Hugonin's last letter, by some very _unaccountable accident_, had never reached me; so that yours, in every instance, amazed me. I immediately wrote him groans and approbation. Winton, however, gives me very little uneasiness. I see that he is a bully, and that I have a stick. But the cursed business of Lenborough, in the midst of Study, Dissipation, and friendship, at times almost distracts me.* R. Way seems to have done nothing with the Jockey, (who indeed is as strange as Winton himself, singular luck enough I have had) nor have I yet ventured to cross the Rubicon by writing to him. _I wish your journey here_ and into Oxfordshire was to take _place soon_, and yet I hardly know what you could do for me. *I am surely in a worse condition than before I sold the Estate, and what distresses me is, that _His ego nec metas rerum, nec tempora pono_.
Both Deyverdun and Clarke wish to be remembered to you. The former, who has more taste for the Country than ----,[235] could wish to visit you, but he sets out in a few days for the Continent _with Lord M[iddleton]_.* Your letter for the latter was immediately mentioned and very kindly received. He is now at Aldershot with his family, and on this _occasion only_ I write to him almost every post, as I am this moment preparing to do. Therefore Adieu.
[234] Gibbon was always careful, if not elaborate, in his dress. George Colman the younger, in his _Random Records_ (1830), vol. i. pp. 121, 122, describes his meeting as a boy with Gibbon and Johnson:--
"On the day I first sat down with Johnson, in his rusty brown, and his black worsteads, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flower'd velvet, with a bag and sword." The "costume," he adds in a note, "was not extraordinary at this time, (a little overcharged, perhaps, if his _person_ be considered,) when almost every gentleman came to dinner in full dress." "Each," he continues, "had his measured phraseology; and Johnson's famous parallel, between Dryden and Pope, might be loosely parodied, in reference to himself and Gibbon. Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant; the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantick, and the polish of the latter was occasionally finical. Johnson march'd to kettle-drums and trumpets; Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys; Johnson hew'd passages through the Alps, while Gibbon levell'd walks through parks and gardens. Maul'd as I had been by Johnson, Gibbon pour'd balm upon my bruises, by condescending, once or twice, in the course of the evening, to talk with me; the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy;--but it was done _more suá_ (sic); still his mannerism prevail'd;--still he tapp'd his snuff-box,--still he smirk'd, and smiled; and rounded his periods with the same air of good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men.--His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole, nearly in the centre of his visage."