t; the Barons' War against
John and Henry III.; the history of Edward the Black Prince; the lives
and comparisons of Henry V. and the Emperor Titus; the life of Sir
Philip Sidney, and that of the Marquis of Montrose. At length he fixed
on Sir Walter Raleigh as his hero. On this he worked with all the
assiduity that his militia life allowed, read a great quantity of
original documents relating to it, and, after some months of labour,
declared that "his subject opened upon him, and in general improved
upon a nearer prospect." But half a year later he "is afraid he will
have to drop his hero." And he covers half a page with reasons to
persuade himself that he was right in doing so. Besides the obvious
one that he would be able to add little that was not already
accessible in Oldys' _Life of Raleigh_, that the topic was exhausted,
and so forth, he goes on to make these remarks, which have more
signification to us now than perhaps they had to him when he wrote
them. "Could I even surmount these obstacles, I should shrink with
terror from the modern history of England, where every character is a
problem and every reader a friend or an enemy: when a writer is
supposed to hoist a flag of party, and is devoted to damnation by the
adverse faction. Such would be _my_ reception at home; and abroad the
historian of Raleigh must encounter an indifference far more bitter
than censure or reproach. The events of his life are interesting; but
his character is ambiguous; his actions are obscure; his writings are
English, and his fame is confined to the narrow limits of our language
and our island. _I must embrace a safer and more extensive theme._"
Here we see the first gropings after a theme of cosmopolitan interest.
He has arrived at two negative conclusions: that it must not be
English, and must not be narrow. What it is to be, does not yet
appear, for he has still a series of subjects to go through, to be
taken up and discarded. The history of the liberty of the Swiss, which
at a later period he partially achieved, was one scheme; the history
of Florence under the Medici was another. He speaks with enthusiasm of
both projects, adding that he will most probably fix upon the latter;
but he never did anything of the kind.

These were the topics which occupied Gibbon's mind during his service
in the militia, escaping when he could from the uproar and vulgarity
of the camp and the guardroom to the sanctuary of the historic muse,
to worshi