Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Edward GibbonGinn, 1898 - 279 pages |
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acquaintance Æneid afterwards agreeable amusement ancient Buriton century character church Cicero Cluverius College common conversation critical Curchod death Decline and Fall Deyverdun edition Edward Gibbon elegant England English Essay esteem exercise father fortune France French genius Gentleman's Magazine Gibbon adds Gibbon says Greek habits happy historian History honor House of Hanover idiom John Gibbon king knowledge labor language Latin Lausanne learning letters literary lively London Lord North Lord Sheffield Magdalen College manners Memoir F ment merit militia mind Miscellaneous months Murray Necker never Oxford Paris parliament passage Pavilliard perhaps philosopher pleasure political Porten praise prejudice published Putney refers reign Rolvenden Roman Rome scholar society soon spirit style success Switzerland taste temper tion Tory University of Oxford Vaud Voltaire volume writing wrote young youth
Popular passages
Page 59 - What recks it them? What need they? They are sped; And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw; The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread : Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw Daily devours apace, and nothing said: But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more.
Page 40 - History of the World, which exhibit the Byzantine period on a larger scale. Mahomet and his, Saracens soon fixed my attention ; and some instinct of criticism directed me to the genuine sources. Simon Ockley, an original in every sense, first opened my eyes ; and I was led from one book to another till I had ranged round the circle of Oriental history. Before I was sixteen...
Page 48 - The fellows or monks of my time were decent easy men, who supinely enjoyed the gifts of the founder: their days were filled by a series of uniform employments ; the chapel and the hall, the coffee-house and the common room, till they retired, weary and well satisfied, to a long slumber. From the toil of reading, or thinking, or writing, they had absolved their conscience...
Page lxvii - He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
Page 46 - The schools of Oxford and Cambridge were founded in a dark age of false and barbarous science; and they are still tainted with the vices of their origin. Their primitive discipline was adapted to the education of priests and monks; and the government still remains in the hands of the clergy, an order of men whose manners are remote from the present world, and whose eyes are dazzled by the light of philosophy.
Page 241 - It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter 1, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 156 - The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation...
Page 190 - My lot might have been that of a slave, a savage, or a peasant ; nor can I reflect without pleasure on the bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune.
Page 158 - I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work, without betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand ; and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin. My book was on every table, and almost on every toilette ; the historian was crowned by the taste or fashion of the day j nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic.
Page lxxvi - Who builds a church to God, and not to Fame, Will never mark the marble with his name : Go, search it there, where to be born and die, Of rich and poor makes all the history ; Enough, that Virtue fill'd the space between ; Prov'd by the ends of being, to have been.