“The Duke of Gloucester, brother of King George III, permitted Mr. Gibbon to present him with the first volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. When the second volume of that work appeared, it was quite in order that it should be presented to His Royal Highness in like manner. The prince received the author with much good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the table, ‘Another d-mn’d thick, square book! Always, scribble, scribble, scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?'”
-From The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes (1975: Pocket Books, New York) p. 139
Poor Gibbon. Did he respond with shame or contempt for the good lord?
You know, the book I have says nothing about it! In the style of Gibbon,
A disinterested and partial observer could have no doubt as to the offense which the author would have taken in his heart, the servile flattery with which he would have received the jovial affront of the crafty tyrant, and the consequent dissatisfaction at having so cheerfully acquiesced in the mockery of a work which was at one time the grandest of undertakings, the most interesting specimen of historiography, and the finest example of sound English style.