He remained, in the whole, five years at Lausanne, and by his “serious character, and soft and quiet manners” he won the respect and affection of his tutor. During this time he laid the foundation of those studious habits, which formed the pride and happiness of his later life. Besides a passionate devotion to French literature and great diligence in forming a correct style in that language, he read, according to a regular system, the whole of the Latin Classics; he acquired the rudiments of Greek; and gained some insight into the principles of mathematics. But this last pursuit he never afterwards renewed; though he would lead us to believe that a readiness in calculation was the talent of his childhood, and that nature had qualified him to succeed in that branch of application. He was presented to Voltaire, at that time resident at Geneva, without being distinguished by any particular mark of his attention. Yet he was a constant spectator at the poet’s little theatre, when he recited his own verses, and represented his own characters. It was likewise during this period that he formed an attachment for Madlle. Curchod, the daughter of a Swiss pastor, and afterwards the wife of Necker. The attachment appears to have been mutual; but his father prevented the marriage, and he remained faithful during the rest of his life to the memory of his youthful passion. He returned to England in May, 1758, and remained there, with a short interval, for the twenty-five following years. His father’s residence was Buriton, near Petersfield; and, as he passed some time there, he became in 1760 a captain in the South Hampshire militia: an incident which might well pass unnoticed in the life of an ordinary person, but which in this case is dignified by the value which Gibbon himself has set upon it, and the conviction long afterwards expressed by him—“that the captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers was not useless to the historian of the Roman Empire.”