exhibited of the bishop of Carthage, my adversary has substituted a life of Cyprian,* full of what the French call onction, and the English, canting (see Jortin's Remarks, vol. ii. p. 239): to which I can only reply, that those who are dissatisfied with the principles of Mosheim and Le Clerc, must view with eyes very different to mine, the ecclesiastical history of the third century.

It would be an endless discussion (endless in every sense of the word) were I to examine the cavils which start up and expire in every page of this criticism, on the inexhaustible topic of opinions, characters, and intentions. Most of the instances which are here produced are of so brittle a substance, that they fall in pieces as soon as they are touched: and I searched for some time before I was able to discover an example of some moment where the Gentleman had fairly staked his veracity against some positive fact asserted in the two last chapters of my History. At last I perceived that he has absolutely denied that any thing can be gathered from the epistles of St. Cyprian, or from his treatise De Unitate Ecclesiæ, to which I had referred, to justify my account of the spiritual pride and licentious manners of some of the confessors. As the numbers of

the Epistles are not the same in the edition of Pamelius and in that of Fell, the critic may be excused for mistaking my quotations, if he will acknowledge that he was ignorant of ecclesiastical history, and that he had never heard of the troubles excited by the spiritual pride of the confessors, who usurped the privileges of giving letters of communion to penitent sinners. But my reference to the treatise De Unitate Ecclesiæ was clear and direct; the treatise itself contains only ten pages, and the following words might be distinctly read by any person who understood the Latin language. "Nec quisquam miretur, dilectissimi fratres, etiam de confessoribus quosdam ad ista procedere, inde quòque aliquos tam nefanda tam gravia peccare. Neque enim confessio immunem facit ab insidiis diaboli; aut contra tentationes, et pericula, et incursus atque impetus seculares adhuc in seculo positum perpetuâ securitate defendit : ceterum nunquam in confessoribus, fraudes, et stupra, et adulteria postmodùm videremus, quæ nunc in quibusdam videntes ingemiscimus et dolemus." This formal delaration of Cyprian, which is followed by several long periods of admonition and censure, is alone sufficient to expose the scandalous vices of some of the confessors, and the disingenuous behaviour of my concealed adversary.

After this example, which I have fairly chosen as one of the most specious and important of his objections, the candid reader would excuse me, if from this moment I declined the Gentleman's acquaintance. But as two topics have occurred, which are intimately connected with the subject of the preceding sheets, I have inserted each of them in its proper place, as the conclusion of the fourth article of my answers to Mr. Davis, and of the first article of my reply to the confederate doctors, Chelsum and Randolph.

It is not without some mixture of mortification and regret, that I now look back to the number of hours which I have consumed, and Gibbon, p. 661, note 91.

Remarks, p. 72-88.

+ Id. p. 90, 91.

the number of pages which I have filled, in vindicating my literary and moral character from the charges of wilful misrepresentations, gross errors, and servile plagiarisms. I cannot derive any triumph or consolation from the occasional advantages which I may have gained over three adversaries, whom it is impossible for me to consider as objects either of terror or of esteem. The spirit of resentment, and every other lively sensation, have long since been extinguished; and the pen would long since have dropped from my weary hand, had I not been supported in the execution of this ungrateful task, by the consciousness, or at least by the opinion, that I was discharging a debt of honour to the public and to myself. I am impatient to dismiss, and to dismiss FOR EVER, this odious controversy, with the success of which I cannot surely be elated; and I have only to request, that, as soon as my readers are convinced of my innocence, they would forget my Vindication.

Bentinck-street, February 3rd, 1779.

ANTIQUITIES OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.

MR. GIBBON TO MR. LANGER.

