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Memoirs of My Life and Writings
Truth, naked unblushing truth, the first virtue of more serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative.
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First published January 1, 1796
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About the author
Edward Gibbon
1,998 books602 followersEdward Gibbon (8 May 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open criticism of organised religion.
Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, and joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.
After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."
Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784; the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:
It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th). Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Smith remarked that Gibbon's triumph had positioned him "at the very head of [Europe's] literary tribe."
Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was by no means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, and joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. And, perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing.
After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately £1,000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years."
Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784; the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:
It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th). Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Smith remarked that Gibbon's triumph had positioned him "at the very head of [Europe's] literary tribe."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
June 13, 2020
Gibbon spent twenty years writing his gargantuan history of Rome; concision is famously not among his strong points. One might suspect him of drawing things out a little, especially when he approaches his autobiography with phrases like this:
So far, we note, the experiences of the great historian have not diverged markedly from anyone else's. But then, the pleasure of these memoirs is primarily to be found in the author's prose style rather than in his lively anecdotes of Georgian life, which to be honest are thin on the ground here. Gibbon's was essentially an interior life. In the heart of the world's biggest city, he mostly disdains ‘the daily round from the tavern to the play, from the play to the coffee-house, from the coffee-house to the bagnio’, preferring the company of Pliny and Virgil. ‘While coaches were rattling through Bond Street,’ he remembers contentedly, ‘I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books.’
London, and England generally, were anyway not central to his life. His formative late-teenage years were spent in Lausanne, whither he retired after a brief parliamentary career and where he finally finished his magnum opus. Ironically (to me), this was mainly because he could live so much more cheaply in Switzerland; as someone else who moved from London to Switzerland, I could only grit my teeth at this and reflect on how comprehensively things have changed. Nowadays, a Swiss farmer might well be tempted to sell up and go live like a king in Knightsbridge.
Still, his descriptions of some occasional travels around Switzerland were fascinating to me. I was delighted to see him pop over to Einsiedeln, where I used to take the kids for a Sunday pizza and a walk round the abbey, and where Gibbon was outraged to see a ‘profuse ostentation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe’, characterising the abbey as a ‘lively naked image of superstition’. He is enjoyably critical of all kinds of religion (following Montesquieu in treating it as a matter of history rather than theology), though he's not blind to the beauty of its art and architecture: ‘the Catholic superstition, which is always the enemy of reason, is often the parent of taste,’ he judges.
On his family life – despite that portentous quote about his birth – he is surprisingly circumspect. Then again, every one of his six siblings died in infancy, which was not unusual back then. His mother also bought the farm when he was a child; with his father he had a slightly tense, but eventually friendly relationship. His comments on Gibbon, Senior's death are rather remarkable. ‘The tears of a son are seldom lasting,’ he says:
I suppose this may be true, but it's an unusual sentiment to see put into words. The way Gibbon puts things into words is indeed always an education, if not always a total joy. Occasionally – as he recognises – his prose threatens to degenerate into ‘verbose and turgid declamation’. But at its best, his style seesaws exquisitely between perfectly weighted antitheses (‘such marks of civility and kindness as gratitude will not suffer me to forget, and modesty will not allow me to enumerate’; ‘the zeal of my religious was fortified by the malice of my political enemies’) which in my head I thought of as chiastic, although, checking a dictionary, I see that they aren't quite. But these cadenced periods have a beautifully rhythmic, almost hypnotic quality which makes him a pleasure – if a slow one – to read.
Animating this formidable prose style is a mood distinguished by its general gloom. The effect reminded me a lot of Sir Thomas Browne (whom I adore). Near the end, when you might expect him to be building to an upbeat conclusion, Gibbon is as lugubrious as ever: ‘The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful,’ he chirrups. They might not give you a lot of information about his age or his environment, but his memoirs certainly give you plenty of examples of Gibbon's stylistic mastery. And that is reason enough to immerse yourself in them, with suitably sombre relish.
Decency and ignorance cast a veil over the mystery of generation, but I may relate that after floating nine months in a liquid element I was painfully transported into the vital air.
So far, we note, the experiences of the great historian have not diverged markedly from anyone else's. But then, the pleasure of these memoirs is primarily to be found in the author's prose style rather than in his lively anecdotes of Georgian life, which to be honest are thin on the ground here. Gibbon's was essentially an interior life. In the heart of the world's biggest city, he mostly disdains ‘the daily round from the tavern to the play, from the play to the coffee-house, from the coffee-house to the bagnio’, preferring the company of Pliny and Virgil. ‘While coaches were rattling through Bond Street,’ he remembers contentedly, ‘I have passed many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books.’
London, and England generally, were anyway not central to his life. His formative late-teenage years were spent in Lausanne, whither he retired after a brief parliamentary career and where he finally finished his magnum opus. Ironically (to me), this was mainly because he could live so much more cheaply in Switzerland; as someone else who moved from London to Switzerland, I could only grit my teeth at this and reflect on how comprehensively things have changed. Nowadays, a Swiss farmer might well be tempted to sell up and go live like a king in Knightsbridge.
Still, his descriptions of some occasional travels around Switzerland were fascinating to me. I was delighted to see him pop over to Einsiedeln, where I used to take the kids for a Sunday pizza and a walk round the abbey, and where Gibbon was outraged to see a ‘profuse ostentation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe’, characterising the abbey as a ‘lively naked image of superstition’. He is enjoyably critical of all kinds of religion (following Montesquieu in treating it as a matter of history rather than theology), though he's not blind to the beauty of its art and architecture: ‘the Catholic superstition, which is always the enemy of reason, is often the parent of taste,’ he judges.
On his family life – despite that portentous quote about his birth – he is surprisingly circumspect. Then again, every one of his six siblings died in infancy, which was not unusual back then. His mother also bought the farm when he was a child; with his father he had a slightly tense, but eventually friendly relationship. His comments on Gibbon, Senior's death are rather remarkable. ‘The tears of a son are seldom lasting,’ he says:
Few, perhaps, are the children who, after the expiration of some months or years, would sincerely rejoice in the resurrection of their parents…
I suppose this may be true, but it's an unusual sentiment to see put into words. The way Gibbon puts things into words is indeed always an education, if not always a total joy. Occasionally – as he recognises – his prose threatens to degenerate into ‘verbose and turgid declamation’. But at its best, his style seesaws exquisitely between perfectly weighted antitheses (‘such marks of civility and kindness as gratitude will not suffer me to forget, and modesty will not allow me to enumerate’; ‘the zeal of my religious was fortified by the malice of my political enemies’) which in my head I thought of as chiastic, although, checking a dictionary, I see that they aren't quite. But these cadenced periods have a beautifully rhythmic, almost hypnotic quality which makes him a pleasure – if a slow one – to read.
