I should have killed myself these three months to finish a
_morceau_ (for his great work), which I wished to insert, on the origin
and revolutions of the civil laws in France. You will read it in three
hours; but I do assure you that it cost me so much labour that it has
whitened my hair." Mr. Hallam, stopping to admire the genius of GIBBON,
exclaims, "In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and
precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of
the same field, is apt to escape an uninformed reader." Thrice has my
learned friend, SHARON TURNER, recomposed, with renewed researches, the
history of our ancestors, of which Milton and Hume had despaired--thrice,
amidst the self-contests of ill-health and professional duties!

The man of erudition in closing his elaborate work is still exposed to the
fatal omissions of wearied vigilance, or the accidental knowledge of some
inferior mind, and always to the reigning taste, whatever it chance to be,
of the public. Burnet criticised VARILLAS unsparingly;[A] but when he
wrote history himself, Harmer's "Specimen of Errors in Burnet's History,"
returned Burnet the pangs which he had inflicted on another. NEWTON'S
favourite work was his "Chronology," which he had written over fifteen
times, yet he desisted from its publication during his life-time, from the
ill-usage of which he complained. Even the "Optics" of Newton had no
character at home till noticed in France. The calm temper of our great
philosopher was of so fearful a nature in regard to criticism, that
Whiston declares that he would not publish his attack on the "Chronology,"
lest it might have killed our philosopher; and thus Bishop STILLINGFLEET'S
end was hastened by LOCKE's confutation of his metaphysics. The feelings
of Sir JOHN MARSHAM could hardly be less irritable when he found his great
work tainted by an accusation that it was not friendly to revelation.[B]
When the learned POCOCK published a specimen of his translation of
Abulpharagias, an Arabian historian, in 1649, it excited great interest;
but in 1663, when he gave the world the complete version, it met with no
encouragement: in the course of those thirteen years, the genius of the
times had changed, and Oriental studies were no longer in request.

[Footnote A: For an account of this work, and Burnet's _expose_ of it, see
"Curiosities of Literature," vol. i. p. 132.--ED.]

[Footnote B: This great work the _Canon Chronicus_