countries as a soldier and a traveller, acquired the knowledge of
the French and Spanish languages, passed some time in the Isle of
Jersey, crossed the Atlantic, and resided upwards of a twelvemonth
(1659) in the rising colony of Virginia. In this remote province
his taste, or rather passion, for heraldry found a singular
gratification at a war-dance of the native Indians. As they moved
in measured steps, brandishing their tomahawks, his curious eye
contemplated their little shields of bark, and their naked bodies,
which were painted with the colours and symbols of his favourite
science. "At which I exceedingly wondered; and concluded that
heraldry was ingrafted _naturally_ into the sense of human race. If
so, it deserves a greater esteem than now-a-days is put upon it."
His return to England after the Restoration was soon followed by his
marriage his settlement in a house in St. Catherine's Cloister, near
the Tower, which devolved to my grandfather and his introduction
into the Heralds' College (in 1671) by the style and title of
Blue-mantle Pursuivant at Arms. In this office he enjoyed near
fifty years the rare felicity of uniting, in the same pursuit, his
duty and inclination: his name is remembered in the College, and
many of his letters are still preserved. Several of the most
respectable characters of the age, Sir William Dugdale, Mr. Ashmole,
Dr. John Betts, and Dr. Nehemiah Grew, were his friends; and in the
society of such men, John Gibbon may be recorded without disgrace as
the member of an astrological club. The study of hereditary 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.