1 Walpole, Horace, The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence (ed. Lewis, W. S., et al; 42 vols.; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955) 28. 243. See also the index heading “Religion” in Craddock's, Patriciaindispensable Edward Gibbon: A Reference Guide (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987) 472 and the sources cited therein.
2 For the most recent and satisfying accounts see Craddock, Patricia, Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian, 1772-1794 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989) 122–31; and Womersley, David, The Transformation of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) esp. chap. 8.
3 McCloy, Shelby T., Gibbon's Antagonism to Christianity (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933).
4 Low, D. M., Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 (New York: Random House, 1937) 263; and Norton, J. E., ed., A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940) 79.
5 Trevor-Roper, Hugh, “The Historical Philosophy of the Enlightenment,” in Besterman, T., ed., Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1963) 27. 1667–87; Bowersock, Glen W., Clive, John, and Graubard, Stephen R., eds., “Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Daedalus 105 (1976) 1–251; and Jordan, David, Gibbon and His Roman Empire (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).
6 Lionel Gossman has recently suggested the need for such an approach in a review in the Journal of Modern History 62 (1990) 131–34.
7 Sheffield, John Lord, ed., The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon (3 vols.; Dublin: P. Wogan, 1796) 1. 43.
8 Taylor, Henry (Thoughts on the Nature of the Grand Apostacy [London: J. Johnson, 1781] x) described Gibbon's approach as “nothing more than an innocent confusion of ideas and errors of judgment arising from the chaos of a heated imagination or perhaps too much learning.”
9 Gibbon's flirtation with Catholicism resembles the experience of Tindal, Toland, and Pope. See Clark, J. C. D., English Society, 1688-1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985) 280; and Loftus, Smyth, A Reply to the Reasonings of Mr. Gibbon (London: Williams and Bew, 1778) 115: “This is not the only instance in which I have found Deists favourable to popery.”
10 The title of the most recent analysis is suggestive: Parish, Richard, Pascal's Lettres Provinciates: A Study in Polemic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989).Gibbon, (Miscellaneous Works, 67) read Pascal once a year.
11 Evans, A. W., Warburton and the Warburtonians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932) 59, 275; Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 3. 284–85.
12 Hurd's reply is in Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 1. 454–65. It includes a fragment of a rejoinder in Gibbon's hand. See also The Works of Richard Hurd, D. D. (8 vols.; London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1811) 5. 363–402.
13 Norton, J. E., ed., The Letters of Edward Gibbon (3 vols.; New York: Macmillan, 1956), 1. 351; 2. 13, 16, 140. He also employed this approach in the Decline and Fall. “Is this word profane in jest or in earnest? Why does he deal in such ambiguous modes of speech? Why abuse the gift of language, whose principle [sic] end is, to lay open, not to disguise, the sentiments of the soul?”
(Milner, Joseph, Gibbon's Account of Christianity Considered [York: A. Ward, 1781] 17).
14 Believer, A, “Remarks on Mr. Gibbon's Two Last Chapters,” Gentleman's Magazine 46 (10 1776) 441; “Articles of Intelligence,” Theological Miscellany 1 (1784) 142–43(as cited in Craddock, , Reference, 36).
15 Womersley, , Transformation of Decline and Fall, chap. 8; Norton, , Letters, 2. 81.
16 Craddock, Patricia, Young Edward Gibbon: Gentleman of Letters, 1737-1772 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982) 1.
17 On Gibbon's Jacobite background, see Low, , Edward Gibbon, 10.11.27. 28; and Craddock, , Young Edward Gibbon, 28, 46.
18 Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ed. Smeaton, Oliphant; 6 vols.; London: Everyman's Library, 1910) 1. 31. His comments on Cicero are ironic in light of his later predicament.
19 Norton, , Letters, 2. 100.Clark, J. C. D. (English Society, 189) suggests that Gibbon was “born and educated in one political universe… [but] survived into another.” Craddock, (Luminous Historian, 70–73) expertly analyzes the chronology of Gibbon's realization of the extent of the problem. She suggests that only in June did he realize that there would be printed attacks.