Animating this formidable prose style is a mood distinguished by its general gloom. The effect reminded me a lot of Sir Thomas Browne (whom I adore). Near the end, when you might expect him to be building to an upbeat conclusion, Gibbon is as lugubrious as ever: ‘The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful,’ he chirrups. They might not give you a lot of information about his age or his environment, but his memoirs certainly give you plenty of examples of Gibbon's stylistic mastery. And that is reason enough to immerse yourself in them, with suitably sombre relish.
May 16, 2016
By this point, I am much too enamored of Mr. Gibbon to be an impartial judge. I read his work with an almost religious awe. Indeed, Gibbon’s temper is almost that of a sage: not in his kindness or goodness, but in his calm curiosity.
It is a truism of psychology that negative experiences make more lasting impressions than positive ones; a man can remember perfectly the last fight with his wife, but not their last shared laugh. Thus, much daily cheerfulness is merely the result of a willful ignorance of the foul things in life.
Gibbon is, if not unique, then at least in a rare class of individuals who naturally savor the good things in life, and do not dwell on the bad. This magnificent ability allowed him to survey the wastes of human history—with all of its slaughters, persecutions, and injustices—without becoming dreary or pessimistic. This is not to say that he does not give the horrors of history their proper weight; perhaps even the opposite is true: he spends many hours slowly unraveling the threads of barbarity that are interwoven with the decline of the Roman Empire. This is to say that, through this ignominious tapestry, Gibbon can always see a golden thread, not far off, glinting prettily.
Perhaps one could summarize Gibbon’s life as the triumph of curiosity over adversity. Gibbon is insatiable; this book, his memoirs, quite often takes the form of a list of books that he read. Gibbon desired to know, and this desire spurred him to greater and greater heights of erudition. And because Gibbon was so fascinated by human life, in all of its shades and colors, he can find something to interest him in any situation: whether it be the personality quirk of a queen, or a technicality in an ancient legal code. Gibbon is perhaps the greatest testament to the value of cultivating curiosity; for, once the love of learning is instilled, the dull world of cruelty and corruption becomes a garden of delight.
I cannot help but think that Gibbon’s ability to find interest in any human endeavor is connected with his ability to describe any human endeavor interestingly. As I’ve often remarked, Gibbon is an incomparable writer; and it seems, from his cheerful, calm temper, that the way he wrote mirrored the way he thought. (One of the more charming things we learn about Mr. Gibbon from these memoirs is that he composed every paragraph in his head before writing it down.) To see the world through Gibbon’s eyes is to see the world through Gibbon’s prose; and through that lens, every square inch of earth is full of beauty.
It is a truism of psychology that negative experiences make more lasting impressions than positive ones; a man can remember perfectly the last fight with his wife, but not their last shared laugh. Thus, much daily cheerfulness is merely the result of a willful ignorance of the foul things in life.
Gibbon is, if not unique, then at least in a rare class of individuals who naturally savor the good things in life, and do not dwell on the bad. This magnificent ability allowed him to survey the wastes of human history—with all of its slaughters, persecutions, and injustices—without becoming dreary or pessimistic. This is not to say that he does not give the horrors of history their proper weight; perhaps even the opposite is true: he spends many hours slowly unraveling the threads of barbarity that are interwoven with the decline of the Roman Empire. This is to say that, through this ignominious tapestry, Gibbon can always see a golden thread, not far off, glinting prettily.
Perhaps one could summarize Gibbon’s life as the triumph of curiosity over adversity. Gibbon is insatiable; this book, his memoirs, quite often takes the form of a list of books that he read. Gibbon desired to know, and this desire spurred him to greater and greater heights of erudition. And because Gibbon was so fascinated by human life, in all of its shades and colors, he can find something to interest him in any situation: whether it be the personality quirk of a queen, or a technicality in an ancient legal code. Gibbon is perhaps the greatest testament to the value of cultivating curiosity; for, once the love of learning is instilled, the dull world of cruelty and corruption becomes a garden of delight.
I cannot help but think that Gibbon’s ability to find interest in any human endeavor is connected with his ability to describe any human endeavor interestingly. As I’ve often remarked, Gibbon is an incomparable writer; and it seems, from his cheerful, calm temper, that the way he wrote mirrored the way he thought. (One of the more charming things we learn about Mr. Gibbon from these memoirs is that he composed every paragraph in his head before writing it down.) To see the world through Gibbon’s eyes is to see the world through Gibbon’s prose; and through that lens, every square inch of earth is full of beauty.
December 21, 2016
"The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful."
-- Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life
After Brexit and my country's own recent crazy election, I was tempted to once again read Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I first read all 3,589 pages of Gibbon's fantastic history over five years ago in 2011.
I decided to put off my re-read of Gibbon's masterpiece and instead read his 'Memoirs'. I am glad I did. This is one of those underrated, under-read masterpieces. It reminded me in many ways of Education of Henry Adams and other artistic memoirs. The first half could almost be considered a Künstlerroman, but Gibbon spends enough time in his maturity and decline to probably grow beyond that adolescent genre.
Anyway, the prose is beautiful, with many, many quotable passages and observations about such figures as Voltaire, Hume, etc.. Edward Gibbon, besides being an historian was also a member of parliament during the American Revolution, so those aspects of the memoir are also very interesting. Finally, his discussions about his great work is worth alone the price of admission. Anyone interested in 18th century history would love his candor, his wisdom, and his humor. In some ways his openness reminded me a bit of Montaigne and Pepys. If anything, now, this voyage into minor Gibbon has made me more likely to re-read Decline and Fall.
-- Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life
After Brexit and my country's own recent crazy election, I was tempted to once again read Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I first read all 3,589 pages of Gibbon's fantastic history over five years ago in 2011.
I decided to put off my re-read of Gibbon's masterpiece and instead read his 'Memoirs'. I am glad I did. This is one of those underrated, under-read masterpieces. It reminded me in many ways of Education of Henry Adams and other artistic memoirs. The first half could almost be considered a Künstlerroman, but Gibbon spends enough time in his maturity and decline to probably grow beyond that adolescent genre.
Anyway, the prose is beautiful, with many, many quotable passages and observations about such figures as Voltaire, Hume, etc.. Edward Gibbon, besides being an historian was also a member of parliament during the American Revolution, so those aspects of the memoir are also very interesting. Finally, his discussions about his great work is worth alone the price of admission. Anyone interested in 18th century history would love his candor, his wisdom, and his humor. In some ways his openness reminded me a bit of Montaigne and Pepys. If anything, now, this voyage into minor Gibbon has made me more likely to re-read Decline and Fall.
