worse were the drinking and late hours; sometimes in "rustic" company,
sometimes in company in which joviality and wit were more abundant
than decorum and common sense, which will surprise no one who hears
that the famous John Wilkes, who was colonel of the Buckingham
militia, was not unfrequently one of his boon companions. A few
extracts from his journal will be enough. "To-day (August 28, 1762),
Sir Thomas Worsley," the colonel of the battalion, "came to us to
dinner. Pleased to see him, we kept bumperising till after
roll-calling, Sir Thomas assuring us every fresh bottle how infinitely
sober he was growing." September 23rd. "Colonel Wilkes, of the
Buckingham militia, dined with us, and renewed the acquaintance Sir
Thomas and myself had begun with him at Reading. I scarcely ever met
with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit
and humour, and a great deal of knowledge.... This proved a very
debauched day; we drank a great deal both after dinner and supper; and
when at last Wilkes had retired, Sir Thomas and some others (of whom I
was not one) broke into his room and made him drink a bottle of claret
in bed." December 17. "We found old Captain Meard at Arlesford with
the second division of the Fourteenth. He and all his officers supped
with us, which made the evening rather a drunken one." Gibbon might
well say that the militia was unfit for and unworthy of him.

Yet it is quite astonishing to see, as recorded in his journal, how
keen an interest he still managed to retain in literature in the midst
of all this dissipation, and how fertile he was of schemes and
projects of future historical works to be prosecuted under more
favourable auspices. Subject after subject occurred to him as eligible
and attractive; he caresses the idea for a time, then lays it aside
for good reasons. First, he pitched upon the expedition of Charles
VIII. of France into Italy. He read and meditated upon it, and wrote a
dissertation of ten folio pages, besides large notes, in which he
examined the right of Charles VIII. to the crown of Naples, and the
rival claims of the houses of Anjou and Aragon. In a few weeks he
gives up this idea, firstly, for the rather odd reason that the
subject was too remote from us; and, secondly, for the very good
reason that the expedition was rather the introduction to great events
than great and important in itself. He then successively chose and
rejected the Crusade of Richard the Firs