# The Nuttall Encyclopædia/G

G
Gabelentz, Hans Conon von der, a distinguished German philologist, born at Altenburg: was master, it is said, of 80 languages, contributed treatises on several of them, his most important work being on the Melanesian (1807-1874).
Gabelle, an indirect tax, specially one on salt, the term applied to a State monopoly in France in that article, and the exaction in connection with which was a source of much discontent; the people were obliged to purchase it at government warehouses and at extravagant, often very unequal, rates; the impost dates from 1286; was abolished in 1789.
Gabelsberger, Franz Xavier, inventor of the shorthand in use in German countries as well as elsewhere (1789-1849).
Gaberlunzie, a licensed beggar, or any of the mendicant class, so called from the wallet he carried.
Gabinus, a Roman tribune in 66 B.C., afterwards consul; party to the banishment of Cicero, 57 B.C.
Gaboon and French Congo (5,000), a French Colony in W. Africa fronting the Atlantic, between the Cameroon country and the Congo State, and stretching inland as far as the head-waters of the Congo River; in the NW. is the great Gaboon estuary, 40 m. long and 10 broad at its mouth, with Libreville on its N. bank; along the coast the climate is hot and unhealthy, but it improves inland; the natives belong to the Bantu stock; the French settled in it first in 1842, but only since the explorations of De Brazza in 1876-86 have they begun to extend and colonise it.
Gabriel, an angel, one of the seven archangels, “the power of God,” who is represented in the traditions of both the Jews and the Moslems as discharging the highest functions, and in Christian tradition as announcing to the Virgin Mary her election of God to be the mother of the Messiah; he ranks fully higher among Moslems than Jews.
Gabriel, a French architect, born in Paris (1710-1782).
Gabrielles d'Estrées, the mistress of Henry IV. of France, who for State reasons was not allowed to marry her (1571-1599).
Gad, one of the Jewish tribes inhabiting the E. of the Jordan.
Gadames or Ghadames (7 to 10), an oasis and town in Africa, situated in the SW. corner of Tripoli, on the N. border of the Sahara; the fertility of the oasis is due to hot springs, from which the place takes its name; high walls protect the soil and the fruit of it, which is abundant, from sand-storms; it is an entrepôt for trade with the interior; the inhabitants are Berber Mohammedans.
Gaddi, Gaddo, a Florentine painter and worker in mosaic, friend of Cimabue and Giotto (1239-1312).
Gaddi, Taddeo, son of the preceding, and pupil of Giotto both in architecture and fresco-painting (1300-1366).
Gaddi, Agnolo, son of the preceding, and a painter of frescoes (1350-1396).
Gades, the ancient name of Cadiz (q. v.).
Gadshill, an eminence in Kent, 3 m. NW. of Rochester, associated with the name of Falstaff, also of Dickens, who resided here from 1856 to 1870, and where he died.
Gaeta (17), a fortified seaport of S. Italy, finely situated on a steep promontory 50 m. NW. of Naples; it was a favourite watering-place of the ancient Roman nobility, and the beauty of its bay is celebrated by Virgil and Horace; it is rich in classic remains, and in its day has witnessed many sieges; the inhabitants are chiefly employed with fishing and a light coast trade.
Gage, Thomas, English general, son of Viscount Gage; he served in the Seven Years' War, and took part in 1755 in Braddock's disastrous expedition in America; in 1760 he became military governor of Montreal, and three years later commander-in-chief of the British forces in America; as governor of Massachusetts he precipitated the revolution by his ill-timed severity, and after the battle of Bunker's Hill was recalled to England (1721-1787).
Gaia or Ge, in the Greek mythology the primeval goddess of the earth, the alma mater of living things, both in heaven and on earth, called subsequently Demeter, i. e. Gemeter, Earth-mother.
Gaillard, French historian, born at Amiens; devoted his life to history (1726-1806).
Gainsborough, Thomas, one of England's greatest artists in portrait and landscape painting, born at Sudbury, Suffolk; he early displayed a talent for drawing, and at 14 was sent to London to study art; when 19 he started as a portrait-painter at Ipswich, having by this time married Margaret Burr, a young lady with £200 a year; patronised by Sir Philip Thicknesse, he removed in 1760 to Bath, where he rose into high favour, and in 1774 he sought a wider field in London; he shared the honours of painting portraits with Reynolds and of landscape with Wilson; his portraits have more of grace, if less of genius, than Reynolds, while his landscapes inaugurated a freer and more genial manner of dealing with nature, while as a colourist Ruskin declares him the greatest since Rubens; among his most famous pictures are portraits of Mrs. Siddons, the Duchess of Devonshire, and the Hon. Mrs. Graham, “Shepherd Boy in the Shower,” “The Seashore,” &c. (1727-1788).
Gaius, a Roman jurist of the 2nd century, whose “Institutes” served for the basis of Justinian's.
Galahad, Sir, son of Lancelot, one of the Knights of the Round Table; distinguished for the immaculate purity of his character and life; was successful in his search for the Holy Graal.
Galaor, a hero of Spanish romance, brother of Amadis de Gaul, the model of a courtly paladin, and always ready with his sword to avenge the wrongs of the widow and the orphan.
Galapágos, a sparsely populated group of islands (13 in number), barren on the N., but well wooded on the S., situated on the equator, 600 m. W. of Ecuador, and which, although belonging to Ecuador, all bear English names, bestowed upon them, it would appear, by the buccaneers of the 17th century; Albemarle Island makes up more than half of their area; they are volcanic in formation, and some of their 2000 craters are not yet inactive; their fauna is of peculiar scientific interest as exhibiting many species unknown elsewhere; besides the islands proper there is a vast number of islets and rocks.
Galata, a faubourg of Constantinople where the European merchants reside.
Galatea, a nymph whom Polyphemus made love to, but who preferred Acis to him, whom therefore he made away with by crushing him under a rock, in consequence of which the nymph threw herself into the sea.
Galatia, a high-lying Roman province in Asia Minor that had been invaded and taken possession of by a horde of Gauls in the 3rd century B.C., whence the name.
