A Minute Examination of Horace's Journey to Brundusium Remarques Critiques sur un Passage de Plaute. 4th May, Remarques sur quelques Endroits de Virgile. April, 1757. 441 Critical Observations on the Design of the Sixth Book of the A Vindication of some Passages in the Fifteenth and Six- CONTENTS. MISCELLANEOUS. MÉMOIRE Justificatif pour servir de Réponse, &c. Written 1. Observations sur les Mémoires Posthumes de M. de Ché- Remarques sur quelques Prodiges. Lausanne, 1757 Remarques Critiques sur les Dignités Sacerdotales de Jules Principes des Poids, des Monnoies, et des Mesures des An- ciens, avec des Tables construites sur ces Principes. Writ- Dissertation sur les Anciennes Mesures, &c. du Bas Empire jusqu'à la Prise de Constantinople par les Turcs; la France et les Pays Bas; l'Allemagne, la Suisse, et les Pays du Nord; l'Italie et l'Espagne; l'Orient, les Indes, et l'A- frique; also Remarques sur "An Inquiry into the State of the Ancient Measures, the Attic, the Roman, and par- On On the Position of the Meridional Line and the supposed Circumnavigation of Africa by the Ancients. Written in Selections from Mr. Gibbon's Extraits Raisonnés de mes Lec- tures, from the Journal, from the Recueil de mes Obser- Page Remarks on Blackstone's Commentaries. Written 1770 545 548 Observations on Augerii Gislenii Busbequii Omnia quæ extant 580 Notes and Additions to Harewood's View of the various Edi- 581 590 MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE AND WRITINGS. IN the fifty-second year of my age, after the completion of an arduous and successful work, I now propose to employ some moments of my leisure in reviewing the simple transactions of a private and literary life. Truth, naked, unblushing truth, the first virtue of more serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this personal narrative. The style shall be simple and familiar: but style is the image of character; and the habits of correct writing may produce, without labour or design, the appearance of art and study. My own amusement is my motive, and will be my reward: and if these sheets are communicated to some discreet and indulgent friends, they will be secreted from the public eye till the author shall be removed beyond the reach of criticism or ridicule.* A lively This passage is found in one only of the six sketches, and in that which seems to have been the first written, and which was laid aside among loose papers. Mr. Gibbon, in his communisations with me on the subject of his Memoirs, a subject which VOL. I. B he A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers; it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which Nature has confined us. Fifty or an hundred years may be allotted to an individual; but we step forward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than to suppress, the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satyrist may laugh, the philosopher may preach; but Reason herself will respect the prejudices and habits, which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind. Few there are who can sincerely despise in others, an advantage of which they are secretly ambitious to partake. The knowledge of our own family from a remote period, will be al he had not mentioned to any other person, expressed a determination of publishing them in his lifetime; and never appears to have departed from that resolution, excepting in one of his letters annexed, in which he intimates a doubt, though rather carelessly, whether in his time, or at any time, they would meet the eye of the public. In a conversation, however, not long before his death, I suggested to him, that, if he should make them a full image of his mind, he would not have nerves to publish them, and therefore that they should be posthumous;-Ile answered, rather eagerly, that he was determined to publish them in his life-time. S. ways |