(1737-1794), an eminent English historian, born at Putney in Surrey. He entered Magdalen College, Oxford, but remained there only fourteen months. His studies resulted in his conversion to Roman Catholicism, and his father placed him under the care of a Calvinistic minister at Lausanne, by whom he was reconverted to the Protestant faith. During his years at Lausanne he studied diligently, and in 1758, after his return to England, appeared his first publication, An Essay upon the Study of Literature. In 1763 he visited Paris and Lausanne and in the following year traveled in Italy. It was here that the idea occurred to him, as he visited the ruins of the Capitol, of writing his great history, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1774 he obtained a seat in Parliament and was a silent supporter of the North administration and its American policy for eight years. The first volume of his great history was published in 1776, and his reputation was established at once. A complete edition of the history was published in 1783. Gibbon's history shows not only the remarkable breadth of his knowledge and attainments, but a great power of organization. As an authority on the period from the reign of Trajan to the fall of Constantinople, Gibbon's work is still unassailed, although in his skeptical attitude toward Christianity he has not given due prominence to the work accomplished by its spread.