Edward Gibbon - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Edward Gibbon

Portrait, oil on canvas, of Edward Gibbon by SirJoshua Reynolds (17231792)

Born 27 April 1737Putney, Surrey, England

Died 16 January 1794 (aged 56)London

Edward GibbonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Edward Gibbon (27 April 1737[notes 1] 16 January 1794)was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His mostimportant work, The History of the Decline and Fall of theRoman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776and 1788. The Decline and Fall is known for the quality andirony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its opencriticism of organised religion.[1]

Contents1 Early life: 173717522 Oxford, Lausanne, and a religious journey:175217583 Thwarted romance4 First fame and the grand tour: 175817655 The History of the Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire: 177617886 Later years: 178917947 Legacy8 Footnotes9 Monographs by Gibbon10 Other writings by Gibbon11 See also12 Notes13 References14 Further reading

14.1 Before 198514.2 Since 1985

15 External links

Early life: 17371752Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney,Surrey. He had six siblings: five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, alsonamed Edward, had lost all of his assets as a result of the South Sea Bubble stock market collapse in 1720, buteventually regained much of his wealth, so that Gibbon's father was able to inherit a substantial estate.[2]

As a youth, Gibbon's health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny child, neglected by myMother, starved by my nurse". At age nine, he was sent to Dr. Woddeson's school at Kingston upon Thames(now Kingston Grammar School), shortly after which his mother died. He then took up residence in theWestminster School boarding house, owned by his adored "Aunt Kitty", Catherine Porten. Soon after she died in1786, he remembered her as rescuing him from his mother's disdain, and imparting "the first rudiments of

Edward Gibbon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon

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knowledge, the first exercise of reason, and a taste for books which is still the pleasure and glory of my life".[3]By 1751, Gibbon's reading was already extensive and certainly pointed toward his future pursuits: LaurenceEchard's Roman History (1713), William Howel(l)'s An Institution of General History (168085), and several ofthe 65 volumes of the acclaimed Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time (17471768).[4]

Oxford, Lausanne, and a religious journey: 17521758Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health, at the age of 15 Gibbon was sent by his father toMagdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to thecollege atmosphere and later rued his 14 months there as the "most idle and unprofitable" of his life. Because hehimself says so in his autobiography, it used to be thought that his penchant for "theological controversy" (hisaunt's influence) fully bloomed when he came under the spell of the deist or rationalist theologian ConyersMiddleton (16831750), the author of Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers (1749). In that tract, Middletondenied the validity of such powers; Gibbon promptly objected, or so the argument used to run. The product ofthat disagreement, with some assistance from the work of Catholic Bishop Jacques-Bnigne Bossuet(16271704), and that of the Elizabethan Jesuit Robert Parsons (15461610), yielded the most memorable eventof his time at Oxford: his conversion to Roman Catholicism on 8 June 1753. He was further "corrupted" by the'free thinking' deism of the playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet;[5] and finally Gibbon's father,already "in despair," had had enough. David Womersley has shown, however, that Gibbon's claim to havingbeen converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely, and was introduced only into the final draft of the"Memoirs" in 179293.[6] Bowersock suggests that Gibbon fabricated the Middleton story retrospectively in hisanxiety about the impact of the French Revolution and Edmund Burke's claim that it was provoked by theFrench philosophes, so influential on Gibbon.

Within weeks of his conversion, the youngster was removed from Oxford and sent to live under the care andtutelage of Daniel Pavillard, Reformed pastor of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was here that he made one of hislife's two great friendships, that of Jacques Georges Deyverdun (the French language translator of Goethe's TheSorrows of Young Werther); the other being John Baker Holroyd (later Lord Sheffield). Just a year and a halflater, after his father threatened to disinherit him, on Christmas Day, 1754, he reconverted to Protestantism."The various articles of the Romish creed," he wrote, "disappeared like a dream".[7] He remained in Lausannefor five intellectually productive years, a period that greatly enriched Gibbon's already immense aptitude forscholarship and erudition: he read Latin literature; travelled throughout Switzerland studying its cantons'constitutions; and aggressively mined the works of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, PierreBayle, and Blaise Pascal.

