Produced by P. J. Riddick
MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE AND WRITINGS
By Edward Gibbon
In the fifty-second year of my age, after the completion of an
arduous and successful work, I now propose to employ some moments of
my leisure in reviewing the simple transactions of a private and
literary life. Truth, naked unblushing truth, the first virtue of
more serious history, must be the sole recommendation of this
personal narrative. The style shall be simple and familiar; but
style is the image of character; and the habits of correct writing
may produce, without labour or design, the appearance of art and
study. My own amusement is my motive, and will be my reward: and if
these sheets are communicated to some discreet and indulgent
friends, they will be secreted from the public eye till the author
shall be removed beyond the reach of criticism or ridicule.
A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors so
generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some
common principle in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the
persons of our forefathers; it is the labour and reward of vanity to
extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always
active to enlarge the narrow circle in which Nature has confined us.
Fifty or an hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we
step forward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy
will suggest; and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our
birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence.
Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than to suppress,
the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh,
the philosopher may preach; but Reason herself will respect the
prejudices and habits, which have been consecrated by the experience
of mankind.
Wherever the distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior
order in the state, education and example should always, and will
often, produce among them a dignity of sentiment and propriety of
conduct, which is guarded from dishonour by their own and the public
esteem. If we read of some illustrious line so ancient that it has
no beginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize
in its various fortunes; nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm,
or even the harmless vanity, of those who are allied to the honours
of its name. For my own part, could I draw my pedigree from a
general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, I should study their
lives with the diligence of filial love. In the investigation of
past events, our curiosity is stimulated by the immediate or
indirect reference to ourselves; but in the estimate of honour we
should learn to value the gifts of Nature above those of Fortune; to
esteem in our ancestors the qualities that best promote the
interests of society; and to pronounce the descendant of a king less
truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius, whose writings
will instruct or delight the latest posterity. The family of
Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious in the world.
After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and
princes of Europe are lost in the darkness of the middle ages; but,
in the vast equality of the empire of China, the posterity of
Confucius have maintained, above two thousand two hundred years,
their peaceful honours and perpetual succession. The chief of the
family is still revered, by the sovereign and the people, as the
lively image of the wisest of mankind. The nobility of the Spencers
has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough;
but I exhort them to consider the "Fairy Queen" as the most precious
jewel of their coronet. I have exposed my private feelings, as I
shall always do, without scruple or reserve. That these sentiments
are just, or at least natural, I am inclined to believe, since I do
not feel myself interested in the cause; for I can derive from my
ancestors neither glory nor shame.
Yet a sincere and simple narrative of my own life may amuse some of
my leisure hours; but it will subject me, and perhaps with justice,
to the imputation of vanity. I may judge, however, from the
experience both of past and of the present times, that the public
are always curious to know the men, who have left behind them any
image of their minds: the most scanty accounts of such men are
compiled with diligence, and perused with eagerness; and the student
of every class may derive a lesson, or an example, from the lives
most similar to his own. My name may hereafter be placed among the
thousand articles of a Biographic Britannica; and I must be
conscious, that no one is so well qualified, as myself, to describe
the series of my thoughts and actions. The authority of my masters,
of the grave Thuanus, and the philosophic Hume, might be sufficient
to justify my design; but it would not be difficult to produce a
long list of ancients and moderns, who, in various forms, have
exhibited their own portraits. Such portraits are often the most
interesting, and sometimes the only interesting parts of their
writings; and if they be sincere, we seldom complain of the
minuteness or prolixity of these personal memorials. The lives of
the younger Pliny, of Petrarch, and of Erasmus, are expressed in the
epistles, which they themselves have given to the world. The essays
of Montaigne and Sir William Temple bring us home to the houses and
bosoms of the authors: we smile without contempt at the headstrong
passions of Benevenuto Cellini, and the gay follies of Colley
Cibber. The confessions of St. Austin and Rousseau disclose the
secrets of the human heart; the commentaries of the learned Huet
have survived his evangelical demonstration; and the memoirs of
Goldoni are more truly dramatic than his Italian comedies. The
heretic and the churchman are strongly marked in the characters and
fortunes of Whiston and Bishop Newton; and even the dullness of
Michael de Marolles and Anthony Wood acquires some value from the
faithful representation of men and manners. That I am equal or
superior to some of these, the effects of modesty or affectation
cannot force me to dissemble.
