Gibbon | Page 9

the
Elmsleys and Monks, and of course he was at no time a professed
philologer, occupied chiefly with the niceties of language. The point
which deserves notice in this account of his studies is their wide sweep,
so superior and bracing, as compared with that narrow restriction to the
"authors of the best period," patronised by teachers who imperfectly

comprehend their own business. Gibbon proceeded on the
common-sense principle, that if you want to obtain a real grasp of the
literature, history, and genius of a people, you must master that
literature with more or less completeness from end to end, and that to
select arbitrarily the authors of a short period on the grounds that they
are models of style, is nothing short of foolish. It was the principle on
which Joseph Scaliger studied Greek, and indeed occurs spontaneously
to a vigorous mind eager for real knowledge.[4]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Vix delibatis conjugationibus Græcis, Homerum cum
interpretatione arreptum uno et viginti diebus totum didici. Reliquos
vero poetas Græcos omnes intra quatuor menses devoravi. Neque ullum
oratorem aut historicum prius attigi quam poetas omnes
tenerem.--Scaligeri Epistolæ, Lib. 1. Epis. 1.]
Nor did he confine himself to reading: he felt that no one is sure of
knowing a language who limits his study of it to the perusal of authors.
He practised diligently Latin prose composition, and this in the
simplest and most effectual way. "I translated an epistle of Cicero into
French, and after throwing it aside till the words and phrases were
obliterated from my memory, I retranslated my French into such Latin
as I could find, and then compared each sentence of my imperfect
version with the ease, the grace, the propriety of the Roman orator."
The only odd thing in connection with this excellent method is that
Gibbon in his Memoirs seems to think it was a novel discovery of his
own, and would recommend it to the imitation of students, whereas it is
as old as the days of Ascham at least. There is no indication that he
ever in the least degree attempted Latin verse, and it is improbable that
he should have done so, reading alone in Lausanne, under the slight
supervision of such a teacher as Pavillard. The lack of this elegant
frivolity will be less thought of now than it would some years ago. But
we may admit that it would have been interesting to have a copy of
hexameters or elegiacs by the historian of Rome. So much for Latin. In
Greek he made far less progress. He had attained his nineteenth year
before he learned the alphabet, and even after so late a beginning he did

not prosecute the study with much energy.
M. Pavillard seems to have taught him little more than the rudiments.
"After my tutor had left me to myself I worked my way through about
half the Iliad, and afterwards interpreted alone a large portion of
Xenophon and Herodotus. But my ardour, destitute of aid and
emulation, gradually cooled, and from the barren task of searching
words in a lexicon I withdrew to the free and familiar conversation of
Virgil and Tacitus." This statement of the Memoirs is more than
confirmed by the journal of his studies, where we find him, as late as
the year 1762, when he was twenty-five years of age, painfully reading
Homer, it would appear, for the first time. He read on an average about
a book a week, and when he had finished the Iliad this is what he says:
"I have so far met with the success I hoped for, that I have acquired a
great facility in reading the language, and treasured up a very great
stock of words. What I have rather neglected is the grammatical
construction of them, and especially the many various inflections of the
verbs." To repair this defect he wisely resolved to bestow some time
every morning on the perusal of the Greek Grammar of Port Royal.
Thus we see that at an age when many men are beginning to forget
their Greek, Gibbon was beginning to learn it. Was this early deficiency
ever repaired in Greek as it was in Latin? I think not. He never was at
home in old Hellas as he was in old Rome. This may be inferred from
the discursive notes of his great work, in which he has with admirable
skill incorporated so much of his vast and miscellaneous reading. But
his references to classic Greek authors are relatively few and timid
compared with his grasp and mastery of the Latin. His judgments on
Greek authors are also, to say the least, singular. When he had achieved
the Decline and Fall, and was writing his Memoirs in the last years of
his life, the Greek writer whom he