light and inconstant character of Flatus, who is ever confident and ever disappointed in the chace of happiness. But these constitutional failings were amply compensated by the virtues of the head and heart, by the warmest sentiments of honour and humanity. His graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaffected chearfulness, recommended him to the favour of every company; and in the change of times and opinions, his liberal spirit had long since delivered him from the zeal and prejudice of a Tory education. The tears of a son are seldom lasting. I submitted to the order of Nature, and my grief was soothed by the conscious satisfaction that I had discharged all the duties of filial piety. Few, perhaps, are the children who, after the expiration of some months or years, would sincerely rejoyce in the resurrection of their parents; and it is a melancholy truth, that my father's death, not unhappy for himself, was the only event that could save me from an hopeless life of obscurity and indigence.

SECTION III

As soon as I had paid the last solemn duties to my father, and obtained from time and reason a tolerable composure of mind, I began to form the plan of an independent life most adapted to my circumstances and inclination. Yet so intricate was the net, my efforts were so awkward and feeble, that near two years (November, 1770-October, 1772) were suffered to elapse before I could disentangle myself from the management of the farm, and transfer my residence from Buriton to an house in London. During this interval I continued to divide my year between town and the country; but my new freedom was brightened by hope: nor could I refuse the advantages of a change, which had never (I have scrutinized my conscience) — which had never been the object of my secret wishes. Without indulging the vanity and extravagance of a thoughtless heir, I assumed some additional latitude of lodging, attendance, and equipage; I no longer

numbered with the same anxious parsimony my dinners at the club or tavern: my stay in London was prolonged into the summer, and the uniformity of the summer was occasionally broken by visits and excursions at a distance from home. That home, the house and estate at Buriton, were now my own; I could invite without controul the persons most agreable to my taste; the horses and servants were at my disposal; and in all their operations my rustic ministers solicited the commands and smiled at the ignorance of their master. I will not deny that my pride was flattered by the local importance of a country gentleman: the busy scene of the farm, productive of seeming plenty, was embellished in my eyes by the partial sentiment of property; and, still adhering to my original plan, I expected the adequate offers of a tenant, and postponed without much impatience the moment of my departure. My friendship for Mrs. Gibbon long resisted the idea of our final separation. After my father's decease, she preserved the tenderness, without the authority, of a parent: the family, and even the farm, were entrusted to her care; and as the habits of fifteen years had attached her to the spot, she was herself persuaded, and she tryed to persuade me, of the pleasures and benefits of a country life. But, as I could not afford to maintain a double establishment, my favourite project of an house in London was incompatible with the farm at Buriton, and it was soon apparent that a woman and a philosopher could not direct with any prospect of advantage such a complex and costly machine. In the second summer my resolution was declared and effected; the advertisement of the farm attracted many competitors; the fairest terms were preferred: the proper leases were executed; I abandoned the mansion to the principal tenant, and Mrs. G., with some reluctance, departed for Bath, the most fashionable azylum for the sober singleness of widowhood. But the produce of the effects and stock was barely sufficient to clear my accounts in the country, and my first settlement in town: from the mischievous extrava

gance of the tenant I sustained many subsequent injuries; and a change of ministry could not be accomplished without much trouble and expense.

Besides the debts for which my honour and piety were engaged, my father had left a weighty mortgage of seventeen thousand pounds: it could only be discharged by a landed sacrifice, and my estate at Lenborough, near Buckingham, was the devoted victim. At first the appearances were favourable; but my hopes were too sanguine, my demands were too high. After slighting some offers by no means. contemptible, I rashly signed an agreement with a worthless fellow (half knave and half madman), who, in three years of vexatious chicanery, refused either to consummate or to relinquish his bargain. After I had broken my fetters, the opportunity was lost; the public distress had reduced the value of land: I waited the return of peace and prosperity; and my last secession to Lausanne preceded the sale of my Buckinghamshire estate. The delay of fifteen years, which I may impute to myself, my friends, and the times, was accompanied with the loss of many thousand pounds. A delicious morsel, a share in the New river company, was cast, with many a sigh, into the gulph of principal, interest, and annual expence; and the far greater part of the inadequate price of poor Lenborough was finally devoured by the insatiate monster. Such remembrance is bitter; but the temper of a mind exempt from avarice suggests some reasonable topics of consolation. My patrimony has been diminished in the enjoyment of life. The gratification of my desires (they were not immoderate) has been seldom disappointed by the want of money or credit; my pride was never insulted by the visit of an importunate tradesman; and any transient anxiety for the past or future was soon dispelled by the studious or social occupation of the present hour. My conscience does not accuse me of any act of extravagance or injustice: the remnant of my estate affords an ample and honourable provision for my declining age, and my spon

taneous bounty must be received with implicit gratitude by the heirs of my choice. I shall not expatiate more minutely on my œconomical affairs, which cannot be instructive or amusing to the reader. It is a rule of prudence, as well as of politeness, to reserve such confidence for the ear of a private friend, without exposing our situation to the envy or pity of strangers; for envy is productive of hatred, and pity borders too nearly on contempt. Yet I may believe, and even assert, that in circumstances more indigent or more wealthy, I should never have accomplished the task, or acquired the fame, of an historian; that my spirit would have been broken by poverty and contempt; and that my industry might have been relaxed in the labour and luxury of a superfluous fortune. Few works of merit and importance have been executed either in a garret or a palace. A gentleman, possessed of leisure and independence, of books and talents, may be encouraged to write by the distant prospect of honour and reward; but wretched is the author, and wretched will be the work, where daily diligence is stimulated by daily hunger.

MEMOIR E*

MY OWN LIFE

My family is ancient and honourable in the county of Kent.' As early as the year 1326 the Gibbons, who still bear the same arms as myself,' were possessed of lands in the parish of Rolvenden, and their successive alliances connect them with many worthy names of the English gentry. About the beginning of the last century, a younger branch appears to

1 I have obtained much domestic information from an English treatise of Heraldry (with a Latin title), composed by John Gibbon, Blue-mantle Poursuivant, and the brother, as I believe, of my great-grandfather Matthew - Introductio ad Latinam Blazoniam, London, 1682, in 12mo. The author of this odd and even original work is deeply tinctured with the prejudices of his age and his art. After observing the colours and symbols on the painted bodies of the Indians of Virginia, he logically concludes that "Heraldry is ingrafted naturally into the sense of human race" (p. 156). I wish to insert his diabolical scutcheon for the Whigs (p. 165). The Gibbons were high Tories.

'A Lyon, rampant, gardant, between three Schallops. Blue-mantle tells a whimsical story of Edmond Gibbon, who changed the three schallops of his arms into three ogresses, or female monsters, the emblems of three cousins with whom he had a law-suit (p. 161).

• "Nedum mentionem sum facturus" (he modestly talks Latin) "Gibbonos terras tenuisse et possedisse in Rolvenden, anno 1326." Fourteen years afterwards, King Edward III. granted to his Marmorarius, John Gibbon, the profits of the passage between Sandwich and the isle of Thanet, the reward of no vulgar architect. He is supposed to have built Queensborough Castle (p. 160).

See the Introductio ad Blazoniam, pp. 157–160. Our most respectable ancestor in the female line is Lord Say and Seale, Lord High Treasurer of England in the reign of Henry VI. According to Shakespeare, he may be considered as a martyr of Litterature. My grandfather was allied by his wife and sister to the Actons of Shropshire, who now claim the Minister of the Sicilian Monarchy.

* Memoir E; from the early history of the family to July, 1789. The numbered notes to this Memoir are Gibbon's own.