"The learned Gibbon," says Colman, "was a curious counterbalance to the learned (may I not say the less learned) Johnson.

Their manners and tastes, both in writing and conversation, were as different as their habiliments.

On the day I first sat down with Johnson in his rusty-brown suit and his black worsted stockings, Gibbon was placed opposite to me in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.
Each had his measured phraseology, and Johnson's famous parallel between Dryden and Pope might be loosely parodied in reference to himself and Gibbon.

Johnson's style was grand, and Gibbon's elegant: the stateliness of the former was sometimes pedantic, and the latter was occasionally finical.

Johnson marched to kettledrums and trumpets, Gibbon moved to flutes and hautboys.