Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Whatever censure may be pointed against the Editor, the Public will set a due value on the Letters for their intrinsic merit. I must, indeed, be blinded, either by vanity or affection, if they do not display the heart and mind of their Author, in such a manner as justly to increase the number of his admirers. I have not been solicitous to garble or expunge passages which, to some, may appear trifling. Such passages will often, in the opinion of the observing Reader, mark the character of the Writer, and the omission of them would materially take from the ease and familiarity of authentic letters. Few men, I believe, have ever so fully unveiled their own character, by a minute narrative of their sentiments and pursuits, as Mr. Gibbon will here be found to have done; not with study and labour?not with an affected frankness?but with a genuine confession of his little foibles and peculiarities, and a good-humoured and natural display of his own conduct and opinions. Mr. Gibbon began a Journal, a work distinct from the sketches already mentioned, in the early part of his Life, with the following declaration: I propose from this day, August 24th, 1761, to keep an exact Journal of my actions and b 3 studies.studies, both to assist my memory, and to accustom me to set a due value on my time. I shall begin by setting down some few events of my past life, the dates of which I can remember. This industrious project he pursued occasionally in French, with the minuteness, fidelity, and liberality of a mind resolved to watch over and improve itself. The Journal is continued under different titles, and is sometimes very concise, and sometimes singularly detailed. One part of it is entitled My Journal, another Ephemerides, or Journal of my Actions, Studies, and Opinio...