DEAR SIR, No. VII. Mr. WHITAKER to EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. Manchester, April 21st, 1776. I HAVE just finished your History: and I sit down to thank you for it a second time. You have laid open the interior principles of the Roman Constitution with great learning, and shewn their operation on the general body of the Empire with great judgment. Your work therefore will do you high honour. You never speak feebly, except when you come upon British ground, and never weakly, except when you attack Christianity. In the former case, you seem to me to want information.. And, in the latter, you plainly want the common candour of a citizen of the world for the religious system of your country. Pardon me, Sir, but, much as I admire your abilities, greatly as I respect your friendship, I cannot bear without indignation your sarcastic slyness upon Christianity, and cannot see without pity your determined hostility to the Gospel. But I leave the subject to beg a favour of you. After so open a declaration, I pay a great compliment to the friendliness of your spirit, to solicit from you any favour. I have inclosed you a printed paper, written by myself, and relating to a Bill for this town, which is now in the House. It was drawn up with the utmost plainness, in order to be level to the comprehensions of the persons to whom it was addressed. And I take the liberty of sending it to you, to inform you of the nature and complexion of the Bill. You may depend upon all the facts in it. And if think the arguyou ments convincing in themselves, and the cause for my sake worthy of your interposition, you will perhaps think it requisite, either by application to the Committee or by an overture to the House, to get a couple of restraining paragraphs inserted in the Bill; that shall make every subscriber to the improvements a commissioner under the Act, and oblige the commissioners to finish all the improvements in a limited time. In doing this, you will check a spirit of tyranny, that has shewn itself very powerfully in this region of mercantile equality, and confine it it within proper bounds. And you will particularly oblige your friend, who, with a great promptness to submit to the authority of his legal superiors, feels a greater reluctance to truckle to the assumed dominion of his equals. I write to Sir Thomas Egerton by this post, and upon this occasion. But, as his friends here are divided upon the matter, I am doubtful whether he will choose to interpose in it. I shall write also to one or two other friends of mine in the House. But as I have not the same claim of friendship upon them, which you allow me to have upon you, I: rely principally upon your interposition. And if you can serve the thinking part of this town, if you can oblige me, you will (I am cons vinced) do both. Let me add to this favour, which is merely a public and political one, another of a more private and tender nature. Will you make some of your servants fold me up a dozen covers, and inscribe them yourself to Miss Holme, Brownhill, Rochdale, Lancashire? If you will, you will heighten the former favour, and make me still more Your affectionate Friend and Servant, No. VIII. J. WHITAKER. DEAR SIR, Mr. WHITAKER to EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. Manchester, May 11th, 1776. I THANK YOU for your franks. And I thank you still more for your friendly return to my last. You received my application to you about the business in parliament, with your usual kindness. I wrote to others of my friends in the House at the same time. And I carried the great point which I aimed at. You also received You also received my animadversions upon your History with candour. I was particularly pointed, I believe, in what I said concerning the religious part of it. I wrote from my feelings at the time; and was perhaps the less inclined to suppress those feelings from friendliness, because I had two favours to beg of you. I hope, I shall ever be attached, with every power of my judgment and my my affection, to that glorious system of truth, which is the vital principle of happiness to my soul in time and in eternity. And in this I act not from any "restraints of profession." I should despise myself, if I did. I act from the fullest conviction of a mind, that has been a good deal exercised in inquiries into truth, and that has shewn (I fancy) a strong spirit of rational scepticism in rejecting and refuting a variety of opinions, which have passed current for ages in our national history. With regard to what I said concerning your British accounts, I meant not to blame you, either for not saying all that you knew concerning our island, or for not bringing in the intimations of Richard on Ossian. I blamed you only for not noticing some particulars, that made a necessary part of your narration, and are mentioned by the best authorities. And I remember particularly, that in your description of the Empire about the time of Severus, and in your short intimations concerning the state of the towns within