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sheds a pathetic light of its own upon the purely descriptive passages:

And this rude Cumner ground,

Its fir-topped Hurst, its farms, its quiet fields,

Here cam'st thou in thy jocund youthful time,

Here was thine height of strength, thy

golden prime,

And still the haunt beloved a virtue yields.

Shelley, too, in "Adonais," conceived of nature not as dull, dead matter, but as alive and animated by a quickening spirit which "with plastic stress sweeps through the dull, dense void." He did not, like Matthew Arnold, receive from her any healing or consoling power; rather he regarded her as the Mighty Mother who would take his uncompanioned spirit and make him feel "one with the

essence of the boundless world." It is this spirit of nature which Shelley, in ecstatic vision, feeling himself "remerging in the mighty whole," addresses as:

That Light whose smile kindles the
Universe,

That Beauty in which all things work
and move,

That Benediction which the eclipsing
Curse

Of birth can quench not, that sustain-
ing Love

Nor is this surprising when it is remembered how much more keenly Shelley sympathized with the sorrows of imaginary beings than with the pains and griefs of actual human life. Contrast, e.g., the brief expression of personal sorrow in these two lines from "Lycidas"

But, oh! the heavy change now thou are gone

Now thou art gone and never must re-
turn!

and in this line from "Thyrsis”—
They all are gone, and thou art gone as
well,

with the passionate outburst of Urania
over Adonais in the following stanza:-

Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;
Kiss me so long as but a kiss may live;
And in my heartless breast and burning
brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts
else survive,

With food of saddest memory kept alive.

The pastoral and mythological framework in which "Lycidas" is set is open to objection on the score of incongruity -an objection which applies with less force in the case of "Adonais" and "Thyrsis," though the form of these two elegies is also to a large extent

Which through the web of being blindly conventional.

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Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

The fire for which all thirst-now beams on me,

Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

And yet it must be

allowed that this indirect method of handling the theme is not without its advantages; for the loss of those distinguished by supreme gifts of heart and mind is not merely a private loss, but a loss to the world at large, and not for the moment only, but for all time; and the poet, by investing his subject in a mythological and pastoral

There is one point in which Shelley disguise, is keeping inviolate the sanc

stands in remarkable contrast to the other two poets. In spite of the fact that no such intimacy ever existed between Keats and himself as existed between Milton and King, or between Arnold and Clough, "Adonais" is more passionate in its expression of grief than either "Lycidas" or "Thyrsis."

tuary of private sorrow, whilst at the same time he is handing down to posterity an affecting memorial of a life which died "on the promise of the fruit," or just at the moment when the maturity of its powers might lead us to look for still greater achievements.

CHARLES FISHER.

From The Nineteenth Century.

NEW LETTERS OF EDWARD GIBBON. Edward Gibbon has hitherto been known to the world by his history, his autobiography, and a selection from his letters. In the stately style of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" every word has been weighed and measured for its appropriate place in the balanced period. His autobiography is an elaborate composition, written and rewritten to satisfy a fastidious taste, and finally put together by Lord Sheffield and Lady Maria Holroyd from the different drafts which he left behind him. His letters have been carefully selected, edited, and arranged, in order to show him in the light which his friend and executor thought most becoming to the dignity of a great historian. Everywhere it is Gibbon dressed for effect; the natural man behind is practically unknown. It is Gibbon "the fine gentleman," as he appeared when equipped for Boodle's Masquerade at the Pantheon, in “a fine Velvet Coat, with ruffles of My Lady's chusing," and in a "sincerely pretty Wastecoat" sent him by his stepmother.

But Gibbon is one of the greatest names in our prose literature, and what the world wants is to see the man in his unguarded moments, when he is most true to himself; to know him as he was known to his valet Caplen, or his housekeeper Mrs. Ford; to catch him in some natural attitude, as when he forgot the presence of the princesses at Turin, and "grew so very free and easy, that I drew my snufbox, rapped it, took snuff twice (a crime never known before in the presence-chamber), and continued my discourse in my usual attitude of my body bent forwards, and my forefinger stretched out." This autumn the world will have the opportunity of learning something of the real Gibbon. A mass of his letters will be published, most of which have never before been printed, ranging over a variety of subjects, and touching upon the social gossip of the day, his literary pursuits, his friendships, tastes, and domestic affairs, his parliamentary

career, and his political opinions. The letters cover the period from 1753 to 1794. They begin with the time when, as a boy of sixteen, he had become a Roman Catholic, had left Oxford, and was sent to Lausanne to be placed under the care of Pastor Pavillard. They end with his death in London in 1794. Almost every detail of his life is laid bare, and the general result of the selfrevelation of his character will undoubtedly be to raise the popular estimate of Gibbon as a man.

