THE EUROPEAN MAGAZINE, AND LONDON REVIEW, For MARCH, 1788. To the EDITOR of the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE. SIR, AS you gave a ready admiffion in your Work to a letter written to me fome years ago by my mott honoured and moft lamented friend Doctor Samuel Johnson, Í hefitate not to fend you two more, in confidence that you will contrive fome room for thefe as you did for that. In procuring their appearance in print, my view is to fhew, that the Doctor did not make quite fo light of his old friend as people may reasonably infer he did, if they credit ieveral pages of Signora Piozzi's fecond publication in particular. If you chufe to have me among your future contributors, I intend to fend you, from time to time, fome defultory Strictures upon that fame fecond publication, and fhew you that the pretty Signora was not quite fo ingenuous as the might have been throughout it; but has mutilated and falfified feveral of the Doctor's letters ; which letters, had they been faithfully printed, would have fcreened him from fome paltry cenfurers, and added fomewhat to his credit, inftead of doing him duho I know enough both nour, as they really do, when perused in their prefent state. of the Doctor and the Madame, to caution the readers of the Doctor's letters against placing too much confidence in a publication produced by the unbounded vanity and the infatiable avarice of a female, who, whatever claim the have to wit and learning, never had much title to goodness and plain-dealing. I am, with great refpect, SIR, No. 10, Edward-fireet, Portlandchapel, March 20, 1788. SIR, may London, July 20, 1762. fpeare, that you may explain his works to the ladies of Italy, and tell them the HOWEVER juftly you may accufe me for want of punctuality in correfpondence, I am not fo far loft in negligence, as to omit the opportunity of writing to you, which Mr. Beauclerk's paffage through Milan affords me. I suppose you received the Idlers, and I intend that you fhall foon receive Shake ftory of the editor, among the other frange narratives with which your long refidence in this unknown region has fupplied you. As you have now been long away, I fuppofe your curiofity may pant for fome news of your old friends. Mifs Williams and I live much as we did. Mifs Cotte See the EUROPEAN MAGAZINE for June 1787, p. 385. rel rel ftill continues to cling to Mrs. Porter, and Charlotte is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Reynolds gets fix thousands a year. Levet is lately married, not without much fufpicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his match. Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the circuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardfon is dead of an apoplexy, and his fecond daughter has married a merchant. My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myself, that you would rather hear of me than of those whom I have mentioned; but of myfelf I have very little which I care to tell. Laft winter I went down to my native town, where I found the streets much narrower and fhorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play-fellows were grown old, and forced me to fufpect, that I was no longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his principles, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My daughter-in-law, from whom I expected moft, and whom I met with fincere benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, without having gained much of the wisdom of age. I wandered about for five days, and took the first convenient opportunity of returning to a place, where, if there is not much happincfs, there is at least fuch a diverfity of good and evil, that flight vexations do not fix upon the heart. I think in a few weeks to try another excurfion; though to what end? Let me know, my Baretti, what has been the refult of your return to your own country: whether time has made any alteration for the better, and whether, when the firft raptures of falutation were over, you did not find your thoughts confeffed their dif appointment. Moral fentences appear oftentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occafions than the journey of a wit to his own town: yet fuch pleasures and fuch pains make up the general mafs of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with great fenfibility, a mind able to fee common incidents in their real ftate, is difpofed by very common incidents to very ferious contemplations. Let us trust that a time will come, when the prefent moment fhall be no longer irkfome; when we shall not borrow all our happiness from hope, which at last is to end in difappointment. I beg that you will fhew Mr. Beau clerk all the civilities which you have in your power; for he has always been kind to me. I have lately feen Mr. Stratico, Profeffor of Padua, who has told me of your quarrel with an Abbot of the Celeftine Order; but had not the particulars very ready in his memory. When you write to Mr. Marfili, let him know that I remember him with kindness. May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan, or fome other place nearer to, SIR, YOU are not to fuppofe, with all your conviction of my idlenefs, that I have paffed all this time without writing to my Baretti. I gave a letter to Mr. Beauclerk, who, in my opinion, and in his own, was haftening to Naples for the recovery of his health; but he has stopped at Paris, and I know not when he will proceed. Langton is with him. I will not trouble you with fpeculations about peace and war. The good or ill fuccefs of battles and embaffies extends jtself to a very small part of domeftic life: we all have good and evil, which we feel more fenfibly than our petty part of public mifcarriage or profperity. I am forry for your disappointment, with which you fem more touched than I