If my own laziness did not deprive me of any right to complain, I should say perhaps that it was a great while since I had heard either from you or my father. I have indeed the satisfaction of knowing my father was well the 26th of May, and I hope he is by this time one of the Honorable Verdurers of the forrest of Beer. Pray, a propos of English and county news, who is our Lord Lieutenant? I had the mortification of seeing in the paper that the Duke of Bolton was turned out (I mean had resigned) and that the Marquis of Caernarvon was appointed in his room. I hope it is not true.

You have often heard me talk of Lausanne and of the pleasure I should have in seeing it again. Our imagination generally improves upon those agreable prospects; but I can assure you, my ideas had not heightened any part of this. A beautifull country, great leisure for study, and a very agreable society, make me pass my time very much to my satisfaction. I have found all my old friends here very glad to see me, and my countrymen, who only know the outside of the companies, are amazed at the number of family parties I am asked to every day. Those countrymen (whom I do not reckon as a very important part of my happiness) consist only in a Mr. Sidney and a Mr. Guise.^[52] The former (Mrs. Perry's son) is a meer boy, and the second (a Sir John Guise of Gloucestershire's son) is a very sensible well-bred man. Pavillard and I were really glad to see one another. He shewed me his snuff-box which he always carries in a wooden case for fear of spoiling it. I was at first uneasy about my lodging. I did not chuse to see the leg of mutton roasted a second time with a gash in it, and yet I was afraid of disobliging my old friend. Luckily he had got into a new house and had no room for me; so that he himself assisted me in settling in a very agreable family which I was very well acquainted with before. The Husband^[53] who is much of a gentleman keeps the Academy, his wife is a charming woman; and the apartments and table are both cheap and good. I should like extremely to pass the winter here, if my father would give me leave. Give me leave to add (for I am sensible you may have suspicions) that no woman is the least concerned in my desire, and that as to any old inclinations,^[54] they are so far from subsisting that no one can be more opposite to them at present than myself. This I assure you of upon my word of honor. I hope after that I need say nothing more.

I have just drawn a bill of fifty pounds sterling upon my father. I shall do my utmost to endeavour at Economy, and I hope here my endeavours will be successfull.

Present, Dear Madam, my love and duty to my father and my sincerest compliments to your brothers. Pray let me hear from you or my father soon.

I am, Dear Madam,
Most affectionately yours,
E. Gibbon.

27.
To his Stepmother

Lausanne, August the 6th, 1763.

Dear Madam,

HIS OLD LOVE FOR SUZANNE CURCHOD.

I hope I need not assure you how agreable your letters are to me. Letters such as you write would be highly pleasing from an indifferent person, judge of the pleasure they must give me when I receive them from a friend and a mother: I put the friend first and I believe you will not blame me for it. I should be very glad to hear somewhat oftener from my father; But tho' his dislike to letter-writing is inconceivable to me, I see I must be contented with hearing from you that he is well. At this time especially I have no hopes. He must be now (according to my reckoning) in the very midst of Harvest, and I am very sensible, that

When Harvest is in the case

All other business must give place.

You will hardly expect news from me. We are buried in a quiet Solitude, and seem separated from the rest of the universe by a Wall of mountains, whose summits are at this instant covered with snow. I have found most of my old friends well, and made some new ones, and between the society of both, I lead a very agreable life. I could talk to you with great pleasure about them did I not know how very uninteresting an account of people you know nothing of must be to you. I should be glad to know soon whether my father has any objection to my passing the winter here. I do not dissemble that my inclination would make me desire it; but I have a much better tho' as real a motive to alledge to him; a considerable work I am engaged in, which will be a most usefull preparation to my tour of Italy and which I shall not be able to finish sooner. It is a Description of the ancient Geography of Italy, taken from the Original writers. If I go into Italy with a work of that kind tolerably executed, I shall carry every where about with me an accurate and lively idea of the country, and shall have nothing to do but to insert in their proper places my own observations as they tend either to confirm, to confute, or to illustrate what I have met with in books. I should not even despair, but that this mixture of study and observation, properly digested upon my return to England, might produce something not entirely unworthy the eye of the publick on a subject, upon which we have no regular or compleat treatise.

