Autobiography of Edward Gibbon - As Originally Edited by Lord Sheffield

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF EDWARD GIBBON AS ORIGINALLY EDITED BY LORD SHEFFIELD WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY J. B. BURY BOMETIME ICEGIUS -- EDWARD GIBBON -- Born, Putney . . 27 April 1737 Died, St. Jamess Street, London 16 January 1794 The Miscellaneous Works of Xdward Gibbon, Esq., with Memoirs of his Life and Writings composed by himself, illustrated from his letters, with occasional notes and narrative, by the Right flonourable John, Lord Sheflelcl, were jirst published in two volumes in 1796, and a second edition, in jive aolumes, appeared i n 1814. THE title under which Gibbon intended that his autobiography should appear was Memoirs of my Life and Writings, but it will always be known as the Autobiography, the name under which, posthumously published by his friend and executor Lord Sheffield, it became a classic. Lord Sheffield gave the work its final shape and, though he performed the task, which was not an easy one, with laudable skill, we must deeply regret that the author had not himself arranged the material for publication. He left six sketches of his life, which partly supplement each other and partly cover the same ground. They were printed some years ago l, and enable us to appreciate the dexterity with which Lord Sheffield pieced togrether the consecutive narrative, adhering, he states, with scrupulous fidelity to the very words of the author. The sketches show that this statement, though generally true, is not accurate. The editor made a number of changes for various reasons. One or two cases are interesting and characteristic. Speaking of his absences from Magdalen College, Oxford, Gibbon wrote I was too young and bashful to enjoy, like a manly Oxonian, the taverns and bagnios of Convent Garden. The last words were euphemistically changed by Lord Sheffield into the pleasures of London . Describing the pension of M. de Mesery at Lausanne, the author had simply observed that the boarders were numerous the editor makes him pretentiously tell us that the boarders were select . l The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon. Edited by John Murray, 1896. In his solicitude not to offend contemporary English prejudices, Lord Sheffield also cut out some characteristic remarks. Referring to his essay on The Age of Sesostris, the historian had written In my supposition the high priest is guilty of a voluntary error flattery is the prolific parent of falsehood and falsehood, I will now add, is not incompatible with the sacerdotal character. Coming from the author of the Decline and Fall the remark was assuredly mild but the editor protected the sacerdotal order, and consulted the feelings of its admirers, by eliminating the last clause. That the name of the Oxford tutor who well remembered that he had a salary to receive and only forgot that he had a duty to perform Dr. Winchester should have been suppressed is intelligible, but in most cases the editorial pruning-knife was directed by English prejudices which were alien to Gibbon and with which we have no sympathy now. When Gibbon finished his Decline and Fall of the Rooman Empire, he was far from being an old man, but he had made up his mind that his life-work was completed. He composed his memoirs because he was the author of the history, and he never forgets that the historian of the Decline and Fall is telling an interested public the story of his life. He is on a stage, addressing an audience he never lets himself go, likeother great autobiographers, Cellini, or Rousseau, or Goethe...