Suzanne Curchod, afterwards Madame Necker, has left a picture of Gibbon as he was at the age of twenty. "Il a de beaux cheveux"- it must be remembered that, at the time she wrote, she was engaged to the youth whom she describes

la main jolie, et l'air d'une personne de condition. Sa physionomie est si spirituelle et singulière que je ne connois personne qui lui ressemble. Elle a tant d'expression qu'on y découvre presque toujours quelque chose de nouveau. Ses gestes sont si à propos, qu'ils ajoutent beaucoup à ce qu'il dit. En un mot, c'est une de ces physionomies si extraordinaires, qu'on ne se lasse presque point de l'examiner, de le peindre et de le contrefaire. Il connoît les égards que l'on doit aux femmes. Sa politesse est aisée sans être trop familière. Il danse mediocrement.

In this picture it would be difficult to recognize the unwieldy figure of the man who fell on his knees to propose to Madame de Montolieu, and could only rise with the assistance of a servant when he had received his refusal. Nor could M. de Bièvre, who was wont to say that he took his daily exercise by walking three times round M. Gibbon, have imagined that the corpulent critic of Christian dogma was ever "the thin little figure with a large head," who astonished M. Pavillard by "disputing' and urging with the utmost ability all the best arguments that had ever been used in favor of popery."

Gibbon did not long remain a Roman Catholic. The second letter in the forthcoming collection describes his re-conversion. It is amusing to find

that he was sufficiently a boy to practise the ingenuous stratagems of artless youth, and to base on the good news of his return to Protestantism an appeal to the generosity of his relations. The letter dated February, 1755, is addressed to this maternal aunt, Miss Catherine Porten, the "Aunt Kitty" who in his childhood supplied the place of his mother. The first part, which has been already printed, states that he is "now a good Protestant," and in stilted language remarks on the difficulty of a Church of England man resolving on "Communion with Presbyterians." The second part, which is new, confesses in a curious jargon of English and French his loss of one hundred and ten guineas at faro. In his despair he bought a horse from the rook who had plucked him, and set out to ride to England to raise the money. He had only reached Geneva when his tutor recaptured him and brought him back to Lausanne. Would Miss Porten lend him the money? His aunt refused to pay his debt of honor, and the letter is indorsed by his stepmother, Mrs. Gibbon, with the note: "Pray remember this letter was not addressed to his mother-in-law (sic), but his aunt, an old cat as she was to refuse his request."

Aunt Kitty's refusal did not, however, impair her nephew's affection. In almost the next letter he tells her, with evident delight, that the bird of prey by whom he had been plucked had fallen into the hands of the "famous Mr. Taff" at Paris, and had been stripped of 8,2001. This is, in all probability, the Mr. Taaffe who, four years before, had made himself notorious at Paris. With his friends Edward Wortley Montagu and Lord Southwell he invited to his rooms one Abraham Payba, a Jew money-lender, made him drunk, and in less than an hour won from him eight hundred louis d'or. Payba paid his debt with bills which he took care should be dishonored. Finding themselves outwitted, Taaffe and Wortley Montagu broke into his house and helped themselves to a much larger sum in cash and jewellery. For the robbery VOL. XI. 547

LIVING AGE.

they were imprisoned for three months in the Grand Châtelet.

