Part 6 (1/2)

Gibbon had now only about six months to live He did not seem to have suffered by his rapid journey fro the summer which he spent with his friend Lord Sheffield, he was much as usual; only his friend noticed that his habitual dislike to motion appeared to increase, and he was so incapable of exercise that he was confined to the library and dining-rooainst exercise in general He ridiculed the unsettled and restless disposition that suenerally gives to those who have the use of their limbs” The true disciples of Epicurus are not always the least stout and stoical in the presence of irreparable evils

After spending three or four months at Sheffield Place, he went to Bath to visit his step-hly honourable to him It should be remembered that her jointure, paid out of his father's decayed estate, was a great tax on his s his landed property, Mrs Gibbon seeards the security of her interests It was only prudent on her part But it is easy to see what a source of alienation and quarrel was here ready prepared, if both parties had not risen superior to sordid motives There never seems to have been the smallest cloud between them When one of his properties was sold he writes: ”Mrs Gibbon's jointure is secured on the Buriton estate, and her legal consent is requisite for the sale Again and again I must repeat my hope that she is perfectly satisfied, and that the close of her life may not be embittered by suspicion, fear, or discontent What new security does she prefer--the funds, a e, or your land? At all events, sheon his road to Bath: here he passed about ten days with his step-e ”In o,” he writes to Lord Sheffield; ”she has spirits, appetite, legs, and eyes, and talks of living till ninety I can say from my heart, Amen” And in another letter, a few days later, he says: ”A _tete-a-tete_ of eight or nine hours every day is rather difficult to support; yet I do assure you that our conversation floith more ease and spirit e are alone, than when any auxiliaries are summoned to our aid She is indeed a wonderful woer and more active than I have ever known them I shall therefore depart next Friday, but I may possibly reckon without my host, as I have not yet apprised Mrs G of the term of my visit, and will certainly not quarrel with her for a short delay” He then went to Althorpe, and it is the last evidence of his touching a book--”exhausted thethe first editions of Cicero” Then he came to London, and in a few days was seized with the illness which in a little more than two months put an end to his life

His malady was dropsy, colected a very dangerous sy failed to takeall allusion to it to bosoer concealeon Farquhar (the saether with Cline, at once recognised the case as one of the uth they did not say as much to the patient On Thursday, the 14th of Novereatly relieved He said he was not appalled by the operation, and during its progress he did not lay aside his usual good-huain, but only for a few days, and a fortnight after another tapping was necessary Again he went out to dinners and parties, which e and in his state But he does not seem to have acted contrary to medical advice He was very anxious to meet the prime h he must have seen him in old days in the House He saw hiratified, we are told At last he got to what he called his home--the house of his true and devoted friend, Lord Sheffield ”But,” says the latter, whose narrative of his friend's last illness is marked by a deep and reserved tenderness that does him much honour, ”this last visit to Sheffield Place became far different from any he had everconversation which we had before admired in hi-room He moved with difficulty, and retired from company sooner than he had been used to do On the 23rd of Decean to fail hin _with him_ when he could not eat his breakfast, which he had done at all tiest expression of apprehension that he was ever observed to utter” He soon becahest medical advice On the 7th of January, 1794, he left a houseful of cos in St

Ja note to Lord Sheffield, the last lines he ever wrote:--

”ST JAMES'S, FOUR O'CLOCK, TUESDAY

”This date says everything I was almost killed between Sheffield Place and East Grinstead by hard, frozen, long, and cross ruts, that would disgrace the approach of an Indian am The rest was somewhat less painful, and I reached this place half dead, but not seriously feverish or ill I found a dinner invitation from Lord Lucan; but what are dinners to me? I wish they did not know ofpost What an effort! Adieu till Thursday or Friday”

The end was not far off On the 13th of January he underwent another operation, and, as usual, experienced ood He talked of passing his tireat pleasure--the Duke of Devonshi+re's, Mr

Craufurd's, Lord Spencer's, Lord Lucan's, Sir Ralph Payne's, Mr

Batt's” On the 14th of January ”he saw soht hiht which he had been used to take for some ti he rose, but could not eat his breakfast However, he appeared tolerably well, yet complained at times of a pain in his stomach At one o'clock he received a visit of an hour from Madame de Sylva; and at three, his friend, Mr Craufurd, of Auchinaard), called, and stayed with him till past five o'clock They talked, as usual, on various subjects; and twenty hours before his death Mr

