204 



GIBBONS 



GIBBOUS 



across the weltering centuries of confusion that 

 separate the old world from the new. The glowing 

 imagination of the writer gives life and vigour to 

 the rounded periods and to the stately and pompous 

 march of the narrative, and all defects of taste dis- 

 appear in the admiration extorted from the most 

 reluctant reader. Perhaps his most unique merit 

 is his supreme and almost epic power of moulding 

 into a lucid unity a bewildering multitude of 

 details, and giving life and sequence to the whole. 

 His prodigious memory moved freely under a 

 ponderous weight of learning which his quickening 

 imagination fused into a glowing stream of con- 

 tinuous narrative, which is yet, with all its detail, 

 a marvel of condensation. The story of Constantin- 

 ople is his greatest effort his treatment of Julian, 

 of Justinian, of the Arabs, and of the Crusades, the 

 most splendid single episodes in our historical 

 literature. He has painted in gorgeous colours 

 all the splendours of the ancient Paganism, and 

 portrayed with matchless force every figure that 

 crossed the stage of history for a thousand years ; 

 for the moral beauty of Christianity alone he has 

 no enthusiasm the heroism of its martyr- witnesses 

 and its saints touches not his imagination nor warms 

 his dramatic sense to life. This elemental defect 

 set aside, few faults of detail have been discovered 

 in his work, the enduring merit of which it may 

 be permitted to summarise in the words of a great 

 modern master of history, whose own studies nave 

 followed closely in his track. ' That Gibbon should 

 ever be displaced,' says Mr Freeman, 'seems im- 

 possible. That wonderful man monopolised, so to 

 speak, the historical genius and the historical 

 learning of a whole generation, and left little 

 indeed of either for his contemporaries. He remains 

 the one historian of the eighteenth century whom 

 modern research has neither set aside nor threatened 

 to set aside. We may correct and improve from 

 the stores which have been opened since Gibbon's 

 time ; we may write again large parts of his story 

 from other and often truer and more wholesome 

 points of view ; but the work of Gibbon as a whole, 

 as the encyclopaedic history of 1300 years, as the 

 grandest of historical designs, carried out alike 

 with wonderful power and with wonderful accuracy, 

 must ever keep its place. Whatever else is read, 

 Gibbon must be read too.' 



Lord Sheffield collected his Miscellaneous Works (2 

 vols. 1706 ; enlarged ed. 5 vols. 1814 ). Sir W. Smith's 

 edition of The Decline and Fall ( 8 vols. 1854-55 ) con- 

 tains the notes of Guizot and Milrnan ; a new edition, 

 in 7 vols., edited by J. B. Bury, was begun in 1896. 

 In 1897 another Lord Sheffield published the six versions 

 of the Autobiography from which Miss Holroyd pieced 

 together the text till then accepted ; and two volumes of 

 the letters were edited by Professor Prothero. See the 

 monograph by J. C. Morison ( 1878 ), and Frederic Harri- 

 son's address at the Gibbon Commemoration (1895). 



Gibbons, GKINLING, sculptor and wood-carver, 

 was born at Rotterdam, 4th April 1648. In 1671 

 Evelyn found him at Deptford carving on wood 

 Tintoretto's ' Crucifixion ;' and on Evelyn's recom- 

 mendation he was appointed by Charles II. to 

 a place in the Board of Works, and employed 

 in the ornamental carving of the choir of the 

 chapel at Windsor. His works display great 

 taste and delicacy of finish, and his flowers and 

 foliage have almost the lightness of nature. For 

 the choir of St Paul's, London, he executed the 

 foliage and festoons, and those in lime-tree which 

 decorate the side aisles. At Chatsworth, at Bur- 

 leigh, at Southwick, Hampshire, and other man- 

 sions of the English nobility, he executed an 

 immense quantity of carved embellishment ; the 

 ceiling of a room at Petworth is regarded as his 

 chef-d'oeuvre. He also produced several fine pieces 

 in marble and bronze. Among these are the 



statue of James II., Whitehall; the base of the 

 statue of Charles I., at Charing Cross ; and that of 

 Charles II., at the Royal Exchange. He died 

 in London, August 3, 1721. 