For five years (1753-58) Gibbon lived at Lausanne. Here he pursued the literary studies which bore fruit in his "Essai sur l'étude de la Littérature," published in French in 1761. He joined too in the social amusements of the town, and in philandering with the young girls who call themselves "La Société du Printemps," or were associated in the "Académie de la Poudrière." So long as he was in love with the multitude he was safe; but at these social gatherings he met Suzanne Curchod, the only child of the pastor of Crassy. In his unpublished journal for June, 1757, occurs the entry: "I saw Mademoiselle Curchod; Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori." The following lines, quoted from some indifferent verses addressed by him to the object of his worship, expand the idea of the Latin line:

Tôt ou tard il faut aimer,
C'est en vain qu'on façonne;
Tout fléchit sous l'amour,
Il n'exempte personne,

Car Gib. a succombé en ce jour
Aux attraits d'une beauté,

Qui parmi les douceurs d'un tranquille silence

Reposait sur un fauteuil, etc.

was

The affection of Mademoiselle Curchod was deeply engaged, and he sufficiently in love to implore her to marry him without waiting for his father's sanction. But his passion seems always to have had the exaggeration of unreality, for Julie von Bondeli, the friend of Rousseau and of Wieland, describes him as waylaying the country people on their way to or from Lausanne, and demanding, at the point of a naked dagger, whether there existed a more adorable creature than Suzanne Curchod.

In April, 1758, Gibbon, engaged to be married to Mademoiselle Curchod, left Lausanne to return to England. The Seven Years' War, which, as Horace Walpole says, "reaches from Muscovy to Alsace and from Madras to California," rendered all roads more or less

impracticable, and Gibbon tells his father that he shall travel as "a Swiss officer," with "Dutch regimentals and a passport from the Canton of Berne. I am pretty sure," he adds, "that my tongue won't betray me." He had been in England two months when he wrote to his aunt, Miss Hester Gibbon, a letter which is interesting from the foretaste which it affords of the future historian's style, a style that is strikingly contrasted with the ease of his ordinary correspondence. Miss Hester Gibbon, it should be said, had taken William Law, the author of the "Serious Call," for her spiritual adviser and almoner, and supported by her charities various educational and philanthropic institutions which Law administered at King's Cliff in Northamptonshire. "Though the public voice," writes her nephew and natural heir in July, 1758,

had long since accustomed me to think myself honored in calling Mrs. Gibbon my aunt, yet I never enjoyed the happiness of living near her, and of instructing myself not less by her example than by her precepts. Your piety, madam, has engaged you to prefer a retreat to the world. Errors, justifiable only in their principle, forced my father to give me a foreign education. Fully disabused of the unhappy ideas I had taken up, and at last restored to myself, I am happy in the affection of the tenderest of fathers. May I not hope, madam, to see my felicity compleat by the acquisition of your esteem and friendship? Duty and inclination engage me equally to solicit them, all my endeavors shall tend to deserve them, and with Mrs. Gibbon I know that to deserve is to obtain.

Gibbon's mode of life would not perhaps have satisfied Miss Hester Gibbon. He had intended to pass his winters in London, and his summers with his father and stepmother at Beriton, near Petersfield in Hampshire. The first winter after his return from Lausanne was spent, according to this plan, in London, where he was negotiating the publication of his "Essai sur l'étude de la Littérature." He was without acquaintances in the fashionable world, though it was, even at this time, his

ambition to be treated as a man of fashion. His few friends were chiefly literary men, whom he knew through David Mallet. The coffee-house which he frequented was the Smyrna in Pall Mall, the haunt of writers, and still tenanted by the shades of "The Spectator" and "The Tatler." He belonged to no club, and lodged over a "linnen draper's" in New Bond Street, where he had "a very good first floor dining-room, bed-chamber, and light closet, with many conveniences, for a guinea and a half." His "very handsome chair" cost him twenty-seven shillings. His one fashionable acquaintance was Lady Hervey, the "beautiful Molly Lepel" of the Hanoverian Court in the early quarter of the century, the widow of the "Sporus" of Pope and the Boswell of Queen Caroline and George the Second, and the mother of three successive earls of Bristol.

as

His plans for the summer were disturbed by the calling out of the militia a permanent force. The South Battalion of the Hampshire Militia, which he joined as captain, and of which he ultimately became colonel, was kept continuously "under arms, in constant pay and duty," from June, 1759, to December, 1762. No stranger position could be imagined for the future historian. Francis Osbaldeston himself was not more out of his element among his cock-fighting, foxhunting, horse-couping cousins than was Gibbon in the society in which he was compelled to live. In his unpublished diary he thus describes his brother officers: "no manners, no conversation, they were only a set of fellows all whose behavior was low, and most of whose characters were despicable." The sarcastic lines of Dryden might have been the motto of the battalion:

Of seeming arms they make a short es

say;

Then hasten to be drunk-the business of

the day.