March 2, 2019
Re-reading this has primed me for some more Austen. For six months Persuasion has been a brick in my bedside to-read tower, and at no point of that time have I found myself in the mood to read the novel. I’m in the mood now. In the lofty ironic style with which he traced the dissipation of Roman dynasties and the dispersion of Roman power, Gibbon recounts the household anxieties – and squalors and disasters – of three generations of precarious English gentry. There’s a general background of mercantile humiliation, cruel entail, and mortgaged rural seats. Gibbon’s father was a well meaning but hopelessly improvident patriarch who squandered much of his inheritance paying down lifelong debts contracted in a few short seasons of fashionable metropolitan appearance. His mother was one of those wives constantly impregnated until she died of it. Gibbon had a ghost family of siblings dead in their first months. Six male infants were successively christened “Edward” in hope that one might survive to carry his father’s name; and one did. “My five brothers, whose names may be found in the Parish register of Putney, I shall not pretend to lament…”
This is one of the great literary testaments (it exists in a number of incomplete manuscripts, combined differently by various editors; I think I first read Sheffield’s, in a textbook; this one was made by Georges Bonnard). Through sickliness and neglect and straitened finances Gibbon struggled to get an education, and beyond that a classical command of Greek and Latin; through abortive experiments to find his subject, to master the sources, and to find a style that had “the proper tone, the peculiar mode of historical eloquence,” “the middle tone between a dull Chronicle and a Rhetorical reclamation”; to build his library, and fund his independence (“I might say with truth that I was never less alone than when by myself”). Love and marriage are breezily, and probably sincerely dismissed. Studious bachelorhood was his perfect state.
As English stylists I have always associated Gibbon and Santayana. And now as men. Gibbon’s book made me slightly pity Santayana, who from the evidence of Persons and Places (published in 1944 by Scribners whose editors arranged to have the manuscript smuggled out of Axis Rome, where the middle-aged Santayana had settled in 1912 “after the fashion of the ancient philosophers, often in exile, but always in sight of the marketplace and the theatre”) had a much longer journey through family obligation and wage-earning to “solitude and independence,” “philosophic freedom,” worldly hermeticism.
I laughed when Gibbon revisited Lausanne. As a youthfully rebellious Catholic convert he had been confined to and deprogrammed in the house of a Protestant pastor there. There he had also mastered French, prepared his first compositions, and cut a respectable figure among the locals. During his second sojourn, drinking habits picked up in the army during the Seven Year’s War
There is much more to say about this book but I am tired.
On France: But upon the whole I had reason to praise the national urbanity which from court has diffused its gentle influence to the shop, the cottage and the schools.
On the linguistic empire founded with England’s military-commercial one: The conquests of the language and literature are not confined to Europe alone; and the writer who succeeds in London is speedily read on the banks of the Delaware and the Ganges.
On cutting a figure: The miseries of a vacant life were never known to a man whose hours were insufficient for the inexhaustible pleasures of study. But I lamented, that at the proper age, I had not embraced the lucrative pursuits of law or of trade, the chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the Church…
On immortality: In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writing.
This is one of the great literary testaments (it exists in a number of incomplete manuscripts, combined differently by various editors; I think I first read Sheffield’s, in a textbook; this one was made by Georges Bonnard). Through sickliness and neglect and straitened finances Gibbon struggled to get an education, and beyond that a classical command of Greek and Latin; through abortive experiments to find his subject, to master the sources, and to find a style that had “the proper tone, the peculiar mode of historical eloquence,” “the middle tone between a dull Chronicle and a Rhetorical reclamation”; to build his library, and fund his independence (“I might say with truth that I was never less alone than when by myself”). Love and marriage are breezily, and probably sincerely dismissed. Studious bachelorhood was his perfect state.
Freedom is the first wish our heart; freedom is the first blessing of our nature: and, unless we bind ourselves with the voluntary chains of interest or passion, we advance in freedom as we advance in years.
As English stylists I have always associated Gibbon and Santayana. And now as men. Gibbon’s book made me slightly pity Santayana, who from the evidence of Persons and Places (published in 1944 by Scribners whose editors arranged to have the manuscript smuggled out of Axis Rome, where the middle-aged Santayana had settled in 1912 “after the fashion of the ancient philosophers, often in exile, but always in sight of the marketplace and the theatre”) had a much longer journey through family obligation and wage-earning to “solitude and independence,” “philosophic freedom,” worldly hermeticism.
I laughed when Gibbon revisited Lausanne. As a youthfully rebellious Catholic convert he had been confined to and deprogrammed in the house of a Protestant pastor there. There he had also mastered French, prepared his first compositions, and cut a respectable figure among the locals. During his second sojourn, drinking habits picked up in the army during the Seven Year’s War
betrayed me into some riotous acts of intemperance; and before my departure, I had deservedly forfeited the public opinion which had been acquired by the virtues of my better days.
There is much more to say about this book but I am tired.
On France: But upon the whole I had reason to praise the national urbanity which from court has diffused its gentle influence to the shop, the cottage and the schools.
On the linguistic empire founded with England’s military-commercial one: The conquests of the language and literature are not confined to Europe alone; and the writer who succeeds in London is speedily read on the banks of the Delaware and the Ganges.
On cutting a figure: The miseries of a vacant life were never known to a man whose hours were insufficient for the inexhaustible pleasures of study. But I lamented, that at the proper age, I had not embraced the lucrative pursuits of law or of trade, the chances of civil office or India adventure, or even the fat slumbers of the Church…
On immortality: In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writing.
January 22, 2021
This was a fascinating autobiography of the author of the epic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Can you imagine living in England, France, and Switzerland during the mid- to late-eighteenth century? This is what fascinated me most about the book because it was a time of massive change and the heart of what we now call the Enlightenment. I find his humour entertaining and appreciate his turns of phrase. He hung out with Voltaire, he participated in the House of Commons in the debates about the American colonies, and he was in Paris just a few years before the Bastille came crashing down. The insights into his own journey - including a conversion to Catholicism and a subsequent re-adoption of Anglicanism - help to explain some of the invective in Decline and Fall around the impact of Christianity on the internal corruption of the Roman Empire. It is a short book, but if you are a fan of Gibbon (and if you enjoy reading, this is sort tof an obligatory way station), you will find this book helpful in understanding that work's illustrious and loquacious author.
July 7, 2017
The next time someone asks me which writers I would ask to dinner, Gibbon will be on the list. Such delicious, sly wit, such erudition, such intellectual commitment combined with reserve about fate.
I think it would help to have read at least some of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire before reading this. His hapless childhood and minimal formal education make the late start and autodidactic foundation of his magnum opus all the more amazing if you have experienced the perfect prose and detailed explication of that eminent work. Also, if you’ve read the Decline, you know about his reasoning that the rise of Christianity partly underlay the fall of Rome. That means you will understand his remarks in the Life about the sympathetic warning from a dying David Hume to expect more criticism as he proceeds. (The Decline was published in several sequential volumes over a period of years.) You’ll also appreciate Gibbon's skirmishing with outraged clerics who can’t accept that there might have been collateral damage from the messy process of building religious institutions.