Galatians, Epistle to the, an epistle of St. Paul to the churches in Galatia, which was an especial favourite with Luther, as, with its doctrine of spiritual freedom in Christ, it might well be, for it corroborated the great revelation first made to him by a neighbour monk; “man is not saved by singing masses, but by the grace of God”; it is a didactic epistle, in assertion, on the one hand, of freedom from the law, and, on the other, of the power of the spirit.
Galatz or Galacz (59), the great river-port of Roumania, on the Danube, 8 m. above the Sulina mouth of the river and 166 m. NE. of Bucharest; the new town is well laid out, and contains some fine buildings; its harbour is one of the finest on the Danube; a great export trade is carried on in cereals, while textiles and metals are the chief imports.
Galaxy, the Milky Way, a band of light seen after sunset across the heavens, consisting of an innumerable multitude of stars, or suns rather, stretching away into the depths of space.
Galba, a Roman emperor from June 68 to January 69, elected at the age of 70 by the Gallic legions to succeed Nero, but for his severity and avarice was slain by the Prætorian guard, who proclaimed Otho emperor in his stead.
Gale, Theophilus, a Nonconformist divine; author of the “Court of the Gentiles,” in which he attempts to prove that the theology and philosophy of the Gentiles was borrowed from the Scriptures (1628-1678).
Gale, Thomas, dean of York; edited classics, wrote on early English history (1636-1702).
Galen, or Claudius Galenus, a famous Greek physician, born at Pergamus, in Illyria, where, after studying in various cities, he settled in 158; subsequently he went to Rome, and eventually became physician to the emperors M. Aurelius, L. Verus, and Severus; of his voluminous writings 83 treatises are still extant, and these treat on a varied array of subjects, philosophical as well as professional; for centuries after his death his works were accepted as authoritative in the matter of medicine (131-201).
Gale`rius, Valerius Maximus, Roman emperor, born in Dacia, of lowly parentage; rose from a common soldier to be the son-in-law of the Emperor Diocletian, who in 292 raised him to the dignity of a Cæsar; in 305, on the death of Diocletian, he became head of the Eastern Empire, which he continued to be till his death in 311; his name is associated with a cruel persecution of the Christians under Diocletian.
Galgacus, a Caledonian chief defeated by Agricola at the battle of the Grampians in 85, after a desperate resistance.
Galia`ni, Ferdinando, an Italian political economist, man of letters, and a wit; held with honour several important offices under the Neapolitan Government; was attaché to the embassy at Paris, and the associate of Grimm and Diderot (1728-1787).
Galicia, 1, an old province (1,919) of Spain, formerly a kingdom in the NW. corner of it, fronting the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic; now divided into the four minor provinces, Coruña, Lugo, Orense, Pontevedra; the county is hilly, well watered, fertile, and favoured with a fine climate, but cultivated only very partially; some mining is carried on. 2, A crownland (6,607) in the NE. of Austria, between Russia and the Carpathians; the inhabitants are mainly Slavs, but there is a goodly number of Jews, Germans, Poles, &c.; the land is fertile, consists chiefly of extensive plains, well watered by the Dneister and other large rivers, and yields abundance of cereals, while one-fourth is covered with forest; timber is largely exported, and salt; many of the useful metals are found, and productive petroleum wells; it has an independent Diet, but an Austrian governor; Austria annexed it in 1772.
Galilæans, a fanatical sect, followers of one Judas of Galilee, who fiercely resented the taxation of the Romans, and whose violence contributed to induce the latter to vow the extermination of the whole race.
Galilee, the northern division of Palestine, divided into Upper, hilly, Lower, level, about 60 m. long and 30 broad.
Galilee, Sea of, an expansion of the Jordan, 12½ m. long, and at the most 8 m. broad, enclosed by steep mountains, except on NW.
Galileo, an illustrious Italian mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, born at Pisa, demonstrated the isochronism of the pendulum, invented the thermometer and the hydrostatic balance, propounded the law of falling bodies, constructed the first astronomical telescope, and by means of it satisfied himself of, and proved, the truth of the Copernican doctrine, that the sun and not the earth is the centre of the planetary system, and that the earth revolves round it like the other planets which reflect its light; his insistence on this truth provoked the hostility of the Church, and an ecclesiastical decree which pronounced the Copernican theory heresy; for the profession of it he was brought to the bar of the Inquisition, where he was compelled to forswear it by oath, concluding his recantation, it is said, with the exclamation, “still, it moves”; before his end he became blind, and died in Florence at 78, the year Newton was born (1564-1642).
Galitzin, the name of a Russian family distinguished for their ability and success in both war and peace from the 16th century onwards.
Gall, Franz Joseph, the founder of phrenology, born at Tiefenbronn, on the borders of Baden and Würtemberg; in 1785 he established himself as a physician in Vienna, where for many years he carried on a series of elaborate investigations on the nature of the brain and its relation to the outer cranium, visiting with that view lunatic asylums, &c.; in 1796 he gave publicity to his views in a series of lectures in Vienna, which were, however, condemned as subversive of morality and religion; being joined by Spurzheim, who adopted his theories, he undertook a lecturing tour through a large part of Europe, and eventually settled at Paris, where he published his phrenological work “Fonctions du Cerveau”; it is a curious fact that on his death his skull was found to be twice the usual thickness, and that there was a tumour in the cerebellum (1758-1828).
Gall, St., an Irish monk who, about 585, accompanied St. Columban to France in his missionary labours, banished from which he went to Switzerland, and founded a monastery on the Lake of Constance, which bore his name; d. about 646.
Galland, Antoine, French Orientalist, born in Picardy, professor of Arabic in the College of France; was the first to translate the “Arabian Nights” into any European tongue (1646-1715).
Gallas, an Ethiopian race occupying the S. and E. of Abyssinia, energetic, intelligent, and warlike; follow mostly pastoral occupations; number over four millions, and are mostly heathens.
Galle or Point de Galle (33), fortified seaport town, prettily situated on a rocky promontory in the SW. of Ceylon; there is a good harbour, but the shipping, which at one time was extensive, has declined since the rise of Colombo.
