Gibbon had neither children nor the hopes of children, we more easily
adopted the tender names and genuine characters of mother and son." A
most creditable testimony surely to the worth and amiability of both
of them. The friendship thus begun continued without break or coolness
to the end of Gibbon's life. Thirty-five years after his first
interview with his step-mother, and only a few months before his own
death, when he was old and ailing, and the least exertion, by reason
of his excessive corpulence, involved pain and trouble, he made a long
journey to Bath for the sole purpose of paying Mrs. Gibbon a visit. He
was very far from being the selfish Epicurean that has been sometimes
represented.
He had brought with him from Lausanne the first pages of a work which,
after much bashfulness and delay, he at length published in the French
language, under the title of _Essai sur l'Etude de la Litterature_, in
the year 1761, that is two years after its completion. In one respect
this juvenile work of Gibbon has little merit. The style is at once
poor and stilted, and the general quality of remark eminently
commonplace, where it does not fall into paradox.
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