On the day I first sat down with Johnson in his
rusty-brown suit and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon was placed
opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.
Each had his measured phraseology, and Johnson's famous parallel
between Dryden and Pope might be loosely parodied in reference to
himself and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant:
the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantic, and the latter
was occasionally finical. Johnson marched to kettledrums and trumpets,
Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys. Johnson hewed passages through
the Alps, while Gibbon levelled walks through parks and gardens.
Mauled as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon poured balm upon my bruises by
condescending once or twice in the course of the evening to talk with
me. The great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to
the capacity of the boy: but it was done _more suo_--still his
mannerism prevailed, still he tapped his snuff-box, still he smirked
and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of
good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men. His mouth,
mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole nearly in the centre of his
visage.
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