" In this sentence Gibbon
seems to call in anticipation for the researches which have since been
prosecuted with so much success by eminent writers among ourselves,
not to mention similar inquirers on the Continent.
But in the meantime Gibbon had entered on a career which removed him
for long months from books and study. Without sufficiently reflecting
on what such a step involved, he had joined the militia, which was
embodied in the year 1760; and for the next two and a half years led,
as he says, a wandering life of military servitude. At first, indeed,
he was so pleased with his new mode of life that he had serious
thoughts of becoming a professional soldier. But this enthusiasm
speedily wore off, and our "mimic Bellona soon revealed to his eyes
her naked deformity." It was indeed no mere playing at soldiering that
he had undertaken. He was the practical working commander of "an
independent corps of 476 officers and men." "In the absence, or even
in the presence of the two field officers" (one of whom was his
father, the major) "I was intrusted with the effective labour of
dictating the orders and exercising the battalion.
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