ibbon made the acquaintance of Voltaire, but
it led to no intimacy or fruitful reminiscence. "He received me with
civility as an English youth, but I cannot boast of any peculiar
notice or distinction." Still he had "the satisfaction of hearing--an
uncommon circumstance--a great poet declaim his own productions on the
stage." One is often tempted, in reading Gibbon's Memoirs, to regret
that he adopted the austere plan which led him "to condemn the
practice of transforming a private memorial into a vehicle of satire
or praise." As he truly says, "It was assuredly in his power to amuse
the reader with a gallery of portraits and a collection of anecdotes."
This reserve is particularly disappointing when a striking and
original figure like Voltaire passes across the field, without an
attempt to add one stroke to the portraiture of such a physiognomy.

Gibbon had now (1758) been nearly five years at Lausanne, when his
father suddenly intimated that he was to return home immediately. The
Seven Years War was at its height, and the French had denied a passage
through France to English travellers. Gibbon, or more properly his
Swiss friends, thought that the alternative road through Germany might
be dangerous, though it might have been assumed that the Great
Frederick, so far as he was concerned, would make things as pleasant
as possible to British subjects, whose country had just consented to
supply him with a much-needed subsidy. The French route was preferred,
perhaps as much from a motive of frolic as anything else. Two Swiss
officers of his acquaintance undertook to convey Gibbon from France as
one of their companions, under an assumed name, and in borrowed
regimentals. His complete mastery of French removed any chance of
detection on the score of language, and with a "mixture of joy and
regret" on the 11th April, 1758, Gibbon left Lausanne. He had a
pleasant journey, but no adventures, and returned to his native land
after an absence of four years, ten months, and fifteen days.

CHAPTER III.

IN THE MILITIA.

The only person whom, on his return, Gibbon had the least wish to see
was his aunt, Catherine Porten. To her house he at once hastened, and
"the evening was spent in the effusions of joy and tenderness." He
looked forward to his first meeting with his father with no slight
anxiety, and that for two reasons. First, his father had parted from
him with anger and menace, and he had no idea how he would be recei