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he has admirably described my two aunts-the heathen and the Christian sister *.

My father, Edward Gibbon, was born in October, 1707 : at the age of thirteen he could scarcely feel that he was disinherited by act of parliament; and, as he advanced towards manhood, new prospects of fortune opened to his view. A parent is most attentive to supply in his children the deficiencies of which he is conscious in himself: my grandfather's knowledge was derived from a strong understanding, and the experience of the ways of men; but my father enjoyed the benefits of a liberal education as a scholar and a gentleman. At Westminster School, and afterwards at Emanuel College in Cambridge, he passed through a regular course of academical discipline; and the care of his learning and morals was entrusted to his private tutor, the same Mr. William Law. But the mind of a saint is above or below the present world; and while the pupil proceeded on his travels, the tutor remained at Putney, the muchhonoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family. My father resided some time at Paris to acquire the fashionable exercises; and as his temper was warm and social, he indulged in those pleasures for which the strictness of his former education had given him a keener relish. He afterwards visited several provinces of France; but his excursions were neither long nor remote; and the slender knowledge, which he had gained of the French language, was gradually obliterated. His passage through Besançon is marked by a singular consequence in the chain of human events. In a dangerous illness Mr. Gibbon was attended, at his own request, by one of his kinsmen of the name of Acton, the younger brother of a younger brother, who had applied himself to the study of physic. During the slow recovery of his patient, the physician himself was attacked by the malady of love he married his mistress, renounced his country and religion, settled at Besançon, and became the father of three sons; the eldest of whom, General Acton, is conspicuous in Europe as the principal Minister of the King of the Two Sicilies. By an uncle whom another stroke of fortune had transplanted to Leghorn, he was educated in the naval service of the Emperor; and his valour and conduct in the command of the Tuscan frigates protected the retreat of the Spaniards from

* These characters are too long for insertion in the notes. Serious Call. ch. 7, 8, 9.

his estimate of Law; but his admission that the asceticism of Law; was founded on the gospel, was biassed, no doubt, by his disOn the life and writings of Mr. Law, see inclination to allow genuine Christianity Nicholls' Literary Anecdotes, ix. 516. to have any claim to be considered as ra

Gibbon, on the whole, has been fair in tional religion.-M.

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Algiers. On my father's return to England he was chosen, the general election of 1734, to serve in parliament for the borough of Petersfield; a burgage tenure, of which my grandfather possessed a weighty share, till he alienated (I know not why) such important property. In the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole and the Pelhams, prejudice and society connected his son with the Tories,-shall I say Jacobites; or, as they were pleased to style themselves, country gentlemen? With them he gave many a vote; with them he drank many a bottle. Without acquiring the fame of an orator or a statesman, he eagerly joined in the great opposition, which, after a seven years' chase, hunted down Sir Robert Walpole and in the pursuit of an unpopular minister, he gratified a private revenge against the oppressor of his family in the South Sea persecution.

NOTES AND ADDITIONS.

(1) page 13.

In the Autobiography of Sir Egerton Brydges appears a letter from Gibbon to that gentleman, who was his cousin, and had written some articles relating to their common genealogy in the "Gentleman's Magazine," 1788. On this letter Sir Egerton observes :-" It is a very unaccountable thing that Gibbon was so ignorant of the immediate branch of his family whence he sprung. They had been entered in the visitation book of Kent by the heralds in 1683; but Matthew, the historian's great-grandfather, was then only about twenty-one years old. His elder half-brother, Thomas, was then married to a sister of Sir William Rooke, of Horton. Their father, Thomas, survived till about 1684, being then more than eighty years old. He had married a third wife, and removed to Hartlip, near Sittingbourne, her property. He probably resigned the residence at West Cliff to his son Thomas. I can trace no descendants of Thomas, the son, beyond the end of that century; perhaps they fell into obscurity. never heard any tradition of them." Brydges' Autobiography, 1. 237.