Gallican Church, the Catholic Church in France which, while sincerely devoted to the Catholic faith and the Holy See, resolutely refused to concede certain rights and privileges which belonged to it from the earliest times; it steadfastly contended that infallibility was vested not in the Pope alone, but in the entire episcopal body under him as its head; maintained the supreme authority of general councils and that of the holy canons in the government of the Church, and insisted that there was a distinction between the temporal and the spiritual power; contentions summed up in a declaration of the French clergy in 1682, the body of whom opposed to which are known by the name of “Ultramontanists.”
Gallicanism, the name given to the contention of the Gallican Church (q. v.).
Gallienus, Publius Licinius, Roman Emperor from 260 to 268, and for seven years (253-260) associated in the government with his father, the Emperor Valerian; under his lax rule the empire was subjected to hostile inroads on all sides, while in the provinces a succession of usurpers, known as the Thirty Tyrants, sprang up, disowning allegiance, and aspiring to the title of Cæsar; in his later years he roused himself to vigorous resistance, but in 268 was murdered by his own soldiers whilst pressing the rebel Aureolus at the siege of Milan.
Galligantua, the wizard giant slain by Jack the Giant-killer.
Gallio, the Roman proconsul of Achaia in the days of St. Paul, before whom the Jews of Corinth brought an appeal against the latter, but which he treated with careless indifference as no affair of his, in consequence of which his name has become the synonym of an easy-going ruler or prince.
Gallipoli, 1, a fortified seaport town (8) in Southern Italy, 59 m. S. of Brindisi; stands on a rocky islet in the Gulf of Taranto, close to the mainland, with which it is connected by a bridge of 12 arches; a fine cathedral and huge tanks hewn out of the solid rock for the storage of olive-oil are objects of interest. 2, A seaport (15) of Turkey in Europe, stands on a peninsula of the same name at the western end of the Sea of Marmora, at the mouth of the Dardanelles, 90 m. S. of Adrianople; it was the first city captured by the Turks in Europe (1356), and is now the naval arsenal of Turkey and head-quarters of the Turkish navy.
Galloway, a district in the SW. of Scotland, co-extensive with Wigtown and Kirkcudbright, though formerly of considerably greater extent; the lack of mineral wealth has retarded its development, and the industry of the population is limited chiefly to agriculture, the rearing of sheep and cattle, and fishing, and it is still noted for a small but hardy breed of horses called Galloways; the province derives its name from Gall-Gael, or foreign Gaels, as the early inhabitants were called, who up to the time of the Reformation maintained the characteristics, language, &c., of a distinct people; in 1455 Galloway ceased to exist as a separate lordship; in the extreme S. of Wigtown is the bold and rocky promontory, the Mull of Galloway, the extremity of the peninsula called the Rhinns of Galloway; the Mull, which is the most southerly point in Scotland, rises to a height of 210 ft., and is crowned by a powerful lighthouse.
Galswinthe, the sister of Brunhilda and the second wife of Chilpéric I.; was strangled to death in 568.
Galt, John, Scotch novelist, born at Irvine; educated at Greenock, where he held a post in the Custom-house for a time; essayed literature, wrote “The Ayrshire Legatees,” “The Annals of the Parish,” “Sir Andrew Wylie,” “The Entail,” and “The Provost”; died of paralysis at Greenock; Carlyle, who met him in London in 1832, says, “He had the air of a broad, gaucie, Greenock burgher; mouth indicating sly humour and self-satisfaction; eyes, old and without lashes, gave me a wae interest for him; says little, but that little peaceable, clear, and gutmüthig” (1779-1839).
Galvanised Iron, plate-iron coated with zinc, which renders it less liable to be affected by moisture and subject to corrosion.
Galvanism, the mere contact with two dissimilar metals, the science of what is now called Voltaic or current electricity, produced, as in the above instance, from the contact of dissimilar metals, especially that of acids on metals.
Galvani, Luigi, an Italian physician, born at Bologna; celebrated for his discoveries in animal magnetism called after him Galvanism, due to an observation he made of the convulsive motion produced in the leg of a recently-killed frog (1737-1798).
Galveston (38), the chief seaport of Texas, situated on a low island of the same name at the entrance of Galveston Bay into the Gulf of Mexico; it has a splendid harbour, and is an important centre of the cotton trade, ranking as the third cotton port of the world; the city is well laid out, and is the see of a Roman Catholic bishop; it has a medical college and several foundries.
Galway (215), a maritime county in the W. of Ireland, in the province of Connaught; Lough Corrib (25 m. long) and Lough Mask (12 m. long), stretching N. and S., divide the county into East and West districts; the former is boggy, yet arable; the latter, including the picturesque district known as Connemara, is wild and hilly, and chiefly consists of bleak morass and bogland; its rocky and indented coast affords excellent harbourage in many places; the Suck, Shannon, and Corrib are the chief rivers; the Slieve Boughta Mountains in the S. and in the W. the Twelve Pins (2395 ft.) are the principal mountains; fishing, some agriculture, and cattle-rearing are the chief employments; it contains many interesting cromlechs and ruins.
Galway (14), the capital of Connaught and of the county of that name; is situated on the N. side of Galway Bay, at the mouth of the Corrib River, 50 m. NW. of Limerick; it is divided into the old and new town, and contains several interesting ecclesiastical buildings, e. g. the cruciform church of St. Nicholas (1320), and is the seat of a Queen's College; fishing is an important industry, while wool and black marble are exported.
