Editing Edward Gibbon (section)

===Late career: 1765–1776===
====Work====
In June 1765, Gibbon returned to his father's house, remaining there until the latter's death in 1770.<ref>Cecil, Algernon. ''Six Oxford thinkers: Edward Gibbon, John Henry Newman, R.W. Church, James Anthony Froude, Walter Pater, Lord Morley of Blackburn.'' London: John Murray, 1909, p. 59.</ref> These five years were considered by Gibbon as the worst of his life, but he tried to remain busy by making early attempts at full histories. His first historical narrative, known as the ''History of Switzerland'', representing Gibbon's love for Switzerland, was never finished nor published. Even under the guidance of Deyverdun, his German translator, Gibbon became too self-critical and completely abandoned the project after writing only 60 pages of text.<ref>Cecil, Algernon. ''Six Oxford thinkers: Edward Gibbon, John Henry Newman, R.W. Church, James Anthony Froude, Walter Pater, Lord Morley of Blackburn.'' London: John Murray, 1909, p. 60.</ref>

Soon after abandoning his ''History of Switzerland'', Gibbon made another attempt towards completing a full history. His second work, ''Memoires Litteraires de la Grande Bretagne'', was a two-volume set describing the literary and social conditions of England at the time, such as [[George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton|Lord Lyttelton]]'s history of Henry II and [[Nathaniel Lardner]]'s ''The Credibility of the Gospel History''.<ref>Cecil, Algernon. ''Six Oxford thinkers: Edward Gibbon, John Henry Newman, R.W. Church, James Anthony Froude, Walter Pater, Lord Morley of Blackburn.'' London: John Murray, 1909, p. 61.</ref> Gibbon's ''Memoires Litteraires'' failed to gain any notoriety and was considered a flop by fellow historians and literary scholars.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Morley |first1=John |title=English Men of Letters |date=May 1878 |publisher=Macmillan and Co. |pages=61–62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m10LAAAAIAAJ&q=Gibbon%27s+Memoires+Litteraires&pg=PA62 |access-date=3 May 2020}}</ref>

[[File:Blue Plaque - Edward Gibbon.jpg|thumb|left|Blue plaque to Gibbon on [[Bentinck Street]], London]]

After he tended to his father's estate&mdash;which was in poor condition&mdash;enough remained for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 [[Bentinck Street]] free of financial concern. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, joined the better social clubs (including [[Samuel Johnson|Dr. Johnson]]'s [[The Club (dining club)|Literary Club]]), and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded [[Oliver Goldsmith]] at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history', an honorary but prestigious position. In late 1774, he was initiated as a [[Freemasonry|Freemason]] of the [[Premier Grand Lodge of England]].<ref>i.e., in London's ''Lodge of Friendship No. 3''. See [http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/biography/gibbon_e/gibbon_e.html Gibbon's freemasonry].</ref>

He was also, perhaps least productively in that same year, returned to the House of Commons for [[Liskeard (UK Parliament constituency)|Liskeard]], Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, [[Edward Craggs-Eliot, 1st Baron Eliot|Edward Eliot]].<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/gibbon-edward-1737-94|title= Gibbon, Edward (1737–94), of Bentinck St., London; Buriton, Hants; and Lenborough, Bucks|publisher= History of Parliament Online|access-date = 10 May 2016}}</ref>  He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the [[Whig (British political party)|Whig]] ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon lost the Liskeard seat in 1780 when Eliot joined the opposition, taking with him "the Electors of Leskeard [who] are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. El[l]iot." (Murray, p.&nbsp;322.) The following year, owing to the good grace of Prime Minister [[Lord North]], he was again returned to Parliament, this time for [[Lymington (UK Parliament constituency)|Lymington]] on a by-election.<ref>Gibbon's Whiggery was solidly conservative, in favour of the propertied oligarchy, while upholding the subject's rights under the rule of law&mdash;though staunchly against ideas such as the natural rights of man and popular sovereignty, which he referred to as "the wild & mischievous system of Democracy" (Dickinson, "Politics," 178–179).</ref>

====''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'': 1776–1788====
{{Main|The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire}}
After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what was to become his life's major achievement, ''[[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]]'', was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions, for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits, amounting to approximately £1,000.<ref>Norton, ''Biblio'', pp. 37, 45. Gibbon sold the copyrights to the remaining editions of volume 1 and the remaining 5 volumes to publishers Strahan & Cadell for £8000.  The great ''History'' earned the author a total of about £9000.</ref>

Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784;<ref>Norton, ''Biblio'', pp. 49, 57. Both Norton and Womersley (''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', p. 14) establish that vol. IV was ''substantially'' complete by the end of 1783.</ref> the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote:

{{blockquote|It was on the day, or rather the night, of 27 June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden...I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken my everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.<ref>Murray, [https://archive.org/stream/autobiographies00gibbgoog?ref=ol#page/n366 pp. 333–334]</ref>}}

Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th).<ref>Norton, ''Biblio'', p. 61.</ref> Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as [[Adam Smith]], [[William Robertson (historian)|William Robertson]], [[Adam Ferguson]], [[Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden|Lord Camden]], and [[Horace Walpole]]. Adam Smith told Gibbon that "by the universal assent of every man of taste and learning, whom I either know or correspond with, it sets you at the very head of the whole literary tribe at present existing in Europe."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Autobiography and Correspondence of Edward Gibbon, the Historian|url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_B-cETgg1h2MC|year=1869|publisher=Alex. Murray|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_B-cETgg1h2MC/page/n348 345]}}</ref>
In November 1788, he was elected a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]], the main proposer being his good friend Lord Sheffield.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=2&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27gibbon%27%29|title= Fellow Details|publisher= Royal Society|access-date= 10 May 2016|archive-date= 16 November 2018|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181116082704/https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=2&dsqSearch=%28%28text%29%3D%27gibbon%27%29|url-status= dead}}</ref>

In 1783 Gibbon had been intrigued by the cleverness of Sheffield's 12-year-old eldest daughter, [[Maria Stanley, Baroness Stanley of Alderley|Maria]], and he proposed to teach her himself. Over the following years he continued, creating a girl of sixteen who was both well educated, confident and determined to choose her own husband. Gibbon described her as a "mixture of just observation and lively imagery, the strong sense of a man expressed with the easy elegance of a female".<ref name=maria>{{Cite ODNB|title=Stanley [née Holroyd], Lady Maria Josepha (1771–1863), letter writer and liberal advocate|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-74489|access-date=4 January 2021|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/74489|last1=Stern|first1=Marvin}}</ref>