neither strength nor spirits to use my hand in relating the melancholy tale. At present I have the pleasure of informing you, that the fever and inflammation have subsided; but the absolute weakness and monstrous swelling of my two feet confined me to my chair and flannels; and this confinement most unluckily happens at a very nice and important moment of parliamentary affairs. Col. H. pursues those affairs with eager and persevering zeal; and has the pleasure of undertaking more business than any three men could possibly execute. He is much obliged to you for your kind congratulation. Mrs. Eliot is in town; but I am quite ignorant (not more so than they are themselves) of their intentions. I will write again very soon. I am, dear madam, most truly yours.

CXXIV. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MRS. GIBBON, BATH.

June 6th, 1780.

Dear Madam,-As the old story of religion has raised most formidable tumults in this town, and as they will of course seem much more formidable at the distance of an hundred miles, you may not be sorry to hear that I am perfectly safe and well: my known attachment to the Protestant religion has most probably saved me. Measures, and effectual measures, are taken to suppress those disorders, and every street is filled with horse and foot. Mrs. Holroyd went out of town yesterday morning; the colonel remains, and shows his usual spirit. I am sincerely yours.

CXXV. THE SAME TO THE SAME.

London, June 8th, 1780.

Dear Madam,-As a member of parliament, I cannot be exposed to any danger, as the house of commons has adjourned to Monday sen'night; as an individual, I do not conceive myself to be ob noxious. I am not apt, without duty or necessity, to thrust myself into a mob and our part of the town is as quiet as a country village. So much for personal safety; but I cannot give the same assurances of public tranquillity; forty thousand Puritans, such as they might be in the time of Cromwell, have started out of their graves; the tumult has been dreadful; and even the remedy of military force and martial law is unpleasant. But government with fifteen thousand regulars in town, and every gentleman (but one) on their side, must extinguish the flame. The execution of last night was severe; perhaps it must be repeated to-night: yet upon the whole the tumult subsides. Colonel Holroyd was all last night in Holborn among the flames, with the Northumberland militia, and performed very bold and able service. bold and able service. I will write again in a post or two. I am, dear madam, ever yours.

CXXVI. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO MRS. GIBBON, BATH.

June 10th, 1780. Dear Madam,-I should write with great pleasure, to say that this audacious tumult is perfectly quelled; that Lord George Gordon is sent to the Tower; and that instead of safety or danger, we are now at leisure to think of justice; but I am now alarmed on your account, as we have just got a report, that a similar disorder has broken out at Bath. I shall be impatient to hear from you; but I flatter myself that your pretty town does not contain much of that scum which has boiled up to the surface in this huge cauldron. I am, dear madam, most sincerely yours.

CXXVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Bentinck-street, June 27th, 1780.

Dear Madam,-I believe we may now rejoice in our common security. All tumult has perfectly subsided, and we only think of the justice which must be properly and severely inflicted on such flagitious criminals. The measures of government have been seasonable and vigorous; and even opposition has been forced to confess, that the military power was applied and regulated with the utmost propriety. Our danger is at an end, but our disgrace will be lasting, and the month of June 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism, which I had supposed to be extinct, but which actually subsists in Great Britain, perhaps beyond any other country in Europe. Our parliamentary work draws to a conclusion; and I am much more pleasingly, though laboriously engaged in revising and correcting for the press, the continuation of my History, two volumes of which will actually appear next winter. This business fixes me to Bentinck-street more closely than any other part of my literary labour; as it is absolutely necessary that I should be in the midst of all the books which I have at any time used during the composition. But I feel a strong desire (irritated, like all other passions, by repeated obstacles) to escape to Bath. Dear madam, most truly yours.

CXXVIII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO COLONEL HOLROYD.

July 25th, 1780. As your motions are spontaneous, and the stations of the Lord Chief* unalterably fixed, I cannot perceive the necessity of your sending or receiving intelligence. However, your commands are obeyed. You wish I would write, as a sign of life. I am alive; but, as I am immersed in the Decline and Fall, I shall only make the sign. It is made. You may suppose that we are not pleased with the junction of the fleets; nor can an ounce of West India loss be compensated by a pound of East India success; but the circuit will roll down all the news and politics of London. I rejoice to hear that the Sussex regiment of dragoonst are such well-disciplined cannibals; but I want to know when the chief cannibal † Commanded by Colonel Holroyd.

* Lord Mansfield.

will return to his den. It would suit me better that it should happen soon. Adieu.

CXXIX. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO COLONEL HOLROYD.

Brookes's, November 28th, 1780.

Perhaps the sheriffs, the tools of your enemies, may venture to make a false and hostile return, on the presumption that they shall have a whole year of impunity; and that the merits of your petition cannot be heard this session. Some of your most respectable friends in the house of commons are resolved, (if the return should be such) to state it forcibly as a special and extraordinary case; and to exert all proper strength for bringing on the trial of your petition without delay. The knowledge of such a resolution may awe the sheriffs; and it may be prudent to admonish them of the impending danger, in the way that you judge most advisable. Adieu. God send you a good deliverance.

CXXX.-MR. GIBBON TO MRS. GIBBON, BELVEDERE, BATH.

Bentinck-street, December 21st, 1780.

Dear Madam,-The constant attendance on the board of trade almost every day this week, has obliged me to defer till next Monday a visit of inclination and propriety to Lord Loughborough (at Mitcham, in Surry). I shall not return till Wednesday or Thursday; and, instead of my Christmas, I shall eat my new year's dinner, at the Belvedere, Bath. May that new year prove fortunate to you, to me, and to this weary country, which is this day involved in a new war! I shall write again about the middle of next week, with a precise account of my motions. I think the gallant colonel, who is now Lord Sheffield, will succeed at Coventry; perhaps on the return, certainly on the petition. I am, dear madam, ever yours.