My family is originally derived from the county of Kent. The
Southern district, which borders on Sussex and the sea, was formerly
overspread with the great forest Anderida, and even now retains the
denomination of the Weald or Woodland. In this district, and in the
hundred and parish of Rolvenden, the Gibbons were possessed of lands
in the year one thousand three hundred and twenty-six; and the elder
branch of the family, without much increase or diminution of
property, still adheres to its native soil. Fourteen years after
the first appearance of his name, John Gibbon is recorded as the
Marmorarius or architect of King Edward the Third: the strong and
stately castle of Queensborough, which guarded the entrance of the
Medway, was a monument of his skill; and the grant of an hereditary
toll on the passage from Sandwich to Stonar, in the Isle of Thanet,
is the reward of no vulgar artist. In the visitations of the
heralds, the Gibbons are frequently mentioned; they held the rank of
esquire in an age, when that title was less promiscuously assumed:
one of them, under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was captain of the
militia of Kent; and a free school, in the neighbouring town of
Benenden, proclaims the charity and opulence of its founder. But
time, or their own obscurity, has cast a veil of oblivion over the
virtues and vices of my Kentish ancestors; their character or
station confined them to the labours and pleasures of a rural life:
nor is it in my power to follow the advice of the poet, in an
inquiry after a name,--
"Go! search it there, where to be born, and die,
Of rich and poor makes all the history."
So recent is the institution of our parish registers. In the
beginning of the seventeenth century, a younger branch of the
Gibbons of Rolvenden migrated from the country to the city; and from
this branch I do not blush to descend. The law requires some
abilities; the church imposes some restraints; and before our army
and navy, our civil establishments, and India empire, had opened so
many paths of fortune, the mercantile profession was more frequently
chosen by youths of a liberal race and education, who aspired to
create their own independence. Our most respectable families have
not disdained the counting-house, or even the shop; their names are
enrolled in the Livery and Companies of London; and in England, as
well as in the Italian commonwealths, heralds have been compelled to
declare that gentility is not degraded by the exercise of trade.
The armorial ensigns which, in the times of chivalry, adorned the
crest and shield of the soldier, are now become an empty decoration,
which every man, who has money to build a carriage, may paint
according to his fancy on the panels. My family arms are the same,
which were borne by the Gibbons of Kent in an age, when the College
of Heralds religiously guarded the distinctions of blood and name: a
lion rampant gardant, between three schallop-shells argent, on a
field azure. I should not however have been tempted to blazon my
coat of arms, were it not connected with a whimsical anecdote. About
the reign of James the First, the three harmless schallop-shells
were changed by Edmund Gibbon esq. into three ogresses, or female
cannibals, with a design of stigmatizing three ladies, his
kinswomen, who had provoked him by an unjust law-suit. But this
singular mode of revenge, for which he obtained the sanction of Sir
William Seagar, king at arms, soon expired with its author; and, on
his own monument in the Temple church, the monsters vanish, and the
three schallop-shells resume their proper and hereditary place.
Our alliances by marriage it is not disgraceful to mention. The
chief honour of my ancestry is James Fiens, Baron Say and Scale, and
Lord High Treasurer of England, in the reign of Henry the Sixth;
from whom by the Phelips, the Whetnalls, and the Cromers, I am
lineally descended in the eleventh degree. His dismission and
imprisonment in the Tower were insufficient to appease the popular
clamour; and the Treasurer, with his son-in-law Cromer, was
beheaded(1450), after a mock trial by the Kentish insurgents. The
black list of his offences, as it is exhibited in Shakespeare,
displays the ignorance and envy of a plebeian tyrant. Besides the
vague reproaches of selling Maine and Normandy to the Dauphin, the
Treasurer is specially accused of luxury, for riding on a
foot-cloth; and of treason, for speaking French, the language of our
enemies: "Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the
realm," says Jack Cade to the unfortunate Lord, "in erecting a
grammar-school; and whereas before our forefathers had no other
books than the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be
used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast
built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast
men about thee, who usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such
abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure to hear." Our
dramatic poet is generally more attentive to character than to
history; and I much fear that the art of printing was not introduced
into England, till several years after Lord Say's death; but of some
of these meritorious crimes I should hope to find my ancestor
guilty; and a man of letters may be proud of his descent from a
patron and martyr of learning.
