But that was almost a unique occasion and victory in the history of letters.

Bentley himself, the most pugnacious of men, never found such another.
And so the time glided by, till we come to the year 1783.

Lord North had resigned office, the Board of Trade was abolished, and Gibbon had lost his convenient salary.

The outlook was not pleasant.

The seat on the Board of Customs or Excise with which his hopes had been for a time kept up, receded into a remote distance, and he came to the conclusion "that the reign of pensions and sinecures was at an end." It was clearly necessary to take some important step in the way of retrenchment.