y honours is favourable to the Royal
prerogative; and my kinsman, like most of his family, was a high Tory
both in church and state. In the latter end of the reign of Charles
the Second, his pen was exercised in the cause of the Duke of York: the
Republican faction he most cordially detested; and as each animal is
conscious of its proper arms, the heralds' revenge was emblazoned on
a most diabolical escutcheon. But the triumph of the Whig government
checked the preferment of Blue-mantle; and he was even suspended
from his office, till his tongue could learn to pronounce the oath of
abjuration. His life was prolonged to the age of ninety: and, in the
expectation of the inevitable though uncertain hour, he wishes to
preserve the blessings of health, competence, and virtue. In the year
1682 he published in London his Introductio ad Latinam Blasoniam, an
original attempt, which Camden had desiderated, to define, in a Roman
idiom, the terms and attributes of a Gothic institution. It is not two
years since I acquired, in a foreign land, some domestic intelligence
of my own family; and this intelligence was conveyed to Switzerland from
the heart of Germany. I had formed an acquaintance with Mr. Langer, a
lively and ingenious scholar, while he resided at Lausanne as preceptor
to the Hereditary Prince of Brunswick. On his return to his proper
station of Librarian to the Ducal Library of Wolfenbuttel, he
accidentally found among some literary rubbish a small old English
volume of heraldry, inscribed with the name of John Gibbon. From the
title only Mr. Langer judged that it might be an acceptable present to
his friend--and he judged rightly. His manner is quaint and affected;
his order is confused: but he displays some wit, more reading, and
still more enthusiasm: and if an enthusiast be often absurd, he is
never languid. An English text is perpetually interspersed with Latin
sentences in prose and verse; but in his own poetry he claims an
exemption from the laws of prosody. Amidst a profusion of genealogical
knowledge, my kinsman could not be forgetful of his own name; and to
him I am indebted for almost the whole of my information concerning the
Gibbon family. From this small work the author expected immortal fame.

Such are the hopes of authors! In the failure of those hopes John Gibbon
has not been the first of his profession, and very possibly may not be
the last of his name. His brother Matthew Gibbon, the draper, had one
d