GIBBON, EDWARD, was born at Putney, in the county of Surrey, on the 27th of April 1737. He has given us in his Autobiography,' which was published after his death by Lord Sheffield, copious par ticulars concerning his life and writings. From his own account we learn that in childhood his health was very delicate, and that his early education was principally conducted by his aunt, Mrs. Porten. At the age of nine he was sent to a boarding-school at Kingston-upon Thames, where he remained for two years, but made little progress, in consequence of the frequent interruption of his studies by illness. The same cause prevented his attention to study at Westminster school, whither heaves sent in 1749, and " bia riper age was left to acquire the beauties of the Latin and the rudiments of the Greek tongue." After residing for a short time with the Rev. Philip Francis, the trans lator of Horace, he was removed in 1752 to Oxford, where he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College in his fifteenth year. Though his frequent absence from school had prevented him from obtaining much knowledge of Latin and Greek, his love of reading had led him to peruse many historical and geographical works; and he arrived at Oxford, according to his own account, "with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed." Ills imperfect education was not improved during his residence at Oxford ; his tutors he deacribei as easy men, who preferred receiving the fees to attending to the instruction of their pupils; and after leading a somewhat dissipated life for fourteen mouths, he was compelled to leave Oxford iu consequence of having embraced the Rumen Catholic faith. His couversiou was effected by the perusal of Dr. Middleton's ' Free Inquiry into the Miraculous I'owera possessed by the Church in the Early Ages,' in which be attempts to show that all the leading doctrines of the Roman Catholio Church are supported by the miracles of the early fathers, and that therefore the doctrines of the Church of Rome must be true, or the miracles false. Gibbon's early education had taught him to revere the authority of these fathers; he was induced to read some works in favour of the Roman Catholic faith; ?nd in 1753, he, "solemnly, though privately, abjured the errors of heresy." With the object of reclaiming him to Protestautism, his father sent him to Lausanne in Switzerland, to reside with M. Pavillard, a Calvinist minister. The arguments of Pavillard and his own 'studies had the effect which his father desired; in the follow ing year he professed his belief in the doctrines of the Protestant Church, and, according to his own statement, "suspended his religions inquiries, acquiescing with implicit belief in the tenets and mysteries which are adopted by the general consent of Catholics and Protestants."
He remained in Switzerland for five years, during which time he paid great attention to study, and assiduously endeavoured to remedy the defects of his early education.
During his residence at Lausanne, he had become perfectly ac quainted with the French language, in which he composed his first work, entitled 'Easel cur dEtude de la Littdrature,' which was published in 1761. " It was received with more favour on tho Cote tineut than in Eugland, where it was little read and speedily forgotten." His studies after his return to Eugland were much interrupted by attention to his duties in the Hampshire militia, in which he was appointed captain ; and the knowledge of military tactics, which he acquired in this service, was not, to use his own words, " melees to the historian of the Roman Empire." During his visit to Rome in 1764, "as he oat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to his mind." Many years however elapsed before he began the composition of the 'Decline and Fall.' On his return tc England, he commenced a work on tho Revolutions of Florence and Switzerland; and in conjunction with a Swiss friend of the name ul Deyverdun, published in 1767 and 1768 two volumes of a word entitled Mdmoires Littairaires de Is Grande Brdtagne.' His next work, which appeared in 1770, was a 'Reply to Bishop Warburtou'i lnterpretatiou of the Sixth Book of the Atineid.' In 1774 he was •eturned to parliament by the interest of Lord Eliot for the borough sf Liskeard; and for eight sessions he steadily supported by his vote lough he never spoke, the ministry of Lord North, for which he was •ewarded by being made one of the commissioners of trade and plan .ations, with a salary of 800/. a year. Iu the next parliament he sat 'or the borough of Lymington, but resigned his seat on the dissolu tion of Lord North's ministry, when lie lost " his convenient salary, after having enjoyed it about three years." During the time in which le was a member of parliament, he published, iu the French Language, at the request of the ministry, a pamphlet entitled 'Mdmoire Tustificatif,' in reply to the French manifesto and in vindication of the justice of the British arms. In 1776 the first volume of the `Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' appeared in 4to, and was received by the public in the most favourable manner : "the first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand." The second and third volnmes, which terminated the history of the fall of the Western Empire, were published in 1781.