it, you specify only London and York as remarkable towns in Britain, though Tacitus and Dio give us such an account of Camulodunum, and though Chester appears from an inscription and a coin to have been then a colony. And in the description of those two which you mention you take no notice, I think, of the sweet and pleasant situation of London, so strikingly marked by Tacitus, and of the Temple of Bellona, and of the Palatium or Domus Palatina, in York, so expressly specified by Spartian. You omit also the fine baths of Britain, so plainly pointed out in the Thermæ of Ptolemy, and the Aqua Solis of Antoninus's Itinerary, and so celebrated by Solinus. You equally omit the latter's Temple of Apollo and Minerva, at the same colony of Bath. And you also omit the colony of Gloucester, though demonstrated to be one by an inscription; and the colony of Caer Gwent, in Monmouthshire, though particularized by Antoninus's Itinerary, and exhibiting such remains in Giraldus Cambrensis.* These were some of the remarks that forced themselves upon my mind, as I read your work. Others also arose of a different nature and inferior importance, as that the native language of Gaul and Britain was driven * Mr. Whitaker's eagerness to display his erudition as a British Antiquarian, seems to have occasioned a forgetfulness that Mr. Gibbon did not affect that character; that as the historian of Rome his subject could not be supposed to embrace the details of British antiquities. S. by by the Romans to the hills and mountains; that the Druids borrowed money upon bonds payable in the other world, &c. The former is undoubtedly a mistake in the island, and I believe, is equally so on the continent. And the latter, I apprehend, has only the frivolous authority of Cluverius or some such writer for its ground-work. From these and oher particulars it was, that I received the impression which I ventured to declare in my last. And I am ready to acknowledge my mistake, if I am wrong. These, however, if never so true, are but trifles light as air in my estimation, when they are compared with what I think the great blot of your work. You have there exhibited Deism in a new shape, and in one that is more likely to affect the uninstructed million, than the reasoning form which she has usually worn. You seem to me like another Tacitus, revived with all his animosity against Christianity, his strong philosophical spirit of sentiment, and more than his superiority to the absurdities of heathenism. And you will have the dishonour (pardon me, Sir) of being ranked by the folly of scepticism, that is working so powerfully at present, among the most distinguished deists of the age. I have long suspected the tendency of your opinions. I once took the liberty of hinting my suspicions. But I did not think the poison had spread so universally through your frame. And I can only deplore the misfortune, and a very great one I consider it, to the highest and dearest interests of man among all your readers.* These must be very numerous. tion already. I give you joy of it. ture of regret and regard, I see you are getting a second edi- Your obliged Friend and Servant, J. WHITAKER. *If the letters of Mr. Whitaker had been perused previously to the publication of the former edition, this manly and spirited declaration in favour of the principles of the Established Church, and against the perversion of those opinions which constitute the greatest comfort and consolation of the Christian world, would not have been then withheld from the public. S. No. DEAR SIR, No. IX. Rev. Dr. JOSEPH WARTON to Mr. GIBBON. Winchester, March 11th, 1776. I CANNOT forbear expressing my thanks to you, for the very great pleasure and instruction I have met with in your excellent work. I protest to you I know of no history in our language written with equal purity, precision, and elegance of style. I presume you have heard that offence is taken at some passages that are thought unfavourable to the truth of Christianity. I hope you will proceed to finish your plan, and gratify the eager wishes of the public to see the whole of your work. May I ever hope for the honour of seeing you at this place? It would give me the most real pleasure. I am, dear Sir, With the truest regard, your much obliged and very faithful humble Servant, No. X. Jos. WARTON. DAVID GARRICK, Esq. to Mr. GIBBON. DEAR SIR, Adelphi, March 9th, 1776. WHENEVER I am truly pleased I must communicate my joy: Lord Camden called upon me this morning, and, before Cumberland, declared that he never read a more admirable performance than Mr. Gibbon's History, &c. He was in transport, and so was I-the author is the only man to write history of the age-such depth-such perspicuity— such language, force, variety, and what not! I am so delighted with him, continues he, that I must write to thank him-I should be happy to know him. My Lord, I have that honour, and will contrive, if possible, to bring you together. Said I too much? My coach is at the door-my wife bawling for me, and every thing VOL. III. 4 H |