Easily the most intriguing aspect of the Life is Gibbon’s relationship with his father. The elder Gibbon indulged his son from an early age, supporting his studies, his travel, his book collecting. Gibbon declined all the usual occupations (law, etc.) and apparently never made a penny until he published volume one of the Decline at the age of almost forty. On the other hand, when Gibbon was in England (as opposed to traveling/living on the Continent) he apparently didn’t have sufficient funds (or paternal approval?) to live on his own, so late into manhood he was residing on the family’s rural property and spending many days serving along with his father in the local militia, for which I can imagine fewer writers less suited (maybe Proust and Pessoa? Actually, I think there is something about Proust having served very briefly in the military?). I think Gibbon acknowledged that these exercises did inform his understanding of Roman warfare, but the knowledge could have been gained in many fewer years.
The thing that makes you wonder is that Gibbon describes his father dying of worry over expenditures that far outstripped his resources. After sorting his father’s affairs, Gibbon declares that he is perfectly satisfied with himself for fulfilling his filial duties. Apparently no remorse over his own spending tens of thousands of familiy pounds on an idle life over the years.
I suppose I should research whether he had some money from his mother, but perversely I prefer to have a quibble. As much as Gibbon declares he was quite content to never marry, you have to wonder if he ever forgave his father for barring his marriage to a very bright young Swiss woman who he met when he was sent to Lausanne to reverse his dangerous self-conversion to Catholicism. (This toying with Catholicism in his youth makes his later arguments about the role of the churches in the Decline more interesting.)
Bad judgment on his father’s part, by the way; the young Swiss woman was impressive enough to later became Madame Necker, the wife of the finance minister of Louis XVI.
But, what an idle life to envy! He ends with a library of over 6,000 volumes, which you watch him build over his lifetime. He has indulged his intellectual interests wherever they led him. He has met Voltaire, and dined with many remarkable people. (Less to envy, perhaps: he served, silently, in Parliament for several terms, always a loyal Tory.)
A delight, perhaps most of all for the frequent grins as he skewers another target.
I think it would help to have read at least some of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire before reading this. His hapless childhood and minimal formal education make the late start and autodidactic foundation of his magnum opus all the more amazing if you have experienced the perfect prose and detailed explication of that eminent work. Also, if you’ve read the Decline, you know about his reasoning that the rise of Christianity partly underlay the fall of Rome. That means you will understand his remarks in the Life about the sympathetic warning from a dying David Hume to expect more criticism as he proceeds. (The Decline was published in several sequential volumes over a period of years.) You’ll also appreciate Gibbon's skirmishing with outraged clerics who can’t accept that there might have been collateral damage from the messy process of building religious institutions.
Easily the most intriguing aspect of the Life is Gibbon’s relationship with his father. The elder Gibbon indulged his son from an early age, supporting his studies, his travel, his book collecting. Gibbon declined all the usual occupations (law, etc.) and apparently never made a penny until he published volume one of the Decline at the age of almost forty. On the other hand, when Gibbon was in England (as opposed to traveling/living on the Continent) he apparently didn’t have sufficient funds (or paternal approval?) to live on his own, so late into manhood he was residing on the family’s rural property and spending many days serving along with his father in the local militia, for which I can imagine fewer writers less suited (maybe Proust and Pessoa? Actually, I think there is something about Proust having served very briefly in the military?). I think Gibbon acknowledged that these exercises did inform his understanding of Roman warfare, but the knowledge could have been gained in many fewer years.
The thing that makes you wonder is that Gibbon describes his father dying of worry over expenditures that far outstripped his resources. After sorting his father’s affairs, Gibbon declares that he is perfectly satisfied with himself for fulfilling his filial duties. Apparently no remorse over his own spending tens of thousands of familiy pounds on an idle life over the years.
I suppose I should research whether he had some money from his mother, but perversely I prefer to have a quibble. As much as Gibbon declares he was quite content to never marry, you have to wonder if he ever forgave his father for barring his marriage to a very bright young Swiss woman who he met when he was sent to Lausanne to reverse his dangerous self-conversion to Catholicism. (This toying with Catholicism in his youth makes his later arguments about the role of the churches in the Decline more interesting.)
Bad judgment on his father’s part, by the way; the young Swiss woman was impressive enough to later became Madame Necker, the wife of the finance minister of Louis XVI.
But, what an idle life to envy! He ends with a library of over 6,000 volumes, which you watch him build over his lifetime. He has indulged his intellectual interests wherever they led him. He has met Voltaire, and dined with many remarkable people. (Less to envy, perhaps: he served, silently, in Parliament for several terms, always a loyal Tory.)
A delight, perhaps most of all for the frequent grins as he skewers another target.
November 7, 2013
What's not to love about a man who writes this well, even when he's not really trying, and gets more upset about intellectual arguments than he does about a faltering love life? Nothing not to love. Gibbon's life wasn't particularly eventful, but this prose would drag me through even a contemporary, 'trauma' filled memoir. Along the way he takes moderate shots at the university system, olde time religione, and the French. A very pleasant way to spend a few hours, in short. Particularly worth reading if you like Anthony Powell, since Gibbon's tone here comes very close to Powell's in both A Dance and his own autobiography.
January 6, 2010
Edward Gibbon's short and entertaining autobiography, telling the story of his life and of how he wrote the Decline and Fall. The two chapters in which Gibbon describes the completion, publication and reception of the Decline and Fall ought to be essential reading for anyone planning a writing career. In particular, his reflections on completing the twenty-year project are poignant:
'It was on the night of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last line of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias . I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.'
There is lots more here as well: his political career (which was entirely the result of Gibbon's receipt of patronage - two different seats in parliament for pocket boroughs, and a junior government position which appears to have involved no actual duties in return for a large salary), his experience of Oxford (and some of his trenchant criticisms of the Oxbridge system remain valid), his reflections on living in Lausanne rather than London, his experience as an officer in the militia. Gibbon comes across as, of course, tremendously intelligent, but also rather modest with it: he is conscious of some of the flaws of Decline and Fall, but claims that his own satisfaction at a job well done is more important than public praise or condemnation, though at the same time praise is always welcome. He expresses the vague hope, in 1791, that people will still read his work in a hundred years' time. I was reading this aloud to Anne as she drove us home from England yesterday, and I found I had got something in my eye, also affecting my throat, as I got to the end:
'The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may possibly be my last: but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years.... The warm desires, the long expectations of youth, are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world: they are gradually damped by time and experience, by disappointment and possession; and after the middle season the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain; while the few who have climbed the summit aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writing.'
The Penguin edition is not the text made famous by Gibbon's friend Lord Sheffield, but a new (well, 1983) treatment of the manuscripts by Penguin's editor Betty Radice, who steps from behind the curtain and explains her methodology in an interesting introduction. Well worth getting.
'It was on the night of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last line of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias . I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.'
