Of the next two years, I passed about nine months in London, and the rest in the country. My progress in the English world was in general left to my own efforts, and those efforts were languid and slow. But my love of knowledge was inflamed and gratified by the command of books, and from the slender beginning in my father's study I have gradually formed a numerous and select library, the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my life both at home and abroad. In this place I may allow myself to observe that I have never bought a book from a motive of ostentation, and that every volume before it was deposited on the shelf was either read or sufficiently examined.
The design of my first work, the "Essay on the Study of Literature," was suggested by a refinement of vanity--the desire of justifying and praising the object of a favourite pursuit. I was ambitious of proving that all the faculties of the mind may be exercised and displayed by the study of ancient literature.
My father fondly believed that the proof of some literary talents might introduce me to public notice. The work was printed and published under the title "Essai sur l'Etude de la Littérature." It is not surprising that a work of which the style and sentiments were so totally foreign should have been more successful abroad than at home. I was delighted by the warm commendations and flattering predictions of the journals of France and Holland. In England it was received with cold indifference, little read, and speedily forgotten. A small impression was slowly dispersed.
IV.--Soldiering and Travel
An active scene now follows which bears no affinity to any other period of my studious and social life. On June 12, 1759, my father and I received our commissions as major and captain in the Hampshire regiment of militia, and during two and a half years were condemned to a wandering life of military servitude. My principal obligation to the militia was the making me an Englishman and a soldier. In this peaceful service I imbibed the rudiments of the language and science of tactics, which opened a new field of study and observation. The discipline and evolutions of a modern battalion gave me a clearer notion of the phalanx and the legion; and the captain of the Hampshire Grenadiers--the reader may smile--has not been useless to the historian of the Roman Empire.
I was detained above four years by my rash engagement in the militia. I eagerly grasped the first moments of freedom; and such was my diligence that on my father consenting to a term of foreign travel, I reached Paris only thirty-six hours after the disbanding of the militia. Between my stay of three months and a half in Paris and a visit to Italy, I interposed some months of tranquil simplicity at Lausanne. My old friends of both sexes hailed my voluntary return--the most genuine proof of my attachment. The public libraries of Lausanne and Geneva liberally supplied me with books, from which I armed myself for my Italian journey. On this tour I was agreeably employed for more than a year. Turin, Milan, Genoa, Parma, Modena, and Florence were visited, and here I first acknowledged, at the feet of the Venus of Medici, that the chisel may dispute the preeminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts which cannot on this side of the Alps be felt or understood.
After leaving Florence, I passed through Pisa, Leghorn, and Sienna to Rome. My temper is not very susceptible to enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot, where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Cæsar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost, or enjoyed, before I could descend to a cool and minute observation.
It was in Rome, on October 15, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed 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. But my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city rather than the empire; and though my reading and reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the execution of that laborious work.
V.--History and Politics
The five years and a half between my return from my travels and my father's death are the portion of my life which I passed with the least enjoyment, and which I remember with the least satisfaction. In the fifteen years between my "Essay on the Study of Literature" and the first volume of the "Decline and Fall," a criticism of Warburton on Virgil and some articles in "Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne" were my sole publications. In November, 1770, my father sank into the grave in the sixty-fourth year of his age. As soon as I had paid the last solemn duties to my father, and obtained from time and reason a tolerable composure of mind, I began to form the plan of an independent life most adapted to my circumstances and inclination. I had now attained the first of earthly blessings--independence. I was absolute master of my hours and actions; and no sooner was I settled in my house and library than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my history. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and easy pace.