Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, Esq |
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Page 13
... pleasure beyond expression ; not that I have any lingering sentiment for a man who , I think , merits none at all , ” — how keen is the resent- ' What fortune ? ' ' not above twenty ment unsheathed for a moment ! - " but my EDWARD ...
... pleasure beyond expression ; not that I have any lingering sentiment for a man who , I think , merits none at all , ” — how keen is the resent- ' What fortune ? ' ' not above twenty ment unsheathed for a moment ! - " but my EDWARD ...
Page 15
... pleasure to a private station . . . . Her health is impaired by the agitation of her mind , . . . and our last parting was very solemn , as I very much doubt whether I shall ever see her again . They have now a very troublesome charge ...
... pleasure to a private station . . . . Her health is impaired by the agitation of her mind , . . . and our last parting was very solemn , as I very much doubt whether I shall ever see her again . They have now a very troublesome charge ...
Page 18
... pleasures of which , the visits , the talk with commonplace people , afflicted him even more than its monotony , though less perhaps than his misspent service as a captain of the militia which Pitt kept under arms after its supposed ...
... pleasures of which , the visits , the talk with commonplace people , afflicted him even more than its monotony , though less perhaps than his misspent service as a captain of the militia which Pitt kept under arms after its supposed ...
Page 28
... pleasure . He came home to comfort his friend Lord Sheffield , then broken by the recent death of his wife , and he travelled by a circuitous route through Belgium , as his friend tells us , " along the frontiers of an enemy worse than ...
... pleasure . He came home to comfort his friend Lord Sheffield , then broken by the recent death of his wife , and he travelled by a circuitous route through Belgium , as his friend tells us , " along the frontiers of an enemy worse than ...
Page 30
... pleasure . Between nine and ten we withdraw to our bread and cheese , and friendly converse , which sends us to bed at eleven ; but these sober hours are too often interrupted by private or numer- ous suppers , which I have not the ...
... pleasure . Between nine and ten we withdraw to our bread and cheese , and friendly converse , which sends us to bed at eleven ; but these sober hours are too often interrupted by private or numer- ous suppers , which I have not the ...
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Common terms and phrases
acquaintance agreeable amusement ancient aunt Buriton bust character church Cicero College conversation curious Deyverdun EDWARD GIBBON elegant England English enjoyed equal Essay esteem excuse eyes father feel fortune France freedom French French language genius Genoa geography of Italy Gibbon Greek habits happy historian honor hope idle indulged John Gibbon Journal king labor ladies language Latin Lausanne learning less letters liberty literary lively London Lord North Lord Sheffield Mademoiselle Magdalen College manners merit militia mind months nature Necker ness never Oxford Paris passage Pavilliard perhaps persons perusal philosopher pleasure poet political Porten praise Prince provinces of France Putney residence Rolvenden Roman Rome sentiments society soon spirit style success Swiss Switzerland Tacitus taste temper tion Tory tutor Vaud volume Westminster School writings young youth
Popular passages
Page 174 - 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,* that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
Page 33 - I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains.
Page 11 - After a painful struggle I yielded to my fate : I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son ; my wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life.
Page 59 - Call," is still read as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel ; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life ; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a flame...
Page 19 - 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 194 - 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 ; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic.
Page 92 - To take up half on trust, and half to try, Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry. Both knave and fool the merchant we may call, To pay great sums, and to compound the small: For who would break with Heaven, and would not break for all?
Page 75 - Continuation of Echard's Roman History," which is indeed executed with more skill and taste than the previous work. To me the reigns of the successors of Constantine were absolutely new; and I was immersed in the passage of the Goths over the Danube, when the summons of the dinner-bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast.
Page 48 - 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.
Page 11 - A rich banker of Paris, a citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to discover and possess this inestimable treasure ; and in the capital of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of wealth, as she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in Europe.