[135] His father had sent him to Lausanne at the age of sixteen. His first literary venture, his Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature, was in French.
[136] Lettres à Walpole 3. 342; 8 June 1777.
[137] Gibbon, Miscellaneous Works 2. 247; 21 April 1781.
[138] Lettres à Walpole, 3. 367; 21 September 1777.
[139] Private Letters, ed. Prothero, 1. 29; 12 February 1763. Cf. Memoirs, ed. Hill, p. 153.
[140] Walpole’s account of him in dispute is less flattering. ‘He coloured; all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; he screwed up his button-mouth and [rapped] his snuff-box.... I well knew his vanity, even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much sense to avow it so palpably.’ Letters 11. 376; 27 January 1781. Gibbon avoided disputes with Johnson, and Boswell (Life 2. 348) assumed that he feared ‘a competition of abilities.’
[141] Lettres à Walpole 3. 343, 351, and 376.
[142] Private Lettres 1. 312; 16 June 1777.
[143] Lettres à Walpole 3. 336.
[144] Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works 2. 178; 30 September 1776.