Thwarted romanceHe also met the one romance in his life: the daughter of the pastor of Crassy, a young woman named SuzanneCurchod, who would later become the wife of Louis XVI's finance minister Jacques Necker, and the mother ofMadame de Stal. The two developed a warm affinity; Gibbon proceeded to propose marriage,[8] but ultimatelywedlock was out of the question, blocked both by his father's staunch disapproval and Curchod's equallystaunch reluctance to leave Switzerland. Gibbon returned to England in August 1758 to face his father. Therecould be no refusal of the elder's wishes. Gibbon put it this way: "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son."[9] Heproceeded to cut off all contact with Curchod, even as she vowed to wait for him. Their final emotional breakapparently came at Ferney, France in the spring of 1764, though they did see each other at least one more time ayear later.[10]


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Edward Gibbon, by HenryWalton (died 1813)

Portchester Castle came underGibbon's command for a brief periodwhile he was an officer in theHampshire militia.[11]

First fame and the grand tour: 17581765Upon his return to England, Gibbonpublished his first book, Essai sur l'tudede la Littrature in 1761, whichproduced an initial taste of celebrity anddistinguished him, in Paris at least, as aman of letters.[12] From 1759 to 1770,Gibbon served on active duty and inreserve with the South Hampshire militia,his deactivation in December 1762coinciding with the militia's dispersal atthe end of the Seven Years' War.[13] Thefollowing year he embarked on theGrand Tour (of continental Europe),which included a visit to Rome. In his autobiography Gibbon vividlyrecords his rapture when he finally neared "the great object of [my]

pilgrimage":

...at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions whichagitated 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 Tullyspoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost orenjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation.[14]

And it was here that Gibbon first conceived the idea of composing a history of the city, later extended to theentire empire, a moment known to history as the "Capitoline vision":[15]

It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol,while the barefooted fryars were singing Vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writingthe decline and fall of the City first started to my mind.[16]

Womersley (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 12) notes the existence of "good reasons" to doubtthe statement's accuracy. Elaborating, Pocock ("Classical History," #2) refers to it as a likely "creation ofmemory" or a "literary invention" seeing as how Gibbon, in his autobiography, claimed his journal dated thereminiscence to 15 October, when in fact the journal gives no date.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: 17761788Main article: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and after tending to the estate, which was byno means in good condition, there remained quite enough for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7Bentinck Street, independent of financial concerns. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but notwithout the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, joined the better socialclubs, 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 butprestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated a freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England.[17] And,


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Blue plaque to Gibbon on BentinckStreet, London

perhaps least productively in that same year, he was returned to theHouse of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention ofhis relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypalback-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of theWhig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position,perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of hiswriting.[18]

After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away thelabours of seven years," the first volume of what would become his life'smajor achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the readingpublic eagerly consumed three editions for which Gibbon was rewardedhandsomely: two-thirds of the profits amounting to approximately1,000.[19] Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His famewas 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 generalesteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784;[20] the final two were completed during a second Lausannesojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurelycomfort. 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, thatI wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. ... I will not dissemble thefirst 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 thatI had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might bethe future date of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.[21]

Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, publication having been delayed since March tocoincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th).[22] Mounting a bandwagon of praisefor 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 headof [Europe's] literary tribe."

Later years: 17891794The years following Gibbon's completion of The History were filled largely with sorrow and increasing physicaldiscomfort. He had returned to London in late 1787 to oversee the publication process alongside Lord Sheffield.With that accomplished, in 1789 it was back to Lausanne only to learn of and be "deeply affected" by the deathof Deyverdun, who had willed Gibbon his home, La Grotte. He resided there with little commotion, took in thelocal society, received a visit from Sheffield in 1791, and "shared the common abhorrence" of the FrenchRevolution.

In a letter to Lord Sheffield on 5 February 1791, Gibbon praised Burke's Reflections on the Revolution inFrance: "Burke's book is a most admirable medicine against the French disease, which has made too muchprogress even in this happy country. I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can


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even forgive his superstition...The French spread so many lyes about the sentiments of the English nation, that Iwish the most considerably men of all parties and descriptions would join in some public act declaringthemselves satisfied with, and resolved to support, our present constitution".[23]

In 1793, word came of Lady Sheffield's death; Gibbon immediately quit Lausanne and set sail to comfort agrieving but composed Sheffield. His health began to fail critically in December, and at the turn of the new year,he was on his last legs.