There is lots more here as well: his political career (which was entirely the result of Gibbon's receipt of patronage - two different seats in parliament for pocket boroughs, and a junior government position which appears to have involved no actual duties in return for a large salary), his experience of Oxford (and some of his trenchant criticisms of the Oxbridge system remain valid), his reflections on living in Lausanne rather than London, his experience as an officer in the militia. Gibbon comes across as, of course, tremendously intelligent, but also rather modest with it: he is conscious of some of the flaws of Decline and Fall, but claims that his own satisfaction at a job well done is more important than public praise or condemnation, though at the same time praise is always welcome. He expresses the vague hope, in 1791, that people will still read his work in a hundred years' time. I was reading this aloud to Anne as she drove us home from England yesterday, and I found I had got something in my eye, also affecting my throat, as I got to the end:
'The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may possibly be my last: but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years.... The warm desires, the long expectations of youth, are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world: they are gradually damped by time and experience, by disappointment and possession; and after the middle season the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain; while the few who have climbed the summit aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts, who sing Hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors, who presume the immortality of their name and writing.'
The Penguin edition is not the text made famous by Gibbon's friend Lord Sheffield, but a new (well, 1983) treatment of the manuscripts by Penguin's editor Betty Radice, who steps from behind the curtain and explains her methodology in an interesting introduction. Well worth getting.
May 31, 2025
Tanto la obra como la labor de edición son excelentes. La pluma de Gibbon es muy agradable, su perfil prosopográfico conecta con lo mejor de la ilustración inglesa y francesa, y era un erudito como pocos ha habido con una dedicación por el estudio admirable. No se debería leer nada suyo sin pasar antes por las memorias, esenciales para contextualizar el resto de su obra.
Antonio Lastra hace una labor exquisita, trabajando directamente sobre los manuscritos de Gibbon, reordenándolos adecuadamente y proporcionando un utilísimo aparato crítico, incluyendo tanto los originales como las traducciones cuando Gibbon inserta fragmentos en francés, griego o latín. La lectura se hace algo repetitiva al presentar las distintas versiones de las memorias separadamente en lugar del pastiche narrativamente más fluido de Lord Sheffield, pero merece la pena pasar por todas ellas tal como las dejó el autor, y los fragmentos recortados o reformulados en la edición original son convenientemente señalados.
Antonio Lastra hace una labor exquisita, trabajando directamente sobre los manuscritos de Gibbon, reordenándolos adecuadamente y proporcionando un utilísimo aparato crítico, incluyendo tanto los originales como las traducciones cuando Gibbon inserta fragmentos en francés, griego o latín. La lectura se hace algo repetitiva al presentar las distintas versiones de las memorias separadamente en lugar del pastiche narrativamente más fluido de Lord Sheffield, pero merece la pena pasar por todas ellas tal como las dejó el autor, y los fragmentos recortados o reformulados en la edición original son convenientemente señalados.
October 11, 2021
Gibbon’s eighteenth century life: Oxford, continental travel, politics, and, of course, the world of letters. Witty, curious, and wise.
January 17, 2014
Most famous line? Ordered by his father to abandon his One True Love, Gibbon says, "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." The World's Greatest Historian was not altogether like you and me. Of course that may help explain why we are not the World's Greatest Historians.
January 4, 2020
While I have yet to read much of Gibbon's masterpiece -- "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" -- a course I took recently from "The Teaching Company's" Great Courses prompted me to purchase a Kindle version of Gibbon's autobiography.
It is a candid peek into the world of a well-born and very gifted young man of the 18th century (the first volume of his multi-volume history on Rome was published in 1776, the same year as Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and, not so incidentally, the American Declaration of Independence).
I enjoyed my time "with" Gibbon as I read about his family, acquaintances, and various interesting travels and adventures. The man never married; his first and only love interest was squashed with paternal objection and he remained a life-long bachelor. Upon reflection, had he married and had children he probably would never have found the time necessary to read the vast number of books he devoured nor to then churn out the thousands of pages which his multi-volume history came to be.
The Reader's Digest magazine of several decades ago used to have a monthly feature called, if I remember correctly, "The Most Unforgettable Character [or Person] I've Ever Met." Gibbon, for me, is one of those.
While reading this book will acquaint you well with Gibbon, and give you a good idea of what good living and dining was like over two hundred years ago, because Gibbon LIVED in this world -- and not, like us reading over his shoulder, vicariously VISITING it -- he does not record in any detail many things we would like to know about: style of houses, clothing, popular literature, etc.
Nonetheless, for one who does read this, you will for a while be immersed in a world that no longer exists, and that makes for an interesting -- and wondrous -- journey.
It is a candid peek into the world of a well-born and very gifted young man of the 18th century (the first volume of his multi-volume history on Rome was published in 1776, the same year as Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" and, not so incidentally, the American Declaration of Independence).
I enjoyed my time "with" Gibbon as I read about his family, acquaintances, and various interesting travels and adventures. The man never married; his first and only love interest was squashed with paternal objection and he remained a life-long bachelor. Upon reflection, had he married and had children he probably would never have found the time necessary to read the vast number of books he devoured nor to then churn out the thousands of pages which his multi-volume history came to be.
The Reader's Digest magazine of several decades ago used to have a monthly feature called, if I remember correctly, "The Most Unforgettable Character [or Person] I've Ever Met." Gibbon, for me, is one of those.
While reading this book will acquaint you well with Gibbon, and give you a good idea of what good living and dining was like over two hundred years ago, because Gibbon LIVED in this world -- and not, like us reading over his shoulder, vicariously VISITING it -- he does not record in any detail many things we would like to know about: style of houses, clothing, popular literature, etc.
Nonetheless, for one who does read this, you will for a while be immersed in a world that no longer exists, and that makes for an interesting -- and wondrous -- journey.
January 11, 2021
Exquisite prose. Gibbon explains his method of writing (i.e., memorize each paragraph and then write it out). He explains his love for the Latin classics and his translation techniques.
September 22, 2019
My favorite section of the Memoirs (aside from those passages in which Gibbon enthusiastically catalogs his reading while in Lausanne (he speaks about having learned little to nothing at Oxford) is that in which he discusses his transformative pilgrimage to Rome. After extensive reading in the classical literature and history of Rome, Gibbon writes,
"And thus was I armed for my Italian journey.
I shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this tour, in which somewhat more than a year (April 1764-May 1765) was agreeably employed. Content with tracing my line of march, and slightly touching on my personal feelings, I shall waive the minute investigation of the scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and described by hundreds, of our modern travellers. ROME is the great object of our pilgrimage: and 1st, the journey; 2d, the residence; and 3d, the return; will form the most proper and perspicuous division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a light osier seat, in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. The architecture and government of Turin presented the same aspect of tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was regulated with decent and splendid oeconomy; and I was introduced to his Sardinian majesty Charles Emanuel, who, after the incomparable Frederic, held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo) among the kings of Europe. The size and populousness of Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of London: but the fancy is amused by a visit to the Boromean Islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far removed from the haunts of men. I was less amused by the marble palaces of Genoa, than by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in December 1746) from the Austrian tyranny; and I took a military survey of every scene of action within the inclosure of her double walls. My steps were detained at Parma and Modena, by the precious relics of the Farnese and Este collections: but, alas! the far greater part had been already transported, by inheritance or purchase, to Naples and Dresden. By the road of Bologna and the Apennine I at last reached Florence, where I reposed from June to September, during the heat of the summer months. In the Gallery, and especially in the Tribune, I first acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus of Medicis, that the chisel may dispute the pre-eminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or understood. At home I had taken some lessons of Italian on the spot I read, with a learned native, the classics of the Tuscan idiom: but the shortness of my time, and the use of the French language, prevented my acquiring any facility of speaking; and I was a silent spectator in the conversations of our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose most serious business was that of entertaining the English at his hospitable table. After leaving Florence, I compared the solitude of Pisa with the industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey through Sienna to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. 2. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation. My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience and taste; but, in the daily labour of eighteen weeks, the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued, till I was myself qualified, in a last review, to select and study the capital works of ancient and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of Naples, the most populous of cities, relative to its size, whose luxurious inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise and hell-fire. I was presented to the boy-king by our new envoy, Sir William Hamilton; who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the Secretary of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the naturalist and antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome; but I departed without kissing the feet of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), who neither possessed the wit of his predecessor Lambertini, nor the virtues of his successor Ganganelli. 3. In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again crossed the Apennine; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a fruitful and populous country, which could alone disprove the paradox of Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert. Without adopting the exclusive prejudice of the natives, I sincerely admire the paintings of the Bologna school. I hastened to escape from the sad solitude of Ferrara, which in the age of Caesar was still more desolate. The spectacle of Venice afforded some hours of astonishment; the university of Padua is a dying taper: but Verona still boasts her amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned by the classic architecture of Palladio: the road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montesquieu find them without inhabitants?) led me back to Milan, Turin, and the passage of Mount Cenis, where I again crossed the Alps in my way to Lyons.
The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general question; but the conclusion must be finally applied to the character and circumstances of each individual. With the education of boys, where or how they may pass over some juvenile years with the least mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. But after supposing the previous and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which can seize every mode of conveyance, and support, with a careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or the inn. The benefits of foreign travel will correspond with the degrees of these qualifications; but, in this sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire: and though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work."
"And thus was I armed for my Italian journey.
I shall advance with rapid brevity in the narrative of this tour, in which somewhat more than a year (April 1764-May 1765) was agreeably employed. Content with tracing my line of march, and slightly touching on my personal feelings, I shall waive the minute investigation of the scenes which have been viewed by thousands, and described by hundreds, of our modern travellers. ROME is the great object of our pilgrimage: and 1st, the journey; 2d, the residence; and 3d, the return; will form the most proper and perspicuous division. 1. I climbed Mount Cenis, and descended into the plain of Piedmont, not on the back of an elephant, but on a light osier seat, in the hands of the dextrous and intrepid chairmen of the Alps. The architecture and government of Turin presented the same aspect of tame and tiresome uniformity: but the court was regulated with decent and splendid oeconomy; and I was introduced to his Sardinian majesty Charles Emanuel, who, after the incomparable Frederic, held the second rank (proximus longo tamen intervallo) among the kings of Europe. The size and populousness of Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of London: but the fancy is amused by a visit to the Boromean Islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far removed from the haunts of men. I was less amused by the marble palaces of Genoa, than by the recent memorials of her deliverance (in December 1746) from the Austrian tyranny; and I took a military survey of every scene of action within the inclosure of her double walls. My steps were detained at Parma and Modena, by the precious relics of the Farnese and Este collections: but, alas! the far greater part had been already transported, by inheritance or purchase, to Naples and Dresden. By the road of Bologna and the Apennine I at last reached Florence, where I reposed from June to September, during the heat of the summer months. In the Gallery, and especially in the Tribune, I first acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus of Medicis, that the chisel may dispute the pre-eminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or understood. At home I had taken some lessons of Italian on the spot I read, with a learned native, the classics of the Tuscan idiom: but the shortness of my time, and the use of the French language, prevented my acquiring any facility of speaking; and I was a silent spectator in the conversations of our envoy, Sir Horace Mann, whose most serious business was that of entertaining the English at his hospitable table. After leaving Florence, I compared the solitude of Pisa with the industry of Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey through Sienna to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. 2. My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation. My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience and taste; but, in the daily labour of eighteen weeks, the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued, till I was myself qualified, in a last review, to select and study the capital works of ancient and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of Naples, the most populous of cities, relative to its size, whose luxurious inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise and hell-fire. I was presented to the boy-king by our new envoy, Sir William Hamilton; who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the Secretary of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the naturalist and antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time, the miracles of Rome; but I departed without kissing the feet of Rezzonico (Clement XIII.), who neither possessed the wit of his predecessor Lambertini, nor the virtues of his successor Ganganelli. 3. In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again crossed the Apennine; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a fruitful and populous country, which could alone disprove the paradox of Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert. Without adopting the exclusive prejudice of the natives, I sincerely admire the paintings of the Bologna school. I hastened to escape from the sad solitude of Ferrara, which in the age of Caesar was still more desolate. The spectacle of Venice afforded some hours of astonishment; the university of Padua is a dying taper: but Verona still boasts her amphitheatre, and his native Vicenza is adorned by the classic architecture of Palladio: the road of Lombardy and Piedmont (did Montesquieu find them without inhabitants?) led me back to Milan, Turin, and the passage of Mount Cenis, where I again crossed the Alps in my way to Lyons.
The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general question; but the conclusion must be finally applied to the character and circumstances of each individual. With the education of boys, where or how they may pass over some juvenile years with the least mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. But after supposing the previous and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which can seize every mode of conveyance, and support, with a careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or the inn. The benefits of foreign travel will correspond with the degrees of these qualifications; but, in this sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than of the empire: and though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work."
August 7, 2019
It is probably my fault. I wanted a low-effort introduction to Gibbon, and I got a low-effort Gibbon. Despite Churchill's praise, Gibbon just goes on and on. Here he is on his birth, which most writers would skip over, not having any interesting memories of it.
> Of these private and public scenes and of the first years of my own life, I must be indebted not to memory but to information… [Insert a page-long poem here] It is thus that the poet has animated his statue: the theologian must infuse a miraculous gift of science and language, the philosopher might allow more time for the gradual exercise of his new senses, but all would agree that the consciousness and memory of Adam might proceed in a regular series from the moment of his birth. Far different is the origin and progress of human nature, and I may confidently apply to myself the common history of the whole species. Decency and ignorance cast a veil over the mystery of generation, but I may relate that after floating nine months in a liquid element I was painfully transported into the vital air. Of a new-born infant it cannot be predicated 'he thinks, therefore he is'; it can only be affirmed 'he suffers, therefore he feels'. But in this imperfect state of existence I was still unconscious of myself and of the universe, my eyes were open without the power of vision, and, according to M. de Buffon, the rational soul, that secret and incomprehensible energy, did not manifest its presence till after the fortieth day. During the first year I was below the greatest part of the brute creation, and must inevitably have perished had I been abandoned to my own care. Three years at least had elapsed before I acquired our peculiar privileges, the facility of erect motion, and the intelligent use of articulate and discriminating sounds. Slow is the growth of the body; that of the mind is still slower: at the age of seven years I had not attained to one half of the strength and proportions of manhood; and could the mental powers be measured with the same accuracy, their deficiency would appear far more considerable.
