Word Finder - gibbon

definition

A small ape of the family Hylobatidae with long limbs, which it uses to travel through rainforests by swinging from branch to branch.

Gibbon sat and listened unobserved to their strictures.

But Gibbon's friends in a few weeks discovered that the new tutor preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils, and in this perplexity decided to send him prematurely to Oxford, where he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College, 3rd April 1752.

In 1757 Voltaire came to reside at Lausanne; and although he took but little notice of the young Englishman of twenty, who eagerly sought and easily obtained an introduction, the establishment of the theatre at Monrepos, where the brilliant versifier himself declaimed before select audiences his own productions on the stage, had no small influence in fortifying Gibbon's taste for the French theatre, and in at the same time abating that "idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an Englishman."

Gibbon's Vindication (1779) called forth a Reply by Davies (1779), and A Short Appeal to the Public by Francis Eyre (1779).

Chelsum returned to the attack in 1785 (A Reply to Mr Gibbon's Vindication), and Sir David Dalrymple (An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes, &c.) made his first appearance in the controversy in 1786.

The ministry of Lord North, however, was tottering, and soon after fell; the Board of Trade was abolished by the passing of Burke's bill in 1782, and Gibbon's salary vanished with it - no trifle, for his expenditure had been for three years on a scale somewhat disproportionate to his private fortune.

It must be added that the pages on the Slavonic peoples and their relations to the empire are conspicuously insufficient; but it must be taken into account that it was not till many years after Gibbon's death that Slavonic history began to receive due attention, in consequence of the rise of competent scholars among the Sla y s themselves.

Gibbon's stylistic artifice both averted the peril of prosecution and rendered the attack more telling.

Gibbon's verdict on the history of the middle ages is contained in the famous sentence, " I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion."

A new edition of the complete translation, prefaced by a letter on Gibbon's life and character, from the pen of Suard, and annotated by Guizot, appeared in 1812 (and again in 1828).

Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, with Memoirs of his Life and Writings, composed by himself; illustrated from his Letters, with occasional Notes and Narrative, published by Lord Sheffield in two volumes in 1796, has been often reprinted.

It may be added that a special translation of the chapter on Roman Law (Gibbon's historische Ubersicht des romischen Rechts) was published by Hugo at Göttingen in 1839, and has frequently been used as a text-book in German universities.

He belonged to the school of Thucydides and Gibbon, not to that of Macaulay and Taine; he deals by preference with the rulers and leaders of the world, and he strictly limits his field to the history of the state, or, as we should say, political history; and in this he is followed by Seeley, one of the greatest of his adherents.

If, then, those contents do not represent the knowledge of Jaber, and if the contents of other Latin translations which there is reason to believe are really made from the Arabic, show little, if any, advance on the knowledge of the Alexandrian Greeks, evidently the part played by the Arabs must be less, and that of the Westerns greater, than Gibbon is prepared to admit.

He now formed the design of joining the Austrian army, for the purpose of campaigning against the Turks, and so crossed over from Dover to Calais with Gibbon, who, writing to his friend Lord Sheffield, calls his fellow-passenger "Mr SecretaryColonel-Admiral-Philosopher Thompson."

Gibbon supposes that there were in the Roman world in the reign of Claudius at least as many slaves as free inhabitants.

By 1727 he was domiciled with Edward Gibbon (1666-1736) at Putney as tutor to his son Edward, father of the historian, who says that Law became " the much honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family."

His pupil then went abroad, but Law was left at Putney, where he remained in Gibbon's house for more than ten years, acting as a religious guide not only to the family but to a number of earnest-minded folk who came to consult him.

Her father was the famous financier Necker, her mother Suzanne Curchod, almost equally famous as the early love of Gibbon, as the wife of Necker himself, and as the mistress of one of the most popular salons of Paris.

Some authorities, however, as for instance Gibbon, have supposed them to refer to the same person.

He was a man of brutal and worthless character; but although Gibbon's statement that he was "just, humane and even partial towards the afflicted Christians" may be exaggerated, it is probable that he never exhibited any special hostility towards them.

Totila's conquest of Italy was marked not only by celerity but also by mercy, and Gibbon says "none were deceived, either friends or enemies, who depended on his faith or his clemency."

He settled in England in 1740, published several books, and wrote the preface to Gibbon's first work, Etude de la litterature.

