This remarkable self-education may be em phasized the more because Gibbon was soon to experience the inadequacy of university train ing in his time. He entered Oxford before he was 15 years old. Yet he soon found that reg ular tasks were not enforced, that absence from the university was not noticed, that folly and even vice were not restrained. Though un usually fond of reading, as we know, he fell into idleness and the mild, if expensive, pleas ure of travel Only in the long vacation did he again read assiduously and begin his first in dependent work, an essay on the 'Age of Se sostris.) Under such circumstances it is not strange that Gibbon so severely arraigned the university in his 'Memoirs' : °To the Univer sity of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation. . . . I spent 14 months at Magdalen College; they proved the 14 months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.° Yet Gibbon's mind was not wholly inactive at this time. The key of Magdalen library had been delivered to him and he was soon tempted by what he had heard of Middleton's 'Free In quiry' (1749) as a dangerous book. Strangely enough he was repelled by the scepticism• and led to consider seriously the claims of the Cath olic Church. Falling in with a student who was already a Catholic, he was furnished with Cath olic books and by boyish dependence on his own reason was led to embrace the faith. Not realizing the full consequences of his act he asked admission to the Catholic Church in June 1753. His father, to whom he wrote at once, unwisely disclosed the young man's conversion to the authorities at Oxford and he was for ever excluded from the university.
The course taken by Gibbon's father in these unusual circumstances was to have more than one important effect on the historian's life. He was sent to Lausanne, Switzerland, to the home of a Protestant pastor, who became his tutor and guardian. Here he remained almost five years, pursuing a regular and valuable course of instruction with Pastor Pavilliard. Through the same instrumentality and his own reflec tions he again became a Protestant. He also learned French as a native, thus commanding another important literature. He acquired a thorough acquaintance with Latin and a begin ning in Greek. He carried on with growing maturity his historical reading. His keenness for intellectual pursuits led him to correspond ence with several European scholars, and he once visited and was received by Voltaire. So valuable were these years that Gibbon put the highest estimate upon them: "Such as I am, in genius or learning or manners, I owe my creation to Lausanne.' Nor must one other episode of those years be forgotten. At Lausanne the young Gibbon met and loved the brilliant and beautiful Susanne Curchod, daughter of a Swiss clergyman. The affection was sincere on both sides. But the engagement was conditioned on the approval of Gibbon's father, on whom he was dependent. and that approval was promfuly refused on his return to England. Under these circumstances Gibbon . did what many another young man of
his country has since done. He ((sighed as a lover,' he gobeyed as a song And if the fail ure of marriage was harder for the daughter of the poor Swiss clergyman, she was consoled not many years after with what proved a more remarkable match. She became the wife of Necker, afterward French Minister of Finance and the mother of Madame de Stael.
Before leaving Switzerland Gibbon had begun his first published work, his 'Essay on the Study of Literature.' It was written in his adopted language and was the result of hls classical studies, with which it especially dealt. It was completed in the year of his return td England, though not published until 1761. Then it gained some recognition on the Continent, where it was republished the following year. In England it. was little noticed, though a trans.; lation was finally made.
Gibbon returned to England in 1758. As he had taken up no profession he was still depend ent for the next 12 years upon his father's bounty. Two years and a half of this time (1760-62) he spent as captain in the South Hampshire militia, the result of a wave of mili tary enthusiasm which had swept England an a threatened invasion by the French. This largely withdrew him from historical studies, but he acknowledges that these years again made him an Englishman and that the military experience had snot been useless to the his torian of the Roman Empire.' Every vacation, too, was spent with his beloved booki, and he meditated for treatment several historical sub..; jects, among them the life of Raleigh, the lib. erty of the Swiss and a history of the republic of Florence.
As soon as he was freed from the militia, Gibbon hastened to the Continent to complete his education by travel and study. In this he spent another two years and a half, at Paris, Lausanne and in an extended Italian tour. Everywhere he was reading as well as seeing, so that it is not strange that on this tour he should finally have chosen the subject of his life work. The resolution was taken in Rome as he sat musing in the evening, while the Franciscan friars ((were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter on the ruins of the capitol." It was 15 Oct. 1764, and Gibbon had about half completed his 28th year.
Yet the great work could not be immediately begun. Gibbon was still dependent. At home he could not be master of his time. In Lon+ don he could not use his books. Other plans also intervened in the five years following his second return to England (1765). • His friend Deyverdun visited him and with his assistance Gibbon undertook the history of the Swiss, writing it also in French. But the historian was unacquainted with German and far from the Swiss archives, so that the first book of his projected work was finally committed to the flames. Then Gibbon assisted his friend in. the Litteraires de la Grand Bretagne,' which were published in 1767 and 1768. In 1770 he also printed anonymousiy.his.