Gibbon happened to fall into a conversation not uncommon with hiht hiood life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years About six he ate the wing of a chicken and drank three glasses of Madeira After dinner he becaood deal, and appeared so weak that his servant was alar he co of nausea Soon after nine, he took his opiuht and went to bed About ten he coht be applied to his stomach He almost incessantly expressed a sense of pain till about four o'clock in the , when he said he found his stomach much easier About seven the servant asked whether he should send for Mr Farquhar He answered, No; that he was as well as the day before At about half-past eight he got out of bed, and said he was 'plus adroit' than he had been for three ain without assistance, better than usual About nine he said he would rise The servant, however, persuaded him to remain in bed till Mr Farquhar, as expected at eleven, should coreat facility Mr Farquhar ca When the _valet-de-cha Mr Farquhar out of the room, Mr Gibbon said, 'Pourquoi est ce que vous me quittez?' This was about half-past eleven At twelve he drank some brandy and water from a teapot, and desired his favourite servant to stay with him These were the last words he pronounced articulately To the last he preserved his senses; and when he could no longer speak, his servant having asked a question, he n to show that he understood him He was quite tranquil, and did not stir, his eyes half shut About a quarter before one he ceased to breathe” He wanted just eighty-three days of fifty-seven years of age

Thus, in consequence of his own strange self-neglect and iuished one of thewhen it did, so near the last summons, Gibbon's prospective hope of continued life ”for ten, twelve, or twenty years” is harshly pathetic, and full of that irony which mocks the vain cares of men

But, truly, his forecast was not irrational if he had not neglected ordinary precautions In spite of his ailments he felt full, and was full, of life, when he was cut off We cannot be sure if lengthened days would have added much to his work already achieved There is hardly a parallel case in literature of the great powers of a whole life being so concentrated on one suprenificent effort Yet, if he had lived to 1804, or as an extreainers In the first place, he certainly would have finished his adine what he would have ment is almost a masterpiece But his fertile ent worker would have done with a decade or two more of years it is impossible to say, except that it is certain they would not have been wasted The extinction of a real mind is ever an irreparable loss

As it was, he went to his rest after one of the greatest victories ever achieved in his own field of huh to taste the fruits of his toil He was never puffed up, but soberly and without arrogance received his laurels His unselfish zeal and haste to console his bereaved friend showed hi to the last; and we enius of pious friendshi+p

In 1796, two years after Gibbon's death, Lord Sheffield published two quarto volumes of the historian's miscellaneous works They have been republished in one thick octavo, and many persons suppose that it contains the whole of the posthumous works; not unnaturally, as a fraudulent statee, ”complete in one volume,” is well calculated to produce that impression But in 1814 Lord Sheffield issued a second edition in five volu ain published in a quarto forinal quarto edition

Of the posthumous works, the Memoirs are by far the most important portion Unfortunately, they were left in aelse than a ether by Lord Sheffield from _six_ different sketches Next to the Memoirs are the journals and diaries of his studies As a picture of Gibbon's e, they are of the highest interest But they refer to an early period of his studies, long previous to the concentration of his reat work, and one would like to knohether they present the best selection thatto follow Gibbon in his perusal of Homer and Juvenal at five-and-twenty But one would much like to be admitted to his study when he was a far riper scholar, and preparing for or writing the _Decline and Fall_ Lord Sheffield positively prohibited, by a clause in his will, any further publication of the Gibbon papers, and although Dean Milman was per that none of their contents should be divulged After the Me portion of the miscellaneous works are _The Antiquities of the House of Brunswick_, which in their present fore work It is too ined to es, and the style in many places seems more nervous and supple than that of the _Decline and Fall_

