As a picture of Gibbon's method, zeal, and thoroughness in the pursuit of knowledge, they are of the highest interest.

But they refer to an early period of his studies, long previous to the concentration of his mind on his great work, and one would like to know whether they present the best selection that might have been made from these records.

It is interesting to follow Gibbon in his perusal of Homer and Juvenal at five-and-twenty.

But one would much like to be admitted to his study when he was a far riper scholar, and preparing for or writing the _Decline and Fall_.

Lord Sheffield positively prohibited, by a clause in his will, any further publication of the Gibbon papers, and although Dean Milman was permitted to see them, it was with the express understanding that none of their contents should be divulged.