We A lively defire of knowing and of recording our ancef tors fo generally prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. feem to have lived in the perfons 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 forwards beyond death with fuch hopes as religion and philofophy will fuggeft; and we fill up the filent vacancy that precedes our birth, by affociating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than to fupprefs, the pride of an antient and worthy race. The fatyrift may laugh, the philofopher may preach; but Reafon herself will refpect the prejudices and habits, which have been confecrated by the experience of mankind. Wherever the diftinction of birth is allowed to form a fuperior order in the ftate, education and example should always, and will often, produce among them a dignity of fentiment and propriety of conduct, which is guarded from dishonour by their own and the public esteem. If we read of fome illuftrious line fo antient that it has no beginning, fo worthy that it ought to have no end, we fympathize in its various fortunes; nor can we blame the generous enthufiafm, 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 ftatefman, or a celebrated author, I fhould ftudy their lives with the diligence of filial love. In the investigation of past events, our curiofity is ftimulated by the immediate or indirect reference to ourselves; but in the eftimate of honour we should learn to value the gifts of Nature above thofe of Fortune; to efteem in our ancestors the qualities that beft promote the interests of fociety; and to pronounce the descendant of a king lefs truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius, whofe writings will inftruct or delight the latest pofterity. The The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illuftrious in the world. After a painful afcent of eight or ten centuries, our barons and princes of Europe are loft in the darkness of the middle ages; but, in the vaft equality of the empire of China, the pofterity of Confucius have maintained, above two thoufand two hundred years, their peaceful honours and perpetual fucceffion. The chief of the family is ftill revered, by the fovereign and the people, as the lively image of the wifeft of mankind. The nobility of the Spencers has been illuftrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough, but I exhort them to confider the Fairy Queen as the most precious jewel of their coronet. I have exposed my private feelings, as I fhall always do, without fcruple or referve. That these fentiments are just, or at least natural, I am inclined to believe, fince I do not feel myself interested in the cause; for I can derive from my ancestors neither glory nor fhame. Yet a fincere and fimple narrative of my own life may amufe fome of my leisure hours; but it will fubject me, and perhaps with juftice, 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 mott fcanty accounts of such men are compiled with diligence, and perufed with eagerness; and the ftudent of every clafs may derive a leffon, or an exam, ple, from the lives moft fimilar to his own. My name may hereafter be placed among the thousand articles of a Biogra phia Britannica; and I must be confcious, that no one is fo well qualified, as myself, to describe the series of my thoughts and actions. The authority of my mafters, of the grave Thuanus, and the philofophic Hume, might be fufficient to juftify my design; but it would not be difficult to produce a long lift of antients and moderns, who, in various forms, have exhibited their own portraits. Such portraits are often the most interesting, and fometimes the only interesting parts of their writings; and, if they be fincere, we feldom com plain of the minutenefs or prolixity of these perfonal memo rials. The lives of the younger Pliny, of Petrarch, and of Erafmus, are expreffed in the epiftles, which they themfelves have given to the world. The effays of Montagne and Sir William Temple bring us home to the houses and bofoms of the authors: we fmile without contempt at the headstrong paffions of Benevenuto Cellini, and the gay follies of Colley Cibber. The confeffions of St. Auftin and Rouffeau difclofe the fecrets of the human heart: the commentaries of the learned Huet have furvived his evangelical demonftration; 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 Whifton and Bishop Newton; and even the dullnefs of Michael de Marolles and Anthony Wood acquires fome value from the faithful reprefentation of men and manThat I am equal or fuperior to fome of thefe, the effects of modefty or affectation cannot force me to diffemble. ners. My family is originally derived from the county of Kent. The fouthern diftrict, which borders on Suffex and the fea, was formerly overfpread with the great forest Anderida, and even now retains the denomination of the Weald, or Woodland. In this diftrict, and in the hundred and parish of Rolvenden, the Gibbons were poffeffed of lands in the year one thousand three hundred and twenty-fix; and the elder branch of the family, without much increase or diminution of property, ftill adheres to its native foil. Fourteen years after the first appearance of his name, John Gibbon is recorded as the Marmorarius or architect of King Edward the Third: the ftrong and stately caftle of Queensborough, which guarded the entrance of the Medway, was a monument of his skill; and the grant of an hereditary toll on the paffage from Sandwich to Stonar, in the Iffe of Thanet, is the reward of no vulgar artift. In the vifitations of the heralds, the Gibbons are frequently mentioned: they held the rank of Efquire in an age, when that title was lefs promifcuoufly affumed: 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 obfcurity, has cast a veil of oblivion over the virtues and vices of my Kentifh 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 enquiry after a name "Go! fearch it there, where to be born, and die, So recent is the inftitution 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 fome abilities; the church imposes some reftraints; and before our army and navy, our civil establishments, and India empire, had opened fo many paths of fortune, the mercantile profeffion was more frequently chofen by youths of a liberal race and education, who afpired to create their own independence. Our most refpectable families have not difdained the counting-house, or even the shop; their names are inrolled 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 enfigns which, in the times of chivalry, adorned the creft and shield of the foldier, are now become an empty decoration, which every man, who has money to build a carriage, may paint according to his fancy on the pannels. My family arms are the fame, which were borne by the Gibbons of Kent in an age, when the College of Heralds religiously guarded the diftinctions of blood and name: a lion rampant gardant, between three fchallop-fhells Argent, Argent, on a field Azure*. I fhould 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 harmlefs fchallop-fhells were changed by Edmund Gibbon, efq, into three Ogreffes, or female cannibals, with a defign of ftigmatizing three ladies, his kinfwomen, who had provoked him by an unjuft law-fuit. But this fingular mode of revenge, for which he obtained the fanction of Sir William Seagar, king at arms, foon expired with its author; and, on his own monument in the Temple church, the monsters vanish, and the three fchallop-fhells refume their proper and hereditary place, Our alliances by marriage it is not difgraceful to mention. The chief honour of my ancestry is James Fiens, Baron Say and Seale, 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 lincally defcended in the eleventh degree. His difmiffion and imprisonment in the Tower were infufficient to appease the popular clamour; and the Treafurer, with his fon-in-law Cromer, was beheaded (1450), after a mock trial by the Kentish infurgents. The black lift of his offences, as it is exhibited in Shakefpeare, difplays the ignorance and envy of a plebeian tyrant. Befides the vague reproaches of felling Maine and Normandy to the Dauphin, the treasurer is fpecially accused of luxury, for riding on a foot-cloth; and of treafon, for speaking French, the language of our enemies; "Thou haft "most traiterously corrupted the youth of the realm," fays Jack Cade to the unfortunate Lord, "in erecting a gram"mar-fchool; and whereas before our forefathers had no other books than the fcore and the tally, thou haft caufed "printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, "and dignity, thou haft built a paper-mill. It will be ❝proved The father of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke married an heiress of this family of Gibbon. The Chancellor's efcutcheon in the Temple Hall quarters the arms of Gibbon, as does also that in Lincoln's Inn Hall, of Charles York, Chancellor in 1770. S. |