olar and a gentleman. At Westminster School,
and afterwards at Emanuel College in Cambridge, he passed through a
regular course of academical discipline; and the care of his learning
and morals was intrusted to his private tutor, the same Mr. William Law.
But the mind of a saint is above or below the present world; and while
the pupil proceeded on his travels, the tutor remained at Putney, the
much-honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family. My
father resided sometime at Paris to acquire the fashionable exercises;
and as his temper was warm and social, he indulged in those pleasures,
for which the strictness of his former education had given him a keener
relish. He afterwards visited several provinces of France; but his
excursions were neither long nor remote; and the slender knowledge,
which he had gained of the French language, was gradually obliterated.
His passage through Besancon is marked by a singular consequence in the
chain of human events. In a dangerous illness Mr. Gibbon was attended,
at his own request, by one of his kinsmen of the name of Acton, the
younger brother of a younger brother, who had applied himself to the
study of physic. During the slow recovery of his patient, the physician
himself was attacked by the malady of love: he married his mistress,
renounced his country and religion, settled at Besancon, and became the
father of three sons; the eldest of whom, General Acton, is conspicuous
in Europe as the principal Minister of the king of the Two Sicilies. By
an uncle whom another stroke of fortune had transplanted to Leghorn,
he was educated in the naval service of the Emperor; and his valour and
conduct in the command of the Tuscan frigates protected the retreat
of the Spaniards from Algiers. On my father's return to England he was
chosen, in the general election of 1734, to serve in parliament for
the borough of Petersfield; a burgage tenure, of which my grandfather
possessed a weighty share, till he alienated (I know not why) such
important property. In the opposition to Sir Robert Walpole and the
Pelhams, prejudice and society connected his son with the Tories,--shall
I say Jacobites? or, as they were pleased to style themselves, the
country gentlemen? with them he gave many a vote; with them he drank
many a bottle. Without acquiring the fame of an orator or a statesman,
he eagerly joined in the great opposition, which, after a seven
years' chase, hunted down Sir Robert Walpole: