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See Appendix, Vol. I. Letter XVII.

W ORK S

OF

EDWARD GIBBON,
GIBBON, Efquire.

WITH

MEMOIRS OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS,
COMPOSED BY HIMSELF:

ILLUSTRATED FROM HIS LETTERS,

WITH OCCASIONAL NOTES AND NARRATIVE,

BY JOHN LORD SHEFFIELD.

PUBLIC

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I.

DUBLIN:

PRINTED FOR P. WOGAN, L. WHITE, JOHN CHAMBERS,
P. BYRNE, JOHN MILLIKIN, JAMES MOORE, J. RICE,
W. JONES, JOHN HALPEN, PETER MOORE,

H. FITZPATRICK, N. KELLY,

AND G. FOLINGSBY,

1796.

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THE melancholy duty of examining the Papers of my deceated friend devolved upon me at a time when I was depreffed by severe afflictions.

In that ftate of mind, I hefitated to undertake the task of felecting and preparing his Manufcripts for the prefs. The warmth of my early and long attachment to Mr. Gibbon made me conscious of a partiality, which it was not proper to indulge, especially in revising many of his juvenile and unfinished compofitions. I had to guard, not only againft: a. fentiment like my own, which I found extenúvely dif fused, but also against the eagernefs.occalioned by a very general curiofity to fee in print every literary relick, however imperfect, of so distinguished a writer.

Being aware how difgracefully Authors of Eminence have been often treated, by an indiscreet pofthumous publication of fragments and careless effufions; when I had felected those Papers which to myself appeared the fittest for the public eye, I confulted fome of our common friends, whom I knew to be equally anxious with myself for Mr. Gibbon's fame, VOL. I.

a

and

and fully competent, from their judgment, to protect it.

Under fuch a fanction it is, that, no longer fufpecting myself to view through too favourable a medium the compofitions of my Friend, I now venture to publish them: and it may here be proper to give fome information to the Reader, refpecting the Contents of these Volumes.

....

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The most important part confifts of Memoirs of Mr. Gibbon's Life and Writings, a work which he feems to have projected with peculiar folicitude and attention, and of which he left Six different sketches, all in his own hand-writing. One of these sketches, the moft diffuse and circumftantial, so far as it proceeds, ends at the time when he quitted Oxford. Another at the year 1764, when he travelled to Italy. A third, at his father's death, in 1776. A fourth, which he continued to a short time after his return to Lausanne in 1788, appears in the form of Annals, much lefs detailed than the others. The two remaining sketches are still more imperfect. It is difficult to discover the order in which thefe feveral Pieces were written, but there is reafon to believe that the most copious was the last. From all these the following Memoirs have been carefully selected, and put together.

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