Date: 1776-1789

"Without that artificial help the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the ideas entrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually forget their powers: the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination languid o...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)