Gibbon had not the courage to give to the world his " Autobiography," during his life. He was a wonderful man; but he had many vanities, and some weaknesses. Colman has given a curious portrait of him, as inserted in a note of Croker's Boswell. Rich as he was in erudition, and surely in geniusfor what but genius could have put together in so luminous a manner such an incredible extent of chaotic materials?-he yet was in his manners and person a finical coxcomb. He lived in an age of ceremonials, which have now passed away; and he had a silly desire to be thought a man of fashion and a fine gentleman; a mean ambition for a man of such a splendid and accomplished mind. But these little passions were superseded by more noble ones; and he retired with an elevated courage to Lausanne to spend his latter days in literature and his own thoughts, amid the beautiful scenery of Switzerland, and on the banks of the sublime Geneva lake. His Memoirs are pleasing, and will always be an instructive record of indefatigable literary toil; but they are not, to my taste, of the highest class of memoirs: they partake a little of the quaintness of the author's manners; he appears too much in his full dress. They want

energy and simplicity, and frankness and high bursts of eloquence. His father appears to have been a vain man, of feeble resolution and morbid feelings. He was himself vain of his birth, but he knew little of the history of his family beyond his grandfather; his great-grandfather having moved out of Kent, where all his ancestors had lived, the link was nearly lost. When young, I suppose, he had no curiosity about those things; for my father, when he dined at Wootton, about 1761, could have given him the whole history. He would have been interested by the story of the derivation of old John Randolph, the American president, whose death has been announced within the present month (July, 1833). I do not recollect that the historian mentions the connexion of his family with the Yorkes (?), of whom he would have been justly proud. Charles Yorke, who died at the moment of accepting the seals of chancellor (1770), was a man of beautifully intellectual character. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's mother was, as I have said before, a Gibbon, and the widow of my great-grandfather, Edward Gibbon, who was her cousin. I have a few letters of Charles Yorke to my father, but they are of no importance. Brydges' Autobiography,

11. 17.

(2) page 15.

If we blame the conduct of parliament towards these unhappy men, we shall find that their contemporaries also complained of it. But it was for the exactly opposite reason. We may think such proceedings harsh and cruel : they thought them shamefully lenient. Petitions had been pouring in from all parts of the country, praying for "condign punishment" on these "monsters of pride and covetousness,"" the cannibals of Change Alley,"-" the infamous betrayers of their country." One worthy representative laments the sad grievance that, after all, there will be nobody's blood shed; and in pamphlets of the day, I read such expressions as, "If you ask what monsters as they are should be done with, then the answer is short and easy-hang them! for, whatever they deserve, I would have no new tortures invented, nor any new deaths devised. "In this I think I show moderation. Let them only be hanged, but hanged speedily." Lord Mahon, p. 33.

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(3) page 17.

Gibbon mentions an interview with Mrs. Hester Gibbon in a letter to his mother-in-law.

"Guess my surprise, when Mrs. Gibbon of Northamptonshire suddenly communicated her arrival. I immediately went to Surrey-street, where she lodged; but though it was no more than half an hour after nine, the Saint had finished her evening devotions, and was already retired to rest. Yesterday morning (by appointment) I breakfasted with her at eight o'clock, dined with her to-day at two in Newman-street, and am just returned from setting her down. She is, in truth, a very great curiosity: her dress and figure exceed any thing we had at the masquerade: her language and ideas belong to the last century. However, in point of religion she was rational; that is to say, silent. I do not believe that she asked a single question, or said the least thing concerning it. To me she behaved with great cordiality, and in her way expressed a great regard."

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CHAPTER II.

Mr. Gibbon's birth; he is put under the care of Mr. Kirkby; some Account of Mr. Kirkby. -The Author is sent to Dr. Wooddeson's School, whence he is removed on the death of his Mother.-Affectionate Observations on his Aunt, Mrs. Catharine Porten. -Is entered at Westminster School; is removed on account of ill health, and afterwards placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Francis.

