Note 424 — 366.
Reading edition
Gibbon was on July 1, 1779, made a Lord Commissioner of Trade and Plantations—a place which he retained until 1782, when the Board was abolished, the work being transferred to the Secretaries of State. He had at one time hoped to obtain the Secretaryship to the Embassy at Paris (see Letter 476). The following lines were written on his acceptance of the Commissionership by, it is said, Charles Fox:—
"King George, in a fright Lest Gibbon should write The story of England's disgrace, Thought no way so sure, His pen to secure, As to give the historian a place. "But the caution is vain,— 'Tis the curse of his reign That his projects should never succeed; Though he wrote not a line, Yet a course of decline In the author's example we read. "His book well describes How corruption and bribes O'erthrew the great empire of Rome; And his ratings declare A degeneracy there, Which his conduct exhibits at home."