:

*

༈!!*?

nineteen, December twenty-three, December twenty-nine, January sixteen, which last I have received this day, February the 2nd. For greater perspicuity, it will not be amiss (on either side) to number our future epistles, by a conspicuous Roman character inscribed in the front, to which we may at any time refer. But instead of writing by Ostend, the shorter and surer way, especially on all occasions that deserve celerity, will be to enclose them to my banker, M. de Lessart, at Paris, who will forward them to me. Through Germany the passage by sea is more uncertain, the roads worse, and the distance greater: we often complain of delay and irregularity at this interesting moment. By your last I find that you have boldly and generously opened a treaty with the enemy, which I proposed with fear and hesitation. I impatiently expect the result; and again repeat, that whatever you can obtain for *. I shall consider it as so much saved out of the fire, &c. &c. Do you remember Dunning's motion (in the year 1780) to address the crown against a dissolution of Parliament? a simple address we rejected, as an infringement on the prerogative; yet how far short of these strong democratical measures, for which you have probably voted, as I should have probably have done such is the contagion of party. Fox drives most furiously, yet I should not be surprised if Pitt's moderation and character should insensibly win the nation, and even the house, to espouse his cause. * * Unless when .1.11 I look back on England with a selfish or a tender regard, my hours roll away very pleasantly, and I can again repeat with truth, that I have not regretted one single moment the step which I have taken. We are now at the height of the winter dissipation, and I am peculiarly happy when I can steal away from great assemblies, and suppers of twenty or thirty people, to a more private party, of some of those persons whom I begin to call my friends. Till we are settled in our house little can be expected on our side; yet I have already given two or three handsome dinners; and though everything is grown dearer, I am not alarmed at the general view of my expense. Deyverdun salutes you; and we are agreed that few married couples are better entitled to the flitch of bacon than we shall be at the end of the year. When I had written about half this epistle my books arrived; at our first meeting all was rapture and confusion, and two or three posts, from the second to this day, the fourteenth, have been suffered to depart unnoticed. Your letter of the twenty-seventh of January, which was not received till yesterday, has again awakened me, and I thought the surest way would be to send off this single sheet without any farther delay.

*

I sincerely rejoice in the stability of parliament; and the first faint dawn of reconciliation, which must however be effected by the equal balance of parties, rather than by the wisdom of the country gentlemen.+

My lady!—But it would be highly incongruous to begin my letter at the bottom of the page. Adieu, therefore, till next post.

• This supposition was founded on Mr. Banks's declaration in the name of Mr. Pitt. At the St. Alban's Tavern.

CLXXVI.—EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD SHEFFIELD.

Lausanne, May 11th, 1784.

Alas! alas! alas! We may now exchange our mutual condolence. Last Christmas, on the change of administration, I was struck with the thunderbolt of the unexpected event, and in the approaching dissolution I foresaw the loss of * * *. The long continuance and various changes of the tempest rendered me by degrees callous and insensible: when the art of the mariners was exhausted, I felt that we were sinking; I expected the ship to founder; and when the fatal moment arrived, I was even pleased to be delivered from hope and fear, to the calmness of despair. I now turn my eyes, not on the past, but on the present and the future; what is lost I try to consider as if it never had existed; and every day I congratulate my own good fortune, let me say my prudence and resolution, in migrating from your noisy stage to a scene of repose and content. But even in this separate state, I was still anxious for my friend upon English earth, and at first was much delighted with your hint, that you were setting off for Coventry, without any prospect of an opposition. Every post, Wednesdays and Saturdays, I eagerly looked for the intelligence of your victory; and in spite of my misbehaviour, which I do not deny, I must abuse my lady, rather than you, for leaving me in so painful a situation. Each day raised and increased my apprehension; the Courier de l'Europe first announced the contest, the English papers proclaimed your defeat, and your last letter, which I received four days ago, showed me that you exerted first the spirit, and at last the temper, of a hero. I am not much surprised that you should have been swept away in the general unpopularity, since even in this quiet place, your friends are considered as a factious crew, acting in direct opposition both to the king and people. For yourself I am at a loss what to say. If this repulse should teach you to renounce all connexion with kings and ministers, and patriots, and parties, and parliaments; for all of which you are by many degrees too honest; I should exclaim, with Teague of respectable memory, "By my shoul, dear joy, you have gained a loss." Private life, whether contemplative or active, has surely more solid and independent charms; you have some domestic comforts; Sheffield-place is still susceptible of useful and ornamental improvements, (alas! how much better might even the last * have been laid out !) and if these cares are not sufficient to occupy your leisure, I can trust your restless and enterprising spirit to find new methods to preserve you from the insipidity of repose. But I much fear your discontent and regret at being excluded from that pandæmonium which we have so often cursed, as long as you were obliged to attend it. The leaders of the party will flatter you with the opinion of their friendship and your own importance; the warmth of your temper makes you credulous and unsuspicious; and, like the rest of our species, male and female, you are not absolutely

