His unselfish zeal and haste to console his bereaved friend showed him warm and loving to the last; and we may say that his last serious effort was consecrated to the genius of pious friendship.
In 1796, two years after Gibbon's death, Lord Sheffield published two quarto volumes of the historian's miscellaneous works.

They have been republished in one thick octavo, and many persons suppose that it contains the whole of the posthumous works; not unnaturally, as a fraudulent statement on the title-page, "complete in one volume," is well calculated to produce that impression.

But in 1814 Lord Sheffield issued a second edition in five volumes octavo, containing much additional matter, which additional matter was again published in a quarto form, no doubt for the convenience of the purchasers of the original quarto edition.
Of the posthumous works, the Memoirs are by far the most important portion.

Unfortunately, they were left in a most unfinished state, and what we now read is nothing else than a mosaic put together by Lord Sheffield from _six_ different sketches.

Next to the Memoirs are the journals and diaries of his studies.