The Reverend Whitaker, Rector of Ruan-Lanyhorne (in Cornwall), really dislikes Gibbon. What particularly gets his goat is Gibbon's sensuality and debauchery. Not his representation of Roman sensuality and debauchery, but the sensuality and debauchery of Gibbon's own 'licentious pencil' -- not, I'd guess, a common ground of disparagement of the great stylist:
He drew the outline of his work with a critical hand, but he went beyond it on every side, in in the excursiveness of his licentious pencil. ... We have noticed before the propensity of Mr. Gibbon to obscenity. It was then, however, covered mostly under a veil of Greek. But, in p. 375, his obscenity throws off every cover, and comes stalking forth in the impudence of nakedness. A soul, deeply tinctured with sensuality, loves to brood over sensual ideas itself, to present sensual objects to others, and so to enjoy its own sensuality of spirit over again. But, in p. 414, he is still more vicious. [55]Phew! They should put this in large type on the cover of the Penguin edition. It might persuade my students to read it.
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