Gibbon is believed to have suffered from an extreme case of scrotal swelling, probably a hydrocele testis, acondition which causes the scrotum to swell with fluid in a compartment overlying either testicle.[24][25] In anage when close-fitting clothes were fashionable, his condition led to a chronic and disfiguring inflammation thatleft Gibbon a lonely figure.[26] As his condition worsened, he underwent numerous procedures to alleviate thecondition, but with no enduring success. In early January, the last of a series of three operations caused anunremitting peritonitis to set in and spread, from which he died. The "English giant of the Enlightenment"[27]finally succumbed at 12:45 pm, 16 January 1794 at age 56. He was buried in the Sheffield family graveyard atthe parish church in Fletching, Sussex.[28]

LegacyGibbon's work has been criticised for its scathing view of Christianity as laid down in chapters XV and XVI.Those chapters were strongly criticised and resulted in the banning of the book in several countries. Gibbon'salleged crime was disrespecting, and none too lightly, the character of sacred Christian doctrine, by "treat[ing]the Christian church as a phenomenon of general history, not a special case admitting supernatural explanationsand disallowing criticism of its adherents". More specifically, the chapters excoriated the church for"supplanting in an unnecessarily destructive way the great culture that preceded it" and for "the outrage of[practicing] religious intolerance and warfare".[29] Gibbon, though assumed to be entirely anti-religion, wasactually supportive to some extent, insofar as it did not obscure his true endeavour a history that was notinfluenced and swayed by official church doctrine. Although the most famous two chapters are heavily ironicaland cutting about religion, it is not utterly condemned, and its truth and rightness are upheld however thinly.

Gibbon, in letters to Holroyd and others, expected some type of church-inspired backlash, but the utterharshness of the ensuing torrents far exceeded anything he or his friends could possibly have anticipated.Contemporary detractors such as Joseph Priestley and Richard Watson stoked the nascent fire, but the mostsevere of these attacks was an "acrimonious" piece by the young cleric, Henry Edwards Davis.[30] Gibbonsubsequently published his Vindication in 1779, in which he categorically denied Davis' "criminal accusations",branding him a purveyor of "servile plagiarism."[31] Davis followed Gibbon's Vindication with yet another reply(1779).

Gibbon's apparent antagonism to Christian doctrine spilled over into the Jewish faith, leading to charges ofanti-Semitism.[citation needed] For example, he wrote:

From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of thedominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections.Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities ofEgypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspectingnatives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms oflegions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them theimplacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but also of humankind.[32]


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Gibbon is considered to be a son of the Enlightenment and this is reflected in his famous verdict on the historyof the Middle Ages: "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion."[33] However, politically, healigned himself with the conservative Edmund Burke's rejection of the democratic movements of the time aswell as with Burke's dismissal of the "rights of man."[34]

Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, his piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston Churchillmemorably noted, "I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediatelydominated both by the story and the style. ...I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to endand enjoyed it all."[35] Churchill modelled much of his own literary style on Gibbon's. Like Gibbon, hededicated himself to producing a "vivid historical narrative, ranging widely over period and place and enrichedby analysis and reflection."[36]

Unusually for the 18th century, Gibbon was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sourceswere accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions). "I have alwaysendeavoured," he says, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, hasalways urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefullymarked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend."[37] In thisinsistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon is considered by many to be one of the first modernhistorians:

In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the 'History' isunsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ...Whatever itsshortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vastpanorama of a great period.[38]

The subject of Gibbon's writing as well as his ideas and style have influenced other writers. Besides his influenceon Churchill, Gibbon was also a model for Isaac Asimov in his writing of The Foundation Trilogy, which he saidinvolved "a little bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward Gibbon".

Evelyn Waugh admired Gibbon's style but not his secular viewpoint. In Waugh's 1950 novel Helena, the earlyChristian author Lactantius worried about the possibility of " 'a false historian, with the mind of Cicero orTacitus and the soul of an animal,' and he nodded towards the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chatteredfor fruit."[39]

J. C. Stobart, author of The Grandeur that was Rome (1911), wrote of Gibbon that "The mere notion of empirecontinuing to decline and fall for five centuries is ridiculous...this is one of the cases which prove that History ismade not so much by heroes or natural forces as by historians."

