And so the time glided by, till we come to the year 1783. Lord North
had resigned office, the Board of Trade was abolished, and Gibbon had
lost his convenient salary. The outlook was not pleasant. The seat on
the Board of Customs or Excise with which his hopes had been for a
time kept up, receded into a remote distance, and he came to the
conclusion "that the reign of pensions and sinecures was at an end."
It was clearly necessary to take some important step in the way of
retrenchment. After he had lost his official income, his expenses
exceeded his revenue by something like four hundred pounds. A less
expensive style of living in London never seems to have presented
itself as an alternative. So, like many an Englishman before and
since, he resolved to go abroad to economise.
His old friend Deyverdun was now settled in a comfortable house at
Lausanne, overlooking the Lake of Geneva. They had not met for eight
years. But the friendship had begun a quarter of a century before, in
the old days when Gibbon was a boarder in Pavillard's house, and the
embers of old associations only wanted stirring to make them shoot up
into flame.
Pages:
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137