he Capitol, while the bare-footed friars were singing vespers in the
Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the
city first started to my mind. But my original plan was circumscribed to
the decay of the city rather than the empire; and though my reading and
reflections began to point towards that object, some years elapsed, and
several avocations intervened, before I was seriously engaged in the
execution of that laborious work.

_V.--History and Politics_

The five years and a half between my return from my travels and my
father's death are the portion of my life which I passed with the least
enjoyment, and which I remember with the least satisfaction. In the
fifteen years between my "Essay on the Study of Literature" and the
first volume of the "Decline and Fall," a criticism of Warburton on
Virgil and some articles in "Memoires Litteraires de la Grande Bretagne"
were my sole publications. In November, 1770, my father sank into the
grave in the sixty-fourth year of his age. As soon as I had paid the
last solemn duties to my father, and obtained from time and reason a
tolerable composure of mind, I began to form the plan of an independent
life most adapted to my circumstances and inclination. I had now
attained the first of earthly blessings--independence. I was absolute
master of my hours and actions; and no sooner was I settled in my house
and library than I undertook the composition of the first volume of my
history. Many experiments were made before I could hit the middle tone
between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I
compose the first chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was
tolerably satisfied with their effect. In the remainder of the way I
advanced with a more equal and easy pace.

By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married my first
cousin, I was returned member of parliament for the borough of Liskeard.
I took my seat at the beginning of the memorable contest between Great
Britain and America, and supported, with many a sincere and silent vote,
the rights, though not, perhaps, the interest, of the Mother Country.
After a fleeting, illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce in
the humble station of a mute. But I listened to the attack and defence
of eloquence and reason; I had a near prospect of the characters, views,
and passions of the first men of the age. The eight sessions that I sat
in parliament were a sc