Gama, Vasco da, a famous Portuguese navigator, the discoverer of the route to India round the Cape of Good Hope, born at Sines, in Portugal, of good family; he seems to have won the favour of King Emmanuel at an early age, and already an experienced mariner, was in 1497 despatched on his celebrated voyage, in which he rounded the Cape; on that occasion he made his way to Calicut, in India, where he had to contend with the enmity of the natives, stirred against him by jealous Arabian merchants; in 1499 he returned to Lisbon, was received with great honour, and had conferred on him an array of high-sounding titles; three years later he was appointed to the command of an expedition to Calicut to avenge the massacre of a small Portuguese settlement founded there a year previous by Cabrat; in connection with this expedition he founded the colonies of Mozambique and Sofala, and after inflicting a cruel punishment upon the natives of Calicut, he returned to Lisbon in 1503; the following 20 years of his life were spent in retirement at Evora, but in 1524 he was appointed viceroy of Portuguese India, a position he held only for a short time, but sufficiently long to re-establish Portuguese power in India; he died at Cochin; the incidents of his famous first voyage round the Cape are celebrated in Camoëns' memorable poem “The Lusiad” (1469-1525).
Gamaliel, a Jewish rabbi, the instructor of St. Paul in the knowledge of the law, and distinguished for his tolerant spirit and forbearance in dealing with the Apostles in their seeming departure from the Jewish faith.
Gambetta, Léon Michel, a French republican leader, born at Cahors, of Italian descent; intended for the Church, to which he evinced no proclivity; he early showed a penchant for politics and adopted the profession of law, in the prosecution of which he delivered a speech which marked him out as the coming man of the French republic, from the spirit of hostility it manifested against the Empire; at the fall of the Empire he stood high in public regard, assumed the direction of affairs, and made desperate attempts to repel the invading Germans; though he failed in this, he never ceased to feel the shame of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and strove hard to recover them, but all his efforts proved ineffectual, and he died in Dec. 31, to the grief of the nation (1838-1882).
Gambia, 1, a river of W. Africa, that flows through Senegambia and discharges itself into the Atlantic at Bathurst after a course of more than 1400 m. into a splendid estuary which, in some parts, has a breadth of 27 m. but contracts to 2 m. at the seaward end; light craft can ascend as far as Barraconda, 400 m. from the mouth. 2. A British settlement (15) lying along the banks of the Gambia as far as Georgetown, with a protectorate to Barraconda (pop. 50); it enjoys a separate government under a British administrator, and produces hides, cotton, rice, &c.
Gambier, James, Lord, British admiral, born in the Bahamas; at 22 he was created a post-captain; in 1781 distinguished himself in an engagement against the French at Jersey; and again under Lord Howe in 1794 he rendered material service in repulsing the French off Ushant; in the following year he was made rear-admiral, and in 1799 vice-admiral; for his gallant conduct as commander of the English fleet at the bombardment of Copenhagen he was made a baron; a dispute with Lord Cochrane at the battle of Aix Roads against the French led to his being court-martialled, but he was honourably acquitted; on the accession of William IV. he was made admiral of the fleet (1756-1833).
Gamp, Sarah, a nurse in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” famous for her bulky umbrella, and for confirming her opinions of things by a constant reference to the authority of an imaginary Mrs. Harris.
Gando (5,000), a native State traversed by the Niger in Western Soudan, lying upon the NW. border of Sokoto, of which it is a dependency; like Sokoto it has been brought within the sphere of influence of the British Royal Niger Company; the inhabitants belong to the Fulah race, and profess the Mohammedan religion; Gando is also the name of the capital, an active centre of the cotton trade.
Ganega, the Hindu god with an elephant's head and four arms; the inspirer of cunning devices and good counsel, afterwards the patron of letters and learned men.
Ganelon, a count of Mayence, one of Charlemagne's paladins; trusted by him but faithless, and a traitor to his cause; is placed by Dante in the lowest hell.
Ganges, the great sacred river of India, which, though somewhat shorter than the Indus, drains a larger area and traverses a more fertile basin; it has its source in an ice-cave on the southern side of the Himalayas, 8 m. above Gangotri, at an elevation of 13,800 ft. above the sea-level; at this its first stage it is known as the Bhagirathi, and not until 133 m. from its source does it assume the name of Ganges, having already received two tributaries; issuing from the Himalayas at Sukhi, it flows in a more or less southerly course to Allahabad, where it receives the Jumna, and thence makes its way by the plains of Behar and past Benares to Goalanda, where it is joined by the Brahmaputra; the united stream, lessened by innumerable offshoots, pursues a SE. course till joined by the Meghna, and under that name enters the Bay of Bengal; its most noted offshoot is the Hooghly (q. v.), which pursues a course to the S. of the Meghna; between these lies the Great Delta, which begins to take shape 220 m. inland from the Bay of Bengal; the Ganges is 1557 m. in length, and offers for the greater part an excellent waterway; it is held in great reverence as a sacred stream whose waters have power to cleanse from all sin, while burial on its banks is believed to ensure eternal happiness.
Ganges Canal, constructed mainly for the purpose of irrigating the arid land stretching between the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers, originally extended from Hardwár to Cawnpore and Etawah, but has since been greatly enlarged, and at present (including branches) has a total extent of 3700 m., of which 500 m. are navigable; it has contributed to mitigate suffering caused by famines by affording a means of distributing ready relief.
Gangrene, the first stage of mortification in any part of a living body.
Gangway, a passage in the House of Commons, running across the house, which separates the independent members from the supporters of the Government and the Opposition.
Ganymedes, a beautiful youth, whom Zeus, attracted by his beauty, carried off, disguised as an eagle, to heaven, conferred immortality on, and made cup-bearer of the gods instead of Hebe.
Gao, Karveh or Karvah, a Persian blacksmith, whose sons had been slain to feed the serpents of the reigning tyrant, raised his leather apron on a spear, and with that for a standard excited a revolt; the revolt proved successful, and the apron became the standard of the new dynasty, which it continued to be till supplanted by the crescent.
Garay, János, Hungarian poet, born at Szegszard; his life was spent chiefly in Pesth, where he held a post in the university library; he published a number of dramas which show traces of German influence, and was also the author of a book of lyrics as well as tales (1812-1853).
Garcia, Manuel, a noted singer and composer, born at Seville; in 1808 he went to Paris with a reputation already gained at Madrid and Cadiz; till 1824 he was of high repute in London and Paris as an operatic tenor; and in the following year visited the United States; when on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz he was robbed of all his money; he spent his closing years in Paris as a teacher of singing, his voice being greatly impaired by age as well as fatigue; his eldest daughter was the celebrated Madame Malibran (1775-1832).