Footnotes^ Gibbon's birthday is 27 April 1737 of the old style (O.S.) Julian calendar; England adopted the new style (N.S.)Gregorian calendar in 1752, and thereafter Gibbon's birthday was celebrated on 8 May 1737 N.S.

1.

Monographs by Gibbon

Essai sur ltude de la Littrature (London:Becket & De Hondt, 1761).Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of

[Vergil's] 'The Aeneid' (London: Elmsley,1770).The History of the Decline and Fall of the


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Roman Empire (vol. I, 1776; vols. II, III, 1781;vols. IV, V,VI, 17881789). all London: Strahan& Cadell.A Vindication of some passages in the fifteenthand sixteenth chapters of the History of the

Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(London: J. Dodsley, 1779).Mmoire Justificatif pour servir de Rponse lExpos, etc. de la Cour de France (London:Harrison & Brooke, 1779).

Other writings by Gibbon

"Lettre sur le gouvernement de Berne" [LetterNo. IX. Mr. Gibbon to *** on the Governmentof Berne], in Miscellaneous Works, First (1796)edition, vol. 1 (below). Scholars differ on thedate of its composition (Norman, D.M. Low:175859; Pocock: 176364).Mmoires Littraires de la Grande-Bretagne.co-author: Georges Deyverdun (2 vols.: vol. 1,London: Becket & De Hondt, 1767; vol. 2,London: Heydinger, 1768).Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq.,ed. John Lord Sheffield (2 vols., London: Cadell& Davies, 1796; 5 vols., London: J. Murray,1814; 3 vols., London: J. Murray, 1815).includes Memoirs of the Life and Writings ofEdward Gibbon, Esq.;Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon, ed. JohnMurray (London: J. Murray, 1896). EG'scomplete memoirs (six drafts) from the originalmanuscripts.The Private Letters of Edward Gibbon, 2 vols.,ed. Rowland E. Prothero (London: J. Murray,

1896).Gibbon's Journal to 28 January 1763, ed. D.M.Low (London: Chatto and Windus, 1929).Le Journal de Gibbon Lausanne, ed. GeorgesA. Bonnard (Lausanne: Librairie de l'Universit,1945).Miscellanea Gibboniana, eds. G.R. de Beer, L.Junod, G.A. Bonnard (Lausanne: Librairie del'Universit, 1952).The Letters of Edward Gibbon, 3 vols., ed. J.E.Norton (London: Cassell & Co., 1956). vol.1:17501773; vol.2: 17741784; vol.3:17841794. cited as 'Norton, Letters'.Gibbon's Journey from Geneva to Rome, ed.G.A. Bonnard (London: Thomas Nelson andSons, 1961). journal.Edward Gibbon: Memoirs of My Life, ed. G.A.Bonnard (New York: Funk & Wagnalls,1969;1966). portions of EG's memoirs arrangedchronologically, omitting repetition.The English Essays of Edward Gibbon, ed.Patricia Craddock (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1972); [hb: ISBN 0-19-812496-1].

See alsoThe Work of J.G.A. Pocock: Edward Gibbon section.The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Further reading.The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon.A Gibbon chronology.

NotesMost of this article, including quotations unless otherwise noted, has been adapted from Stephen's entry onEdward Gibbon in the Dictionary of National Biography.[40]

^ The most recent and also the first critical edition,in three volumes, is that of David Womersley. Forcommentary on Gibbon's irony and insistence on

1.primary sources whenever available, see Womersley,"Introduction". While the larger part of Gibbon'scaustic view of Christianity is declared within thetext of chapters XV and XVI, Gibbon rarely neglects


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to note its baleful influence throughout the remainingvolumes of the Decline and Fall.^ D. M. Low, Edward Gibbon. 17371794 (London:Chatto & Windus, 1937), p. 7.

2.

^ Norton, Letters, vol. 3, 10/5/[17]86, 4548.3.^ Stephen, DNB, p. 1130; Pocock, Enlightenments ofEdward Gibbon, 2940. At age 14, Gibbon was "aprodigy of uncontrolled reading"; Gibbon himselfadmitted an "indiscriminate appetite". p. 29.