I WAS born at Putney in the county of Surry, the 27th of April, O, S., in the year one thousand seven hundred and thirtyseven; the first child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, Esq. and of Judith Porten. My lot might have been that of a slave, a savage, or a peasant; nor can I reflect without pleasure on the bounty of Nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune. From my birth I have enjoyed the right of primogeniture; but I was succeeded by five brothers and one sister, all of whom were snatched away in their infancy. My five brothers, whose names may be found in the parish register of Putney, I shall not pretend to lament: but from my childhood to the present hour I have deeply and sincerely regretted my sister, whose life was somewhat prolonged, and whom I remember to have seen an amiable infant. The relation of a brother and a sister, especially if they do not marry, appears to me of a very singular nature. It is a familiar and tender friendship with a female, much about our own age; an affection perhaps softened by the secret influence of sex, but pure from any mixture of sensual desire, the sole species of Platonic love that can be indulged with truth, and without danger.

At the general election of 1741, Mr. Gibbon and Mr. Delmé stood an expensive and successful contest at Southampton. against Mr. Dummer and Mr. Henly, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl of Northington. The Whig candidates had a majority of the resident voters; but the corporation was firm in the Tory interest: a sudden creation of one hundred and se-' venty new freemen turned the scale; and a supply was readily obtained of respectable volunteers, who flocked from all parts of England to support the cause of their political friends. The

'The union to which I owe my birth was a marriage of inclination and esteem. Mr. James Porten, a merchant of London, resided with his family at Putney, in a house. adjoining to the bridge and church-yard, where I have passed many happy hours of my childhood. He left one son (the late Sir Stanier Porten) and three daughters: Catherine, who preserved her maiden name, and of whom I shall hereafter speak; another daughter married Mr. Darrel of Richmond, and left two sons, Edward and Robert: the youngest of the three sisters was Judith, my mother.-S.

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new parliament opened with the victory of an opposition, which was fortified by strong clamour and strange coalitions. From the event of the first divisions, Sir Robert Walpole perceived that he could no longer lead a majority in the House of Commons, and prudently resigned (after a dominion of one and twenty years) the guidance of the state (1742). But the fall of an unpopular minister was not succeeded, according to general expectation, by a millennium of happiness and virtue some courtiers lost their places, some patriots lost their characters, Lord Orford's offences vanished with his power; and after a short vibration, the Pelham government was fixed on the old basis of the Whig aristocracy. In the year 1745, the throne and the constitution were attacked by a rebellion, which does not reflect much honour on the national spirit; since the English friends of the Pretender wanted courage to join his standard, and his enemies (the bulk of the people) allowed him to advance into the heart of the kingdom. Without daring, perhaps without desiring, to aid the rebels, my father invariably adhered to the Tory opposition. In the most critical season he accepted, for the service of the party, the office of alderman in the city of London but the duties were so repugnant to his inclination and habits, that he resigned his gown at the end of a few months. The second parliament in which he sate was prematurely dissolved (1747) and as he was unable or unwilling to maintain a second contest for Southampton, the life of the senator expired in that dissolution.

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The death of a new-born child before that of its parents may seem an unnatural, but it is strictly a probable event: since of any given number the greater part are extinguished before their ninth year, before they possess the faculties of the mind or body. Without accusing the profuse waste or imperfect workmanship of Nature, I shall only observe, that this unfavourable chance was multiplied against my infant existence. So feeble was my constitution, so precarious my life, that, in the baptism of my brothers, my father's prudence successively repeated my Christian name of Edward, that, in case of the departure of the eldest son, this patronymic appellation might be still perpetuated in the family.

Uno avulso non deficit alter.

To preserve and to rear so frail a being, the most tender assiduity was scarcely sufficient; and my mother's attention was somewhat diverted by her frequent pregnancies, by an exclusive passion for her husband, and by the dissipation of the world, in which his taste and authority obliged her to mingle. But the

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