VOLTAIRE AS HOST AND ACTOR.

I made a little excursion some days ago to Geneva, not so much for the sake of the town which I had often seen before, as for a representation of Monsieur de Voltaire's. He lives now entirely at Fernay, a little place in France, but only two leagues from Geneva. He has bought the estate, and built a very pretty tho' small house upon it. After a life passed in courts and Capitals, the Great Voltaire is now become a meer country Gentleman, and even (for the honor of the profession) something of a farmer. He says he never enjoyed so much true happiness. He has got rid of most of his infirmities, and tho' very old and lean, enjoys a much better state of health than he did twenty years ago. His playhouse is very neat and well contrived, situated just by his Chappel, which is far inferior to it, tho', he says himself, que son Christ est du meilleur faiseur de tout le pays de Gex. The play they acted was my favourite Orphan of China. Voltaire himself acted Gengis and Madame Denys Idamè; but I do not know how it happened: either my taste is improved or Voltaire's talents are impaired since I last saw him.^[55] He appeared to me now a very ranting unnatural performer. Perhaps indeed, as I was come from Paris, I rather judged him by an unfair comparaison, than by his own independent value. Perhaps too I was too much struck with the ridiculous figure of Voltaire at seventy, acting a Tartar Conqueror with a hollow broken voice, and making love to a very ugly niece of about fifty. The play began at eight in the evening and ended (entertainment and all) about half an hour after eleven. The whole Company was asked to stay and set Down about twelve to a very elegant supper of a hundred Covers. The supper ended about two, the company danced till four, when we broke up, got into our Coaches and came back to Geneva just as the Gates were opened. Shew me in history or fable, a famous poet of Seventy who has acted in his own plays, and has closed the scene with a supper and ball for a hundred people. I think the last is the more extraordinary of the two.

You may imagine how glad I am to hear of the fall of our Tyrant^[56] and the accession of a just and righteous prince. Lord —^[57] was always our utmost wish, and I have so very good an opinion of him as to believe he will not even plague our enemies to oblige us. I am very glad to hear the battalion addressed him, as you style it, and as I could not sign the general letter, I apprehend a particular compliment to his Lordship cannot displease him. I have accordingly wrote to him this post. My father had formerly some thoughts of resigning the Majority to me. It is a matter of great indifference at present, but if he has a mind to provide against a future storm, I suppose it would be very easily settled at present, and that my friend Poussy (who has never answered me any more than Sir Thomas^[58]) would have the Company of course. I wish my father would consider too, whether changes of much greater consequence might not be effected, such as the incorporation of both battalions, &c. But these are only hints.

Present, Dear Madam, my love and duty to my father, my sincerest Compliments to your Brothers, and believe me ever

Most affectionately and entirely yours,
E. Gibbon, Junior.

28.
To his Father

Lausanne, September the 10th, 1763.

Dear Sir,

This morning I received your letter, and according to your desire prepared myself immediately to answer it.

I hardly thought it possible, any letter of yours could have given me so much uneasiness. I am very sensible how many obligations I have to you, and that in this affair you continue to act with your usual goodness to me. If there is any fault it is partly my own and partly that of unhappy circumstances. My expences have been too great for our fortune. I was afraid of it at the time; and tho' I cannot yet see that relative to my situation of travelling and being at Paris I have launched into any extravagancy, the consequences are equally disagreable. But what is past cannot be recalled. With regard, Dear Sir, to the proposal mentioned in your letter; if your own ease or happiness had depended upon it, I should not have hesitated an instant, but as the advantages resulting from it relate only to me you will give me leave to canvass it freely.

I need not say any thing of the great inconvenience of mortgages nor how much they eat up an estate piece meal. We feel it but too sensibly: Sir T. R.'s is particularly disagreable, since he has it in his power to distress us whenever he pleases by calling for his money. I own the thought of increasing it hurts me very much.

DECLINES TO ENTER PARLIAMENT.

