and no circles into which he might introduce his fon. He acquired an intimacy, however, in the house of David Mallet, and by his means was introduced to Lady Hervey's parties. The want of society seems never to have given him much uneafinefs, nor does it appear that at any period of his life he new the mifery of having hours which he could not fill up. At his father's houfe at Buriton, near Petersfield in Hampshire, he enjoyed much leisure, and many opportunities of adding to his ftock of learning. Books became more and more the fource of all his wishes and pleasures; and although his father endeavoured to inspire him with a love and knowledge of farming, he could not succeed farther than, occafionally, to obtain his company in such excurfions as are ufual with country gentlemen,

The leifure he could borrow from his more regular plan of ftudy, was employed in perufing the works of the

best English authors fince the Revolution, in hopes that the purity of his own language, corrupted by the long use of a foreign idiom, might be restored. Of Swift and Addifon, who were recommended by Mallet, he feems to fix the true value, praising Swift for his manly original vigour, and Addison for elegance and mildness. The perfect compofition, the nervous language, and well turned periods of Robertfon, inflamed him with the ambitious hope that he might one day tread in his foot-steps. But charmed as he was at this time with Swift and Addifon, Robertson and Hume, as well as he knew how to appreciate the excellence of their respective styles, he lost fight of every model, when he became a writer of history, and formed a style peculiar to himself.

In 1761, his first publication made its appearance, under the title "Effai fur l'Etude de la Litterature," a fmall volume in twelves. Part of this had been written at Lausanne, and the whole completed in London. He confulted Dr. Maty, a man of extensive learning and judgment, who encouraged him to publifh the work; but this he would have probably delayed for fome time, had not his father infifted upon it, thinking that some proof of literary talents might introduce him to public notice. The design of this Effay was to prove, that all the faculties of the mind may be exercised and displayed by the study of ancient literature, in oppofition to D'Alembert and others of the French encyclopedifts, who contended for that new philofophy that has fince produced fuch miserable confequences. He introduces, however, a variety of topics not immediately connected with this, and evinces that in the study of the belles lettres, and in criticism, his range was far more extenfive than could have been expected from his years. His ftyle approaches to that of Voltaire, and is often fententious and flippant; and the best excuse that can be offered for his writing in French, is, that his principal object relates to the litera

ture

ture of that country, with which he feems to court an alliance, and with which it is certain he was more familiar than with that of England. This Effay accordingly was praised in the foreign journals, but atracted very little notice at home, and was foon forgotten. Of its merits, he speaks in his Memoirs, with a mixture of praise and blame, but the former predominates, and with juftice. Had the French language been then as common in the literary world as it is now, fo extraordinary a production from a young man would have raised very high expectations.

About the time when this Effay appeared, Mr. Gibbon was induced to embrace the military profeffion. He was appointed captain of the South battalion of the Hampfhire Militia, and for two years and a half endured "a wandering life of military fervitude." It is feldom that the memoirs of a literary character are enlivened by an incident like this. Mr. Gibbon, as may be expected, could not diveft his mind of its old habits, and therefore endeavoured to unite the foldier and the fcholar. He studied the art of war in the Memoires Militaires of Quintus Icilius (M. Guichardt,) while from the discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion, he was acquiring a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion *, and, what he feems to have valued at its full worth, a more intimate knowledge of the world, and fuch an increase of acquaintance as made him better known than he could have been in a much longer time, had he regularly passed his fum

* In his journal, after mentioning that he had finished the perusal of Guichardt, he adds, " Thus finished the Memoires, which gave me a much clearer notion of ancient tactics than ever I had before. Indeed my own military knowledge was of fome fervice to me, as I am well acquainted with the modern difcipline and exercise of a battalion. So that though much inferior to M. Folard and M. Guichardt, who had feen service, I am a much better judge than Salmafius, Cafaubon, or Lipfius; mere scholars, who perhaps had never feen a battalion under arms." Sheffield's Memoirs vol. ii. p. 54.

mers

mers at Buriton and his winters in London.

He fnatched

also fome hours from his military duties for ftudy; and upon the whole, although he does not look back with much pleasure on this period of his life, he permits the reader to smile at the advantages which the hiftorian of the Roman Empire derived from the captain of the Hampshire grenadiers. At the peace in 1762–3, his regiment was disbanded, and he resumed his ftudies, the regularity of which had been so much interrupted, that he speaks of now entering on a new plan. After hefitating, probably not long, between the mathematics and the Greek language, he gave the preference to the latter, and pursued his reading with vigour.

But whatever he read, or studied, he appears to have read and ftudied with a view to hiftorical compofition, and he aspired to the character of a historian long before he could fix upon a subject. Such early predilection is not uncommon. It was the cafe particularly with Dr. Robertson, and probably is always the case with men who have been eminently distinguished in any one branch of fcience. The time was favourable to Mr. Gibbon's ambition. He was daily witneffing the triumphs of Hume and Robertson, and he probably thought, with a vanity that cannot now be blamed, that a fubject only was wanting to form his claim to equal honours.

During his fervice in the militia, he revolved several fubjects for an historical composition *; and by the variety

of

* "I would despise an author regardless of the benefit of his readers: I would admire him who, folely attentive to this benefit, fhould be totally indifferent to his own fame. I ftand in neither of those predicaments. My own inclination, as well as the taste of the present age, have made me decide in favour of history. Convinced of its merit, my reafon cannot blush at the choice. But this is not all. Am I worthy of pursuing a walk of literature, which Tacitus thought worthy of him, and of which Pliny doubted whether he was himself worthy? The part of an hiftorian is as honourable as that of a chronicler or compiler of gazettes is contemptible. For which task

of them, we fee that he had no particular purpose to serve, and no pre-conceived theory to which facts were to bend. Among the fubjects he has enumerated, we find, the expedition of Charles VIII. of France into Italy — the crusade of Richard I.the barons' wars against John and Henry III. -the hiftory of Edward the Black Prince-the lives, with comparisons of Henry V. and the Emperor Titus—the life of Sir Philip Sidney, and that of the Marquis of Montrofe. Thefe were rejected in their turns, but he dwelt with rather more fondness on the life of Sir Walter Raleigh; and when that was difcarded, meditated either the hiftory of the liberty of the Swifs; or that of the republic of Florence under the house of Medicis. All thefe gave way for various reafons, which had more weight with himself than they probably would have had with the public. His reading was even at this time extenfive beyond all precedent, and perhaps there is no feries of events which he might not have embellished by elegance of narrative or foundnefs of reflection.

His defigns were, however, now interrupted by a vifit to the continent, which, according to custom, his father thought necessary to complete the education of an English gentleman. Previous to his departure, he obtained recommendatory letters from Lady Hervey, Horace Walpole, (the late Lord Oxford,) Mallet, and the Duke de Nivernois, to various perfons of diftinction in France. In acknowledging the Duke's fervices, he notes a circumftance which in fome degree illuftrates his own character and exhibits that fuperiority of pretenfions from which he

I am fit, it is impoffible to know, until I have tried my strength; and to make the experiment, I ought foon to choose some subject of history, which may do me credit, if well treated; and whofe importance, even though my work fhould be unfuccefsful, may confole me for employiug too much time in a fpecies of compofition for which I was not well qualified." Gibbon's Extraits Raifonnés de mes Lectures, dated, Camp near Winchefter, July 26, 1761. Sheffield's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 23.