Garcias, Don Pedro, a mythical don mentioned in the preface to “Gil Blas” as buried with a small bag of doubloons, and the epitaph, “Here lies interred the soul of licentiate Pedro Garcia.”
Garcilaso, called the Inca, as descended from the royal family of Peru; lived at Cordova; wrote “History of Peru,” as well as a “History of Florida” (1530-1568).
Garcilaso de la Vega, a Spanish poet, born in Toledo, a soldier by profession; accompanied Charles V. on his expeditions; died fighting bravely in battle; his poems consist of sonnets, elegies, &c., and reveal an unexpected tenderness (1503-1536).
Garcin de Tassy, Indian Orientalist, born at Marseilles (1794-1878).
Gard (419), a dep. in the S. of France, between the Cévennes and the Rhône; slopes to the Rhône and the sea, with a marshy coast; produces wine and olives, and is noted for its silkculture and breed of horses.
Garda, Lago di, the largest of the Italian lakes; stretches, amidst beautiful Alpine scenery, between Lombardy and Venetia. It is 35 m. long, and from 2 to 10 broad. Its water is remarkably clear, and has a depth of 967 ft. It is studded with many picturesque islands, and is traversed by steamers.
Garde Nationale, of France, a body of armed citizens organised in Paris in 1789 for the defence of the citizen interest, and soon by extensions throughout the country became a force of great national importance; the colours they adopted were the famous tricolor of red, white, and blue, and their first commandant was Lafayette. In 1795 they helped to repress the Paris mob, and under Napoleon were retained in service. They played a prominent part in the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, supporting the revolutionists; but in 1852 their powers were curtailed, and in 1871 they were dissolved by the National Assembly.
Gardes Suisses, a celebrated corps of the French army, formed in 1616 for defence of royalty, and numbering 2000. During the great Revolution they gallantly defended the Louvre, but were overawed and overpowered almost to annihilation by the infuriated Paris mob. “Their work to die, and they did it,” at that moment. The corps was finally disbanded in 1830.
Gardiner, Colonel James, soldier, captain of dragoons, noted for his bravery and piety; served under Marlborough; fell at Prestonpans; his Life was written by Dr. Doddridge, and is much prized by religious people (1688-1745).
Gairdner, James, historian, born in Edinburgh, Assistant-Keeper Record Office, London; edited a series of historical documents, and wrote among other historical works the “Life and Reign of Richard III.”; b. 1828.
Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, English historian, born at Ropley, Hants; his chief historical works include “History of England” in the reign of James I. and Charles I.; “History of the Civil War,” in four vols., and the “History of the Protectorate,” on which he is still engaged; a most impartial and accurate historian; b. 1829.
Gardiner, Stephen, bishop of Winchester, born at Bury St. Edmunds; was secretary to Wolsey; promoted the divorce of Queen Catharine, and made bishop; imprisoned in the Tower under Edward VI.; restored to his see, and made Chancellor under Mary (1483-1555).
Garfield, James Abram, President of the United States, born in Orange, Ohio; reared amid lowly surroundings; at the age of ten began to help his widowed mother by working as a farmservant; an invincible passion for learning prompted him to devote the long winters to study, till he was able as a student to enter Hiram College, and subsequently to William's College, Massachusetts, where, in 1856, he graduated; in the following year he became President of Hiram College, and devoting his attention to the study of law, in 1859 became a member of the State Senate; he took an active part on the side of the Federalists in the Civil War, and distinguished himself in several engagements, rising to be major-general; in his thirty-third year he entered Congress, and soon came to the front, acting latterly as leader of the Republican party; in 1880 he became a member of the Senate, and in the same year was elected to the Presidency; he signalised his tenure of the presidential office by endeavouring to purify and reform the civil service, but this attempt drew on him the odium of a section of his party, and on the 2nd July 1881 he was shot down by Charles Guiteau, a disappointed place-hunter; after a prolonged struggle with death he succumbed on the 19th of September (1831-1881).
Gargantua, a gigantic personage, in Rabelais, of preternally lusty appetite and guzzling and gourmandising power; lived several centuries, and begat Pantagruel.
Garibaldi, Italian patriot, began life as a sailor, associated himself enthusiastically with Mazzini for the liberation of his country, but being convicted of conspiracy fled to South America, where, both as a privateer and a soldier, he gave his services to the young republics struggling there for life; returned to Europe, and took part in the defence of Rome against France, but being defeated fled to New York, to return to the Isle of Caprera, biding his time; joined the Piedmontese against Austria, and in 1860 set himself to assist in the overthrow of the kingdom of Naples and the union of Italy under Victor Emmanuel, landing in Calabria and entering Naples, driving the royal forces before him without striking a blow, after which he returned to his retreat at Caprera, ready still to draw sword, and occasionally offering it again, in the cause of republicanism (1807-1882).
Garment of God, Living, Living Nature, so called by Goethe, nature being viewed by him as the garment, or vesture, with which God invests Himself so as to reveal and impart Himself to man.
Garnet, a well-known precious stone of a vitreous lustre, and usually of a dark-red colour, resembling a ruby, but also found in various other shades, e. g. black, green, and yellow. The finest specimens are brought from Ceylon, Pegu, and Greenland. The species of garnet crystal known as Pyrope, when cut in the shape of a tallow drop, is called a carbuncle.
Garnet, Henry, a noted Jesuit, son of a Nottingham schoolmaster, implicated in the Gunpowder Plot; bred in the Protestant faith, he early turned Catholic and went abroad and joined the Jesuit order; in 1588 he returned to England as Superior of the English Jesuits, and engaged in various intrigues; on the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot he was arrested, found guilty of cognisance of the Plot, and executed (1555-1606).
Garnett, Richard, philologist, born at Otley, Yorkshire, Keeper of the Printed Books in the British Museum, and one of the founders of the Philological Society, and contributor to its Proceedings (1789-1850).
