of Lausanne.

I have presumed to mark the moment of conception; I shall now
commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the night of
June 27, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the
last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying
down my pen, I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias, which
commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The air
was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was
reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not
dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and
perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and
a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken
an everlasting leave of an agreeable companion, and that whatsoever
might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must
be short and precarious.

The day of publication of my three last volumes coincided with the
fifty-first anniversary of my own birthday. The conclusion of my work
was generally read and variously judged. Upon the whole, the history of
"The Decline and Fall" seems to have struck root both at home and
abroad.

When I contemplate the common lot of mortality, I must acknowledge that
I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life. I am endowed with a
cheerful temper. The love of study, a passion which derives fresh vigour
from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, with a perpetual source of
independent and rational pleasure; and I am not sensible of any decay of
the mental faculties. I am disgusted with the affectation of men of
letters who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow.
My own experience, at least, has taught me a very different lesson.
Twenty happy years have been animated by the labour of my history; and
its success has given me a name, a rank, a character in the world to
which I should not otherwise have been entitled.

The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and our prospect
of futurity is dark and doubtful I shall soon enter into the period
which was selected by the judgment and experience of the sage Fontenelle
as the most agreeable of his long life. I am far more inclined to
embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose
any premature decay of the mind or body; but I must reluctantly observe
that two causes, the abbreviation of time and the