out.

He was ready to make peace with all his enemies, and even his enemies were willing to make peace with him. As chamberlain of the city he had occasion at times to meet the ministry, and even royalty itself, and at last his reconciliation with George III, was brought about. In his interview with the king, when the latter asked him what had become of Sergeant Flynn, the lawyer who had been elected at one time to parliament with Wilkes, and by his influence, Wilkes replied in his most polished manner : "Ah! your majesty, he was always a Wilkite, which I never was.'

The reconciliation with Dr. Johnson was brought about by Boswell, and forms one of the most entertaining chapters in Boswell's great book.

Edmund Burke declared that this negotiation of Boswell's surpassed everything in the history of the corps diplomatique.

Johnson and Wilkes remained on friendly terms and met several times afterwards, and Johnson often spoke of his former enemy with kindness.

He was certainly one of the most agreeable men that ever lived.

GIBBON.

(1737-1794.)

It

NEW editions of Gibbon's History still come from the press, so that the work must be bought, whatever may be said about its being read. belongs to the class of books that "no gentleman's library should be without," though it is equally included in Charles Lamb's definition of "books which are no books." Walter Bagehot, who was a most catholic reader, stumbled somewhat at Gibbon, and put himself on record to the effect that "the way to reverence Gibbon, is not to read him, but to look at him from the outside, in the bookcase, and think how much there is within, what a course of events, what a muster roll of names, what a steady, solemn sound." It will be remembered that these were the interesting volumes selected by the ingenious Mr. Wegg for the entertainment of the Golden Dustman, and ⠀ that when Silas was cross-examined as to his reading of the immortal works he was forced to

reply: "I haven't been, not to say right slap through him very lately, having been otherwise employed, Mr. Boffin." It is to be feared that most of us would have answered in the same way if the same queries were put to us. But some sort of acquaintance we must have with Gibbon, and the history must be dealt with by every student of history and literature. "No reader," says Emerson, "can spare Gibbon with his vast reading." Carlyle called "The History of the Decline and Fall"" the splendid bridge from the old world to the new," and the historian Freeman said: "Whatever else is read, Gibbon must be read."

With such authority as this speaking to us, we must at least own these volumes, and then do as Bagehot advised-look at the backs of them as they stand prominently on the bookshelves and imagine what they contain, or else in stubborn mood take them down volume after volume, and persistently master them, a task not nearly so irksome as many suppose.

For it is the epic of history, in which is related the story of mighty men and of the rise and fall of nations and kingdoms and religions. Beginning with the splendid period of Trajan and the Antonines, in which is seen the culmination of the

glory of Rome, the reader is carried down the stream of time for fourteen hundred years. Here is related the atrocities of Commodus or of Heliogabalus, there the virtues of Pertinax, the wisdom of Justinian, the glory of Constantine, the conquests and defeats of the Roman legions, the division of the empire, and at last, after the flight of centuries, the fall of Constantinople, when the eastern throne of the imperial Cæsars was conquered by the Turks.

One of the most brilliant portions of the work is devoted to Mahomet and the rise of the Saracen Empire, another to the fall of Jerusalem. Take it altogether, it is an unequaled narrative, and Gibbon was well equipped for it, for in historical erudition he surpassed every writer of his time.

The history occupied him for twenty-four years. In his autobiography he says: "It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amid 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." He was twenty-seven when he entered upon the colossal undertaking, and until it was completed he pursued his task with ever-increasing ardor.

The first volume appeared in 1776, the next two in 1781 and the last three in 1788. There have been few instances in our literary history of such untiring industry, and fewer still of so great appreciation and reward.

But great as the history is, it is not so great as a literary production as Gibbon's autobiography. This was begun shortly after the history was finished, and its opening sentence runs as follows:

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, unembellished 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 labor 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.

It is one of the three or four great autobiographies of the world and is a literary masterpiece. He wrote it six times before he was satisfied, and the six copies are still extant. He reveals himself with charming frankness, and yet not quite so offen