Lausanne, May 31st, 1791. At length I see a ray of sunshine breaking from a dark cloud. Your epistle of the 13th arrived this morning, the 25th instant, he day after my return from Geneva; it has been communicated to jevery. We now believe that you intend a visit to Lausanne his summer, and we hope that you will execute that intention. If ou are a man of honour, you shall find me one; and, on the day of our arrival at Lausanne, I will ratify my engagement of visiting he British isle before the end of the year 1792, excepting only the air and foul exception of the gout. You rejoice me, by proposing he addition of dear Louisa; it was not without a bitter pang that I hrew her overboard, to lighten the vessel and secure the voyage: was fearful of the governess, a second carriage, and a long train of lifficulty and expense, which might have ended in blowing up the whole scheme. But if you can bodkin the sweet creature into the coach, she will find an easy welcome at Lausanne. The first arangements which I must make before your arrival, may be altered y your own taste, on a survey of the premises, and you will all be commodiously and pleasantly lodged. You have heard a great deal of the beauty of my house, garden, and situation; but such are heir intrinsic value, that, unless I am much deceived, they will bear he test even of exaggerated praise. From my knowledge of your ordship, I have always entertained some doubt how you would get hrough the society of a Lausanne winter: but I am satisfied chat, exclusive of friendship, your summer visits to the banks of the Leman Lake will long be remembered as one of the most agreeable periods of your life; and that you will scarcely regret the amusement of a Sussex committee of navigation in the dog days. You ask for details: what details? a map of France and a post-book are easy and infallible guides. If the ladies are not afraid of the ocean, you are not ignorant of the passage from Brighton to Dieppe : Paris will then be in your direct road; and even allowing you to look at the Pandæmonium, the ruins of Versailles, &c., a fortnight diligently employed will clear you from Sheffield-place to Gibbon Castle. What can I say more? As little have I to say on the subject of my worldly matters, which seems now, Jupiter be praised, to be drawing towards a final conclusion; since, when people part with their money, they are indeed serious. I do not perfectly understand the ratio of the precise sum which you have poured into Gosling's reservoir, but suppose it will be explained in a general account. You have been very dutiful in sending me, what I have always desired, a cut Woodfall on a remarkable debate; a debate, indeed, most remarkable! Poor **** is the most eloquent and rational madman that I ever knew. I love Fox's feelings, but I detest the political principles of the man, and of the party. Formerly you detested them more strongly, during the American war, than myself. I am half afraid that you are corrupted by your unfortunate connexions. Should you admire the national assembly, we shall have many an altercation, for I am as high an aristocrat as Burke him self; and he has truly observed, that it is impossible to debate with temper on the subject of that cursed revolution. In my last excursion to Geneva I frequently saw the Neckers, who by this time are returned to their summer residence at Coppet. He is much restored in health and spirits, especially since the publication of his ['''' last book, which has probably reached England.. Both parties who agree in abusing him, agree likewise that he is a man of virtue and genius: but I much fear that the purest intentions have been productive of the most baneful consequences. Our military men, I mean the French, are leaving us every day for the camp of the Princes at Worms, and support what is called sentation. Their hopes are sanguine; I will not answer for their being well grounded: it is certain, however, that the emperor had an interview the 19th instant with the Count of Artois at Mantua ; and the aristocrats talk in mysterious language of Spain, Sardinia, the empire, four or five armies, &c. They will doubtless strike a blow this summer: may it not recoil on their own heads! Adieu. Embrace our female travellers. A short delay. repre Lausanne, June 12th, 1791. I now begin to see you all in real motion, swimming from Brighton to Dieppe, according to my scheme, and afterwards treading the direct road which you cannot well avoid, to the turbulent capital of the late kingdom of France. I know not what more to say, or what further instructions to send; they would indeed be useless, as you are travelling through a country which has been sometimes visited by Englishmen: only this let me say, that, in the midst of anarchy, the roads were never more secure than at present. As you will wish to assist at the national assembly, you