Edward Gibbon, an English historian, born in Putney, April 27,1737, died in London, Jan. 16, 1794. He was the eldest of a family of six sons and a daughter, all the rest of whom died in infancy, and he was so feeble in his youth that he seemed likely to share their fate. At the age of seven a domestic tutor, John Kirby, taught him the elements of Latin. In his ninth year, during "a lucid interval of health," as he says in his "Memoirs," he was sent to the grammar school of Kingston-upon-Thames, where he remained two years. His mother having died in 1747, he removed with his father and aunt to Buriton, Hampshire, where he began to read voluminously. In January, 1749, his aunt opened a boarding house for Westminster scholars, and Gibbon enjoyed her care while he attended the school, but, owing to delicate health, learned little. In his 16th year his health improved, a sudden change took place in his constitution, his mind seemed to gain new activity, and he read assiduously, chiefly on historical subjects. In 1752 he went to Oxford, and, neglected by his tutor, gave himself to general reading. He was then fond of oriental research, and bought the Bibliotheque orientals of D'Herbelot with his spare money.

He began to write a treatise on the Age of Sesostris," which was probably a crude effort, for he burned it 20 years afterward. He busied himself also with religious investigation, and having read Bossuet's " Variations of Protestantism" and "Exposition of Catholic Doctrine," as well as other controversial writings, became a Roman Catholic. He went from Oxford to London, and there, before a Catholic priest, abjured Protestantism, and announced his act to his father in a long letter. The father revealed the secret, and Gibbon was expelled from Oxford, after a residence there of 14 months. He was next consigned to Switzerland in a kind of exile, and placed under the care of M. Pavillard, a Calvinistic minister at Lausanne, who it was hoped would reconvert him. He lived in a plain manner in M. Pavillard's house, and at first lamented the loss of English luxury. But soon his passion for study revived; he read systematically the Latin, Greek, and French classics, Crousaz, Locke, and Grotius, and was especially delighted with the "Provincial Letters" of Pascal, from which he learned to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity/' During the five years of his exile he made the French language more familiar to him than the English, He returned to Protestantism on Christmas, 1754, 18 months after his conversion to Catholicism, and from that time he cared little for theological differences.

At Lausanne he formed an attachment for Susanue Curchod, the daughter of a Swiss pastor; but his father disapproving of the connection, Gibbon philosophically resigned the object of his love, who afterward became the wife of the banker Necker. I sighed," he says,as a lover, but obeyed as a son." He returned to England in the summer of 1758, and passed two years chiefly in study at the family seat, Buriton, during which he accomplished a course of classical reading equalled by few of his contemporaries. After residing several months in London, he joined with his father the Hampshire militia, and for more than two years studied practically the military art. Even in the camp he found time for books, and meditated a number of great literary projects. In 1761 he published his Essai sir l'etude de la litterature, which he had commenced at Lausanne, designed to defend classical studies against the attacks of the French philosophers. The essay was commended by foreign critics, though scarcely noticed in England. He travelled in 1763, and on his way to Lausanne spent three months in Paris. His essay had given him some renown, and he frequently met D'Alembert, Diderot, Baron d'Holbach, and the other philosophers.

After remaining at Lausanne nearly a year, he passed in 1764 into Italy. As he approached Rome he occupied his mind with its antiquities and topography. He read Nar-dini, Donati, Cluverius; he filled his commonplace books with copious extracts, and stored his memory with abundant learning before he ventured to cross the forum or ascend the Cap-itoline hill. It was at Rome," he writes, on the loth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amid the ruins of the capitol, while barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city, rather than of the empire; and though my reading and reflections began to point toward that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious task." He went south to Naples, returned to Paris, and reached his father's house in June, 1765. At Lausanne in his earlier visits he had formed an intimacy with M. Deyverdun, a young Swiss of fine scholarship, who now visited him yearly at Buriton. With his aid Gibbon began writing a history of the liberty of the Swiss. After two years of study and preparation, the first book, which was written in French, was read as an anonymous production before a literary club of foreigners in London, by whom it was at once condemned, and the work went no further.

He next, in connection with Deyverdun, started the Memoires litte-raires de la Grande Bretagne. It was designed to be annual, but two volumes only were printed (17G7-'8), when Deyverdun went abroad. His next work was an anonymous and acrimonious attack on that portion of War-burton's Divine Legation of Moses in which the 6th book of the Aeneid is represented as containing an allegorical account of the initiation of Aeneas in the character of a lawgiver into the Eleusinian mysteries. Though War-burton was the ruling critic of the time, Gibbon's "Critical Observations" (1770) were admitted to have overthrown his hypothesis. The subject was one that could have but little general interest, but the unknown author was mentioned by Heyne of Gottingen as a doctus et elegantissimus Britannus. His father having died in November, 1770, Gibbon settled in London, and, with a considerable though somewhat embarrassed estate, lived in studious ease, and began to labor more directly upon his "Decline and Fall," which he had been wont to "contemplate at awful distance." In 1774 he entered the house of commons as member for the borough of Liskeard, and held the seat for eight years a silent supporter of the measures of Lord North. Such was his timidity that he was never able to address the house; more than once he prepared himself to speak, but when the moment for action came his courage wholly deserted him.