4.

^ Pocock, Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon. forMiddleton, see p. 4547; for Bossuet, p. 47; for theMallets, p.23; Robert Parsons [or Persons], AChristian directory: The first booke of the Christianexercise, appertaining to resolution, (London, 1582).In his 1796 edition of Gibbon's Memoirs, LordSheffield claims that Gibbon directly connected hisCatholic conversion to his reading of Parsons. Womersley, Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography, p. 9.

5.

^ Womersley, Gibbon and the 'Watchmen of theHoly City': The Historian and His Reputation,17761815 (Oxford University Press, 2002), as citedby G. M. Bowersock in The New York Review ofBooks, 25 November 2010, p. 56.

6.

^ John Murray (ed.), The Autobiographies ofEdward Gibbon. Second Edition (London: JohnMurray, 1897), p. 137.

7.

^ Norton, Biblio, p. 2; Letters, vol. 1, p. 396. aconcise summary of their relationship is found at396401.

8.

^ Murray, p. 239. The phrase, "sighed [etc.]" alludesto the play Polyeucte by "the father of Frenchtragedy," Pierre Corneille. Womersley, OxfordDictionary of National Biography, p. 11.

9.

^ Womersley, 1112.10.^ Goodall 2008, p. 3811.^ In the Essai, the 24 year-old boldly braved thereigning philosoph[e]ic fashion to uphold thestudious values and practices of the rudits(antiquarian scholars). Ibid., p. 11; and TheMiscellaneous Works, First edition, vol. 2.

12.

^ Womersley, Oxford Dictionary of NationalBiography, pp. 11, 12. Gibbon was commissioned acaptain and resigned a lieutenant colonel, latercrediting his service with providing him "a largerintroduction into the English world." There wasfurther, the matter of a vast utility: "The disciplineand evolutions of a modern battalion gave me aclearer notion of the phalanx and the legion; and thecaptain of the Hampshire grenadiers (the reader maysmile) has not been useless to the historian of theRoman empire." Murray, p. 190.

13.

^ Murray, pp. 266267.14.^ Pocock, "Classical History," #2.15.^ Murray, p. 302.16.

^ i.e., in London's Lodge of Friendship No. 3. seeGibbon's freemasonry (http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/gibbon_e/gibbon_e.html) .

17.

^ Gibbon lost the Liskeard seat in 1780 when Eliotjoined the opposition, taking with him "the Electorsof Leskeard [who] are commonly of the sameopinion as Mr. El[l]iot." (Murray, p. 322.) Thefollowing year, owing to the good grace of PrimeMinister Lord North, he was again returned toParliament, this time for Lymington on a by-election.Gibbon's Whiggery was solidly conservative: infavour of the propertied oligarchy while upholdingthe subject's rights under the rule of law; thoughstaunchly against ideas such as the natural rights ofman and popular sovereignty, what he referred to as"the wild & mischievous system of Democracy"(Dickinson, "Politics," 17879). Gibbon also servedon the government's Board of Trade and Plantationsfrom 1779 until 1782, when the Board was abolished.The subsequent promise of an embassy position inParis ultimately aborted, serendipitously leavingGibbon free to focus on his great project.

18.

^ Norton, Biblio, pp. 37, 45. Gibbon sold thecopyrights to the remaining editions of volume 1 andthe remaining 5 volumes to publishers Strahan &Cadell for 8000. The great History earned theauthor a total of about 9000.

19.

^ Ibid., pp. 49, 57. Both Norton and Womersley(Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 14)establish that vol. IV was substantially complete bythe end of 1783.

20.

^ Murray, pp. 333334.21.^ Norton, Biblio, p. 61.22.^ J. E. Norton (ed.), The Letters of Edward Gibbon.Volume Three. 17841794. Letters 619878(London: Cassell, 1956), p. 216.

23.

^ the term hydrocele specifies that the compartmentis not connected to the peritoneal cavity, whereas theterm inguinal hernia specifies a connectingpassageway, however narrow. -ed.

24.