Garnett, Richard, an acute critic, born in Lichfield, son of preceding; long associated with the book department of the British Museum; an admirer of Shelley, and biographer of Carlyle and Emerson; b. 1835.
Garonne, an important river of SW. France, which rises in the Val d'Aran in the Spanish Pyrenees; 26 m. from its source it enters France near Pont du Roi, and after it passes Toulouse flows in a north-westerly direction; joined by the Dordogne, 20 m. below Toulouse, it gradually widens into the Gironde estuary, which opens on the Bay of Biscay; it has a length of 346 m., and is freely navigable as far as Toulouse.
Garrick, David, a famous English actor and dramatist, born at Hereford; was educated at Lichfield, the home of his mother, and was for some months in his nineteenth year a pupil of Samuel Johnson; in 1737 he accompanied Johnson to London, with the intention of entering the legal profession, but soon abandoned the purpose, and started in the wine business with his brother; in 1741 he commenced his career as an actor, making his first appearance at Ipswich; in the autumn of the same year he returned to London, and as Richard III. achieved instant success; with the exception of a sojourn upon the Continent for two years, his life was spent mainly in the metropolis in the active pursuit of his profession; in 1747 he became patentee, along with James Lacy, of Drury Lane Theatre, which he continued to direct until his retirement from the stage in 1776; three years later he died, and was buried in Westminster Abbey; he was the author of many comedies and farces, which, however, are of no great merit, but his abiding fame rests upon his powers as an actor, his remarkable versatility enabling him to act with equal ease and success in farce, comedy, and tragedy; his admirable naturalness did much to redeem the stage from the stiff conventionalism under which it then laboured; his wife, Eva Maria Violette, a celebrated dancer of Viennese birth, whom he married in 1740, survived him till 1822, dying at the advanced age of 98 (1717-1779).
Garrison, William Lloyd, American journalist and abolitionist, born at Newburyport, Mass.; in his native town he rose to be editor of the Herald at 19, and five years later became joint-editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation; his vigorous denunciation of slavery involved him in a charge of libel and brought about his imprisonment, from which he was liberated by a friend paying his fine; at Boston, in 1831, he founded his celebrated Liberator, a paper in which he unweariedly, and in the face of violent threats, advocated his anti-slavery opinions till 1865, when the cause was won; he visited England on several occasions in support of emancipation, and in 1868 his great labours in the cause were recognised by a gift of 30,000 dollars from his friends (1804-1879).
Garter, the most noble Order of the, a celebrated order of knighthood instituted in 1344 by King Edward III.; the original number of the knights was 26, of whom the sovereign was head; but this number has been increased by extending the honour to descendants of George I., II., and III., and also to distinguished foreigners; it is the highest order of knighthood, and is designated K.G.; the insignia of the order includes surcoat, mantle, star, &c., but the knights are chiefly distinguished by a garter of blue velvet worn on the left leg below the knee, and bearing the inscription in gold letters Honi soit qui mal y pense, “Evil be to him that evil thinks”; election to the order lies with the sovereign.
Garth, Sir Samuel, a distinguished physician, born in co. Durham; had an extensive practice; author of a mock-heroic poem entitled “The Dispensary” (1661-1718).
Gascoigne, Sir William, English judge, born at Gawthorpe, Yorkshire; during Richard II.'s reign he practised in the law courts, and in 1397 became king's serjeant; three years later he was raised to the Lord Chief-Justiceship; his single-eyed devotion to justice was strikingly exemplified in his refusal to pass sentence of death on Archbishop Scrope; the story of his committing Prince Henry to prison, immortalised by Shakespeare, is unauthenticated (1350-1419).
Gascony, an ancient province of SW. France, lying between the Atlantic, the Pyrenees, and the Garonne; it included several of the present departments; the province was of Basque origin, but ultimately became united with Aquitaine, and was added to the territory of the French crown in 1453; the Gascons still retain their traditional characteristics; they are of dark complexion and small in stature, vivacious and boastful, but have a high reputation for integrity.
Gaskell, Mrs., née Stevenson, novelist and biographer, born at Cheyne Row, Chelsea; authoress of “Mary Barton,” “Ruth,” “Silvia's Lovers,” &c., and the “Life of Charlotte Brontë,” her friend (1810-1865).
Gassendi, Pierre, a French mathematician and philosopher, born in Provence; declared against scholastic methods out of deference to the empirical; controverted the metaphysics of Descartes; became the head of a school opposed to him; adopted the philosophy of Epicurus and contributed to the science of astronomy, and was the friend of Kepler, Galileo, and Hobbes; was a great admirer of Bayle, the head of his school, a school of Pyrrhonists, tending to materialism (1592-1655).
Gassner, Johann Joseph, a noted “exorcist,” born at Bludenz, in the Tyrol; while a Catholic priest at Klösterle he gained a wide celebrity by professing to “cast out devils” and to work cures on the sick by means simply of prayer; he was deposed as an impostor, but the bishop of Ratisbon, who believed in his honesty, bestowed upon him the cure of Bendorf (1727-1779).
Gataker, Thomas, an English divine, member of the Westminster Assembly; disapproved of the introduction of the Covenant, declared for Episcopacy, and opposed the trial of Charles I. (1574-1654).
Gate of Tears, the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, so called from the shipwrecks frequent in it.
Gates, Horatio, an American general, born at Maldon, Essex, in England; served as an English officer in America till the peace of 1763, and then retired to Virginia; in the War of Independence he fought on the side of America, and, as commander of the northern army, defeated the English at Saratoga in 1777; so great was his popularity in consequence of this victory that ill-advised efforts were made to place him over Washington, but in 1780 he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of the British at Camden, and was court-martialled; acquitted in 1782, he again retired to Virginia, and subsequently in 1800 removed to New York, having first emancipated and provided for his slaves (1728-1806).
Gateshead (86), an English town, situated on the Tyne, on N. border of Durham; it is united to Newcastle by three bridges spanning the river; it contains some handsome and interesting buildings, besides extensive iron-works, foundries, soap, glass, and chemical manufactories; it was here Defoe lived when he wrote “Robinson Crusoe.”
