Note 1
Note from 'Decision To Write A History' chapter from 'Memoirs Of My Life And Writing' by Gibbon

Mr. Gibbon never talked with me on the subject of his conversion to Popery but once: and then, he imputed his change to the works of Parsons the Jesuit, who lived in the reign of Elizabeth, and who, he said, had urged all the best arguments in favour of the Roman Catholic religion. — Sheffield