of our firft interview, fome weeks after the fatal event; the awful filence, the room hung with black, the mid-day tapers, his fighs and tears; his praifes of my mother, a faint in heaven; his folemn adjuration that I would cherish her memory and imitate her virtues; and the fervor with which he kiffed and bleffed me as the fole furviving pledge of their loves. The ftorm of paffion infenfibly subsided into calmer melancholy. At a convivial meeting of his friends, Mr. Gibbon might affect or enjoy a gleam of cheerfulness; but his plan of happiness was for ever deftroyed: and after the lofs of his companion he was left alone in a world, of which the business and pleasures were to him irksome or infipid. After fome unfuccefsful trials he renounced the tumult of London and the hofpitality of Putney, and buried himself in the rural or rather ruftic folitude of Buriton; from which, during feveral years, he feldom emerged. As far back as I can remember, the house, near Putneybridge and church-yard, of my maternal grandfather appears in the light of my proper and native home. It was there that I was allowed to spend the greatest part of my time, in fickness or in health, during my school vacations and my parents' refidence in London, and finally after my mother's death. Three months after that event, in the fpring of 1748, the commercial ruin of her father, Mr. James Porten, was accomplished and declared. He fuddenly abfconded: but as his effects were not fold, nor the house evacuated, till the Christmas following, I enjoyed during the whole year the fociety of my aunt, without much confcioufness of her impending fate. I feel a melancholy pleasure in repeating my obligations to that excellent woman, Mrs. Catherine Porten, the true mother of my mind as well as of my health. Her natural good fenfe was improved by the perufal of the best books in the English language; and if her reafon was fometimes clouded by prejudice, her fentiments were never difguifed by hypocrify or affectation. Her indulgent tenderness, the franknefs of her temper, and my innate rifing curiofity, foon removed all diftance between us: us: like friends of an equal age, we freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abftrufe; and it was her delight and reward to obferve the first shoots of my young ideas. Pain and languor were often foothed by the voice of inftruction and amufement; and to her kind leffons I afcribe my early and invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for the treasures of India. I fhould perhaps be aftonished, were it poffible to afcertain the date, at which a favourite tale was engraved, by frequent repetition, in my memory: the Cavern of the Winds; the Palace of Felicity; and the fatal moment, at the end of three months or centuries, when Prince Adolphus is overtaken by Time, who had worn out fo many pair of wings in the purfuit. Before I left Kingston school I was well acquainted with Pope's Homer and the Arabian Nights Entertainments, two books which will always please by the moving picture of human manners and fpecious miracles: nor was I then capable of difcerning that Pope's tranflation is a portrait endowed with every merit, excepting that of likeness to the original. The verfes of Pope accustomed my ear to the found of Poetic harmony: in the death of Hector, and the fhipwreck of Ulyffes, I tafted the new emotions of terror and pity; and seriously difputed with my aunt on the vices and virtues of the heroes of the Trojan war. From Pope's Homer to Dryden's Virgil was an easy tranfition; but I know not how, from fome fault in the author, the tranflator, or the reader, the pious Æneas did not fo forcibly feize on my imagination; and I derived more pleasure from Ovid's Metamorphofes, efpecially in the fall of Phaeton, and the speeches of Ajax and Ulyffes. My grandfather's flight unlocked the door of a tolerable library; and I turned over many English pages of poetry and romance, of history and travels. Where a title attracted my eye, without fear or awe I fnatched the volume from the shelf; and Mrs, Porten, who indulged herself in moral and religious fpeculations, was more prone to encourage than to check a curiosity above the strength of a boy. This This year (1748), the twelfth of my age, I fhall note as the moft propitious to the growth of my intellectual ftature. At The relics of my grandfather's fortune afforded a bare annuity for his own maintenance; and his daughter, my worthy aunt, who had already passed her fortieth year, was left deftitute. Her noble spirit scorned a life of obligation and dependence; and after revolving several schemes, fhe preferred the humble induftry of keeping a boarding-house for Weftminster-school*, where the laboriously earned a competence for her old age. This fingular opportunity of blending the advantages of private and public education decided my father. After the Chriftmas holidays in January 1749, I accompanied Mrs. Porten to her new houfe in College-street; and was immediately entered in the school, of which Dr. John Nicoll was at that time head-mafter. first I was alone: but my aunt's refolution was praised; her character was esteemed; her friends were numerous and active: in the course of fome years she became the mother of forty or fifty boys, for the most part of family and fortune; and as her primitive