In the beginning of the last century Robert Gibbon Esq. of Rolvenden
in Kent (who died in 1618), had a son of the same name of Robert,
who settled in London, and became a member of the Cloth-workers'
Company. His wife was a daughter of the Edgars, who flourished
about four hundred years in the county of Suffolk, and produced an
eminent and wealthy serjeant-at-law, Sir Gregory Edgar, in the reign
of Henry the Seventh. Of the sons of Robert Gibbon, (who died in
1643,) Matthew did not aspire above the station of a linen-draper in
Leadenhall-street; but John has given to the public some curious
memorials of his existence, his character, and his family. He was
born on Nov. 3d, 1629; his education was liberal, at a grammar-school,
and afterwards in Jesus College at Cambridge; and he
celebrates the retired content which he enjoyed at Allesborough, in
Worcestershire, in the house of Thomas Lord Coventry, where John
Gibbon was employed as a domestic tutor, the same office which Mr.
Hobbes exercised in the Devonshire family. But the spirit of my
kinsman soon immerged into more active life: he visited foreign
countries as a soldier and a traveller, acquired the knowledge of
the French and Spanish languages, passed some time in the Isle of
Jersey, crossed the Atlantic, and resided upwards of a twelvemonth
(1659) in the rising colony of Virginia. In this remote province
his taste, or rather passion, for heraldry found a singular
gratification at a war-dance of the native Indians. As they moved
in measured steps, brandishing their tomahawks, his curious eye
contemplated their little shields of bark, and their naked bodies,
which were painted with the colours and symbols of his favourite
science. "At which I exceedingly wondered; and concluded that
heraldry was ingrafted _naturally_ into the sense of human race. If
so, it deserves a greater esteem than now-a-days is put upon it."
His return to England after the Restoration was soon followed by his
marriage his settlement in a house in St. Catherine's Cloister, near
the Tower, which devolved to my grandfather and his introduction
into the Heralds' College (in 1671) by the style and title of
Blue-mantle Pursuivant at Arms. In this office he enjoyed near
fifty years the rare felicity of uniting, in the same pursuit, his
duty and inclination: his name is remembered in the College, and
many of his letters are still preserved. Several of the most
respectable characters of the age, Sir William Dugdale, Mr. Ashmole,
Dr. John Betts, and Dr. Nehemiah Grew, were his friends; and in the
society of such men, John Gibbon may be recorded without disgrace as
the member of an astrological club. The study of hereditary honours
is favourable to the Royal prerogative; and my kinsman, like most of
his family, was a high Tory both in church and state. In the latter
end of the reign of Charles the Second, his pen was exercised in the
cause of the Duke of York: the Republican faction he most cordially
detested; and as each animal is conscious of its proper arms, the
heralds' revenge was emblazoned on a most diabolical escutcheon.
But the triumph of the Whig government checked the preferment of
Blue-mantle; and he was even suspended from his office, till his
tongue could learn to pronounce the oath of abjuration. His life
was prolonged to the age of ninety: and, in the expectation of the
inevitable though uncertain hour, he wishes to preserve the
blessings of health, competence, and virtue. In the year 1682 he
published in London his Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam, an
original attempt, which Camden had desiderated, to define, in a
Roman idiom, the terms and attributes of a Gothic institution. It
is not two years since I acquired, in a foreign land, some domestic
intelligence of my own family; and this intelligence was conveyed to
Switzerland from the heart of Germany. I had formed an acquaintance
with Mr. Langer, a lively and ingenious scholar, while he resided at
Lausanne as preceptor to the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick. On his
return to his proper station of Librarian to the Ducal Library of
Wolfenbuttel, he accidentally found among some literary rubbish a
small old English volume of heraldry, inscribed with the name of
John Gibbon. From the title only Mr. Langer judged that it might be
an acceptable present to his friend--and he judged rightly. His
manner is quaint and affected; his order is confused: but he
displays some wit, more reading, and still more enthusiasm: and if
an enthusiast be often absurd, he is never languid. An English text
is perpetually interspersed with Latin sentences in prose and verse;
but in his own poetry he claims an exemption from the laws of
prosody. Amidst a profusion of genealogical knowledge, my kinsman
could not be forgetful of his own name; and to him I am indebted for
almost the whole of my information concerning the Gibbon family.
From this small work the author expected immortal fame.
Such are the hopes of authors! In the failure of those hopes John
Gibbon has not been the first of his profession, and very possibly
may not be the last of his name. His brother Matthew Gibbon, the
draper, had one daughter and two sons--my grandfather Edward, who
was born in the year 1666, and Thomas, afterwards Dean of Carlisle.
