EDWARD GIBBON
Memoirs
Gibbon's autobiography was published in 1796, two years after his death, by his friend, Lord Sheffield, under the title "Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq., with Memoirs of His Life and Writings, Composed by Himself." "After completing his history," says Mr. Birrell, "Gibbon had but one thing left him to do in order to discharge his duty to the universe. He had written a magnificent history of the Roman Empire; it remained to write the history of the historian. It is a most studied performance, and may be boldly pronounced perfect. It is our best, and best known, autobiography." That the writing was studied is shown by the fact that six different sketches were left in Gibbon's handwriting, and from all these the published memoirs were selected and put together. The memoir was briefly completed by Lord Sheffield. Bagehot described the book as "the most imposing of domestic narratives." Truly, it was impossible for Gibbon to doff his dignity, but through the cadenced formality of his style the reader can detect a happy candour, careful sincerity, complacent temper, and a loyalty to friendship that recommend the man as truly as the writer. (See also HISTORY.)
I.--Birth and Education
I was born at Putney, in the county of Surrey, April 27, in the year 1737, the first child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, Esq., and Jane Porten.
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. 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 the case of the departure of the eldest son, this patronymic appellation might be still perpetuated in the family.
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; 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.
After this instruction at home, I was delivered at the age of seven into the hands of Mr. John Kirkby, who exercised for about eighteen months the office of my domestic tutor, enlarged my knowledge of arithmetic, and left me a clear impression of the English and Latin rudiments. In my ninth year, in a lucid interval of comparative health, I was sent to a school of about seventy boys at Kingston-upon-Thames, and there, by the common methods of discipline, at the expense of many tears and some blood, purchased a knowledge of the Latin syntax. After a nominal residence at Kingston of nearly two years, I was finally recalled by my mother's death. My poor father was inconsolable, and he renounced the tumult of London, and buried himself in the rustic solitude of Buriton; but as far back as I can remember, the house of my maternal grandfather, near Putney Bridge, appears in the light of my proper and native home, and that excellent woman, Mrs. Catherine Porten, was the true mother of my mind, as well as of my health.
At this time my father was too easily content with such teachers as the different places of my residence could supply, and it might now be apprehended that I should continue for life an illiterate cripple; but as I approached my sixteenth year, nature displayed in my favour her mysterious energies: my constitution was fortified and fixed, and my disorders most wonderfully vanished.