*

deaf to the voice of praise. Some other place will be suggested, easy, honourable, certain, where nothing is wanted but a man of character and spirit to head a superior interest; the opposition, if any, is contemptible, and the expense cannot be large. You will go down, find almost every circumstance falsely stated, repent that you had engaged yourself, but you cannot desert those friends who are firmly attached to your cause; besides, the money you have already spent would have been thrown away; another thousand will complete the business: deeper and deeper will you plunge, and the last evil will be worse than the first. You see I am a free-spoken counsellor; may I not be a true prophet! Did I consult my own wishes, I should observe to you, that as you are no longer a slave, you might soon be transported, as you seem to desire, to one of the Alpine hills. The purity and calmness of the air is the best calculated to allay the heat of a political fever; the education of the two princesses might be successfully conducted under your eye and that of my lady; and if you had resolution to determine on a residence, not a visit, at Lausanne, your worldly affairs might repose themselves after their late fatigues. But you know that I am a friend to toleration, and am always disposed to make the largest allowance for the different natures of animals; a lion and a lamb, an eagle and a worm. I am afraid we are too quiet for you; here it would not be easy for you to create any business s; you have for some time neglected books, and I doubt whether you would not think our suppers and assemblies somewhat trifling and insipid. You are far more difficult than I am; you are in search of information, and you are not content with your company, unless you can derive from them information or extraordinary amusement. For my part, I like to draw knowledge from books, and I am satisfied with polite attention and easy manners. Finally, I am happy to tell, and you will be happy to hear, that this place has in every respect exceeded my best and most sanguine hopes. How often have you said, as often as I expressed any ill-humour against the hurry, the expense, and the precarious condition of my London life, "Ay, that is a nonsensical scheme of retiring to Lausanne that you have got into your head -a pretty fancy; you remember how much you liked it in your youth, but you have now seen more of the world, and if you were to try it again, you would find yourself woefully disappointed?" I had it in my head, in my heart; I have tried it; I have not been disappointed; and my knowledge of the world has served only to convince me, that a capital and a crowd may contain much less real society, than the small circle of this gentle retirement. winter has been longer, but, as far as I can learn, less rigorous than in the rest of Europe. The spring is now bursting upon us, and in our own garden it is displayed in all its glory. I already Occupy a temporary apartment, and we live in the lower part of the house; before you receive this we shall be in full possession. We have much to enjoy and something to do, which I take to be the happiest condition of human life. Now for business, the kind of

The

subject which I always undertake with the most reluctance, and leave with the most pleasure.

And now, my lady.

remorse.

Adieu.

Let me approach your gentle, not grimalkin, presence, with deep You have indirectly been informed of my state of mind and body; (the whole winter I have not had the slightest return of the gout, or any other complaint whatsoever;) you have been apprised, and are now apprised, of my motions, or rather of my perfect and agreeable repose; yet I must confess (and I feel) that something of a direct and personal exchange of sentiment has been neglected on my side, though I still persuade myself that when I am settled in my new house I shall have more subject, as well as leisure to write. Such tricks of laziness your active spirit is a stranger to, though Mrs. *** complains that she has never had an answer to her last letters. Poor Lady Pembroke! you will feel for her; after a cruel alternative of hope and fear, her only daughter, Lady Charlotte, died at Aix in Provence; they have persuaded her to come to this place, where she is intimately connected with the Cerjat family. She has taken an agreeable house, about three miles from the town, and lives retired. I have seen her; her behaviour is calm, but her affliction ******. I accept with gratitude your friendly proposal of Wedgewood's ware, and should be glad to have it bought and packed, and sent without delay through Germany; and I shall only say, that I wish to have a very complete service for two courses and a dessert, and that our suppers are numerous, frequently fifteen or twenty persons. Adieu. I do not mean this as your letter. You are very good to poor Kitty. With you I do not condole about Coventry.