His diary is a curious mixture of criticism of Greek and Latin authors,

analyses of the books which he read, reflections on historical characters, excursuses on Greek particles, and of such entries as the following:

August 22, 1765.-Last night Captain Perkins led us into an intemperance we have not known for some time past. I could do nothing this morning but spew. I scarce wonder at the Confessor who enjoined getting drunk as a penance.

August 28, 1762.-To-day Sir Thomas [Worsley, the colonel of the battalion] came to us to dinner. Pleased to see him, we kept bumperizing till after rollcalling, Sir Thomas assuring us every fresh bottle how infinitely soberer he was grown.

September 29, 1762.-We drank a vast deal too much wine to-day, and had a most disagreeable proof of the pernicious consequences of it. I quarrelled when I was drunk with my good friend Harrison (the Lord knows for what), and had not some of the company been sober, it might have been a very serious affair.

Yet Gibbon had the good sense to see that his military training was an advantage to him. If it initiated him into one of the vices of the age, it also taught the raw youth, "quiet, retired, somewhat reserved" as he describes himself, to hold his own in the world. He agreed with Dr. Johnson in thinking that "a camp, however familiarly we may speak of it, is one of the great scenes of human life," and, from his own experience, he might have said with Lord Chesterfield that "Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in."

In the summer of 1762 the Seven Years' War began to draw to an end. Peace was in the air. Gibbon was preparing for the Grand Tour, on which his heart had long been set. His first step was to break off his engagement with Mademoiselle Curchod, for part of his plan was a visit to Lausanne. An attempt has been recently made to show that he behaved badly towards the girl whose affection he had won. Probably there were faults on both sides. He had heard from his friend M. d'Eyverdun that Mademoiselle Curchod had been inconstant, and there

is no reason to suppose that he did not believe the report. When he reached Lausanne he received a letter from her in which she said that she had never ceased to love him. He thus comments upon it in his unpublished diary:

J'ai reçu une lettre des moins attendues. C'étoit de Mademoiselle C. Fille dangereuse et artificielle! Elle fait une apologie de sa conduite depuis le premier moment qu'elle m'a connû, sa constance pour moi, son mepris de M. de Montplaisir, et la fidelité delicate et soutenue qu'elle a cru voir dans la lettre oû je lui annoncois qu'il n'y avoit plus d'espérance. Les voyages à Lausanne, les adorations qu'elle y a eû, et la complaisance avec laquelle elle les a ecouté formoient l'article le plus difficile à justifier. Ni d'Eyverdun (dit elle), ni personne, n'ont effacé pendant un moment mon image de son cœur. Elle s'amusoit à Lausanne sans y attacher. Je le veux. Mais ces amusements la convainquent toujours de la dissimulation la plus odieuse, et, si l'infidelité est quelquefois une foiblesse, la duplicité est toujours un vice. Cette affaire singulière en toutes ses parties m'a été très utile; elle m'a ouvert les yeux sur le caractère des femmes et elle me servira longtemps de preservatif contre les seductions de l'amour.

In January, 1763, Gibbon left England for the Continent. His letters are not mere topographical descriptions, but are full of interest from their notes on men and things. In the eighteenth century we were almost continuously at war with France; yet we were then as popular with our avowed enemies as we are now disliked by our so-called friends.

The

What Cromwell wished [he writes from Paris] is now literally the case. name of Englishman inspires as great an idea at Paris as that of Roman could at Carthage after the defeat of Hannibal, Indeed, the French are almost excessive. From being very unjustly esteemed a set of pirates and Barbarians, we are now, by a more agreeable injustice, looked upon as a nation of Philosophers and Patriots. His own position at Paris is interesting. On the score of his "Essai," which in England was ignored, he was received

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