Rolle, 12th October, 1790. kindness in pro

Sir, I should have acknowledged sooner your curing for me the Origines Guelfice, if I had not been told by our obliging bookseller, Mr. Pott, that you were on a journey, while I myself was confined with the longest and most severe fit of the gout that I ever experienced. But we are now, both of us, restored to our ordinary state; I can walk, and you no longer travel post. I suppose by this time you are thoroughly established, and deeply immured in your immense library. Your curiosity, perhaps your friendship, will desire to know what have been my amusements, labours, and projects during the two years that have elapsed since the last publication of my great work. To indiscreet questions on this subject, with which I am often teased, I answer vaguely or peevishly; but from you I would keep nothing concealed; and to imitate the frankness in which you so much delight, will freely confess, that I more readily trust you with my secret, because I greatly need your assistance. After returning from England, the first months were spent in the enjoyment of my liberty and my library; and you will not be surprised that I should have renewed my familiar acquaintance with the Greek authors, and vowed to consecrate to them daily a portion of my leisure. I pass over in silence the sad hours employed in the care of my friend, and in lamentation for his loss.

* This letter, without any address to it, was found with the manuscript of the Antiquities of the House of Brunswick: there can be little doubt of its being the copy of a letter to M. Langer, Librarian to the Ducal Library of Wolfenbuttel; and it is here inserted as relating to them.

When the agitation of my mind abated, I endeavoured to find out for myself some occupation more interesting and more invigorating than mere reading can afford. But the remembrance of a servitude of twenty years frightened me from again engaging in a long undertaking, which I might probably never finish. It would be better, I thought, to select from the historical monuments of all ages, and all nations, such subjects as might be treated separately, both agreeably to their own nature, as well as to my taste. When these little works, which might be entitled Historical Excursions, amounted to a volume, I would offer it to the public; and the present might be repeated, until either the public or myself were tired; for as each volume would be complete in itself, no continuation would be requisite; and instead of being obliged to follow, like the stagecoach, the high road, I would expatiate at large in the field of history, stopping to admire every beautiful prospect that opened to my view. One inconvenience, indeed, attends this design. An important subject grows and expands with the labour bestowed on it. I might thus be carried beyond my prescribed bounds; but I should be carried gently, without foresight and without constraint.

This suspicion was justified in my first excursion, the subject of which will explain the reason why I was so earnest to procure the Origines Guelficæ. In my History, I had given an account of two illustrious marriages; the first, of the son of Azo, Marquis of Este, with the daughter of Robert Guiscard; and the second, of a princess of Brunswick with the Greek emperor. The first view of the antiquity and grandeur of the house of Brunswick excited my curiosity, and made me think that the two nations, whom I esteem the most, might be entertained by the history of a family, which sprung from the one, and reigns over the other. But my researches showed me not only the beauty, but the extent and difficulty of my subject. Muratori and Leibnitz have sufficiently explained the origin of the marquises of Liguria, and perhaps of Tuscany: I am well acquainted with the history and monuments of Italy during the middle ages; and I am not satisfied with what I have already written concerning that branch of the family of Este, which continued to reside in its hereditary possessions. I am not unacquainted with the ancient Guelphs, nor incapable of giving an account of the power and downfall of their heirs, the dukes of Bavaria and Saxony. The succession of the house of Brunswick to the crown of Great Britain will doubtless form the most interesting part of my narrative; but the authors on this subject are in English; and it would be unpardonable in a Briton not to have studied the modern history and present constitution of his country. But there is an interval of four hundred and fifty years between the first Duke of Brunswick and the first elector of that family; and the design of my work compels me to follow in obscurity a rough and narrow path; where, by the division and subdivision of so many branches and so many territories, I shall be involved in the mazes of a genealogical labyrinth. The events, which are destitute of connexion as well as of splendour, are confined to a single province of Germany; and I must have reached

