less father at
the age of fifteen. That he succumbed to the unwholesome atmosphere
cannot surprise us. He does not conceal, perhaps he rather
exaggerates, in his Memoirs, the depth of his fall. As Bunyan in a
state of grace accused himself of dreadful sins which in all
likelihood he never committed, so it is probable that Gibbon, in his
old age, when study and learning were the only passions he knew,
reflected with too much severity on the boyish freaks of his
university life. Moreover there appears to have been nothing coarse or
unworthy in his dissipation; he was simply idle. He justly lays much
of the blame on the authorities. To say that the discipline was lax
would be to pay it an unmerited compliment. There was no discipline at
all. He lived in Magdalen as he might have lived at the Angel or the
Mitre Tavern. He not only left his college, but he left the
university, whenever he liked. In one winter he made a tour to Bath,
another to Buckinghamshire, and he made four excursions to London,
"without once hearing the voice of admonition, without once feeling
the hand of control." Of study he had just as much and as little as he
pleased.

"As soon as my tutor had sounded the insufficiency of his disciple in
school learning, he proposed that we should read every morning from
ten to eleven the comedies of Terence. During the first weeks I
constantly attended these lessons in my tutor's room; but as they
appeared equally devoid of profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to
try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was accepted with
a smile. I repeated the offence with less ceremony: the excuse was
admitted with the same indulgence; the slightest motive of laziness or
indisposition, the most trifling avocation at home or abroad was
allowed as a worthy impediment, nor did my tutor appear conscious of
my absence or neglect." No wonder he spoke with indignation of such
scandalous neglect. "To the University of Oxford," he says, "I
acknowledge no obligation, and she will as readily renounce me for a
son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen
months at Magdalen College; they proved the most idle and unprofitable
of my whole life. The reader will pronounce between the school and the
scholar." This is only just and fully merited by the abuses denounced.
One appreciates the anguish of the true scholar mourning over lost
time as a miser over lost gold. There was another side of the question
whic