Memoirs of My Life and Writings | Page 2

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