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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.

By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married my first cousin, I was returned member of parliament for the borough of Liskeard. I took my seat at the beginning of the memorable contest between Great Britain and America, and supported, with many a sincere and silent vote, the rights, though not, perhaps, the interest, of the Mother Country. After a fleeting, illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in the humble station of a mute. But I listened to the attack and defence of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the characters, views, and passions of the first men of the age. The eight sessions that I sat in parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and most essential virtue of an historian.

The first volume of my history, which had been somewhat delayed by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now ready for the press. During the awful interval of awaited publication, I was neither elated by the ambition of fame nor depressed by the apprehension of contempt. My diligence and accuracy were attested by my own conscience. I likewise flattered myself that an age of light and liberty would receive without scandal an inquiry into the human causes of progress of Christianity.

I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand. My book was on every table; nor was the general voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic. Let me frankly own that I was startled at the first discharge of ecclesiastical ordnance; but I soon discovered that this empty noise was mischievous only in intention, and every feeling of indignation has long since subsided.

Nearly two years elapsed between the publication of my first and the commencement of my second volume. The second and third volumes of the "Decline and Fall" insensibly rose in sale and reputation to a level with the first volume. So flexible is the title of my history that the final era might be fixed at my own choice, and I long hesitated whether I should be content with the three volumes, the "Fall of the Western Empire." The tumult of London and attendance at parliament were now grown irksome, and when I had finished the fourth volume, excepting the last chapter, I sought a retreat on the banks of the Leman Lake.

VI.--A Quiet Consummation

My transmigration from London to Lausanne could not be effected without interrupting the course of my historical labours, and a full twelvemonth was lost before I could resume the thread of regular and daily industry. In the fifth and sixth volumes the revolutions of the empire and the world are most rapid, various, and instructive. It was not till after many designs and many trials that I preferred the method of grouping my picture by nations; and the seeming neglect of chronological order is surely compensated by the superior merits of interest and perspicacity. I was now straining for the goal, and in the last winter many evenings were borrowed from the social pleasures of Lausanne.