_ per month. Yet I have two footmen in
handsome liveries behind my coach, and my apartment is hung with
damask."
The remainder of his life in London has nothing important. He
persevered assiduously with his history, and had two more quartos
ready in 1781. They were received with less enthusiasm than the first,
although they were really superior. Gibbon was rather too modestly
inclined to agree with the public and "to believe that, especially in
the beginning, they were more prolix and less entertaining" than the
previous volume. He also wasted some weeks on his vindication of the
fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of that volume, which had excited a
host of feeble and ill-mannered attacks. His defence was complete, and
in excellent temper. But the piece has no permanent value. His
assailants were so ignorant and silly that they gave no scope for a
great controversial reply. Neither perhaps did the subject admit of
it. A literary war generally makes people think of Bentley's
incomparable _Phalaris_. But that was almost a unique occasion and
victory in the history of letters. Bentley himself, the most
pugnacious of men, never found such another.
Pages:
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136