Oxford.
78. _Did Bishop Gibson write a Life of Cromwell?_--Mr. Carlyle, in
treating on the biographies of Oliver Cromwell, says that the _Short
Critical Review of the Life of Oliver Cromwell_, by a gentleman of the
Middle Temple, was written by a certain "Mr. Banks, a kind of a lawyer
and playwright," and that the anonymous _Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord
Protector of the Commonwealth, impartially collected, &c._, London,
1724, which Noble ascribes to Bishop Gibson, was by "one Kember, a
dissenting minister of London."
On the other hand, Mr. Russell, in his _Life of Oliver Cromwell_, 2
vols. 12mo. 1829, says:
"There is an anonymous work deserving of some notice, entitled _A
Short Critical Review of the Political Life of Oliver Cromwell_.
The title professes that it was written by a gentleman of the
Middle Temple, but there is reason to believe that it proceeded
from the pen of the learned Bishop Gibson."
It would seem, therefore, by these statements, that two different lives
of the Great Protector have been ascribed to Gibson. Query, Did Gibson
ever write a life of Cromwell; and if so, which is it?
It is well worth knowing which Gibson did write, if he wrote one at all,
for he was connected with the Cromwell family, and, what is of more
consequence, a learned, liberal man, not given to lying, so that his
book probably contains more truth than any of the other Cromwell
biographies of that time.