Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, Esq |
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Page 6
... ; yet after the thinness and pallor of much conscious simplicity of later date , its Latin affluence has a deep satisfaction ; and though none could ever dream of writing such a style again , yet its use by Gibbon was part 6 EDWARD GIBBON .
... ; yet after the thinness and pallor of much conscious simplicity of later date , its Latin affluence has a deep satisfaction ; and though none could ever dream of writing such a style again , yet its use by Gibbon was part 6 EDWARD GIBBON .
Page 10
... writing from an obscure Swiss town , could maintain a correspondence with the first scholars of France and Gerinany , in which they treated him with the distinction due his learning . It was not the education of a gentleman which Gibbon ...
... writing from an obscure Swiss town , could maintain a correspondence with the first scholars of France and Gerinany , in which they treated him with the distinction due his learning . It was not the education of a gentleman which Gibbon ...
Page 14
... writing to Lord Sheffield from London , where the Neckers then were : " At present I am busy with the Neckers . I live with her just as I used to do twenty years ago , laugh at her Paris varnish , and oblige her to become a simple ...
... writing to Lord Sheffield from London , where the Neckers then were : " At present I am busy with the Neckers . I live with her just as I used to do twenty years ago , laugh at her Paris varnish , and oblige her to become a simple ...
Page 18
... writing the his- tory of the Crusade of Henry the First , of the Barons ' Wars against John , the lives of Henry the Fifth and Titus , the Life of Sir Philip Sidney , the History of the Liberty of the Swiss , and that of the Republic of ...
... writing the his- tory of the Crusade of Henry the First , of the Barons ' Wars against John , the lives of Henry the Fifth and Titus , the Life of Sir Philip Sidney , the History of the Liberty of the Swiss , and that of the Republic of ...
Page 28
... writings . When , however , he did return to England , in 1793 , it was not by way of France , and his errand was not one of curiosity or pleasure . He came home to comfort his friend Lord Sheffield , then broken by the recent death of ...
... writings . When , however , he did return to England , in 1793 , it was not by way of France , and his errand was not one of curiosity or pleasure . He came home to comfort his friend Lord Sheffield , then broken by the recent death of ...
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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.