Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.

Evelyn Waugh admired Gibbon's style but not his secular viewpoint. From 1759 to 1770 Gibbon served on active duty and in reserve with the South Hampshire militia his deactivation in December 1762 coinciding with the militia's dispersal at the end of the Seven Years' War. Gibbon later wrote:

It was on the day or rather the night of 27 June 1787 between the hours of eleven and twelve that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden.

Edward Gibbon (27 April 1737 – 16 January 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was publiEdward Gibbond in six volumes between 1776 and 1788.