habitation was too narrow, fhe built and occupied a fpacious manfion in Dean's Yard. I fhall always be ready to join in the common opinion, that our public fchools, which have produced fo many eminent characters, are the best adapted to the genius and constitution of the English people. A boy of spirit may acquire a previous and practical experience of the world; and his playfellows may be the future friends of his heart or his intereft. In a free intercourfe with his equals, the habits of truth, fortitude, and prudence will infenfibly be matured. Birth and riches are meafured by the ftandard of perfonal merit; and the mimic scene of a rebellion has difplayed, in their true colours, the minifters and patriots of the rifing generation. Our feminaries of learning do not exactly correspond with the precept of a Spartan king, " that the child fhould be in"ftructed * It is faid in the family, that she was principally induced to this undertaking by her affection for her nephew, whose weak conftitution required her conftant and unremitted attention. S. "ftructed in the arts, which will be ufeful to the man ;" fince a finished scholar may emerge from the head of Weftminfter or Eton, in total ignorance of the bufinefs and converfation of English gentlemen in the latter end of the eighteenth century. But thefe fchools may affume the merit of teaching all that they pretend to teach, the Latin and Greek languages: they depofit in the hands of a difciple the keys. of two valuable chefts; nor can he complain, if they are afterwards loft or neglected by his own fault. The neceffity of leading in equal ranks fo many unequal powers of capacity and application, will prolong to eight or ten years the juvenile ftudies, which might be dispatched in half that time by the skilful mafter of a fingle pupil. Yet even the repetition of exercife and difcipline contributes to fix in a vacant mind the verbal fcience of grammar and profody: and the private or voluntary ftudent, who poffeffes the sense and spirit of the claffics, may offend, by a falfe quantity, the fcrupulous ear of a well-flogged critic. For myself, I must be content with a very small share of the civil and literary fruits of a public fchool. In the space of two years (1749, 1750), interrupted by danger and debility, I painfully climbed into the third form; and my riper age was left to acquire the beauties of the Latin, and the rudiments of the Greek tongue. Inftead of audaciously mingling in the fports, the quarrels, and the connections of our little world, I was ftill cherished at home under the maternal wing of my aunt; and my removal from Weftminster long preceded the approach of manhood. The violence and variety of my complaints, which had excufed my frequent abfence from Westminster-school, at length engaged Mrs. Porten, with the advice of physicians, to conduct me to Bath: at the end of the Michaelmas vacation (1750) fhe quitted me with reluctance, and I remained several months under the care of a trufty maid-fervant. A ftrange nervous affection, which alternately contracted my legs, and produced, without any vifible fymptoms, the most excruciating pain, was ineffectually oppofed by the various methods methods of bathing and pumping. From Bath I was tranf ported to Winchefter, to the house of a physician; and after the failure of his medical fkill, we had again recourse to the virtues of the Bath waters. During the intervals of thefe fits, I moved with my father to Buriton and Putney; and a fhort unfuccefsful trial was attempted to renew my attendance at Westminster-school. But my infirmities could not be reconciled with the hours and difcipline of a public seminary; and inftead of a domeftic tutor, who might have watched the favourable moments, and gently advanced the progrefs of my learning, my father was too eafily content with fuch occafional teachers, as the different places of my refidence could fupply. I was never forced, and feldom was I perfuaded, to admit thefe leffons: yet I read with a clergyman at Bath fome odes of Horace, and feveral epifodes of Virgil, which gave me an imperfect and tranfient enjoyment of the Latin poets. It might now be apprehended that I fhould continue for life an illiterate cripple: but, as I approached my fixteenth year, Nature difplayed in my favour her mysterious energies; my conftitution was fortified and fixed; and my diforders, inftead of growing with my growth and ftrengthening with my ftrength, moft wonderfully vanished. I have never poffeffed or abufed the infolence of health but fince that time few perfons have been more exempt from real or imaginary ills; and, till I am admonished by the gout, the reader will no more be troubled with the hiftory of my bodily complaints. My unexpected recovery again encouraged the hope of my education; and I was placed at Efher, in Surry, in the houfe of the Reverend Mr. Philip Francis, in a pleasant spot, which promised to unite the various benefits of air, exercise, and study (January 1752). The tranflator of Horace might have taught ane to relifh the Latin poets, had not my friends difcovered in a few weeks, that he preferred the pleafures of London, to the inftruction of his pupils. My father's perplexity at this time, rather than his prudence, was urged to embrace a fingular and desperate measure. Without preparation or delay |