was unknown the strictures were
free and the verdict unfavorable. Gibbon was present at the meeting and
related that "the momentary sensation was painful," but, on cooler
reflection, he agreed with his judges and intended to consign his
manuscript to the flames. But this, as Lord Sheffield, his literary
executor and first editor, shows conclusively, he neglected to do.[99]
This essay of Gibbon's possesses interest for us, inasmuch as David Hume
read it, and wrote to Gibbon a friendly letter, in which he said: "I
have perused your manuscript with great pleasure and satisfaction. I
have only one objection, derived from the language in which it is
written. Why do you compose in French, and carry faggots into the wood,
as Horace says with regard to Romans who wrote in Greek?"[100] This
critical query of Hume must have profoundly influenced Gibbon. Next year
he began to work seriously on "The Decline and Fall" and five years
later began the composition of it in English. It does not appear that he
had any idea of writing his magnum opus in French.

In this rambling discourse, in which I have purposely avoided relating
the life of Gibbon in anything like a chronological order, we return
again and again to the great History. And it could not well be
otherwise. For if Edward Gibbon could not have proudly said, I am the
author of "six volumes in quartos"[101] he would have had no interest
for us. Dr. Hill writes, "For one reader who has read his 'Decline and
Fall,' there are at least a score who have read his Autobiography, and
who know him, not as the great historian, but as a man of a most
original and interesting nature."[102] But these twenty people would
never have looked into the Autobiography had it not been the life of a
great historian; indeed the Autobiography would never have been written
except to give an account of a great life work. "The Decline and Fall,"
therefore, is the thing about which all the other incidents of his life
revolve. The longer this history is read and studied, the greater is the
appreciation of it. Dean Milman followed Gibbon's track through many
portions of his work, and read his authorities, ending with a deliberate
judgment in favor of his "general accuracy." "Many of his seeming
errors," he wrote, "are almost inevitable from the close condensation of
his matter."[103] Guizot had three different opinions based on three
various readings. After the first rapid perusal, the dominant feeling
was