Private Letters of Edward Gibbon (1753-1794) Volume 2 (of 2)

309

Probably Horace Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening, which was written in 1770, and printed at the Strawberry Hill Press in 1785 (4to), with a French translation on opposite pages by the Duc de Nivernois.

310

"Madame de Staël, daughter of M. Necker, is now at the head of the colony of French noblesse, established near Mickleham. She is one of the first women I have ever met with for abilities and extraordinary intellect." Miss Burney to Dr. Burney, February 4, 1793 (Diary and Letters, vol. v. p. 394).

311

Lord Porchester, son of Gen. the Hon. W. Herbert, fifth son of the Earl of Pembroke, was created Earl of Carnarvon in July, 1793.

312

The Duke of York.

313

Lady Sheffield died April 3, 1793. Her death is said to have been occasioned by her attendance upon the sick émigrés at Guy's hospital (Gentleman's Magazine for 1793, part i. p. 379).

314

Wilhelm de Severy.

315

A select committee appointed (April 25, 1793) to consider the state of commercial credit reported (April 29), recommending, inter alia, that five millions should be issued in Exchequer Bills for the relief of credit. The report was considered on April 30; a resolution, and subsequently a Bill, were carried for the issue of the Bills. A commission was appointed (May 3), with Lord Sheffield at the head of it, to effect the necessary arrangements.

316

Mayence was invested by the Prussian and Austrian forces early in April, 1793. It was surrendered July 22, 1793.

317

Thomas, Lord Elgin, was appointed in August, 1792, Envoy Extraordinary at Brussels. Subsequently appointed Ambassador at Constantinople in 1799, he collected the Elgin marbles.

318

Madame de Sylva.

319

John Augustus, Lord Hervey, a captain in the Royal Navy, second son of the Bishop of Derry, and brother to Lady Elisabeth Foster, was ambassador at Florence from 1787 to 1794. In 1793 he insisted in a violent note on the dismissal of the French Minister, La Flotte, from the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. "It was generally supposed," writes Lord Holland, (Memoirs of the Whig Party, p. 56), "in the maldicente city of Florence, that resentment at the French Minister for having supplanted him in the good graces of a lady quickened his hatred of the French Republick, or at least gave it the turn of insisting on the dismissal of his rival." Lord Hervey, in consequence of the affair, was recalled from Florence in 1794.

320

New toll-gates had been placed on the bridge at Bristol; but they were burnt by a mob which, from September 30 to October 3, attacked the toll-houses, and broke the windows of the Guildhall and Council-house. The Herefordshire Militia were twice called out and ordered to fire on the mob; eleven rioters were killed and forty-five wounded. The attempt to raise a toll was abandoned.

321

76, St. James's Street.

322

Gibbon had, in 1761, consulted Mr. (afterwards Sir Cæsar) Hawkins, the surgeon, who wished to see him again. But he never returned, or consulted any other medical man till November, 1793.

323

Sir Walter Farquhar, Bart. (cr. 1796), was originally an army doctor. He died in 1819.

324

Henry Cline (1750-1827) was a pupil of Hunter, and at this time surgeon of St. Thomas's Hospital.

325

For the soldiers serving in Flanders under the Duke of York.

326

At Lord Auckland's, at Eden Farm.

327

Sir Charles Grey, afterwards first Earl Grey (1729-1807), sailed November 23, in joint command with Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent, on an expedition against the French West Indian Islands.

328

Francis Rawdon Hastings, second Earl of Moira and first Marquis of Hastings (1754-1826), had served with distinction in the American War. The expedition here alluded to was that which sailed in December, 1793, to aid the French royalists in Brittany. The expedition returned without effecting anything.

329

Fort Louis, part of the position held by the French army in Alsace, was besieged by the Austrians, November 10, 1792. It surrendered on November 14, and the four thousand French troops who formed its garrison became prisoners of war.

330

Gibbon was a diligent student of Pascal, and his irony was cultivated by constant reading of his works. One curious parallel may be noted in their writings. "Abu Rafe," writes Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ed. 1862, vol. vii. p. 252), "was an eye-witness, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?" Similarly Pascal, in the Lettres Provinciales: neuvième lettre, p. 154 (ed. Firmin Didot, 1853), writes, "'Mais, mon père, qui nous a assuré que la Vierge en répond?' 'Le père Barry,' dit-il, 'en répond pour elle.' 'Mais, mon père, qui répondra pour le père Barry?'"

331

Dr. John Moore (1730-1805), Archbishop of Canterbury (1783-1805), was, by his marriage to Catherine Eden, daughter of Sir Robert Eden, connected with Lord Auckland.

332

Lord Loughborough.

333

Richard, Earl Howe (1726-1799), had sailed (November 9) in search of the French; but he was compelled to return to Spithead (November 29) without bringing them to action. "We continue in the same eternal state of anxious expectation of news from Lord Howe. Nothing is yet heard" (Lord Auckland to Lord H. Spencer, December 3, 1793: Correspondence, iii. 151). Gibbon did not live to hear of the victory of June 1, 1794.

334

Gibbon met Pitt at Eden Farm. "He was much pleased," writes Lord Sheffield, December 17, 1793, of this stay at Beckenham, "with his visit there, and his occurrence with the minister, in a family way, was a great satisfaction to him" (Auckland Correspondence, iii. 158).

335

"The Gibbon is better, but I am by no means without inquietude on his account. It is thought necessary that he should go to London on Tuesday; probably I shall follow him shortly for two days, for I shall be impatient to see how he goes on" (Lord Sheffield to Lord Auckland, January 5, 1794: Auckland Correspondence, iii. 168).