Gath, Goliath's town, a city of the Philistines, on a cliff 12 m. NE. of Ashdod.
Gatling, Richard Jordan, the inventor of the Gatling gun, born in Hertford County, N. Carolina, U.S.; he was bred to and graduated in medicine, but in 1849 settled in Indianapolis and engaged in land and railway speculation; his famous machine-gun, capable of firing 1200 shots a minute, was brought out in 1861; another invention of his is a steam-plough; b. 1818.
Gatty, Mrs., writer of tales for young people, “Parables from Nature,” and editor of Aunt Judy's Magazine; daughter of the chaplain of the Victory, Nelson's ship at Trafalgar, in whose arms Nelson breathed his last (1809-1873).
Gauchos, a name bestowed upon the natives of the pampas of S. America; they are of Indo-Spanish descent, and are chiefly engaged in pastoral pursuits, herding cattle, &c.; they are dexterous horsemen, and are courteous and hospitable; the wide-brimmed sombrero and loose poncho are characteristic articles of their dress.
Gauden, John, bishop of Worcester; protested against the trial of Charles I., and after his execution published “Eikon Basilikë” (q. v.), or the “Portraiture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings,” which he declared was written by him (1605-1669).
Gaul, the name the ancients gave to two distinct regions, the one Cisalpine Gaul, on the Roman side of the Alps, embracing the N. of Italy, as long inhabited by Gallic tribes; and the other Transalpine Gaul, beyond the Alps from Rome, and extending from the Alps to the Pyrenees, from the ocean to the Rhine, inhabited by different races; subdued by Julius Cæsar 58-50 B.C., and divided by Augustus into four provinces.
Gaunt, John Of, Duke of Lancaster, third son of Edward III., born at Ghent, who in 1362 succeeded to the estates of his father-in-law, the Duke of Lancaster; having in 1372 married, as his second wife, the daughter of the king of Castile, he made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Castilian throne; in the later years of Edward III.'s reign he took an active part in public affairs, and by his opposition to the national party and overbearing conduct towards the Commons made himself obnoxious to the people; for selfish motives he for a time supported Wycliffe, but in 1381 the Peasant Revolt drove him into Scotland; in 1386 he made another ineffectual attempt to gain the crown of Castile; in his later years he was engaged in various embassies in France (1339-1399).
Gaur or Lakhnauti, the ancient capital of Bengal, now in ruins, but with Hindu remains of exceptional interest, is situated 4 m. S. of Malda, between the rivers Ganges and Mahananda; the city is believed to have been founded in the 11th century; it fell into decay after the Mogul conquest in 1575, but pestilence and the deflection of the Ganges into a new channel accelerated its fate.
Gauss, Karl Friedrich, a celebrated German mathematician and astronomer, born at Brunswick; was director of the observatory at Göttingen for 40 years; was equally great on theory of numbers and practice of calculation; he made important discoveries in magnetism, and was pronounced by Laplace the greatest mathematician in Europe (1775-1855).
Gautama, the name of the family Buddha belonged to, a Rajput clan which at the time of his birth was settled on the banks on the Rohini, a small affluent of the Gogra, about 137 m. N. of Benares.
Gautier, Théophile, a distinguished French poet, novelist, and critic, born at Tarbes; began life as a painter, but turning to literature soon attracted the attention of Sainte-Beuve by some studies in the old French authors; by-and-by he came under the influence of Victor Hugo, and in 1830 started his career as a poet by the publication of “Albertus,” five years after which appeared his famous novel “Mademoiselle de Maupin”; for many years he was engaged in the work of art criticism for the Paris newspapers, and those of his critiques dealing with the drama have been republished, and fill six vols.; both as poet and novelist his works have been numerous, and several delightful books of travel in Spain, Turkey, Algeria, &c., have come from his pen; as a literary artist Gautier has few equals to-day in France, but his work is marred by a lax and paradoxical philosophy of life, which has, by his more enthusiastic admirers, been elevated into a “cult” (1811-1872).
Gautier and Garguille, all the world and his wife.
Gavarni, Paul, the nom de plume of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier, caricaturist, born in Paris; began life as an engineer's draughtsman, but soon turned his attention to his proper vocation as a cartoonist; most of his best work appeared in Le Charivari, but some of his bitterest and most earnest pictures, the fruit of a visit to London, appeared in L'Illustration; he also illustrated Balzac's novels, and Sue's “Wandering Jew” (1801-1866).
Gavazzi, Alessandro, an Italian anti-papal agitator, born at Bologna; admitted into the order of Barnabite monks; he became professor of Rhetoric at Naples; one of the most energetic supporters of Pius IX. in his liberal policy, he afterwards withdrew his allegiance; joined the Revolution of 1848, and ultimately fled to England on the occupation of Rome by the French; as an anti-papal lecturer he showed considerable oratorical powers; delivered addresses in Italian in England and Scotland against the papacy, which were received with enthusiasm, although in Canada they led to riots; he was taken by some for an Italian Knox; “God help them,” exclaimed Carlyle, who regarded him as a mere wind-bag (1809-1889).
Gavelkind, descent of property to all the sons alike, the oldest to have the horse and arms and the youngest the homestead.
Gawain, Sir, one of the Knights of the Round Table, King Arthur's nephew; celebrated for his courtesy and physical strength.
Gay, John, an English poet, born at Barnstaple the same year as Pope, a friend of his, to whom he dedicated his “Rural Sports”; was the author of a series of “Fables” and the “Beggar's Opera,” a piece which was received with great enthusiasm, and had a run of 63 nights, but which gave offence at Court, though it brought him the patronage of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, with whom he went to reside, and tinder whose roof he died; was buried in Westminster (1688-1732).
Gaya (80), chief town of a district of the same name in Bengal, on the Phalgu, 57 m. S. of Patna; it is a great centre of pilgrimage for Hindus, and has associations with Buddha; 100,000 pilgrims visit it annually.