The advantages for me would be, your being able to bring me into Parliament, increasing my annuity and enabling me to continue my travels. Give me leave to say, Dear Sir, that the first has very little weight with me. I find my ambition diminish every day, and my preference of a quiet studious life to hurry and business grow upon me. Besides I should imagine the thing almost impossible in the middle of a parliament and at such an interesting period:^[59] and if I was in, what could I do? Whether I consulted principle or prudence, every thing seems so unsettled that I might find myself very soon at the tail of an opposition; (and as a total change seems to be the modern maxim of every new Ministry,) in case I had got any thing, I should be reduced to my former situation, with the additional mortification of having just tasted a little more power and plenty. The encreasing my annuity would be certainly very agreable, but as it would be only the difference of passing four or six months every winter in London, I should not think it equivalent. The continuing my travels is the great object. When I am just in view of Italy, to be obliged to give up a scheme which has been always a favourite, would afflict me to the greatest degree.

Would it not be possible, Dear Sir, to think of another scheme? One has come into my head which would set me entirely at my ease without costing you a shilling. It would be to change my annuity into a perpetual rent charge upon the Estate: this I would sell immediately for an annuity upon my own life, which would certainly give me Six hundred pounds a year, would enable me to travel (at least with a small addition) and to live afterwards in a very agreable manner in England. I think I may venture to say I shall never marry, and even supposing that possibility and afterwards the possibility of children; Would this scheme hurt them more than the other? But I submit it entirely to you. In case this proposal should be disagreable to you, you have my full consent to the other. Only give me leave, Dear Sir, to mention one thing. I should be a monster, If I could distrust either your honor or your goodness to me; but I am afraid (excuse the freedom) that Œconomy is not the virtue of our family. A variety of schemes would offer, old incumbrances would appear, and you yourself would be the first surprised to find the sum almost sunk to nothing. I should think that the dividing it might equally suit us both. I should have a fund for my extraordinary expences, which I should be the more interested to husband, as I should know that I could have no pretence to ask for any thing more. You on the other hand, Dear Sir, would be likewise at a certainty with regard both to your expences and mine.

I shall end here, Dear Sir; for I am too much agitated to talk of any thing else: only begging you to excuse the liberty I have taken. Your goodness has encouraged me to it and I think our mutual interest requires it. In case you should approve of my first proposal, I suppose my going over in the Spring will be sufficient. Otherwise, I should be glad to hear from you as soon as possible, that I might set out before winter.

My love and duty are always Mrs. Gibbon's and my sincere compliments wait upon the Brothers.

I am, Dear Sir,
With the greatest affection sincerely yours,
E. Gibbon, Junior.

29.
To his Father

Lausanne, October the 15th, 1763.

Dear Sir,

WAYS AND MEANS.

Give me leave to begin with the part of my letter which has given you the most uneasiness, and which is entirely owing to a mistake. As I have no copy of my letter, I cannot exactly recollect my expressions, tho' I am perfectly sure of my meaning. When I mentioned unhappy circumstances I meant only that my expences, tho' not excessive in themselves, appeared great, and were in fact more than what the unhappy circumstances of our estate allowed you to support. That I assure you, Dear Sir, was my only meaning; if my expression was doubtfull, attribute it solely to the agitation of spirits I was in when I wrote. When I reflect on my expences, I do not see, that were I to live last winter over again at Paris, I could, according to the almost necessary extravagance of the age, spend less than I have done. I do not pretend to say that a man of a more exact economy might not have done sometimes the same things for less money, but I am sure there was no one blamable or ridiculous expence. Play in particular, Dear Sir, must have occurred to you, tho' you do not mention it. I give you my word of honor, that since I have left England I have not lost twenty pounds.