20 Norton, , Letters, 2. 121-24, 141.
21 For reasons of context and manageability, this investigation is limited to British works published prior to 1788. For the intellectual environment that Gibbon's work entered see Hudson, Nicholas, Samuel Johnson and Eighteenth Century Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988) esp. chaps. 1, 2, 7.
22 Gentleman's Magazine 46 (12 1776) 562. On the critical reaction, see Craddock, , Luminous Historian, 70–71.
23 Hayley, William, An Essay on History in Three Epistles to Edward Gibbon (London: J. Dodsley, 1780) 79: “Think not my verse means blindly to engage / In rash defence of thy profaner page /… She breathes an honest sigh of deep concern/ and pities Genius, when his wild career / Gives faith a wound or innocence a fear.”
24 Loftus, , A Reply, 71.
25 Chelsum, James, Remarks on the Last Two Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History (Oxford: Clarendon, 1778) xii.
26 Norton, , Letters, 2. 172.
27 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 1. 154, 155; Dalrymple, David, An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes Which Mr. Gibbon Has Assignedfor the Rapid Growth of Christianity (Edinburgh: Murray and Cochrane, 1786) esp. 14, 26, 30, 31. Gibbon commented, in a typical instance of social determinism, that Dalrymple, a jurist, was guilty of special pleading.
28 Modern scholarship anachronistically discounts the alien qualities of these authors.
29 See Clark, , English Society, 279–329.
30 Cf. Taylor, , Thoughts, 71; and Loftus, , A Reply, 197.
31 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 1. 108. The same may perhaps be said concerning his remarks about Oxford, which seek to mitigate the circumstances of his conversion.
33 Loftus, , A Reply, 234; and Chelsum, , Remarks, xiv, xv: “It has necessarily been rendered incapable of the mornaments of stile; and it has been his duty to attend rather to matter than to words.”
34 Monthly Review 55 (07 1776) 44.
35 Mossner, Ernest Campbell and Ross, Ian Simpson, eds., The Correspondence of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977) 189; Annual Register of World Events 19 (1776) 237(as cited in Craddock, , Reference, 4–5).
36 Womersley, , Transformation, 109.
37 Taylor, , Thoughts, i. This criticism complemented criticisms of the Frenchness of Gibbon's style: Monthly Review 64 (03 1781) 224 and (June 1781) 448; C, B., “Strictures on the Style of Mr. Gibbon,” Gentleman's Magazine 56 (11 1786) 919.
38 McCloy, , Gibbon's Antagonism, 164.
39 Milner, , Gibbon's Account, 3.
40 Chelsum, , Remarks, xi, xii. See also Loftus, , A Reply, 2.
41 Taylor, , Thoughts, 43, 44, 70. “You have laboured to raise a sneer, where you durst not risk an argument”
(Travis, George, Letters to Edward Gibbon, esq. [2d ed.; London: C. F. and J. Rivington, 1785] 351–52). On the “test of ridicule” seeHudson, , Samuel Johnson, 29–33.
42 Chelsum, , Remarks, xiii.Vindex, , “Testimonials for G. M.,” Gentleman's Magazine 54 (11 1784) 565.
43 Boswell, James, The Life of Johnson (ed. Hill, G. B; rev. L. F. Powell; 6 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1934-1950) 2. 9.
44 Davis, H. E., An Examination of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History (London: J. Dodsley, 1778) 1–284. That is what several of Gibbon's critics desired. Apthorp, East, Letters on the Prevalence of Christianity (London: J. Robson, 1778) 15, 16, 64, 65. Chelsum, James (A Reply to Mr. Gibbon's Vindication [Winchester: Robbins and Gilmour, 1785] 131, 132) assumes a tradeoff between embellishment and truth.
45 Norton, , Letters, 1. 14-23, 25-34, 37-56, 58–68.
46 Monthly Review 59 (09 1778) 199.
47 Duncombe, John, Select Works of the Emperor Julian (2 vols.; London: J. Nichols for T. Cadell, 1784) 1. xxxiv.
48 “Further Character of Mr. Davis,” Gentleman's Magazine 54 (07 1784) 516.