^ "Jellinek EH: "Varnish the business for the ladies."Edward Gibbons' decline and fall. J R Soc Med1999;92:374379." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297297/pdf/jrsocmed00007-0052.pdf) (PDF).http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1297297/pdf/jrsocmed00007-0052.pdf.Retrieved 2012-08-16.

25.

^ After more than two centuries, the exact nature ofGibbon's ailment remains a bone of contention.Womersley's version here matches PatriciaCraddock's. She, in a very full and graphic accountof Gibbon's last days, notes that Sir Gavin de Beer'smedical analysis of 1949 "makes it certain thatGibbon did not have a true hydrocele...and highly

26.


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probable that he was suffering both from a 'large andirreducible hernia' and cirrhosis of the liver."(emphasis added). Also worthy of note are Gibbon'scongenial and even joking moods while inexcruciating pain as he neared the end. Both authorsreport this late bit of Gibbonian bawdiness: "Why isa fat man like a Cornish Borough? Because he neversees his member." see Womersley, OxfordDictionary of National Biography, p.16; Craddock,Luminous Historian, 334342; and Beer, "Malady."^ so styled by the "unrivalled master ofEnlightenment studies," historian Franco Venturi(19141994) in his Utopia and Reform in theEnlightenment (Cambridge: 1971), p. 132. SeePocock, Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, p. 6; x.

27.

^ Gibbon's estate was valued at approx. 26,000. Heleft most of his property to cousins. As stipulated inhis will, Sheffield oversaw the sale of his library atauction to William Beckford for 950. Womersley,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 1718.

28.

^ Craddock, Luminous Historian, p.60; also seeShelby Thomas McCloy, Gibbon's Antagonism toChristianity (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North CarolinaPress, 1933). Gibbon, however, began chapter XVwith what appeared to be a moderately positiveappraisal of the Church's rise to power and authority.Therein he documented one primary and fivesecondary causes of the rapid spread of Christianitythroughout the Roman Empire: primarily, "theconvincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and... theruling providence of its great Author;" secondarily,"exclusive zeal, the immediate expectation of anotherworld, the claim of miracles, the practice of rigidvirtue, and the constitution of the primitive church."(first quote, Gibbon in Craddock, LuminousHistorian, p. 61; second quote, Gibbon inWomersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 1, ch. XV, p.497.)

29.

^ Henry Edwards Davis, An Examination of theFifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr. GibbonsHistory of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire(London: J. Dodsley, 1778). online(http://books.google.com/books?id=MFI4AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=henry+edwards+davis&lr=&as_brr=0) .

30.

^ See Gibbon monographs.31.^ Womersley, ed., Decline and Fall, vol. 1, ch. XVI,p. 516. see online (http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gibbon/02/daf02001.htm) Gibbon's first footnotehere reveals even more about why his detractorsreacted so harshly: In Cyrene, [the Jews] massacred220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, avery great multitude. Many of these unhappy victimswere sawed asunder, according to a precedent to

32.

which David had given the sanction of his examples.The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked upthe blood, and twisted the entrails like a girdlearound their bodies. see Dion Cassius l.lxviii, p.1145. As a matter of fact, this is a verbatim citationfrom Dio Cassius, Historia Romana LXVIII, 32:13:The Jewish Uprising (http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Dio_Cassius,_Historia_Romana_LXVIII,_32:1-3:_The_Jewish_Uprising) : Meanwhile the Jews in theregion of Cyrene had put one Andreas at their headand were destroying both the Romans and theGreeks. They would cook their flesh, make belts forthemselves of their entrails, anoint themselves withtheir blood, and wear their skins for clothing. Manythey sawed in two, from the head downwards.Others they would give to wild beasts and force stillothers to fight as gladiators. In all, consequently,two hundred and twenty thousand perished. InEgypt, also, they performed many similar deeds,and in Cyprus under the leadership of Artemio.There, likewise, two hundred and forty thousandperished. For this reason no Jew may set foot inthat land, but even if one of them is driven upon theisland by force of the wind, he is put to death.Various persons took part in subduing these Jews,one being Lusius, who was sent by Trajan.^ Womersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 3, ch. LXXI, p.1068.

33.