For instance, this account of Albert Azo the Second:--

”Like one of his Tuscan ancestors Azo the Second was distinguished a the princes of Italy by the epithet of the _Rich_ The particulars of his rentroll cannot now be ascertained An occasional though authentic deed of investiture enuhty-three fiefs or manors which he held of the empire in Lombardy and Tuscany, from the Marquisate of Este to the county of Luni; but to these possessions must be added the lands which he enjoyed as the vassal of the Church, the ancient patria) in the counties of Arezzo, Pisa, and Lucca, and theto the various readings of the manuscripts, lish acres If such a mass of landed property were now accumulated on the head of an Italian nobleest demands of private luxury or avarice, and the fortunate oould be rich in the iriculture, the manufactures of industry, the refinement of taste, and the extent of commerce But the barbarisravated the expense of the Marquis of Este In a long series of war and anarchy, man and the works of man had been swept away, and the introduction of each ferocious and idle stranger had been overbalanced by the loss of five or six perhaps of the peaceful industrious natives The etation, the frequent inundations of the rivers were no longer checked by the vigilance of labour; the face of the country was again covered with forests and ed Azo for their lord, the far greater part was abandoned to the beasts of the field, and a much smaller portion was reduced to the state of constant and productive husbandry An adequate rent may be obtained frorateful soil, and enjoys the security and benefit of a long lease But faint is the hope and scanty is the produce of those harvests which are raised by the reluctant toil of peasants and slaves condemned to a bare subsistance and careless of the interests of a rapacious ranaries are full, his purse is empty, and the want of cities or coes him to consume on the spot a part of his useless stock, which cannot be exchanged for merchandise or money The entertainment of his vassals and soldiers, their pay and rewards, their arms and horses, surpassed the measure of the most oppressive tribute, and the destruction which he inflicted on his neighbours was often retaliated on his own lands The costly elegance of palaces and gardens was superseded by the laborious and expensive construction of strong castles on the summits of the most inaccessible rocks, and some of these, like the fortress of Canossa in the Apennine, were built and provided to sustain a three years' siege against a royal army But his defence in this world was less burdensome to a wealthy lord than his salvation in the next; the des, his pilgries were incessantly renewed; the monastery chosen for his sepulchre was endoith his fairest possessions, and the naked heir ht often coh a price The Marquis Azo was not exeion of the times; his devotion was animated and inflamed by the frequent miracles that were perforadizza, who yielded to his request the arnorant of the value of that inesti the deht appropriate the rest of his revenue to use and pleasure But the Italians of the eleventh century were imperfectly skilled in the liberal and n luxury were furnished at an exorbitant price by the merchants of Pisa and Venice; and the superfluous wealth which could not purchase the real comforts of life, were idly wasted on some rare occasions of vanity and pomp Such were the nuptials of Boniface, Duke or Marquis of Tuscany, whose fae of their children These nuptials were celebrated on the banks of the Mincius, which the fancy of Virgil has decorated with a more beautiful picture The princes and people of Italy were invited to the feasts, which continued three months; the fertilecourse of the river, were covered with innuroom displayed and diversified the scenes of his proud and tasteless nificence All the utensils of the service were of silver, and his horses were shod with plates of the same metal, loosely nailed and carelessly dropped, to indicate his contee of plenty and profusion was expressed in the banquet; the most delicious wines were drawn in buckets froround in water-mills like common flour The dramatic and musical arts were in the rudest state; but the Marquis had suers, harpers, and buffoons to exercise their talents in this splendid theatre After this festival I ift of this same Boniface to the Emperor Henry III, a chariot and oxen of solid silver, which were designed only as a vehicle for a hogshead of vinegar If such an example should seem above the imitation of Azo himself, the Marquis of Este was at least superior in wealth and dignity to the vassals of his compeer One of these vassals, the Viscount of Mantua, presented the German monarch with one hundred falcons and one hundred bay horses, a grateful contribution to the pleasures of a royal sportse the proud distinction between the nobles and princes of Italy was guarded with jealous ceremony The Viscount of Mantua had never been seated at the table of his immediate lord; he yielded to the invitation of the Eraciously accepted by the Marquis of Tuscany as the fine of his presumption

