Gibbon, Edward, 1737-1794; Historians -- Great Britain -- Biography
Memoirs, of which I need not surely be ashamed; but at the distance
of more than twenty years, it would be impossible for me to
ascertain the respective shares of the two associates. A long and
intimate communication of ideas had cast our sentiments and style in
the same mould. In our social labours we composed and corrected by
turns; and the praise which I might honestly bestow, would fall
perhaps on some article or passage most properly my own. A second
volume (for the year 1768) was published of these Memoirs. I will
presume to say, that their merit was superior to their reputation;
but it is not less 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
Chesterfield, whose age and infirmities secluded him from the world;
and of Mr. David Hume, who was under-secretary to the office in
which Deyverdun was more humbly employed. The former accepted a
dedication,(April 12, 1769,) and reserved the author for the future
education of his successor: the latter enriched the Journal with a
reply to Mr. Walpole's Historical Doubts, which he afterwards shaped
into the form of a note. The materials of the third volume were
almost completed, when I recommended Deyverdun as governor to Sir
Richard Worsley, a youth, the son of my old Lieutenant-colonel, who
was lately deceased. They set forwards on their travels; nor did
they return to England till some time after my father's death.
My next publication was an accidental sally of love and resentment;
of my reverence for modest genius, and my aversion for insolent
pedantry. The sixth book of the AEneid is the most pleasing and
perfect composition of Latin poetry. The descent of AEneas and the
Sibyl to the infernal regions, to the world of spirits, expands an
awful and boundless prospect, from the nocturnal gloom of the
Cumaean grot,
Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram,
to the meridian brightness of the Elysian fields;
Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo--
from the dreams of simple Nature, to the dreams, alas! of Egyptian
theology, and the philosophy of the Greeks. But the final
dismission of the hero through the ivory gate, whence
Falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes,
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