n his readings--many of them, indeed, were
not connected with his history, but were afterwards inserted in some of
his other works.

Even Gibbon tells us of his Roman History, "at the outset all was dark
and doubtful; even the title of the work, the true aera of the decline
and fall of the empire, the limits of the introduction, the division of
the chapters, and the order of the narration; and I was often tempted to
cast away the labour of seven years." Akenside has exquisitely described
the progress and the pains of genius in its delightful reveries:
Pleasures of Imagination, b. iii. v. 373. The pleasures of composition
in an ardent genius were never so finely described as by Buffon.
Speaking of the hours of composition he said, "These are the most
luxurious and delightful moments of life: moments which have often
enticed me to pass fourteen hours at my desk in a state of transport;
this _gratification_ more than _glory_ is my reward."

The publication of Gibbon's Memoirs conveyed to the world a faithful
picture of the most fervid industry; it is in _youth_ the foundations of
such a sublime edifice as his history must be laid. The world can now
trace how this Colossus of erudition, day by day, and year by year,
prepared himself for some vast work.

Gibbon has furnished a new idea in the art of reading! We ought, says
he, not to attend to the _order of our books, so much as of our
thoughts_. "The perusal of a particular work gives birth perhaps to
ideas unconnected with the subject it treats; I pursue these ideas, and
quit my proposed plan of reading." Thus in the midst of Homer he read
Longinus; a chapter of Longinus led to an epistle of Pliny; and having
finished Longinus, he followed the train of his ideas of the sublime and
beautiful in the Inquiry of Burke, and concluded with comparing the
ancient with the modern Longinus. Of all our popular writers the most
experienced reader was Gibbon, and he offers an important advice to an
author engaged on a particular subject: "I suspended my perusal of any
new book on the subject till I had reviewed all that I knew, or
believed, or had thought on it, that I might be qualified to discern how
much the authors added to my original stock."

These are valuable hints to students, and such have been practised by
others.[24] Ancillon was a very ingenious student; he seldom read a book
throughout without reading in his progress many others; his
library-table was always covered w