According to the mercantile creed, that the best book is a
profitable ledger, the writings of John the herald would be much
less precious than those of his nephew Edward: but an author
professes at least to write for the public benefit; and the slow
balance of trade can be pleasing to those persons only, to whom it
is advantageous. The successful industry of my grandfather raised
him above the level of his immediate ancestors; he appears to have
launched into various and extensive dealings: even his opinions were
subordinate to his interest; and I find him in Flanders clothing
King William's troops, while he would have contracted with more
pleasure, though not perhaps at a cheaper rate, for the service of
King James. During his residence abroad, his concerns at home were
managed by his mother Hester, an active and notable woman. Her
second husband was a widower of the name of Acton: they united the
children of their first nuptials. After his marriage with the
daughter of Richard Acton, goldsmith in Leadenhall-street, he gave
his own sister to Sir Whitmore Acton, of Aldenham; and I am thus
connected, by a triple alliance, with that ancient and loyal family
of Shropshire baronets. It consisted about that time of seven
brothers, all of gigantic stature; one of whom, a pigmy of six feet
two inches, confessed himself the last and least of the seven;
adding, in the true spirit of party, that such men were not born
since the Revolution. Under the Tory administration of the four
last years of Queen Anne (1710-1714) Mr. Edward Gibbon was appointed
one of the Commissioners of the Customs; he sat at that Board with
Prior; but the merchant was better qualified for his station than
the poet; since Lord Bolingbroke has been heard to declare, that he
had never conversed with a man, who more clearly understood the
commerce and finances of England. In the year 1716 he was elected
one of the Directors of the South Sea Company; and his books
exhibited the proof that, before his acceptance of this fatal
office, he had acquired an independent fortune of sixty thousand
pounds.
But his fortune was overwhelmed in the shipwreck of the year twenty,
and the labours of thirty years were blasted in a single day. Of
the use or abuse of the South Sea scheme, of the guilt or innocence
of my grandfather and his brother Directors, I am neither a
competent nor a disinterested judge. Yet the equity of modern times
must condemn the violent and arbitrary proceedings, which would have
disgraced the cause of justice, and would render injustice still
more odious. No sooner had the nation awakened from its golden
dream, than a popular and even a parliamentary clamour demanded
their victims: but it was acknowledged on all sides that the South
Sea Directors, however guilty, could not be touched by any known
laws of the land. The speech of Lord Molesworth, the author of the
State of Denmark, may shew the temper, or rather the intemperance,
of the House of Commons. "Extraordinary crimes (exclaimed that
ardent Whig) call aloud for extraordinary remedies. The Roman
lawgivers had not foreseen the possible existence of a parricide;
but as soon as the first monster appeared, he was sewn in a sack,
and cast headlong into the river; and I shall be content to inflict
the same treatment on the authors of our present ruin." His motion
was not literally adopted; but a bill of pains and penalties was
introduced, a retroactive statute, to punish the offences, which did
not exist at the time they were committed. Such a pernicious
violation of liberty and law can be excused only by the most
imperious necessity; nor could it be defended on this occasion by
the plea of impending danger or useful example. The legislature
restrained the persons of the Directors, imposed an exorbitant
security for their appearance, and marked their characters with a
previous note of ignominy: they were compelled to deliver, upon
oath, the strict value of their estates; and were disabled from
making any transfer or alienation of any part of their property.
Against a bill of pains and penalties it is the common right of
every subject to be heard by his counsel at the bar: they prayed to
be heard; their prayer was refused; and their oppressors, who
required no evidence, would listen to no defence. It had been at
first proposed that one-eighth of their respective estates should be
allowed for the future support of the Directors; but it was
speciously urged, that in the various shades of opulence and guilt
such an unequal proportion would be too light for many, and for some
might possibly be too heavy. The character and conduct of each man
were separately weighed; but, instead of the calm solemnity of a
judicial inquiry, the fortune and honour of three and thirty
Englishmen were made the topic of hasty conversation, the sport of a
lawless majority; and the basest member of the committee, by a
malicious word or, a silent vote, might indulge his general spleen
or personal animosity. Injury was aggravated by insult, and insult
was embittered by pleasantry. Allowances of twenty pounds, or one
shilling, were facetiously moved. A vague report that a Director
had formerly been concerned in another project, by which some
unknown persons had lost their money, was admitted as a proof of his
actual guilt. One man was ruined because he had dropped a foolish
speech, that his horses should feed upon gold; another because he
was grown so proud, that, one day at the Treasury, he had refused a
civil answer to persons much above him. All were condemned, absent
and unheard, in arbitrary fines and forfeitures, which swept away
the greatest part of their substance. Such bold oppression can
scarcely be shielded by the omnipotence of parliament; and yet it
maybe seriously questioned, whether the judges of the South Sea
Directors were the true and legal representatives of their country.
