SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS IT OF EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. T cannot be neceffary to inform the admirers of Gibbon from what fource the principal FACTS in the following sketch have been derived. Confcious of the ftrong claims. he had to the refpect of his countrymen, our historian thought, without impropriety, that they would be gratified with a more detailed account of his life than could have been given by his friends; and fat down to write his perfonal history at a time when his opinions were matured, and when he was disposed to look back with impartiality on his various studies. In the very interesting volumes published by the Right Hon. Lord Sheffield, Mr. Gibbon has delineated his character, analized his mind, and recorded his errors and his prejudices with fo much apparent candour, that he seems fully entitled to all the confidence which is usually bestowed on the biography that is written by a friend or a stranger. There may be, indeed, fome danger left vanity fhould multiply works of this description; but as long as human nature continues to be a favourite object of study, the memoirs of SUCH MEN as Gibbon, written by themselves, must be confidered as fuperior in intereft and importance, to all the information which can be collected from friends or companions. Edward Gibbon was descended from an ancient family of that name in Kent *. His grand-father, Edward Gibbon, a citizen of London, was appointed one of the commiflioners of cuftoms, under the Tory adminiftration of the last four years of Queen Anne, and was praised by Lord Bolingbroke for his knowledge of commerce and finance. He was elected one of the directors of the unfortunate South Sea Company, in the year 1716, at which time he had acquired an independent fortune of 60,000l. the whole of which he loft when the company failed in 1720. The fum of 10,000l. however, was allowed for his maintenance, and on this foundation he reared another fortune, not much inferior to the first, and fecured a part of it in the purchase of landed property. He died in December 1736, at his house at Putney, and by his last will enriched two daughters, at the expence of his fon Edward who had married against his confent. This fon was fent to Cambridge, where, at Emanuel College, he "paffed through a regular course of academical difcipline," but left it without a degree, and afterwards travelled. On his return to England, he was chofen, in 1734, member of parliament for the borough of Petersfield, and in 1741 for Southampton. In parliament he joined the party which, after a long conteft, finally drove Sir Robert Walpole and his friends from their places. Our author has not concealed, that "in the pursuit of an unpopular minifter, he gratified a private revenge against the oppreffor of his family in the South Sea perfecution." Walpole, however, was not that oppreffor, for Mr. Coxe has clearly proved, that he frequently endeavoured to stem the torrent of parliamentary vengeance, and to incline the fentiments of the houfe to terms of moderation. * An account of the family of Gibbon appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1788, fo interefting that our author requested Mr. Nichols to procure the addrefs of the writer, and acknowledged in a very handsome manner his obligations to both. See Gent. Mag. Vol. Ixiv. p. 5. Edward He Edward Gibbon, our illuftrious hiftorian, was born at Putney, April 27, O. S. 1737. His mother was Judith Porten, the daughter of a merchant of London. was the eldest of five brothers and a fifter, all of whom died in their infancy. He has a reflection on the circumftances of his birth, in which those who are capable of reflection fhould oftener indulge; it relates to blessings which a thinking man will contemplate with no common gratitude. "My lot," he says, "might have been that of a flave, a favage, or a peafant: nor can I reflect without pleasure on the bounty of nature, which caft my birth in a free and civilized country, in an age of fcience and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune." In infancy, his constitution was uncommonly feeble, but he was nursed with much tenderness by his maiden aunt Mrs. Catherine Porten; and received fuch inftruction, during intervals of health, as his years admitted. At the age of feven, he was placed under the care of Mr. John Kirkby, the author of AUTOMATHES, a philofophical fiction. In his ninth year, January 1746, he was sent to a school at Kingston upon Thames, kept by Dr. Woodefon and his affiftants; but even here his ftudies were frequently interrupted by fickness, nor does he speak with rapture either of his proficiency or of the school itself. In 1747, on his mother's death, he was recalled home, where during a refidence of two years, principally under the of his affectionate aunt, he appears to have acquired that paffion for reading which predominated during the whole of his life. eye In 1749, he was entered in Westminster school, of which Dr. John Nicoll was at that time head-master. Within the space of two years, he reached the third form; but his application was fo frequently rendered useless by fickness and debility, that it was determined to send him to Bath. Here, and at Putney, he recovered his health fo far A 3 far as to be able to return to his books, and as he approached his fixteenth year, his disorder entirely left him. The frequent interruptions, however, which he had met with, and probably a dread of the confined air of the city of Westminster, had induced his father to place him at Efher in Surry, in the house of the Rev. Philip Francis, the tranflator of Horace. But his hopes were again fruftrated. Mr. Francis preferred the pleasures of London to the instruction of his pupils; and our scholar, without farther preparation, was hurried to Oxford, where, on April 3, 1752, before he had accomplished his fifteenth year, he was matriculated as a gentleman commoner of Magdalen College. To Oxford, he informs us, he brought "a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a fchool-boy would have been ashamed." During the three last years, although fickness interrupted a regular course of inftruction, his fondness for books had increased, and he was permitted to indulge it by ranging over the shelves without plan or defign. This indifcriminate appetite fubfided by degrees in the hiftorical line, and he perused with the greatest avidity fuch historical books as came in his way, gratifying a curiosity of which he could not trace the source, and supplying wants which he could not exprefs. In this course of defultory reading he seems inconsciously to have been led to that particular branch in which he was afterwards to excel. But whatever connection this had with his more distant life, it was by no means favourable to his academical pursuits. He was exceedingly deficient in claffical learning, and went to Oxford without either the taste or preparation which could enable him to reap the advantages of academical education. This may probably account for the harshness with which he speaks of the English univerfities. He informs us that he spent fourteen months at Magdalen College, which proved the most |