”The te possession of honour and riches; he died in the year 1097, aged upwards of an hundred years; and the term of his mortal existence was almost commensurate with the lapse of the eleventh century The character as well as the situation of the Marquis of Este rendered him an actor in the revolutions of that memorable period; but time has cast a veil over the virtues and vices of the man, and I must be content to mark some of the eras, the milestones of his which measure the extent and intervals of the vacant way Albert Azo the Second was no more than seventeen when he first drew the sword of rebellion and patriotisrandfather, his father, and his three uncles in a coour of his overned the cities of Milan and Genoa as the minister of Imperial authority He was upwards of seventy when he passed the Alps to vindicate the inheritance of Maine for the children of his second ory VII, and in one of his epistles that ambitious pontiff recommends the Marquis Azo, as the most faithful and best beloved of the Italian princes, as the proper channel through which a king of Hungary ht convey his petitions to the apostolic throne In the hty contest between the crown and the mitre, the Marquis Azo and the Countess Matilda led the powers of Italy And when the standard of St Peter was displayed, neither the age of the one nor the sex of the other could detain them from the field With these two affectionate clients the Pope maintained his station in the fortress of Canossa, while the Eround, fasted and prayed three days at the foot of the rock; they itnesses to the abject ceremony of the penance and pardon of Henry IV; and in the triuht foresee the deliverance of Italy from the German yoke At the time of this event the Marquis of Este was above fourscore; but in the twenty following years he was still alive and active amidst the revolutions of peace and war The last act which he subscribed is dated above a century after his birth; and in that the venerable chief possesses the command of his faculties, his faevity of Albert Azo the Second stands alone Nor can I rele exaeneral, of a philosopher or poet, whose life has been extended beyond the period of a hundred years Three approxiuished the present century, Aurungzebe, Cardinal Fleury, and Fontenelle Had a fortnight ht have celebrated his secular festival; but the lives and labours of the Mogul king and the French minister were terminated before they had accomplished their ninetieth year”

Then follow several striking and graceful pages on Lucrezia Borgia and Renee of France, duchess of Ferrara The following description of the University of Padua and the literary tastes of the house of Este is all that we can give here:--

”An university had been founded at Padua by the house of Este, and the scholastic rust was polished away by the revival of the literature of Greece and Rome The studies of Ferrara were directed by skilful and eloquent professors, either natives or foreigners The ducal library was filled with a valuable collection of manuscripts and printed books, and as soon as twelve new plays of Plautus had been found in Germany, the Marquis Lionel of Este was impatient to obtain a fair and faithful copy of that ancient poet Nor were these elegant pleasures confined to the learned world Under the reign of Hercules I a wooden theatre at a est court of the palace, the scenery represented some houses, a seaport and a shi+p, and the _Menechmi_ of Plautus, which had been translated into Italian by the Duke himself, was acted before a nue and with the same success the _Amphytrion_ of Plautus and the _Eunuchus_ of Terence were successively exhibited And these classic models, which formed the taste of the spectators, excited the ee

For the use of the court and theatre of Ferrara, Ariosto composed his comedies, which were often played with applause, which are still read with pleasure And such was the enthusiasm of the new arts that one of the sons of Alphonso the First did not disdain to speak a prologue on the stage In the legitimate forms of dramatic composition the Italians have not excelled; but it was in the court of Ferrara that they invented and refined the _pastoral comedy_, a romantic Arcadia which violates the truth of manners and the sience by the elaborate luxury of eloquence and wit The _Aminta_ of Tasso ritten for the amusement and acted in the presence of Alphonso the Second, and his sister Leonora e of a passion which disordered the reason without clouding the genius of her poetical lover Of the numerous imitations, the _Pastor Fido_ of Guarini, which alone can vie with the fainal, is the work of the Duke's secretary of state It was exhibited in a private house in Ferrara

The father of the Tuscan muses, the sublime but unequal Dante, had pronounced that Ferrara was never honoured with the name of a poet; he would have been astonished to behold the chorus of bards, of melodious swans (their own allusion), which now peopled the banks of the Po In the court of Duke Borso and his successor, Boyardo Count Scandiano, was respected as a noble, a soldier, and a scholar: his vigorous fancy first celebrated the loves and exploits of the paladin Orlando; and his falories and continuation of his work Ferrara round Ariosto and Tasso lived and sung; that the lines of the _Orlando Furioso_, the _Gierusale characters under the eye of the First and Second Alphonso In a period of near three thousand years, five great epic poets have arisen in the world, and it is a singular prerogative that two of the five should be claie and a petty state”

It perhaps will be ades is less elaborate than that of the _Decline and Fall_, the deficiency, if it is one, is cohtness of touch