CHAPTER V.
LITERARY SCHEMES .-- THE HISTORY OF SWITZERLAND .-- DISSERTATION ON THE SIXTH AENEID .-- FATHER'S DEATH .-- SETTLEMENT IN LONDON.
Gibbon now (June, 1765) returned to his father's house, and remained there till the latter's death in 1770.

He describes these five years as having been the least pleasant and satisfactory of his whole life.
The reasons were not far to seek.

The unthrifty habits of the elder Gibbon were now producing their natural result.

He was saddled with debt, from which two mortgages, readily consented to by his son, and the sale of the house at Putney, only partially relieved him.

Gibbon now began to fear that he had an old age of poverty before him.