The first parliament of George the First had been chosen (1715) for
three years: the term had elapsed, their trust was expired; and the
four additional years (1718-1722), during which they continued to
sit, were derived not from the people, but from themselves; from the
strong measure of the septennial bill, which can only be paralleled
by il serar di consiglio of the Venetian history. Yet candour will
own that to the same parliament every Englishman is deeply indebted:
the septennial act, so vicious in its origin, has been sanctioned by
time, experience, and the national consent. Its first operation
secured the House of Hanover on the throne, and its permanent
influence maintains the peace and stability of government. As often
as a repeal has been moved in the House of Commons, I have given in
its defence a clear and conscientious vote. My grandfather could
not expect to be treated with more lenity than his companions. His
Tory principles and connections rendered him obnoxious to the ruling
powers: his name is reported in a suspicious secret; and his
well-known abilities could not plead the excuse of ignorance or
error. In the first proceedings against the South Sea Directors,
Mr. Gibbon is one of the few who were taken into custody; and, in
the final sentence, the measure of his fine proclaims him eminently
guilty. The total estimate which he delivered on oath to the House
of Commons amounted to 106,543 pounds 5 shillings and 6 pence,
exclusive of antecedent settlements. Two different allowances of
15,000 pounds and of 10,000 pounds were moved for Mr. Gibbon; but,
on the question being put, it was carried without a division for the
smaller sum. On these ruins, with the skill and credit, of which
parliament had not been able to despoil him, my grandfather at a
mature age erected the edifice of a new fortune: the labours of
sixteen years were amply rewarded; and I have reason to believe that
the second structure was not much inferior to the first. He had
realized a very considerable property in Sussex, Hampshire,
Buckinghamshire, and the New River Company; and had acquired a
spacious house, with gardens and lands, at Putney, in Surrey, where
he resided in decent hospitality. He died in December 1736, at the
age of seventy; and by his last will, at the expense of Edward, his
only son, (with whose marriage he was not perfectly reconciled,)
enriched his two daughters, Catherine and Hester. The former became
the wife of Mr. Edward Elliston, an East India captain: their
daughter and heiress Catherine was married in the year 1756 to
Edward Eliot, Esq. (now lord Eliot), of Port Eliot, in the county of
Cornwall; and their three sons are my nearest male relations on the
father's side. A life of devotion and celibacy was the choice of my
aunt, Mrs. Hester Gibbon, who, at the age of eighty-five, still
resides in a hermitage at Cliffe, in Northamptonshire; having long
survived her spiritual guide and faithful companion Mr. William Law,
who, at an advanced age, about the year 1761, died in her house. In
our family he had left the reputation of a worthy and pious man, who
believed all that he professed, and practised all that he enjoined.
The character of a non-juror, which he maintained to the last, is a
sufficient evidence of his principles in church and state; and the
sacrifice of interest to conscience will be always respectable. His
theological writings, which our domestic connection has tempted me
to peruse, preserve an imperfect sort of life, and I can pronounce
with more confidence and knowledge on the merits of the author. His
last compositions are darkly tinctured by the incomprehensible
visions of Jacob Behmen; and his discourse on the absolute
unlawfulness of stage entertainments is sometimes quoted for a
ridiculous intemperance of sentiment and language.--"The actors and
spectators must all be damned: the playhouse is the porch of Hell,
the place of the Devil's abode, where he holds his filthy court of
evil spirits: a play is the Devil's triumph, a sacrifice performed
to his glory, as much as in the heathen temples of Bacchus or Venus,
&c., &c." But these sallies of religious frenzy must not extinguish
the praise, which is due to Mr. William Law as a wit and a scholar.
