" We
see Gibbon very fairly in this remark. He had tenderness, steady and
warm attachments, but no passion.
Nearly two years elapsed after his father's death, before he was able
to secure from the wreck of his estate a sufficient competence to
establish himself in London. His house was No. 7, Bentinck Street,
near Manchester Square, then a remote suburb close to the country
fields. His housekeeping was that of a solitary bachelor, who could
afford an occasional dinner-party. Though not absolutely straitened in
means, we shall presently see that he was never quite at his ease in
money matters while he remained in London. But he had now freedom and
no great anxieties, and he began seriously to contemplate the
execution of his great work.
Gibbon, as we have seen, looked back with little satisfaction on the
five years between his return from his travels and his father's death.
They are also the years during which his biographer is able to follow
him with the least certainty. Hardly any of his letters which refer to
that period have been preserved, and he has glided rapidly over it in
his Memoirs.
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