emolument." The
first volume is executed with evident pains, and gives a fair picture
of the literary and social condition of England at the time. The heavy
review articles are interspersed with what is intended to be lighter
matter on the fashions, foibles, and prominent characters of the day.
Gibbon owns the authorship of the first article on Lord Lyttelton's
history of Henry the Second, and his hand is discernible in the
account of the fourth volume of Lardner's work _On the Credibility of
the Gospel History_. The first has no merit beyond a faithful report.
The latter is written with much more zest and vigour, and shows the
interest that he already took in Christian antiquities. Other
articles, evidently from the pen of Deyverdun, on the English theatre
and Beau Nash of Bath, are the liveliest in the collection. The
magazine was avowedly intended for Continental readers, and might have
obtained success if it had been continued long enough. But it died
before it had time to make itself known.[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: Two volumes appeared of the _Memoires Litteraires_. Of
these only the first is to be found in the British Museum. It is a
small 12mo, containing 230 pages. Here is the Table des
Matieres:--(1) Histoire de Henri II., par Milord Lyttelton; (2) Le
Nouveau Guide de Bath; (3) Essai sur l'Histoire de la Societe Civile,
par M. Ferguson; (4) Conclusions des Memoires de Miss Sydney Bidulph;
Theologie (5) Recueil des Temoignages Anciens, par Lardner; (6) Le
Confessional; (7) Transactions Philosophiques; (8) Le Gouverneur, par
D. L. F. Spectacles, Beaux Arts, Nouvelles Litteraires.]

When the _Memoires Litteraires_ collapsed Gibbon was again left
without a definite object to concentrate his energy, and with his work
still to seek. One might wonder why he did not seriously prepare for
the _Decline and Fall_. It must have been chiefly at this time that it
was "contemplated at an awful distance," perhaps even with numbing
doubt whether the distance would ever be lessened and the work
achieved, or even begun. The probability is he had too little peace of
mind to undertake anything that required calm and protracted labour.
"While so many of my acquaintance were married, or in Parliament, or
advancing with a rapid step in the various roads of honour or fortune
I stood alone, immovable, and insignificant.... The progress and the
knowledge of our domestic disorders aggravated my anxiety, and I began
to apprehend th