And he keeps on going. As a memoir, it is hard to read because Gibbon assumes a close familiarity with the most minor of contemporary conflicts (he'll assume, for example, that you are aware of all the details and points of criticism of someone else's negative book review). There are very few other people in the book, but Gibbon goes on and on about money. Very revealing.
Still, as you read, it is hard not to be amused by Gibbon's writing particularities. He is obsessed with the passive voice. You cannot read more than a page without encountering no fewer than a half dozen double negatives.
> It is not my wish to deny how deeply I was interested in these Memoirs, of which I need not surely be ashamed
> The gratification of my desires (they were not immoderate) has been seldom disappointed by the want of money or credit
> By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school; but after the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a game at cards.
Gibbon was very much a scholar, and his enthusiasm for learning is infectious.
> After glancing my eye over the design and order of a new book, I suspended the perusal till I had finished the task of self-examination, till I had revolved in a solitary walk all that I knew or believed or had thought on the subject of the whole work, or of some particular chapter. I was then qualified to discern how much the author added to my original stock; and if I was sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was sometimes armed by the opposition of our ideas.
> After this long fast, the longest which I have ever known, I once more tasted at Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking; and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully’s philosophical works is still present to my memory.
> According to the scale of Switzerland I am a rich man; and I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes. My friends, more especially Lord Sheffield, kindly relieve me from the cares to which my taste and temper are most adverse: the economy of my house is settled without avarice or profusion; at stated periods all my bills are regularly paid, and in the course of my life, I have never been reduced to appear, either as plaintiff or defendant, in a court of justice. Shall I add that since the failure of my first wishes, I have never entertained any serious thoughts of a matrimonial connection?
> The warm desires, the long expectations of youth are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world. They are gradually damped by time and experience, by disappointment or possession; and after the middle season, the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain, while the few who have climbed the summit, aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts who sing hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors who presume the immortality of their name and writings.
> Of these private and public scenes and of the first years of my own life, I must be indebted not to memory but to information… [Insert a page-long poem here] It is thus that the poet has animated his statue: the theologian must infuse a miraculous gift of science and language, the philosopher might allow more time for the gradual exercise of his new senses, but all would agree that the consciousness and memory of Adam might proceed in a regular series from the moment of his birth. Far different is the origin and progress of human nature, and I may confidently apply to myself the common history of the whole species. Decency and ignorance cast a veil over the mystery of generation, but I may relate that after floating nine months in a liquid element I was painfully transported into the vital air. Of a new-born infant it cannot be predicated 'he thinks, therefore he is'; it can only be affirmed 'he suffers, therefore he feels'. But in this imperfect state of existence I was still unconscious of myself and of the universe, my eyes were open without the power of vision, and, according to M. de Buffon, the rational soul, that secret and incomprehensible energy, did not manifest its presence till after the fortieth day. During the first year I was below the greatest part of the brute creation, and must inevitably have perished had I been abandoned to my own care. Three years at least had elapsed before I acquired our peculiar privileges, the facility of erect motion, and the intelligent use of articulate and discriminating sounds. Slow is the growth of the body; that of the mind is still slower: at the age of seven years I had not attained to one half of the strength and proportions of manhood; and could the mental powers be measured with the same accuracy, their deficiency would appear far more considerable.
And he keeps on going. As a memoir, it is hard to read because Gibbon assumes a close familiarity with the most minor of contemporary conflicts (he'll assume, for example, that you are aware of all the details and points of criticism of someone else's negative book review). There are very few other people in the book, but Gibbon goes on and on about money. Very revealing.
Still, as you read, it is hard not to be amused by Gibbon's writing particularities. He is obsessed with the passive voice. You cannot read more than a page without encountering no fewer than a half dozen double negatives.
> It is not my wish to deny how deeply I was interested in these Memoirs, of which I need not surely be ashamed
> The gratification of my desires (they were not immoderate) has been seldom disappointed by the want of money or credit
> By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school; but after the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a game at cards.
Gibbon was very much a scholar, and his enthusiasm for learning is infectious.
> After glancing my eye over the design and order of a new book, I suspended the perusal till I had finished the task of self-examination, till I had revolved in a solitary walk all that I knew or believed or had thought on the subject of the whole work, or of some particular chapter. I was then qualified to discern how much the author added to my original stock; and if I was sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was sometimes armed by the opposition of our ideas.
> After this long fast, the longest which I have ever known, I once more tasted at Dover the pleasures of reading and thinking; and the hungry appetite with which I opened a volume of Tully’s philosophical works is still present to my memory.
> According to the scale of Switzerland I am a rich man; and I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes. My friends, more especially Lord Sheffield, kindly relieve me from the cares to which my taste and temper are most adverse: the economy of my house is settled without avarice or profusion; at stated periods all my bills are regularly paid, and in the course of my life, I have never been reduced to appear, either as plaintiff or defendant, in a court of justice. Shall I add that since the failure of my first wishes, I have never entertained any serious thoughts of a matrimonial connection?
> The warm desires, the long expectations of youth are founded on the ignorance of themselves and of the world. They are gradually damped by time and experience, by disappointment or possession; and after the middle season, the crowd must be content to remain at the foot of the mountain, while the few who have climbed the summit, aspire to descend or expect to fall. In old age, the consolation of hope is reserved for the tenderness of parents, who commence a new life in their children; the faith of enthusiasts who sing hallelujahs above the clouds; and the vanity of authors who presume the immortality of their name and writings.
May 4, 2014
This is a fine autobiography, and probably of some interest if you're reading Decline and Fall, since it sheds some interesting light on Gibbon's intellectual development and unique life story and how he came to write his masterpiece.