fhould expect a man of your refolution and experience to have been, did I not know that general truths are feldom applied to particular occafions; and that the fallacy of our selflove extends itself as wide as our intereft or affections. Every man believes that mistreffes are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own miftrefs and his own patron. We have all learned that greatnefs is negligent and contemptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished away in ungratified expectation; but he that approaches greatnefs, or glitters in a Court, imagines that deftiny has at last exempted him from the common lot. as thousands have fuffered and thousands if all would happen that a lover fancies, I know not what other terreftrial happinefs would deferve purfuit. But love and marriage are different states. Those who are to fuffer the evils together, and to fuffer often for the fake of one another, foon lofe that tenderness of lock and that benevolence of mind which arofe from the participation of unmingled pleasure and fucceffive amusement. A woman we are fure will not be always fair; we are not fore he will always be virtuous; and man cannot retain through life that refpect and affiduity by which he pleases for a day or for a month. I do not however pretend to have difcovered that life has any thing more to be defired than a prudent and virtuous marriage; therefore know not what counfel to give you. If you can quit your imagination of love and greatness, and leave your hopes of preferment and bridal raptures to try once more the fortune of literature and industry, the way through France is now open. We flatter curfelves that we fhall cultivate with great diligence the arts of peace; and every man will be welcome Do not let fuch evils overwhelm you among us who can teach us any thing we do not know. For your part, you will find all your old friends willing to receive you. have furmounted; but turn your thoughts with vigour to fome other plan of life, and keep always in your mind, that, with due fubmiffion to Providence, a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. Your patron's weakness or infenfibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not affifted by your own paffions. Of your love I know not the propriety, nor can eftimate the power; but in love, as in every other paffion, of which hope is the effence, we ought always to remember the uncertainty of events. There is indeed nothing that so much seduces reafon from her vigilance, as the thought of paling life with an amiable woman; and Reynolds ftill continues to encrease in reputation and in riches. Mifs Williams, who very much loves you, goes on in the old way. Mifs Cotterel is ftill with Mrs, Porter. Mifs Charlotte is married to Dean Lewis, and has three children. Mr. Levet has married a ftreet-walker. But the gazette of my narration must now arrive to tell you, that Bathurst went phyfician to the army, and died at the Havannah. I know not whether I have not fent you word that Huggins and Richardfon are both dead, When we fce our ene mies An ACCOUNT of EDWARD GIBBON, Efq. "IT T has been observed, fays the au- Such was the opinion of an author al molt forty years ago, whofe judgment literary queftions has been feldom difputed. Its truth will be eftablished beyond all doubt, if we recollect the English lidorians who had then written. At that period it would be difficult to point out an author against whom fome objection could not be produced. In whatever other department of literature we might then have excelled, it is very certain we are not to look for excellence amongst the Hiflorians. To authors of the prefent day the palm of History is alone to be prefented. Of thefe Mr. Gibbon stands in the foremost rank, equal to any living foreign author, and but little inferior to the greatest hiftorian of antiquity. lie was born on the 8th of May 1737. His father, a gentleman of ample fortune, fat in the British Senate, and commanded the Hampfaire militia, the county where his citate lay. Our author, his fon. was fome time in the fame regiment, and received every advantage in his coucatta that could be bestowed upon him. This he gratefully acknowledged in his fit performance, which, though written 70, before he was twenty-two years 44, was not published until 1761.) It was entitled, "Effai for l'Etude de la Literature," and written in French, though for what reafon is not very appa rent. The topics most enlarged on are Tafte, Criticiim, and Philofophy; on which fubjects, as hath been obferved, though much hacknied, there are many old obfervations well repeated, many ingenious conjectures advanced, and much reading difplayed. It is preceded by an eulogium from Dr. Maty, and a Dedication fo ftrikingly manly, grateful, and affectionate, and exhibiting to amiable a picture of its author, that it would be doing him the highest injuftice to omit it in this place. It is addrefied to his father in the following terms: "Dear Sir, "No performance is, in my opinion, more contemptible than a dedication of the common fort, when fome great man is presented with a book, which, if fcience be the fubject, he is incapable of underftanding; if Polite Literature, incapable of tafting: and this honour is done him, as a reward for virtues which he nei ther does, nor defires to poffefs. I know but two kinds of dedications, which can do honour either to the patron or author, . The first is, when an unexperienced writer addreffes himself to a matter of the art in which he endeavours to excel; whole example he is ambitious of imitating; by whole advice he has been directed, or whofe approbation he is anxious to de 1erve. "Theather fort is yet more honourable, It is dictated by the heart, and offered to fome perion who is dear to us, because he ought to be lo. It is an opportunity |