Gibbons, ORLANDO, one of the greatest of 

 English musicians, was born at Cambridge, 1583, 

 and was probably brought up in the choir of one of 

 the college chapels. His elder brothers, Edward 

 and Ellis, were both eminent organists and com- 

 posers. The chief events of Gibbons's short life 

 are soon told. On March 24, 1604, he was ap- 

 pointed organist of the Chapel Royal, London. 

 In 1606 he took the degree of Mus.Bac. at Cam- 

 bridge, and in 1622, at the instance of Camden, 

 that of Mus.Doc. at Oxford. His exercise was tlxe 

 well-known 8-pt. anthem, ' O Clap your Hands.' In 

 1623 he became organist of Westminster Abbey. 

 In May 1625 he went with the king and court to 

 Canterbury, to await the arrival of Henrietta 

 Maria, and while there, on June 5, died of what 

 appears to have been apoplexy (see the official 

 letter and report of the physicians in the Athenceum, 

 November 14, 1885, p. 644). His monument, with 

 a bust, is in the north aisle of the nave at Canter- 

 bury, and a portrait is in the music-school, Oxford. 

 His Avife's name was Elizabeth Patten ; and of then- 

 seven children six survived him, two of whom, 

 Christopher and Orlando, were musicians. 



Gibbons's reputation as an organist was great ; 

 he 'had the best hand in England.' His com- 

 positions are not numerous, but most of them 

 are pure gold. The best known are his Morn- 

 ing and Evening Service in F ; the anthems, ' O 

 Clap your Hands' and 'God is gone up' (8 pts. ), 

 ' Hosanna,' ' Lift up your Heads ' (6 pts. ), and ' Al- 

 mighty and everlasting God' (4 pts.); the 5-pt. 

 madrigals, 'The Silver Swan,' 'O that the learned 

 Poets, ' and ' Dainty, fine, sweet Bird. ' Besides these 

 he left Preces and hymns, a score of anthems, both 

 full and verse ; seventeen madrigals, the remainder 

 of the volume published in 1612; nine fantasies 

 for strings (1611); six pieces for the virginals, 

 included in 'Parthenia' (1612), and a few other 

 miscellaneous pieces. These show him to have 

 been not only learned, as all musicians of that 

 time were learned, but animated by grace, dignity, 

 and sentiment, such as were possessed by none 

 of his predecessors in the school. Nothing more 

 noble and spirited was ever written than his 

 ' Hosanna,' nothing more touchingly religious and 

 beautiful than his 'Almighty and Everlasting, 1 or 

 ' The Silver Swan. ' In these exquisite composi- 

 tions the art disappears, and the sentiment of the 

 words is immediately seized. His Service, for pro- 

 priety, dignity, and beauty, remains above all that 

 preceded or followed it. It and the anthems named 

 above retain their constant place in English choirs. 



With Gibbons the great church school of Eng- 

 land came to an end. Byrd had died in 1623, two 

 years before him, and Bull, Weelkes, Dowland, 

 and others of the old giants departed just at this 

 very date. Felix opportunitate mortis, non enim 

 vidit . The great troubles followed very shortly, 

 and the death of the king and the destructions 

 of the Civil War ; music was all but extinguished ; 

 and the new school began on fresh foundations with 

 the Restoration, in the persons of Pelham Hum- 

 frey, Blow, and Purcell. But Orlando Gibbons is 

 the culmination of the ancient musical art of our 

 country, and as long as voices can sing and hearts 

 can delight in real beauty he will remain at the 

 head of the English church school of music. For 

 the full list of his works and other details, see 

 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, i. 594, 

 and iv. 647. 



Gibbous, a term signifying ' protuberant,' 

 'swelling out,' applied to bodies which are double- 