near the end of the period, before my subject will be enlivened by the reformation of religion, the war of thirty years, and the new power acquired by the electorate. As it is my purpose, rather to sketch memoirs than to write history, my narrative must proceed with rapidity; and contain rather results than facts-rather reflections than details; but you are aware how much particular knowledge is requisite for this general description, the author of which ought to be far more learned than his work. Unfortunately, this author resides at the distance of two hundred leagues from Saxony; he knows not the language, and has never made the history, of Germany his particular study. Thus remote from the sources of information, he can think of only one channel by which they may be made to flow into his library; which is, by finding in the country itself an accurate correspondent, an enlightened guide, in one word, an oracle, whom he may consult in every difficulty. Your learning and character, as well as your abilities and situation, singularly qualify you for gratifying my wishes; and should you point out to me a substitute equally well qualified with yourself, yet I could not have equal confidence in the assistance of a person unknown to me. I would tease you with questions, and new questions would often be suggested by your answers; I would request you to ransack your vast library, and to supply me with books, extracts, translations, and information of every kind, conducive to the undertaking. But I know not how far you are inclined to sacrifice your leisure and your favourite studies to a laborious correspondence, which promises neither fame nor pleasure. I flatter myself, you would do something to oblige me; you would do more for the honour of the family with which you are connected by your employment. But what title have I to suppose that any work of mine can contribute to its honour? I expect, sir, your answer; and request that it may be speedy and frank. Should you condescend to assist my labours, I will immediately send you some interrogatories. Your refusal, on the other hand, will make me lay aside the design, or at least oblige me to give it a new form. I venture, at the same time, to entreat that the subject of this letter may remain a profound secret. An indiscreet word would be repeated by an hundred mouths; and I should have the uneasiness of seeing in the foreign journals, and soon afterwards in the English newspapers, an account, and that, perhaps, an unfaithful one, of my literary projects, the secret of which I entrust to you alone.

CHAPTER I.-SECTION I.

AN English subject may be prompted, by a just and liberal curiosity, to investigate the origin and story of the house of Brunswick, which, after an alliance with the daughters of our kings, has been called by the voice of a free people to the legal inheritance of the crown. From George the First and his father, the first elector of

Hanover, we ascend, in a clear and regular series, to the first Duke of Brunswick and Lunenburgh, who received his investiture from Frederick the Second, about the middle of the thirteenth century. If these ample possessions had been the gift of the emperor to some adventurous soldier, to some faithful client, we might be content with the antiquity and lustre of a noble race, which had been enrolled nearly six hundred years among the princes of Germany. But our ideas are raised, and our prospect is opened, by the discovery that the first Duke of Brunswick was rather degraded than adorned by his new title, since it imposed the duties of feudal service on the free and patrimonial estate, which alone had been saved in the shipwreck of the more splendid fortunes of his house. His ancestors had been invested with the powerful duchies of Bavaria and Saxony, which extended far beyond their limits in modern geography: from the Baltic Sea, to the confines of Rome they were obeyed, or respected, or feared; in the quarrel of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, the former appellation was derived from the name of their progenitors in the female line. But the genuine masculine descent of the princes of Brunswick must be explored beyond the Alps: the venerable tree which has since overshadowed Germany and Britain, was planted in the Italian soil. As far as our sight can reach, we discern the first founders of the race in the marquises of Este, of Liguria, and perhaps of Tuscany. In the eleventh century, the primitive stem was divided into two branches; the elder migrated to the banks of the Danube and the Elbe; the younger more humbly adhered to the neighbourhood of the Adriatic: the dukes of Brunswick and the kings of Great Britain are the descendants of the first; the dukes of Ferrara and Modena were the offspring of the second.

This short review may explain and justify the three-fold division of these Memoirs, which appropriates a separate book to-I. The Italian Descent; II. The German Reign; and III. The British Succession of the House of Brunswick. The obscure interval, from the first duke to the first elector, will be connected on either side with the more splendid scenes of their ancient and modern history. The comparative date and dignity of their pedigree will be fixed by a fair parallel with the most illustrious families of Europe. Even the flowers of fiction so profusely scattered over the cradle of the princes of Este, disclose a remote and decreasing light, which is finally lost in the darkness of the fabulous age. But it will be prudent, before we listen to the rude or refined tales of invention, to erect a strong and substantial edifice of truth on the learned labours of Leibnitz and Muratori.

The genius and studies of Leibnitz have ranked his name with the first philosophic names of his age and country; but his reputation, perhaps, would be more pure and permanent, if he had not ambitiously grasped the whole circle of human science. As a theologian, he successively contended with the sceptics, who believe too little, and with papists, who believe too much, and with the heretics, who believe otherwise than is inculcated by the Lutheran confession