^ Burke supported the American rebellion, whileGibbon sided with the ministry; but with regard to theFrench Revolution they shared a perfect revulsion.Despite their agreement on the FR, Burke andGibbon "were not specially close," owing to Whigparty differences and divergent religious beliefs, notto mention Burke's sponsorship of the Civil List andSecret Service Money Act 1782 which abolished,and therefore cost Gibbon his place on, thegovernment's Board of Trade and Plantations in1782. see Pocock, "The Ironist," : "Both theautobiography...."

34.

^ Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A RovingCommission (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1958), p. 111.

35.

^ Roland Quinault, "Winston Churchill and Gibbon,"in Edward Gibbon and Empire, eds. R. McKitterickand R. Quinault (Cambridge: 1997), 317332, at p.331; Pocock, "Ironist," : "Both theautobiography...."

36.

^ Womersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 2, Preface toGibbon vol. 4, p. 520.

37.

^ Stephen, DNB, p. 1134.38.^ London: Chapman and Hall, 1950. Chapter 6, p.122.

39.

^ Original text: "Gibbon, Edward". Dictionary ofNational Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

40.


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18851900.

ReferencesBeer, G. R. de. "The Malady of Edward Gibbon, F.R.S." Notes and Records of the Royal Society ofLondon 7:1 (December 1949), 7180.Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian 17721794. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1989. HB: ISBN 0-8018-3720-0. Biography.Dickinson, H.T . "The Politics of Edward Gibbon". Literature and History 8:4 (1978), 175196.Goodall, John (2008), Portchester Castle, London: English Heritage, ISBN 978-1-84802-007-8Low, D. M., Edward Gibbon. 17371794 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937).Murray, John (ed.), The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon. Second Edition (London: John Murray,1897).Norton, J. E. A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon. New York: Burt Franklin Co., 1940, repr.1970.Norton, J .E. The Letters of Edward Gibbon. 3 vols. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1956.Pocock, J. G. A. The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 17371764. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999. HB: ISBN 0-521-63345-1.Pocock, J. G. A. "Classical and Civil History: The Transformation of Humanism". Cromohs 1 (1996).Online at the Universit degli Studi di Firenze (http://www.unifi.it/riviste/cromohs/1_96/pocock.html) .Retrieved 20 November 2009.Pocock, J. G. A. "The Ironist". Review of David Womersley's The Watchmen of the Holy City. LondonReview of Books 24:22 (14 November 2002). Online at the London Review of Books(http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n22/jga-pocock/the-ironist) (subscribers only). Retrieved 20 November 2009.Gibbon, Edward. Memoirs of My Life and Writings. Online at Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/gbnlw10.txt) . Retrieved 20 November 2009.Stephen, Sir Leslie, "Gibbon, Edward (17371794)". In the Dictionary of National Biography, eds. SirLeslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee. Oxford: 1921, repr. 1963. Vol. 7, 11291135.Womersley, David, ed. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3 vols. (London andNew York: Penguin, 1994).Womersley, David. "Introduction," in Womersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 1, xicvi.Womersley, David. "Gibbon, Edward (17371794)". In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,eds. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 22, 818.

Further reading

Before 1985

Beer, Gavin de. Gibbon and His World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968. HB: ISBN 0-670-28981-7.Bowersock, G. W., et al. eds. Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.Craddock, Patricia B. Young Edward Gibbon: Gentleman of Letters. Baltimore, MD: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1982. HB: ISBN 0-8018-2714-0. Biography.Jordan, David. Gibbon and his Roman Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971.Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. The Library of Edward Gibbon. 2nd ed. Godalming, England: St. Paul'sBibliographies, 1940, repr. 1980.Lewis, Bernard. "Gibbon on Muhammad". Daedalus 105:3 (Summer 1976), 89101.Low, D. M. Edward Gibbon 17371794. London: Chatto and Windus, 1937. Biography.Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Gibbon's Contributions to Historical Method". Historia 2 (1954), 450463.


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Reprinted in Momigliano, Studies in Historiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1966; Garland Pubs.,1985), 4055. PB: ISBN 0-8240-6372-4.Porter, Roger J. "Gibbon's Autobiography: Filling Up the Silent Vacancy". Eighteenth-Century Studies 8:1(Autumn 1974), 126.Stephen, Leslie, "Gibbon's Autobiography" in Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 1 (1898)Swain, J. W. Edward Gibbon the Historian. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966.Turnbull, Paul. "The Supposed Infidelity of Edward Gibbon", Historical Journal 5 (1982), 2341.White, Jr. Lynn, ed. The Transformation of the Roman World: Gibbon's Problem after Two Centuries.Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. HB: ISBN 0-520-01334-4.

