GIBBON, Enwann, Esq. celebrated for the elegance and depth of his literary and historical works, was the first child of the marriage of Edward Gibbon, Esq. and Judith Porten. He was born at Putney in the county of Surry, on the 27th of April O. S. 1737. His maternal grandfather was Mr James Porten, a London merchant. By the father he was descended from John Gibbon, who is recorded to have been the marmorius or architect of Ed ward Ill. The strong and stately castle of Queensbo rough, which guarded the entrance of the Medway, was a monument of his skill, and obtained for him the reward of a hereditary toll on the passage from Sandwich to Sta nar, in the isle of Thanet. The family was at that time possessed of lands in Kent, and the elder branches con tinued to possess them without much alteration till the present time. Our author, who was descended from a younger branch of the family, counts among his kindred several individuals of rank, learning and political emi nence. He was the only surviving member of a family, consisting of six sons and one daughter, all of whom, himself only excepted, were snatched away in infancy. In his Memoirs of himself, published by his friend Lord Shef field, he makes use of the following tender expression of his feelings : " My five brothers, whose names may be found in the parish register of Putney, I shall not pretend to lament ; but from my childhood to the present hour, I have deeply and sincerely regretted my sister, whose life was somewhat prolonged, and whom I remember to have seen an amiable infant." His own constitution was so ex tremely feeble even from his birth, that, anticipating his early loss, his father's prudence had the name of Edward repeated in the baptism of each of his sons, that this here ditary appellation might assuredly belong to the heir. It is strange to say, that such a succession of melancholy casualties did not wean the parents of this last hope of their family from the ceremonies and gaieties of life ; and that the historian acknowledges, with grateful warmth, that even the maternal office was supplied by his aunt Mrs Catherine Porten, to whose gentle and unremitted assidui ties he does not hesitate to ascribe the wonderful preser vation of his life. His tender attachment, and his filial duty to this lady, place his character in a very amiable point of view. At the age of fifteen, " the mysterious energies"
of his constitution began to display themselves, and from that time till within a few years of his death, he enjoyed an extraordinary and uninterrupted course of good health. In his nursery lessons, and at the day school at Putney, he showed some quickness of apprehension, and such a rea diness in arithmetical exercises, as leads him to suppose, that, had he persevered in such studies, he might have ac quired eminence as a mathematician. At the age of seven, he was committed to the care of Mr Kirkby, a domestic tutor, who remained with him eighteen months, and taught him, among other things, the elements of the Latin lan guage. Young Gibbon was sent in his ninth year to the grammar school of Kingston-upon-Thames, where he con tinued one among a crowd of boarders for two years, (with the exception of intervals occasioned by illness and vexa tions,) and from which he was removed home in conse quence of the death of his mother. As his grandfather Mr Porten's house at Putney was near his father's, he again enjoyed the society and kindness of his beloved aunt ; and having acquired some taste for reading poetry and romance while at Kingston, she encouraged his taste, and supplied him abundantly with books from her father's library. Some months having thus elapsed, Mr Gibbon, senior, finding himself inconsolable for the death of his wife, removed from Putney, where every object was as sociated with afflicting remembrances, to the rustic and retired family residence at Buriton, in Hampshire. Soon after, Mr Porten's affairs fell into disorder, so that he judged it prudent to abscond for a time. Mr Porten's unmarried daughter, Catherine, now found herself des titute, and partly with the design of being independent, but chiefly actuated by the motive of superintending her nephew's education, and watching over his health, she re solved to open a boarding house for \Vesterminster school; and she and her young charge removed to her new house in College street, in January 1749. In the autumn of 1750, she accompanied him to Bath, on account of his bad health, where her own avocations compelled her -to leave him un der the care of a faithful domestic.