The speech is unfortunately lost, but Gibbon, who heard it, told his friend Holroyd (afterwards Earl of Sheffield) that Fox, "taking the vast compass of the question before us, discovered powers for regular debate which neither his friends hoped nor his enemies dreaded."

He received the rudiments of an excellent education at a free school in Dublin, and afterwards spent a year or two (1751-1752) under his father's roof at Skeyton rectory, Norfolk, and elsewhere, and for a short time he had Gibbon as a fellow-pupil.

A philosopher," as Gibbon long ago pointed out, _ who asks from what articles of faith above and against reason the early Reformers enfranchised their followers of P will be surprised at their timidity rather than scandal Y ized by their freedom.

Herndon (1813-1857) and Lardner Gibbon also occurred during his term.

Rambaud, L'Empire grec au dixieme siecle (1870); see also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch.

In this connexion Major-General John Gibbon, U.S.A., records that in the American Civil War hunters and others who served in the western regiments habitually knocked off the backsights of the rifles that were issued to them, preferring to do without them.

In vain Edward Gibbon Wakefield, organizer of colonizing associations, prayed and intrigued for permission to repeat in New Zealand the experiment tried by him in South Australia.

Treaties and military operations were at first of no avail, but in 1876 the United States government took steps to reduce them to submission, and Generals George Crook (1828-1890), Alfred Howe Terry (1827-1890) and John Gibbon (1827-1896), with 2700 troops (besides the Crow scouts) were sent against the Sioux under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and others.

Wild pig, several species of rats, and many bats - one of the commonest being the'flying-fox, and many species of monkey - especially the gibbon - are also met with.

The greater part of the two years which followed the publication of the Wealth of Nations Smith spent in London, enjoying the society of eminent persons, amongst whom were Gibbon, Burke, Reynolds and Topham Beauclerk.

It occurs naturally in the juice of 1 See Gibbon, ch.

In spite, however, of Gibbon's characteristic scepticism on this point, it is certain that the Constitutum was regarded as genuine both by the friends and the enemies of the papal pretensions throughout the middle ages.

Both were feeble, and, in Gibbon's phrase, slumbered on their thrones, leaving the government to others.

Since the days of Gibbon (resident here for three periods, 1753-1758,1763-1764and 1783-1793), whose praises of the town have been often repeated, Lausanne has become a favourite place of residence for foreigners (including many English), who are especially attracted by the excellent establishments for secondary and higher education.

The house, La Grotte, which Gibbon inhabited 1783-1793, and on the terrace of which he completed (1787) his famous history, was demolished in 1896 to make room for the new post office that stands on the Place St Francois.

This title is given by Gibbon to the son of Romanus I.

Friedlander, for instance, does not think that they exceeded by much Gibbon's estimate for the reign of Decius, viz.

Gibbon speaks of his learning as "immense," and says that his "skill in employing facts is equal to his learning," although he severely criticizes his method and style.

Gibbon contrasts Agathias as " a poet and rhetorician " with Procopius a statesman and soldier."

He prepared editions, which won the praise of Edward Gibbon,' of the Ars poetica and Epistola ad Pisones (1749), and the Epistola ad Augustum (1751) of Horace.

Gibbon defines the great Logothete as "the supreme guardian of the laws and revenues," who "is compared with the chancellor of the Latin monarchies."

There, too, were Gibbon the greatest historian and Sir William Jones the greatest linguist of the age.

See Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyric of Majorian; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch.

Down to the 3rd century it is proved by the contemporary Graeco-Roman annals to be utterly untrustworthy - but even for the times of Armenian Christianity it must be used far more cautiously than has been done, for example, by Gibbon.

The lands on both banks of the river shared the same fate, due probably to the fact to which Gibbon has drawn attention, that at this period the Danube was frequently frozen over.

The Vita Justiniani of Ludewig or Ludwig (Halle, 1731), a work of patient research, is frequently referred to by Gibbon in his important chapters relating to the reign of Justinian, in the Decline and Fall (see Bury's edition, 1900).

In 1786 he published An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes which Mr Gibbon has assigned for the Rapid Growth of Christianity (Dutch translation, Utrecht, 1793), one of the most respectable of the very many replies which were made to the famous 15th and 16th chapters of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.