I will say no more of my scheme, since you disaproove of it. I own I thought it might have made me very easy without any additional expence to you. But you do not mention, Dear Sir, my other proposal supposing we borrowed the five thousand; that of giving me half of it, and making no addition to my allowance whatsoever. Unless you want the whole sum, I should still think it must be more, or at least as eligible to you as any other. I own it would be highly agreable to me, to have always a sum of money lying by me, besides my income; for I do assure you, Sir, that it is much more a scheme of economy than of expence. I should employ about seven or eight hundred of it to encrease my annuity during a year and a half and to enable me to travel agreably. The remainder I should put into the stocks, and spend only the interest, reserving the Capital, for any uses that might appear to both of us worthy of it, for I would promise, Dear Sir, not to touch any part of it without your knowledge and consent. In case you want the greatest part of the sum, I should beg at least that, instead of the two Hundred a year you design adding to my annuity, you would only add one hundred a year and a thousand pounds. If the whole is necessary, I am far from contesting it with you, Dear Sir, but after thanking you for the very handsome encrease of my annuity, you must give me leave to say that six hundred pounds a year will not enable me to travel. In this age, it would be almost impossible for me to do it under 9 or 8 hundred; every thing is much altered since you were abroad, and I believe if you consult those who have travelled lately, they would name scarcely less than a thousand. After the experience I have had, it would be deceiving both myself and you to talk in another strain.

I own the thoughts of a mortgage frighten me. The diminution of the estate, the weight of the interest, the uncertainty of paying which we have already felt in the old one, give me the greatest repugnance to encreasing it. Tho' it would hurt me excessively, I could wish we could avoid it. I would return to England and wait for a more favorable opportunity. This I speak merely for myself. If it is necessary to make you easy, I have nothing more to say.

At all events, Dear Sir, you may depend upon my being in England a few days before the 30th of December. As I should be glad to return to this place as soon as the business is over (in case you still chuse it) I was thinking that so short an apparition might set the world a talking and guessing at the reasons, and as it would be better they should know nothing of them, it might be as well if I came over incognito. I could see you and Mrs. Gibbon in London, appear very little in publick and go back immediately. But as I can hear from you again before my departure, you will settle every thing as you please.

I am surprised that Mrs. Gibbon has not received the Arquebusade water I sent her four months ago, tho' I forgot to mention it. – A propos upon reflexion, I directed it to Becket and neglected giving him any directions about it. If you will write a line to him, I dare say it lies at his shop, near Somerset house in the Strand. I shall endevour to get you some Lucerne myself, unless you chuse to stay till next [autumn].

I beg my love and duty to Mrs. Gibbon and sincere compliments to all friends.

I am, Dear Sir,
Most affectionately and most sincerely yours,
E. Gibbon, Junior.

30.
To his Stepmother

Lausanne, December the 7th, 1763.

Dear Madam,

HIS SIX MONTHS AT LAUSANNE.

I am afraid I have made you wait a little. But let me tell you without any reproach that I have imitated your example in proclaiming the arrival of my letter about two months before it really begins its march. I must acknowledge your letters deserve waiting for better than mine. However I flatter myself you are as well pleased with hearing from me as I can be in hearing from you, and that is saying a great deal.

After having assured you how much I love and respect you, Dear Madam, which I hope you are convinced of without my saying it, I should give an account of my method of passing my time here, but the happiness the most difficult to be described is perhaps the truest in reality. If I was in a place where I could fill pages with accounts of balls, reviews, Court assemblies, &c., the conclusion would perhaps be only that I had spent a great deal of time and money with very little genuine satisfaction. Here every day is an agreable mixture of books and good company, & consequently every day resembles the day that preceded it; I have passed six months at Lausanne, but tho' the sum of my pleasures has been very pleasing I cannot pick out any single event that I think worthy your attention. You would hardly be entertained with minute characters of people you are not acquainted with & will probably never see.

We have some English here; most of them raw boys just escaped from Eaton. Mr. Guise – I do not reckon him in the number of them. He is about my age, has seen a good deal of the world, & without being a profound scholar is far from wanting either parts or knowledge. As far as I can judge of him he seems to be a prudent worthy young man. If I can go into Italy with him I should like it extremely. Lord Palmerston^[60] passed thro' some time ago. He seems to have a very right notion of travelling and I fancy will make very great improvements.

GIBBON A MAJOR.

As we have the English papers here, we are by no means strangers to what passes at home, and many an insignificant piece of news which we should not have minded in England, gives us great pleasure at this distance. I was very glad to hear of my friend Wilkes's deserved chastisement,^[61] and if the law could not punish him, Mr. Martin could. After all the noise of faction, the numbers in the first division seem to have shewn that the court still preserves a very great superiority.

