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Gibbon (EDWARD an English historian)

EDWARD, an English historian; born in Putney, April 27, 1737; studied at Westminster School, Magdalen College, Oxford, and Lausanne. On returning to England he prepared himself for authorship. In 1763 he went to Italy; and while sitting amid the ruins of the Capitol at Rome, he conceived the idea of writing the history of the decline and fall of that city.

In the meantime he joined M. Deyvurdun, a Swiss scholar, in publishing a journal called "Literary Memoirs of Great Britain," which met with no success. In 1772 he began his celebrated history of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Previous to this undertaking Gibbon was chosen member of Parliament for Liskeard; and when hostilities commenced between England and France, in 1778, he was employed to draw up the manifesto on that occasion, after which he was made Commissioner of the Board of Trade, but lost his place GIBBONS on the change of administration in 1783.

He then went to reside at Lausanne, where he remained till the French Revolution obliged him to return to England. He died in London, Jan. 16, 1794.