succession. In 1779 Gibbon was called on by the Lord Chancellor Thurlow to prepare his "Memoire Justificatif," a reply to a manifesto of the French government, issued previous to the declaration of war; and, in acknowledgment of his services on that occasion, he was appointed one of the commissioners of trade and plantations—an office which he held during the period of the administration of Lord North, to whom he gave a steady support. In 1781 appeared the second and third volumes of his great work, which were received with equal enthusiasm, and called forth less controversy than the first. On the loss of his appointment as commissioner of trade, inclination led him to revisit Lausanne; and accordingly, having disposed of all his property, with the exception of his library, he took up his residence there at the close of the year 1783, having for a companion his old friend M. Deyverdun. For nearly a twelvemonth he appears to have rested from his historical researches; but, returning with redoubled energy to his great work, he had the satisfaction of completing the last volume in June, 1787. After an absence of four years, Gibbon returned once more to London, with the manuscript of his last volumes, and in 1788, on the fifty-first anniversary of his birth, the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" was published in a complete form. The three latter volumes are, in passages, as open to animadversion for the indelicacy of their allusions, and the pruriency of their inuendoes, as the earlier portions of the great work are obnoxious to the charge of infidelity; and these Gibbon, with unconscious or affected naiveté, sought to defend on the plea that the indecorous portions had not been divested of their imperfect concealment in the garb of the learned languages. Soon after its publication Gibbon returned to Lausanne, but his retreat had no more the same attractions for the historian, in consequence of the loss of his early friend Deyverdun. He now occupied himself in writing his own memoirs, which were afterwards published by Lord Sheffield. In 1793 he was compelled to return to England, Switzerland, owing to the outburst of the French revolution, being no longer a secure place of residence for him. A few months after his arrival he became prostrated by a disease with which he had been long afflicted, but which he had succeeded in concealing from every one, with the exception of a confidential servant, and on the 16th of January, 1794, he breathed his last. As the greatest achievement of the historic muse of England, the "Decline and Fall" reflects, in a remarkable degree, the innate character of the author, and even the complexion of his studies, as imparted and developed by the vicissitudes of his early life. The impulses of his mind were characterized to a singular extent by the opposite qualities of the love of the mythical and romantic, with the faculty of investigating the real and the true. Whilst his pursuits, even from boyhood, had one undeviating tendency towards historical research, he was allured onward by the love of the marvellous and the charm of oriental mystery. Hence the eagerness with which he early achieved the almost unparalleled extent of reading and research, which furnished the wealth of material that abounds in his magnum opus; whilst the faculty of weighing historic evidence and analyzing probabilities and doubts, is referable to the metaphysical and logical training which he underwent during his pupilage at Lausanne. A further reflection of the accidents of his life is to be traced in the vein of subtle irony which pervades the argumentative portions of his work, and relieves the solemn march of his grand and heroic style; and this he acquired, perhaps, unconsciously from the works of Pascal and Voltaire, which he accepted as the model of his composition in French, a language in which he wrote with the same facility as in his mother tongue. Lord Sheffield in 1795 published Gibbon's miscellaneous works, together with the "Memoir of his Life and Writings," composed by himself. This collection contains also abstracts of the books which the great historian had read; extracts from the journal of his studies; outlines of his "History of the World;" a republication of his "Essaie sur l'Etude;" "Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the Æneid;" a dissertation on the subject of "l'Homme en Masque de fer;" and a variety of other papers. Of his grand work on the "Decline and Fall," which originally appeared in quarto, numerous editions have since been published in 12 vols. 8vo, as well as abridgments, omitting those passages which cast doubts upon the authenticity of the christian religion.—J. E. T.