Will you be so good, dear Madam, as to assure my father of my constant love and duty, and to acquaint him that I have just drawn a bill of a hundred pounds upon him. I beg my best compliments to the brothers. I hope poor David has destroyed his old ennemy the gout. As to Billy [Patton] (do not tell it to him) I hope he is no longer at Beriton, and that he has got the better of a enemy still more dangerous —Laziness.

I am, Dear Madam,
Ever yours most affectionately,
E. Gibbon.

Footnote_52_52. William (afterwards Sir William) Guise, subsequently M.P. for Gloucestershire, only son of Sir John Guise, Bart., died without issue, April 6, 1783.

Footnote_53_53. M. de Mesery.

Footnote_54_54. In Gibbon's Journal at Lausanne, in June, 1757, occurs the entry: "I saw Mademoiselle Curchod —Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori." He was, in fact, shortly afterwards engaged to Suzanne Curchod, daughter and only child of the Minister of Crassy, a hamlet at the foot of the lower slopes of the Jura, between Geneva and Lausanne. Both the lovers were born in 1737, and were in their twenty-first year. At Lausanne, at the Société du Printemps and the Académie de la Poudrière, of which Suzanne Curchod was the founder and the president, she frequently met Gibbon, and the attachment, on her side at least, was strong and genuine; on his it seems to have always had a touch of affectation. The account given by Julie von Bondeli (E. Bodemann, Julie von Bondeli, pp. 217, 218: Hanover, 1874) of Gibbon's passion has the exaggeration of unreality. He was seen, says this friend of Wieland and Rousseau, stopping the country people near Lausanne, and demanding, at the point of a naked dagger, whether a more adorable creature existed than Suzanne Curchod. Gibbon wrote her several letters, some of which are quoted by M. d'Haussonville in his Salon de Madame Necker, and addressed to her indifferent verses. The following lines seem to be an expansion of the entry in his Journal: — "Tôt ou tard il faut aimer,C'est en vain qu'on façonne;Tout fléchit sous l'amourIl n'exempte personne,Car Gib. a succombé en ce jourAux attraits d'une beautéQui parmi les douceurs d'un tranquil silenceReposait sur un fauteuil," etc., etc. They became engaged, and Gibbon implored her to marry him without waiting for the sanction of his father. This, however, she refused to do. When Gibbon left Lausanne in 1758, she wrote to him once; then all correspondence between them seems to have ceased, though Gibbon says that he wrote to her twice on his journey and once on his return to England. He also sent her his Essai with a dedicatory letter in 1761. In August, 1762, he wrote to break off the engagement, on the ground of his father's opposition, in a letter quoted by M. d'Haussonville (Le Salon de Madame Necker, pp. 57, 58). In 1763 Gibbon came to Lausanne, and there received from Mademoiselle Curchod a letter in reply, which showed, so far as words could prove anything, that she had never ceased to love him. Her friend, the Pastor Moultou, endeavoured to interest J. J. Rousseau in the story, and to make him speak to Gibbon on the subject. But Rousseau declined to interfere, saying that Gibbon was too cold-blooded a young man for his taste or for Mademoiselle Curchod's happiness. In Gibbon's unpublished diary, he thus comments on the receipt of this letter, September 22, 1763: "J'ai reçu une lettre des moins attendûes. C'etoit de Mademoiselle C. Fille dangereux et artificielle! Elle fait une apologie de sa conduite depuis le premier moment, qu'elle m'a connû, sa constance pour moi, son mepris pour M. de Montplaisir, et la fidelité delicate et soutenue qu'elle a cru voir dans la lettre où je lui annoncois qu'il n'y avoit plus d'espérance. Ses voyages à Lausanne, les adorateurs qu'elle y a eû, et la complaisance avec laquelle elle les a ecouté formoient l'article le plus difficile à justifier. Ni d'Eyverdun (dit elle), ni personne n'ont effacé pendant un instant mon image de son cœur. Elle s'amusoit à Lausanne sans y attacher. Je le veux. Mais ces amusements la convainquent toujours de la dissimulation la plus odieuse, et, si l'infidelité est quelquefois une foiblesse, la duplicité est toujours un vice. Cette affaire singulière dans toutes ses parties m'a été très utile; elle m'a ouvert les yeux sur le caractère des femmes, et elle me servira longtemps de preservatif contre les seductions de l'amour." Mademoiselle Curchod came to Lausanne in February, 1764, and again met Gibbon; "Elle me badine sur mon ton de petit maître. Elle a du voir cent fois que tout étoit fini sans retour." "Nous badinons," he says again in the same month, "trés librement sur nôtre tendresse passée, et je lui fais comprendre tout clairement que je suis an fait de son inconstance." Gibbon's continued coldness at length convinced Mademoiselle Curchod that his affection for her was entirely extinguished, and she took her leave of him in an indignant letter, quoted by M. d'Haussonville, as she undoubtedly thought, for ever. In this farewell letter she repudiates the suggestion of her inconstancy: "Si l'on vous a dit que j'aie écouté un seul moment M. d'Eyverdun, j'ai ses lettres, vous connoissez sa main, un coup d'œil suffit pour me justifier." Mademoiselle Curchod married, at the end of 1764, Jacques Necker, and became the mother of Madame de Stäel-Holstein.