His argument on topics of less absurdity is specious and acute, his
manner is lively, his style forcible and clear; and, had not his
vigorous mind been clouded by enthusiasm, he might be ranked with
the most agreeable and ingenious writers of the times. While the
Bangorian controversy was a fashionable theme, he entered the lists
on the subject of Christ's kingdom, and the authority of the
priesthood: against the plain account of the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper he resumed the combat with Bishop Hoadley, the object of Whig
idolatry, and Tory abhorrence; and at every weapon of attack and
defence the non-juror, on the ground which is common to both,
approves himself at least equal to the prelate. On the appearance
of the Fable of the Bees, he drew his pen against the licentious
doctrine that private vices are public benefits, and morality as
well as religion must join in his applause. Mr. Law's master-work,
the Serious Call, is still read as a popular and powerful book of
devotion. His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the
gospel; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of
human life; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of
La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind, he
will soon kindle it to a flame; and a philosopher must allow that he
exposes, with equal severity and truth, the strange contradiction
between the faith and practice of the Christian world. Under the
names of Flavia and Miranda 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 intrusted 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 much-honoured friend and spiritual
director of the whole family. My father resided sometime 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
Besancon 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 Besancon, 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 Algiers. On my
father's return to England he was chosen, in 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, the 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.
I was born at Putney, in the county of Surrey, April 27th, O. S., in
the year one thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven; the first
child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, esq., and of Judith Porten.
[Note: 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 churchyard, 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.] 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 been 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, and 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. Delme 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 seventy 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 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 sat 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.
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 each 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 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 maternal office was supplied by my aunt,
Mrs. Catherine Porten; at whose name I feel a tear of gratitude
trickling down my cheek. A life of celibacy transferred her vacant
affection to her sister's first child; my weakness excited her pity;
her attachment was fortified by labour and success: and if there be
any, as I trust there are some, who rejoice that I live, to that
dear and excellent woman they must hold themselves indebted. Many
anxious and solitary days did she consume in the patient trial of
every mode of relief and amusement. Many wakeful nights did she sit
by my bedside in trembling expectation that each hour would be my
last. Of the various and frequent disorders of my childhood my own
recollection is dark. Suffice it to say, that while every
practitioner, from Sloane and Ward to the Chevalier Taylor, was
successively summoned to torture or relieve me, the care of my mind
was too frequently neglected for that of my health: compassion
always suggested an excuse for the indulgence of the master, or the
idleness of the pupil; and the chain of my education was broken, as
often as I was recalled from the school of learning to the bed of
sickness.
As soon as the use of speech had prepared my infant reason for the
admission of knowledge, I was taught the arts of reading, writing,
and arithmetic. So remote is the date, so vague is the memory of
their origin in myself, that, were not the error corrected by
analogy, I should be tempted to conceive them as innate. In my
childhood I was praised for the readiness with which I could
multiply and divide, by memory alone, two sums of several figures;
such praise encouraged my growing talent; and had I persevered in
this line of application, I might have acquired some fame in
mathematical studies.
After this previous institution at home, or at a day school at
Putney, I was delivered at the age of seven into the hands of Mr.
John Kirkby, who exercised about eighteen months the office of my
domestic tutor. His learning and virtue introduced him to my
father; and at Putney he might have found at least a temporary
shelter, had not an act of indiscretion driven him into the world.
One day reading prayers in the parish church, he most unluckily
forgot the name of King George: his patron, a loyal subject,
dismissed him with some reluctance, and a decent reward; and how the
poor man ended his days I have never been able to learn. Mr. John
Kirkby is the author of two small volumes; the Life of Automathes
(London, 1745), and an English and Latin Grammar (London, 1746);
which, as a testimony of gratitude, he dedicated (Nov. 5th, 1745) to
my father. The books are before me: from them the pupil may judge
the preceptor; and, upon the whole, his judgment will not be
unfavourable. The grammar is executed with accuracy and skill, and
I know not whether any better existed at the time in our language:
but the Life of Automathes aspires to the honours of a philosophical
fiction. It is the story of a youth, the son of a ship-wrecked
exile, who lives alone on a desert island from infancy to the age of
manhood. A hind is his nurse; he inherits a cottage, with many
useful and curious instruments; some ideas remain of the education
of his two first years; some arts are borrowed from the beavers of a
neighbouring lake; some truths are revealed in supernatural visions.
With these helps, and his own industry, Automathes becomes a
self-taught though speechless philosopher, who had investigated with
success his own mind, the natural world, the abstract sciences, and
the great principles of morality and religion. The author is not
entitled to the merit of invention, since he has blended the English
story of Robinson Crusoe with the Arabian romance of Hai Ebn
Yokhdan, which he might have read in the Latin version of Pocock.
