GIBBON'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY
We are all grateful to Lord Sheffield for the publication of the original documents out of which Gibbon's Memoirs of my Life and Writings was constructed. It is curious to see a great work in its early stages, and the new matter thus presented helps to fill out and complete a picture sufficiently familiar in outline. The first Lord Sheffield had indeed done his work of editing and piecing together so well that there is little that amounts to a fresh revelation of character. The new volumes rather justify or strengthen than modify in any sensible degree the impression of the familiar book. Gibbon's characteristic good fortune has followed him even now. We see that the temporary suppression of the documents was as right as their ultimate publication. What would once have been superfluous or improper for publication is now interesting material for explaining the claim of a classical biography.
147