CXXXI. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO

MRS. GIBBON, BATH. Bentinck-street, February 24th, 1781. Dear Madam,-As you have probably received my last letter of thirteen hundred pages,† I shall be very concise; read, judge, pronounce and believe that I sincerely agree with my friend Julian, in esteeming the praise of those only who will freely censure my defects. Next Thursday I shall be delivered to the world, for whose inconstant and malicious levity I am coolly but firmly prepared. Excuse me to Sarah. I see more clearly than ever the absolute necessity of confining my presents to my own family; that, and that only, is a determined line, and Lord S. is the first to approve his exclusion. He has a strong assurance of success, and some hopes of a speedy decision. How suddenly your friend General Pierson disappeared! You thought him happy. What is happiness? My dear madam, ever yours.

*The sheriffs of Coventry.

+ Second and third volumes of the Decline and Fall.

CXXXII.-DR. WILLIAM ROBERTSON TO MR. GIBBON.

College of Edinburgh, May 12th, 1781. Dear Sir, I am ashamed of having deferred so long to thank you for the agreeable presents of your two new volumes; but just as I had finished the first reading of them, I was taken ill, and continued, for two or three weeks, nervous, deaf, and languid. I have now recovered as much spirit as to tell you, with what perfect satisfaction I have not only perused, but studied, this part of your work. I knew enough of your talents and industry to expect a great deal, but you have gone far beyond my expectations. I can recollect no historical work from which I ever received so much instruction; and, when I consider in what a barren field you had to glean and pick up materials, am truly astonished at the connected and interesting story you have formed. I like the style of these volumes better than that of the first; there is the same beauty, richness, and perspicuity of language, with less of that quaintness, into which your admiration of Tacitus sometimes seduced you. I am highly pleased with the reign of Julian. I was a little afraid that you might lean with some partiality towards him; but even bigots, I should think, must allow, that you have delineated his most singular character with a more masterly hand than it was ever touched before. You set me a reading his works, with which I was very slenderly acquainted; and I am struck with the felicity wherewith you have described the odd infusion of heathen fanaticism and philosophical coxcombry, which mingled with the great qualities of a hero and a genius. Your chapter concerning the pastoral nations is admirable; and, though I hold myself to be a tolerably good general historian, a great part of it was new to me. As soon as I have leisure, I purpose to trace you to your sources of information; and I have no doubt of finding you as exact there, as I have found you in other passages where I have made a scrutiny. It was always my idea that an historian should feel himself a witness giving evidence upon oath. I am glad to perceive by your minute scrupulosity, that your notions are the same. The last chapter in your work is the only one with which I am not entirely satisfied. I imagine you rather anticipate, in describing the jurisprudence and institutions of the Franks; and should think that the account of private war, ordeals, chivalry, &c. would have come in more in its place about the age of Charlemagne, or later but with respect to this, and some other petty criticisms, I will have an opportunity of talking fully to you soon, as I propose setting out for London on Monday. I have, indeed, many things to say to you and as my stay in London is to be very short, I shall hope to find your door (at whieh I will be very often) always open to me. I cannot conclude without approving of the caution with which the new volumes are written; I hope it will exempt you from the illiberal abuse the first volume drew upon you. I ever am, yours, faithfully and affectionately, WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

CXXXIII. EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO LADY SHEFFIELD, AT SHEFFIELD-PLACE.

Bentinck-street, Friday evening, 10 o'clock, 1781.

Oh, oh! I have given you the slip; saved thirty miles, by proceeding this day directly from Eartham to town, and am now comfortably seated in my library, in my own easy chair, and before my own fire; a style which you understand, though it is unintelligible to your lord. The town is empty; but I am surrounded with a thousand old acquaintance of all ages and characters, who are ready to answer a thousand questions which I am impatient to ask. I shall not easily be tired of their company; yet I still remember, and will honourably execute, my promise of visiting you at Brighton about the middle of next month. I have seen nobody, nor learned anything, in four hours of a town life; but I can inform you, that Lady ***** is now the declared mistress of Prince Henry of Prussia, whom she encountered at Spa; and that the emperor has invited the amiable couple to pass the winter at Vienna; fine encouragement for married women who behave themselves properly! I spent a very pleasant day in the little paradise of Eartham, and the hermit expressed a desire (no vulgar compliment) to see and to know Lord S. Adieu. I cordially embrace, &c.

CXXXIV.SIR WILLIAM JONES TO MR. GIBBON.

--

Lamb's Buildings, June 30th, 1781.

Dear Sir, I have more than once sought, without having been so fortunate as to obtain, a proper opportunity of thanking you very sincerely for the elegant compliment which you pay me, in a work abounding in elegance of all kinds.

My "Seven Arabian Poets" will see the light before next winter, and be proud to wait upon you in their English dress. Their wild productions will, I flatter myself, be thought interesting, and not venerable merely on account of their antiquity.

In the mean while, let me request you to honour me with accepting a copy of a Law Tract, which is not yet published: the subject is so generally important, that I make no apology for sending you a professional work.

You must pardon my inveterate hatred of C. Octavianus, basely surnamed Augustus. I feel myself unable to forgive the death of Cicero, which, if he did not promote, he might have prevented. Besides, even Mæcenas knew the cruelty of his disposition, and ventured to reproach him for it. In short I have not Christian charity for him.

With regard to Asiatic letters, a necessary attention to my profession will compel me wholly and eternally to abandon them, unless Lord North (to whom I am already under no small obligation) should think me worthy to concur in the improved administration of justice in Bengal, and should appoint me to supply the vacancy of the India Bench. Were that appointment to take place this year, I should