In the Automathes I cannot praise either the depth of thought or
elegance of style; but the book is not devoid of entertainment or
instruction; and among several interesting passages, I would select
the discovery of fire, which produces by accidental mischief the
discovery of conscience. A man who had thought so much on the
subjects of language and education was surely no ordinary preceptor:
my childish years, and his hasty departure, prevented me from
enjoying the full benefit of his lessons; but they enlarged my
knowledge of arithmetic, and left me a clear impression of the
English and Latin rudiments.
In my ninth year (Jan., 1746), in a lucid interval of comparative
health, my father adopted the convenient and customary mode of
English education; and I was sent to Kingston-upon-Thames, to a
school of about seventy boys, which was kept by Dr. Wooddeson and
his assistants. Every time I have since passed over Putney Common,
I have always noticed the spot where my mother, as we drove along in
the coach, admonished me that I was now going into the world, and
must learn to think and act for myself. The expression may appear
ludicrous; yet there is not, in the course of life, a more
remarkable change than the removal of a child from the luxury and
freedom of a wealthy house, to the frugal diet and strict
subordination of a school; from the tenderness of parents, and the
obsequiousness of servants, to the rude familiarity of his equals,
the insolent tyranny of his seniors, and the rod, perhaps, of a
cruel and capricious pedagogue. Such hardships may steel the mind
and body against the injuries of fortune; but my timid reserve was
astonished by the crowd and tumult of the school; the want of
strength and activity disqualified me for the sports of the
play-field; nor have I forgotten how often in the year forty-six I
was reviled and buffeted for the sins of my Tory ancestors. By the
common methods of discipline, at the expence of many tears and some
blood, I purchased the knowledge of the Latin syntax: and not long
since I was possessed of the dirty volumes of Phaedrus and Cornelius
Nepos, which I painfully construed and darkly understood. The
choice of these authors is not injudicious. The lives of Cornelius
Nepos, the friend of Atticus and Cicero, are composed in the style
of the purest age: his simplicity is elegant, his brevity copious;
he exhibits a series of men and manners; and with such
illustrations, as every pedant is not indeed qualified to give, this
classic biographer may initiate a young student in the history of
Greece and Rome. The use of fables or apologues has been approved
in every age from ancient India to modern Europe. They convey in
familiar images the truths of morality and prudence; and the most
childish understanding (I advert to the scruples of Rousseau) will
not suppose either that beasts do speak, or that men may lie. A
fable represents the genuine characters of animals; and a skilful
master might extract from Pliny and Buffon some pleasing lessons of
natural history, a science well adapted to the taste and capacity of
children. The Latinity of Phaedrus is not exempt from an alloy of
the silver age; but his manner is concise, terse, and sententious;
the Thracian slave discreetly breathes the spirit of a freeman; and
when the text is found, the style is perspicuous. But his fables,
after a long oblivion, were first published by Peter Pithou, from a
corrupt manuscript. The labours of fifty editors confess the
defects of the copy, as well as the value of the original; and the
school-boy may have been whipped for misapprehending a passage,
which Bentley could not restore, and which Burman could not explain.
My studies were too frequently interrupted by sickness; and after a
real or nominal residence at Kingston School of near two years, I
was finally recalled (Dec., 1747) by my mother's death, in her
thirty-eighth year. I was too young to feel the importance of my
loss; and the image of her person and conversation is faintly
imprinted in my memory. The affectionate heart of my aunt,
Catherine Porten, bewailed a sister and a friend; but my poor father
was inconsolable, and the transport of grief seemed to threaten his
life or his reason. I can never forget the scene of our first
interview, some weeks after the fatal event; the awful silence, the
room hung with black, the mid-day tapers, his sighs and tears; his
praises of my mother, a saint in heaven; his solemn adjuration that
I would cherish her memory and imitate her virtues; and the fervor
with which he kissed and blessed me as the sole surviving pledge of
their loves. The storm of passion insensibly subsided into calmer
melancholy. At a convivial meeting of his friends, Mr. Gibbon might
affect or enjoy a gleam of cheerfulness; but his plan of happiness
was for ever destroyed: and after the loss of his companion he was
left alone in a world, of which the business and pleasures were to
him irksome or insipid. After some unsuccessful trials he renounced
the tumult of London and the hospitality of Putney, and buried
himself in the rural or rather rustic solitude of Beriton; from
which, during several years, he seldom emerged.