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

Lausanne, May 28th, 1784.

Dear Madam,-I begin without preface or apology, as if I had received your letter by the last post. In my own defence I know not what to say; but if I were disposed to recriminate, I might observe that you yourself are not perfectly free from the sin of laziness and procrastination. I have often wondered why we are not fonder of letter-writing. We all delight to talk of ourselves, and it is only in letters, in writing to a friend, that we can enjoy that conversation, not only without reproach or interruption, but with the highest propriety and mutual satisfaction; sure that the person whom we address feels an equal, or at least a strong and lively interest in the consideration of the pleasing subject. On the subject therefore of self I will entertain a friend, to whom none of my thoughts or actions, none of my pains or pleasure, can ever be indifferent. When I first cherished the design of retiring to Lausanne, I was much more apprehensive of wounding your tender attachment, than of offending Lord Sheffield's manly and vehement friendship. In the abolition of the board of trade, the motives for my retreat became more

urgent and forcible; I wished to break loose, yet I delayed above a year before I could take my final resolution; and the letter in which I disclosed it to you cost me one of the most painful struggles of my life. As soon as I had conquered that difficulty, all meaner obstacles fell before me, and in a few weeks I found myself at Lausanne, astonished at my firmness and my success. Perhaps you still blame or still lament the step which I have taken: if on your own account, I can only sympathise with your feelings, the recollection of which often costs me a sigh; if on mine, let me fairly state what I have escaped in England, and what I have found at Lausanne. Recollect the tempests of this winter, how many. anxious days I should have passed, how many noisy, turbulent, hot, unwholesome nights, while my political existence, and that of my friends, was at stake; yet these feeble efforts would have been unavailing; I should have lost my seat in parliament, and after the extraordinary expense of another year, I must still have pursued the road of Switzerland, unless I had been tempted by some selfish patron, or by Lord S.'s aspiring spirit, to incur a most inconvenient expense for a new seat; and once more, at the beginning of an opposition, to engage in new scenes of business. As to the immediate prospect of any thing like a quiet and profitable retreat, I should not know where to look; my friends are no longer in power. With ** ** and his party I have no connexion; and were he disposed to favour a man of letters, it is difficult to say what he could give, or what I would accept; the reign of pensions and sinecures is at an end, and a commission in the excise or customs, the summit of my hopes, would give me income at the expense of leisure and liberty. When I revolve these circumstances in my mind, my only regret, I repeat it again and again, is, that I did not embrace this salutary measure three, five, ten years ago. Thus much I thought it necessary to say, and shall now dismiss this unpleasing part of the subject. For my situation here, health is the first consideration; and on that head your tenderness had conceived some degree of anxiety. I know not whether it has reached you that I had a fit of the gout the day after my arrival. The deed is true, but the cause was accidental; carelessly stepping down a flight of stairs, I sprained my ancle; and my ungenerous enemy instantly took advantage of my weakness. But since my breaking that double chain, I have enjoyed a winter of the most perfect health that I have perhaps ever known, without any mixture of the little flying incommodities which in my best days have sometimes disturbed the tranquillity of my English life. You are not ignorant of Dr. Tissot's reputation, and his merit is even above his reputation. He assures me, that in his opinion, the moisture of England and Holland is most pernicious; the dry pure air of Switzerland most favourable to a gouty constitution: that experience justifies the theory; and that there are fewer martyrs of that disorder in this, than in any other country in Europe. This winter has every where been most uncommonly severe; and you seem in England to have had your full share of the general hardship: but

A A