Since 1985

Bowersock, G. W. Gibbon's Historical Imagination. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.Burrow, J. W. Gibbon (Past Masters). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. HB: ISBN 0-19-287553-1.PB: ISBN 0-19-287552-3.Carnochan, W. Bliss. Gibbon's Solitude: The Inward World of the Historian. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 1987. HB: ISBN 0-8047-1363-4.Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon: a Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987. PB: ISBN0-8161-8217-5. A comprehensive listing of secondary literature through 1985. See also her supplement(http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pcraddoc/dfgib/newrefgu.htm) covering the period through 1997.Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon Observed". Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991), 132156.Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's First Thoughts: Rome, Christianity and the Essai sur l'tude de la Litterature175861". Journal of Roman Studies 85 (1995), 148164.Ghosh, Peter R. "The Conception of Gibbon's History", in McKitterick and Quinault, eds. EdwardGibbon and Empire, 271316.Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's Timeless Verity: Nature and Neo-Classicism in the Late Enlightenment," inWomersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays.Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon, Edward 17371794 British historian of Rome and universal historian," in KellyBoyd, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999),461463.Levine, Joseph M., "Edward Gibbon and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns," in Levine,Humanism and History: origins of modern English historiography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,1987).Levine, Joseph M. "Truth and Method in Gibbon's Historiography," in Levine, The Autonomy of History:truth and method from Erasmus to Gibbon (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999).McKitterick, R., and R. Quinault, eds. Edward Gibbon and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1997.Norman, Brian. "The Influence of Switzerland on the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon," in Studies onVoltaire and the Eighteenth Century [SVEC] v.2002:03. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002.Pocock, J. G. A. Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols.: vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon,17371764, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-63345-1]; vol. 2, Narratives of Civil Government, 1999 [hb: ISBN0-521-64002-4]; vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall, 2003 [pb: ISBN 0-521-82445-1]; vol. 4, Barbarians,Savages and Empires, 2005 [pb: ISBN 0-521-72101-1]. all Cambridge Univ. Press.Porter, Roy. Gibbon: Making History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, HB: ISBN 0-312-02728-1.Turnbull, Paul. "'Une marionnette infidele': the Fashioning of Edward Gibbon's Reputation as the EnglishVoltaire," in Womersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays.Womersley, David P. The Transformation of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1988. HB: ISBN 0-521-35036-0.Womersley, David P., John Burrow, and J.G.A. Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays.Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1997. HB: ISBN 0-7294-0552-4.Womersley, David P. Gibbon and the Watchmen of the Holy City: The Historian and His Reputation,


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17761815. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. PB: ISBN 0-19-818733-5.

External linksComplete History of the Decline and Fall including Gibbon's Vindication, courtesy: Christian ClassicsEthereal Library of Calvin College, Grands Rapids, Michigan, USA. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/gibbon/decline/files/decline.html)Extensive Biography in 1911 Encyclopedia (http://www.1911encyclopedia.com/Edward_Gibbon)Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 1: The Man and his Book (http://www.his.com/~z/gibho1.html)Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 2: A closer look at The Decline and Fall(http://www.his.com/~z/gibho2.html) (Dead link)EdwardGibbonStudies.com: Web Center for Edward Gibbon Studies(http://www.EdwardGibbonStudies.com)Works by Edward Gibbon (http://www.gutenberg.org/author/Edward+Gibbon) at Project GutenbergGibbon, by James Cotter Morison at Project GutenbergThe Life and Death of Edward Gibbon @ Ward's Book of Days (http://www.wardsbookofdays.com/27april.htm)A Brief Biography of Edward Gibbon (http://www.edwardgibbon.com/)DeclineandFallResources.com Original Maps and Footnote Translations(http://www.declineandfallresources.com/)Biographer Patricia Craddock's comprehensive bibliography through May 1999.(http://www.andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/C18/biblio/gibbon.html)Craddock's supplement to her Reference Guide. (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pcraddoc/dfgib/newrefgu.htm)

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