Footnote_55_55. At Monrepos in 1757-58, when Voltaire was living at les Délices, Gibbon had heard him in his tragedies of Zaïre, Alzire, Zulime, and his sentimental comedy L'Enfant Prodigue. Voltaire settled at Ferney in 1758.

Footnote_56_56. Charles Paulet, fifth Duke of Bolton, who committed suicide in 1765, was succeeded in the Lord Lieutenancy of Hampshire by James Brydges, Marquess of Carnarvon. Lord Carnarvon resigned the post in 1764, because Mr. Stanley was appointed Governor of the Isle of Wight (Grenville Correspondence, vol. ii. pp. 399-403).

Footnote_57_57. Name illegible. Probably Lord Northington.

Footnote_58_58. Sir Thomas Worsley, Bart.

Footnote_59_59. On April 7, 1763, Lord Bute resigned, and was on the same day succeeded by George Grenville, as First Lord of the Treasury. During the autumn recess, George III. opened negotiations with Pitt to take Grenville's place. But no change was made, and Grenville was preparing to meet Parliament in November, 1763, as Prime Minister.

Footnote_60_60. Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston (1739-1802), a man of artistic tastes, and, in after-years, a frequent resident in Italy. He was at this time M.P. for Hastings. He married, as his second wife, January 3, 1783, Miss Mee, by whom he was the father of the Prime Minister, born 1784.

Footnote_61_61. In Gibbon's Journal for September 23, 1762, written at Southampton, occurs the following entry which explains the words "my friend Wilkes: " – "Colonel Wilkes of the Buckinghamshire Militia dined with us, and renewed the acquaintance Sir Thomas and myself had begun with him at Reading. I scarce ever met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge: but a thorough profligate as well in principle as in practice; his character is infamous, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and bawdy. These morals he glories in, for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted. He told us himself that, in this time of public dissension, he was resolved to make his fortune. Upon this noble principle he has connected himself with Lord Temple and Mr. Pitt, commenced a public adversary to Lord Bute whom he abuses weekly in the North Briton, and other political papers in which he is concerned. This proved a very debauched day; we drank a good deal both after dinner and supper, and when at last Wilkes was retired, Sir Thomas and some others (of whom I was not one) broke into his room and made him drink a bottle of claret in bed." Wilkes had been challenged by Mr. Samuel Martin, M.P. for Camelford, formerly Secretary of the Treasury under both the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Bute, for speaking of him in the North Briton as a low fellow and dirty tool of power. Wilkes was dangerously wounded in the duel, which was fought in November, 1763. In the preceding April he had been arrested under a General Warrant on suspicion of being the author of No. 45 of the North Briton. He applied for a writ of Habeas Corpus, and the case came before Lord Chief Justice Pratt in the Court of Common Pleas. He was discharged from custody, the judges unanimously holding that the arrest was a breach of his privilege as a member of Parliament.