49 “Mr. Gibbon Vindicated against Mr. Davis,” Gentleman's Magazine 54 (Suppl.) 968–69.
50 Chelsum, , Remarks, iv-10, 67-106, 232; Milner, , Gibbon's Account, 20; and Apthorp, , Letters, 191, 194: “We know, my friend, from whose quiver this shaft is borrowed.”
51 Apthorp, , Letters, 194–99; Carnochan, W. B., Gibbon's Solitude (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987) 79, 80, 203n; Chelsum, , Remarks, 13–31.
52 Milner, , Gibbon's Account, 34. It is ironic that Gibbon's modern admirers have assumed that he did not attack “real” Christianity.
53 Chelsum, , Reply, 14, 72, 106.
54 Chelsum, , Reply, 20-23, 62–67; Davis, H. E. and Chelsum, James, “Misrepresentations of Mr. Gibbon Exposed,” Gentleman's Magazine 52 (04 1782) 181. Richard Porson agreed. See “Strictures on Mr. Travis,” Gentleman's Magazine 58 (10 1788) 875.
55 Chelsum, , Reply, 53, 54; Dalrymple, , An Inquiry, 30, 31.
56 Watson, Richard, An Apology for Christianity (Cambridge: J. Archdeacon, 1776) chaps. 1–5; Apthorp, (Letters, 351) doubts that any religious establishment can be changed by human means.
57 Milner, , Gibbon's Account, 52, 53.
58 Taylor, , Thoughts, 78, 121; Dalrymple, , An Inquiry, 14, 26, 30, 31. Priestley, Joseph, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (2 vols.; Birmingham: Piercey and Jones for J. Johnson, 1782) 2. 444; Loftus, , A Reply, 99–100.
59 Norton, , Letters, 2. 120.
60 Loftus, , A Reply, 2–3; Hayley, , An Essay, 158n; Critical Review 42 (12 1776) 465.
61 See Low, , Gibbon, 230–31; and Boswell, , The Life of Johnson, 2. 447–48.
62 Norton, , Letters, 2. 48.
64 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 2. 28.
66 Gossman, Lionel, The Empire Unpossess'd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) 117.
67 Norton, , Letters, 2. 203.
68 Milner, , Gibbon's Account, vi.
69 Chelsum, (Reply, 30) replied that though he was wrong about Suidas, that did not materially affect the point he was making against Middleton.
70 Priestley, Joseph, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever (Birmingham: Pearson and Hollason, 1787) 199; Norton, , Letters, 2. 320–23; Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 2. 96–103.
71 Norton, , Letters, 2. 129, 261, 294, 295.
72 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 2. 84.
73 Critical Review 51 (03 1781) 169.
74 Norton, , Letters, 2. 266.
76 Gibbon (ibid., 2. 259) jokingly referred to himself as the “profane historian.”
77 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 1. 153–56.
78 Newman, John Henry, Essays and Sketches (3 vols.; London: Longmans, Green, 1948) 2. 217; Gibbon, Edward, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (5 vols.; ed. Milman, H. H.; New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1845) 1. 508n.
79 “Directions in the Reading of History,” European Magazine and London Review 14 (07 1788) 7(as cited in Craddock, , Reference, 46).
80 “Review of The Decline and Fall, Vols. 4-6,” Critical Review 66 (07 1788) 35.
81 Milner, , Gibbon's Account, viii. Cf. William Disney's sermon cited in McCloy, , Gibbon's Antagonism, 149, 150.
82 Monthly Review 64 (04 1781) 294.
83 Monthly Review 64 (04 1781) 448; Carnochan, , Gibbon's Solitude, 112; Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 2. 83.
84 Gibbon, , Decline and Fall, 6. 546.Carnochan, (Gibbon's Solitude, 82) calls this “negotiation.”
85 Gibbon, , Decline and Fall, 1. 431.
87 Treveleyan, G. O., The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (2 vols.; London: Longmans, Green, 1876) 2. 284–85.
88 Hayley, , An Essay, 79; Monthly Review 68 (06 1783) 488.
89 Gibbon, , Miscellaneous Works, 1. 153.
