exposes, with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction
between the faith and practice of the Christian world. Under the
names of Flavia and Miranda he has admirably described my two aunts
the heathen and the Christian sister.

My father, Edward Gibbon, was born in October, 1707: at the age of
thirteen he could scarcely feel that he was disinherited by act of
parliament; and, as he advanced towards manhood, new prospects of
fortune opened to his view. A parent is most attentive to supply in
his children the deficiencies, of which he is conscious in himself:
my grandfather's knowledge was derived from a strong understanding,
and the experience of the ways of men; but my father enjoyed the
benefits of a liberal education as a scholar and a gentleman. At
Westminster School, and afterwards at Emanuel College in Cambridge,
he passed through a regular course of academical discipline; and the
care of his learning and morals was intrusted to his private tutor,
the same Mr. William Law. But the mind of a saint is above or below
the present world; and while the pupil proceeded on his travels, the
tutor remained at Putney, the much-honoured friend and spiritual
director of the whole family. My father resided sometime at Paris
to acquire the fashionable exercises; and as his temper was warm and
social, he indulged in those pleasures, for which the strictness of
his former education had given him a keener relish. He afterwards
visited several provinces of France; but his excursions were neither
long nor remote; and the slender knowledge, which he had gained of
the French language, was gradually obliterated. His passage through
Besancon is marked by a singular consequence in the chain of human
events. In a dangerous illness Mr. Gibbon was attended, at his own
request, by one of his kinsmen of the name of Acton, the younger
brother of a younger brother, who had applied himself to the study