December 8, 2025
The story of a lonely man, disappointed in love but not literature, who went on to become the greatest historian in the English language. The teenage Edward hated Oxford University, a place of port, patronage and pompous professors, and instead found solace and strength in his library, "where I ran riot" among books. Like many self-taught literary men, Bernard Shaw for instance, Gibbon developed a life-long habit of distrusting academics and other experts. The fearlessness he displayed in debunking other historians is proof. Denied the love of his fiancee by an overbearing father who took from him the chance to marry, "I sighed like a lover, and obeyed like a son", Gibbon relocated to Switzerland where he came to admire the peace, prosperity and freedom of the Swiss, and wondered how the idea of liberty had been born in the West. That was the kindle for DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, which exhausted his life and ensured immortality. But, not just yet. He needed an epiphany first, and it came to him while visiting Rome, and one evening "listening to the friars at the Temple of Jupiter chant Vespers". That was the divine spark that led him to conceive of writing a history, first of the city then of the empire. What Gibbon wrote of Mohammed applies equally to himself, "conversation is necessary for understanding but genius is born of solitude". Oddly, Gibbon makes no mention of the two great friendships of his life, David Hume and Adam Smith. These Scotsmen reinforced the secular convictions that made their way into DECLINE AND FALL, perhaps the greatest historical polemic against Christianity. Gibbon must have read Hume's essay, "On Miracles", for in his history he scoffs at the credulity of those who believe in the descent from Adam, Noah's Ark and other hocus-pocus. Gibbon implored the historian to stick to material facts and to fear neither the gods nor the mob, a lesson well worth remembering today.
July 31, 2020
Here no doubt is a self-portrait in which many Goodreaders will find shades of themselves:
I never handled a gun, I seldom mounted an horse; and my philosophic walks were soon terminated by a shady bench where I was long detained by the sedentary amusement of reading or meditation. At home I occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment; the library on the same floor was soon considered as my peculiar domain; and I might say with truth that I was never less alone than when by myself.
I read and enjoyed this as a less intimidating sample of Gibbon's Augustan prose than his more famous historical work. At its best when Gibbon describes his academic development and the progress of his studies, but really one feels that more space should have been allowed for the description of his History -both in its periods of gestation and production - which as it is hardly occupies more pages than the tracing of the author's ancestors or his uneventful service in the Hampshire militia.
I never handled a gun, I seldom mounted an horse; and my philosophic walks were soon terminated by a shady bench where I was long detained by the sedentary amusement of reading or meditation. At home I occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment; the library on the same floor was soon considered as my peculiar domain; and I might say with truth that I was never less alone than when by myself.
I read and enjoyed this as a less intimidating sample of Gibbon's Augustan prose than his more famous historical work. At its best when Gibbon describes his academic development and the progress of his studies, but really one feels that more space should have been allowed for the description of his History -both in its periods of gestation and production - which as it is hardly occupies more pages than the tracing of the author's ancestors or his uneventful service in the Hampshire militia.
January 30, 2021
These memoirs provide a glimpse back at the gentleman scholar of the 18th Century. Gibbon, the author of one of the most famous works of history ever written, never married and lived on £300 a year from his family's estate. His historical research arose as the activity he felt best suited to constructively filling his time. While the memoirs give ample detail on Gibbon's early life, schooling, travels, and time spent in the militia, I wish they had talked more about the actual process of writing his six volume magnum opus (the latter three volumes dealing with the Eastern empire centered in Constantinople, which he had never set foot in). But, we cannot overly fault Gibbon for a finished product he never approved: the memoirs were stitched together after his death by a friend—Lord Sheffield—from six drafts found in the historian's papers.
December 17, 2019
Great writing. A good introduction or follow-up to The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Gibbon's memoir closes with this, which I interpret to be an explanation of why the years seem to go by faster and faster as we get older. "The proportion of a part to the whole is the only standard by which we can measure the length of our existence. At the age of 20, one year is a tenth, perhaps, of the time which has elapsed of our consciousness and memory. At the age of 50, 'tis no more than the fortieth, and this relative value continues to decrease 'til the last sands are shaken by the hand of death."
Too many other good quotes to record at this time.
Note to self: re-read while highlighting the Kindle version.
Gibbon's memoir closes with this, which I interpret to be an explanation of why the years seem to go by faster and faster as we get older. "The proportion of a part to the whole is the only standard by which we can measure the length of our existence. At the age of 20, one year is a tenth, perhaps, of the time which has elapsed of our consciousness and memory. At the age of 50, 'tis no more than the fortieth, and this relative value continues to decrease 'til the last sands are shaken by the hand of death."
Too many other good quotes to record at this time.
Note to self: re-read while highlighting the Kindle version.
March 24, 2018
Style is the image of character. - Pg. 1
We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers. - Pg. 2
Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. - Pg. 2
We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers. - Pg. 2
Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. - Pg. 2
February 6, 2021
“The pleasures of a town life, the daily round from the tavern to the play, from the play to the coffeehouse, from the coffeehouse to the bagnio are within the reach of every man who is regardless of his health, his money & his company.”
April 21, 2020
À re-lire.
June 25, 2021
A simple and unpretentious book, about a writer and historian extraordinary. His masterpiece “The decline and fall of the roman empire" is an absolute “must read”.
June 10, 2023
It's a strange thing to read the people he met and the events he lived through.
October 2, 2025
I read an abridged version of Gibbon's Roman Empire in 2022 while living in Rome. I view that book in the same way I view Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. I never knew Gibbon published Memoirs until I saw them at Galignani's bookstore in Paris in June 2025. Since I had many other things to read, it sat on my table for a few months before getting to it in September 2025. Beautiful writing. I would like to read it a second time since it is interesting and rather short.
February 12, 2014
The last third or so of this book was just wonderful. The first two thirds are taken up with family history and correcting the record about Gibbon's dalliance with Roman Catholicism. I found myself reading a few pages and then finding other things to do. But then he gets to his Roman history, backbenching in Parliament, and retirement to Lausanne, and the prose (which had been a delight throughout) finally had a reason for being.
This is not a book of great wisdom or even deep insight (into oneself or history or whatever). It puts Gibbon squarely into his own time, from his family's associations with Walpole to his own exchanges with Burke, Hume, and other Significant Men. Gibbon has some real snark for his critics and real praise for his friends, and when he concludes (spoiler!) that his life has been overwhelmingly fortunate, one realizes how great it is to read a memoir that isn't all complaint and victimhood and mere score-settling.
This is not a book of great wisdom or even deep insight (into oneself or history or whatever). It puts Gibbon squarely into his own time, from his family's associations with Walpole to his own exchanges with Burke, Hume, and other Significant Men. Gibbon has some real snark for his critics and real praise for his friends, and when he concludes (spoiler!) that his life has been overwhelmingly fortunate, one realizes how great it is to read a memoir that isn't all complaint and victimhood and mere score-settling.
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June 22, 2017One cannot ask for a greater inadvertent epilogue to the unabridged Decline & Fall. Though I planned to spend the day and evening reading this nice little navy blue Oxford hardcover without worrying about note taking or unleashing a distant maze of tabs concerning notes on notes on notes on notes, I could not help but transcribe five particular quotations into my Moroccan Book of Epigraphs. 'A time it was, and what a time it was...'
June 3, 2013
Remarkable person who was almost entirely self educated. Great insights into how to educate yourself in the Roman and Greek classics and how intellectuals in the neoclassical era interacted and developed.
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