GIBBON, John, an ancestor of Gibbon the historian, was born in London in 1629. He was for some time a student in Jesus college, Cambridge, and he served as a soldier in Virginia and subsequently on the continent. He obtained the appointment of blue-mantle in the heraldry office, and wrote "Introductio ad Latinam Blazoniam," and other works. Gibbon seems to have been both an able and learned man; but his belief in judicial astrology, and a naturally peevish and irritable temper, made him obstinate and impracticable. His illustrious descendant says of him in his autobiography, "His manner is quaint and affected; his order is confused; but he displays some wit, more reading, and still more enthusiasm." He died about the year 1700.—J. B. J.
GIBBONS, Christopher, the son of the celebrated Orlando Gibbons, was from his childhood educated to the profession of music under Ellis Gibbons, organist of Bristol cathedral. He had been a chorister in the chapel of Charles II., organist in private to his majesty, and organist of Westminster abbey. The king had so great a partiality for this musician that he was induced to give him a personal recommendation to the university of Oxford, requesting that he might be admitted to the degree of doctor in music. This he was in consequence honoured with in 1664. He died in the year 1674. Christopher Gibbons was more celebrated for his skill in playing the organ and virginals than for his compositions. There are, however, many of his anthems extant.—E. F. R.
GIBBONS, Grinling, the distinguished sculptor in wood, was born in Rotterdam, April 4, 1648, and came to this country the year after the fire of London, in 1667, when he was only nineteen years of age. No doubt many foreign artists came to London on that occasion; for there could scarcely have been a better opportunity for them to distinguish themselves or acquire wealth than on the rebuilding the capital of a great kingdom. Gibbons' principal assistants were also both from the Netherlands—Dievot of Brussels, and Laurens of Mechlin. Grinling Gibbons was first brought into notice by Evelyn, who found him in 1671 in Says' Court, Deptford, busy in carving a composition by Tintoretto, containing upwards of a hundred figures; and he introduced him to Charles II., who gave Gibbons a place in the board of works, and he was employed at Windsor and in other palaces, in sculpture in marble as well as in wood. Evelyn calls him, "without controversy, the greatest master both for invention and rarenesse of worke, that the world had in any age; nor doubt I at all," he says, "that he will prove as great a master in the statuarie art." The base of the statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross, is by Gibbons, as is also the bronze statue of James II. in the Privy Garden, Whitehall, for which he is said to have received £300. Gibbons was, however, much more an ornamental sculptor and carver in wood than a statuary. He was employed by Sir Christopher Wren in the decorations of the choir of St. Paul's cathedral, for which he received £1333 7s. 5d. He executed also much elaborate work at Burghley; and a very celebrated series of carvings in a great room at Petworth, for some of the panels of which Turner, two hundred years afterwards, executed a series of beautiful landscapes, for the late Lord Egremont, the well-known art patron. Some of these carvings are of exquisite skill, the room being distinguished as much for the excellence as the quantity of its carvings. One of his chief works, also, is the tomb of Viscount Camden in the church of Exton in Rutlandshire—a large and magnificent monument combining statuary and ornament. Gibbons was appointed, in 1714, master carver in wood to George I., with a salary of eighteenpence a day. He was unrivalled in his time for his carving of foliage, fruit, flowers, still life, &c.; and he executed many marvellous specimens of delicacy in carving, some of which are enumerated by Walpole, and are still preserved. He died at his house in Bow Street, August 3, 1721, leaving a considerable collection of works of art, by himself and others. There is a good portrait of Gibbons by Sir Godfrey Kneller; and it has been well engraved by John Smith, his contemporary.—(Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, vol. ii., ed. Wornum.)—R. N. W.
GIBBONS, Orlando, who was not only "one of the rarest musicians of his time," as A. Wood styles him, but one of the finest geniuses that ever lived, was a native of Cambridge, born in 1583. It is not impossible that he was the son of William Gibbons, who on the 3rd of November, 1567, was admitted one of the waytes of the town of Cambridge, with the annual fee of 40s. At the early age of twenty-one he was appointed organist of the chapel royal, as successor to Arthur Cock. In 1606 he was admitted bachelor of music in the university of Cambridge,