will act prudently in obtaining from the French in London a good recommendation to some leading member; Cazales, for instance, or the Abbé Maury. I soon expect from Elmsly a cargo of books; but you may bring me any new pamphlet of exquisite flavour, particularly the last works of John Lord Sheffield, which the dog has always neglected to send. You will have time to write once more, and you must endeavour, as nearly as possible, to mark the day of your arrival. You may come either by Lyons and Geneva, by Dijon and Les Rousses, or by Dole and Pontarlière. The post will fail you on the edge of Switzerland, and must be supplied by hired horses. I wish you to make your last day's journey easy, so as to dine upon the road, and arrive by tea-time. The pulse of the counter-revolutiou beats high, but I cannot send you any certain facts. Adieu. I want to hear my lady abusing me for never writing. All the Severys are very impatient. Notwithstanding the high premium, I do not absolutely wish you drowned. Besides all other cares, I must marry and propagate, which would give me a great deal of trouble. * Observations on the Corn Laws. Lausanne, July 1st, 1791. In obedience to your orders, I direct a flying shot to Paris, though have not any thing particular to add, excepting that our impaence is increased in the inverse ratio of time and space. Yet I most doubt whether you have passed the sea. The news of the ing of France's escape must have reached you before the 28th, the ay of your departure, and the prospect of strange unknown disorder ay well have suspended your firmest resolves. The royal animal again caught, and all may probably be quiet. I was just going to short you to pass through Brussels and the confines of Germany; fair Irishism, since if you read this, you are already at Paris. The aly reasonable advice which now remains, is to obtain, by means of ord Gower, a sufficiency, or even superfluity, of forcible passports, ich as leave no room for cavil on a jealous frontier. The frequent tercourse with Paris has proved that the best and shortest road, stead of Besançon, is by Dijon, Dole, Les Rousses, and Nyon. dieu. I warmly embrace the ladies. It would be idle now to alk of business. IT has appeared from the foregoing letters, that a visit from myelf and my family, to Mr. Gibbon at Lausanne, had been for some ime in agitation. This long-promised excursion took place in the month of June, 1791, and occasioned a considerable cessation of our orrespondence. I landed at Dieppe immediately after the flight com, and return to, Paris of the unfortunate Louis XVI. During y stay in that capital, I had an opportunity of seeing the extraorary ferment of men's minds, both in the national assembly, and in rivate societies, and also in my passage through France to Lauanne, where I recalled to my memory the interesting scenes I had itnessed, by frequent conversations with my deceased friend. I hight have wished to record his opinions on the subject of the Trench Revolution, if he had not expressed them so well in the anexed letters. He seemed to suppose, as some of his letters hint, hat I had a tendency to the new French opinions. Never, indeed, can with truth aver, was suspicion more unfounded; nor could it ave been admitted into Mr. Gibbon's mind, but that his extreme riendship for me, and his utter abhorrence of these notions, made im anxious and jealous, even to an excess, that I should not enterain them. He was, however, soon undeceived; he found that I vas full as averse to them as himself. I had from the first expressed n opinion, that such a change as was aimed at in France, must deange all the regular governments in Europe, hazard the internal quiet and dearest interests of this country, and probably end in ringing on mankind a much greater portion of misery, than the nost sanguine reformer had ever promised to himself or others to produce of benefit, by the visionary schemes of liberty and equality, vith which the ignorant and vulgar were misled and abused. Mr. Gibbon, at first, like many others, seemed pleased with the prospect of the reform of inveterate abuses; but he very soon dis covered the mischief which was intended, the imbecility with which concessions were made, and the ruin that must arise from the want of resolution or conduct, in the adininistration of France. He lived to reprobate, in the strongest terms possible, the folly of the first reformers, and the something worse than the extravagance and ferocity of their successors. He saw the wild and mischievous tendency of those pretended reformers, which, while they professed nothing but amendment, really meant destruction to all social order; and so strongly was his opinion fixed, as to the danger of hasty innovation, that he became, a warm and zealous advocate for every sort of old establishment, which he marked in various ways, sometimes rather