e fact that at the general election of 1784 no less than
one hundred and sixty of the supporters of the Coalition lost their
seats, and that Fox's political reputation was all but irretrievably
ruined from this time forward.

Meanwhile, he had not neglected, his own proper work. The first volume
of his history was published in February, 1776. It derived, he says,
"more credit from the name of the shop than from that of the author."
In the first instance he intended to print only five hundred copies,
but the number was doubled by the "prophetic taste" of his printer,
Mr. Strahan. The book was received with a burst of applause--it was a
_succes fou_. The first impression was exhausted in a few days, and a
second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand. The
wiser few were as warm in their eulogies as the general public. Hume
declared that if he had not been personally acquainted with the
author, he should have been surprised by such a performance coming
from any Englishman in that age. Dr. Robertson, Adam Ferguson, and
Horace Walpole joined in the chorus. Walpole betrays an amusing
mixture of admiration and pique at not having found the author out
before. "I know him a little, and never suspected the extent of his
talents; for he is perfectly modest, or I want penetration, which I
know too; but I intend to know him a great deal more." He oddly enough
says that Gibbon was the "son of a foolish alderman," which shows at
least how little the author was known in the great world up to this
time. Now, however, society was determined to know more of him, the
surest proof, not of merit, but of success. It must have been a rather
intoxicating moment, but Gibbon had a cool head not easily turned. It
would be unfair not to add that he had something much better, a really
warm and affectionate regard for old friends, the best preservative
against the fumes of flattery and sudden fame. Holroyd, Deyverdun,
Madame Necker were more to him than all the great people with whom he
now became acquainted. Necker and his wife came over from Paris and
paid him a long visit in Bentinck Street, when his laurels were just
fresh. "I live with her" he writes, "just as I used to do twenty years
ago, laugh at her Paris varnish, and oblige her to become a simple
reasonable Suissesse. The man, who might read English husbands lessons
of proper and dutiful behaviour, is a sensible, good-natured
creature." The next year he returned the visit to