n a distant land: that one day his mind will
be familiar to the grand-children of those who are yet unborn. I cannot
boast of the friendship or favour of princes; the patronage of English
literature has long since been devolved on our booksellers, and the
measure of their liberality is the least ambiguous test of our common
success. Perhaps the golden mediocrity of my fortune has contributed to
fortify my application.

The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect
of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may possibly be my last:
but the laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in
particular, still allow about fifteen years. [Mr. Buffon, from our
disregard of the possibility of death within the four and twenty hours,
concludes that a chance, which falls below or rises above ten thousand
to one, will never affect the hopes or fears of a reasonable man. The
fact is true, but our courage is the effect of thoughtlessness, rather
than of reflection. If a public lottery were drawn for, the choice of
an immediate victim, and if our name were inscribed on ore of the ten
thousand tickets, should we be perfectly easy?] I shall soon enter into
the period which, as the most agreeable of my long life, was selected
by the judgment and experience of the sage Fontenelle. His choice
is approved by the eloquent historian of nature, who fixes our moral
happiness to the mature season in which our passions are supposed to
be calmed, our duties fulfilled, our ambition satisfied, our fame
and fortune established on a solid basis (see Buffon). In private
conversation, that great and amiable man added the weight of his own
experience; and this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives
of Voltaire, Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far more inclined
to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose
any premature decay of the mind or body; but I must reluctantly observe
that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will
always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.

[POSTSCRIPT by Lord Sheffield] WHEN I first undertook to prepare Mr.
Gibbon's Memoirs for the Press, I supposed that it would be necessary
to introduce some continuation of them, from the time when they cease,
namely, soon after his return to Switzerland in the year 1788; but
the examination of his correspondence with me suggested, that the best
continuation would be the