ludicrously; and I recollect, in a circle where French affairs were the topic, and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment. It may, perhaps, not be quite uninteresting to the readers of these Memoirs, to know that I found Mr. Gibbon at Lausanne in possession of an excellent house; the view from which, and from the terrace, was so uncommonly beautiful, that even his own pen would with difficulty describe the scene which it commanded. This prospect comprehended every thing grand and magnificent, which could be furnished by the finest mountains among the Alps, the most extensive view of the Lake of Geneva, with a beautifully varied and cultivated country, adorned by numerous villas, and picturesque buildings, intermixed with beautiful masses of stately trees. Here my friend received us with an hospitality and kindness which I can never forget. The best apartments of the house were appropriated to our use; the choicest society of the place was sought for, to enliven our visit, and to render every day of it cheerful and agreeable. It was impossible for any man to be more esteemed and admired than Mr. Gibbon was at Lausanne. The preference he had given to that place in adopting it for a residence, rather than his own country, was felt and acknowledged by all the inhabitants; and he may have been said almost to have given the law to a set of as willing subjects as any man ever presided over. In return for the deference shown to him, he mixed, without any affectation, in all the society. I mean all the best society that Lausanne afforded; he could indeed command it, and was, perhaps. for that reason the more partial to it; for he often declared that he liked society more as a relaxation from study, than as expecting to derive from it amusement or instruction; that to books he looked for improvement, not to living persons. But this I considered partly as an answer to my expressions of wonder, that a man who might choose the most various and the most generally improved society in the world—namely, in England-should prefer the very limited circle of Lausanne, which he never deserted, but for an occasional visit to M. and Madame Necker. It must not, however, be understood, that in choosing Lausanne for his home, he was insensible to the merits of a residence in England: he was not in pos ssion of an income which corresponded with his notions of ease and mfort in his own country. In Switzerland his fortune was ample. o this consideration of fortune may be added another, which also ad its weight; from early youth Mr. Gibbon had contracted a parality for foreign taste and foreign habits of life, which made him ss a stranger abroad than he was, in some respects, in his native ountry. This arose, perhaps, from having been out of England om his sixteenth to his twenty-first year; yet when I came to ausanne, I found him apparently without relish for French society. During the stay I made with him he renewed his intercourse with le principal French who were at Lausanne; of whom there hapened to be a considerable number, distinguished for rank or talents; any indeed respectable for both.* During my stay in Switzerland was not absent from my friend's house, except during a short exursion that we made together to Mr. Necker's at Coppet, and a our to Geneva, Chamouni, over the Col de Balme, to Martigny, t. Maurice, and round the Lake by Vevay to Lausanne. In the ocial and singularly pleasant months that I passed with Mr. Gibbon, e enjoyed his cheerfulness, with good health. Since he left Engind, in 1788, he had had a severe attack, mentioned in one of the oregoing letters, of an erysipelas, which at last settled in one of his egs, and left something of a dropsical tendency; for at this time I irst perceived a considerable degree of swelling about the ancle. In the beginning of October I left this delightful residence; and ome time after my return to England, our correspondence recomnenced. LETTERS FROM EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO LORD SHEFFIELD AND OTHERS. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE HON. MISS HOLROYD. Lausanne, Nov. 9th, 1791. GULLIVER is made to say, in presenting his interpreter, "My tongue is in the mouth of my friend." Allow me to say, with proper expressions and excuses, "My pen is in the hand of my friend;" and the aforesaid friend begs leave thus to continue.+ I remember to have read somewhere in Rousseau, of a lover quit * Marshal de Castries and several branches of his family, Duc de Guignes and daughters, Duc and Duchesse de Guiche, Madame de Grammont, Princesse d'Henin, Princesse de Bouillon, Duchesse de Biron, Prince de Salm, Comte de Schomberg, Count de Lally, Lally Tolendal, M. Mounier, Madame d'Aguesseau and family, M. de Malsherbes, &c. &c. + The remainder of the letter was dictated by Mr. Gibbon, and written by M. Wilh. de Severy.-S. |