Gay-Lussac, Louis Joseph, French chemist and physicist, born at St. Leonard, Haute-Vienne; at the Polytechnic School, Paris, his abilities attracted the attention of Berthollet (q. v.), who appointed him his assistant in the government chemical works at Arcueil; here he assiduously employed himself in chemical and physical research, in connection with which he made two balloon ascents; in 1809 he became professor of Chemistry at the Paris Polytechnic School; in 1832 was elected to a similar chair at the Jardin des Plantes; seven years later was created a peer of France, while in 1829 he became chief assayer to the Mint; his name is associated with many notable discoveries in chemistry and physics, e. g. the law of volumes, isolation of cyanogen, &c. (1778-1850).
Gaza, a Philistine town, the gates of which Samson carried off by night; situated on a mound at the edge of the desert, 5 m. from the sea, a considerable place to this day.
Gazette The, an official newspaper in which government and legal notices are published, issued on Tuesdays and Fridays; originally a Venetian newspaper, the first of the kind so called as issued for a farthing.
Gebir or Geber, the name under which several works on alchemy and chemistry were written by Jabir ihn Haijan, an Arabic alchemist of the 8th century; his birthplace is unknown, but he is said to have lived at Damascus and Kufa.
Ged, William, the inventor of stereotyping, born in Edinburgh, where he carried on business as a goldsmith; he endeavoured to push his new process of printing in London by joining in partnership with a capitalist, but, disappointed in his workmen and his partner, he returned despondent to Edinburgh; an edition of Sallust and two prayer-books (for Cambridge) were stereotyped by him (1699-1749).
Geddes, Alexander, biblical scholar, born at Arradowl, Banffshire; was trained for the Catholic Church, and after prosecuting his studies at Paris was appointed to the charge of a Catholic congregation at Auchinhalrig; ten years later he was deposed for heresy, and removing to London took to literary work; his most notable performance is his unfinished translation of the Scriptures, and the notes appended, in which he reveals a very pronounced rationalistic conception of holy writ; this work, which anticipated the views of such men as Eichhorn and Paulus, lost him his status as a priest, although to the end he professed a sincere belief in Christianity; he was the author of volumes of poems, &c. (1737-1802).
Geddes, Jenny, an Edinburgh worthy who on 23rd July 1637 immortalised herself by throwing her stool at the head of Laud's bishop as he proceeded from the desk of St. Giles's in the city to read the Collect for the day, exclaiming as she did so, “Deil colic the wame o' thee, fause loon, would you say Mass at my lug,” which was followed by great uproar, and a shout, “A Pape, a Pape; stane him”; “a daring feat, and a great,” thinks Carlyle, “the first act of an audacity which ended with the beheading of the king.”
Geefs, Guillaume, Belgian sculptor, born at Antwerp; executed a colossal work at Brussels, “Victims of the Revolution,” and numerous statues and busts as well as imaginative productions; had two brothers distinguished also as sculptors (1806-1860).
Geelong (24), a prettily laid out city of Victoria, on Corio Bay, 45 m. SW. of Melbourne. The gold discoveries of 1851 gave a stimulus to the town, which is now a busy centre of the wool trade, and has tanneries and paper works, &c. The harbourage is excellent, and in summer the town is a favourite resort as a watering-place.
Gefle (25), a seaport, and the third commercial town in Sweden; capital of the län of Gefleborg; is situated on an inlet of the Gulf of Bothnia, midway between Fahlun and Upsala; has an interesting old castle, a school of navigation, and, since a destructive fire in 1869, has been largely rebuilt.
Gehenna, the valley of Hinnom, on the S. of Jerusalem, with Tophet (q. v.) at its eastern end; became the symbol of hell from the fires kept burning in it night and day to consume the poisonous gases of the offal accumulated in it.
Gehenna Bailiffs, ministers of hell's justice, whose function is to see to and enforce the rights of hell.
Geibel, Emanuel von, a celebrated German poet, born at Lübeck; was professor of Æsthetics at Münich; the tender, sentimental passion that breathed in his poetry procured for him a wide-spread popularity, especially among women (1815-1884).
Geiger, Abraham, an eminent Hebrew scholar and Rabbi, born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, and editor of the Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie; strove hard to break down the barrier of Jewish exclusiveness (1810-1874).
Geijer, Erik Gustav, great Swedish historian, born in Vermland; held a post in the Record Office, Stockholm; was a poet as well as a historian, his principal work being “History of the Swedish People” (1783-1847).
Geikie, Sir Archibald, geologist, born at Edinburgh; at the age of 20 he joined the Geological Survey of Scotland, and in 1867 became director; in 1870 he became Murchison professor of Geology at Edinburgh, and in 1881 was appointed chief director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain; in 1801 he was knighted, and from 1892 to 1893 was President of the British Association; he is the author of various works on geology, written with great lucidity, as well as essays much appreciated; b. 1835.
Geikie, James, geologist, brother of the preceding, born at Edinburgh; in 1882, after serving 21 years in the Geological Survey of Scotland, he succeeded his brother in the chair of Geology at Edinburgh; his principal work as a scientist is “The Great Ice Age”; his literary sympathies appear in his admirable volume of translations of, “Songs and Lyrics of Heine”; b. 1839.
Geïler von Kaiserberg, Johann, a famous German pulpit orator, born at Schaffhausen; Strasburg was the principal scene of his labours; his writings, though numerous, are rare, among them the “Narrenschiff, or Ship of Fools” (1453-1510).
Gelasius I., St., Pope from 492 to 496; a vigorous man and strong assertor of the supremacy of the chair of St. Peter; G. II., also Pope from 1118 to 1119.
Gell, Sir William, archæologist, born at Hopton, Derbyshire; after graduating at Cambridge was elected to a Fellowship at Emmanuel College; his passion for classical antiquities led him latterly to settle in Italy, which bore fruit in various valuable works on the topography and antiquities of Troy, Pompeii, Rome, Attica, &c.; he had for some time previously been chamberlain to Queen Caroline, and appeared as a witness at her trial (1777-1836).
Gellert or Killhart, a famous dog which figures in Welsh tradition of the 13th century, and whose devotion and sad death are celebrated in a fine ballad written by the Hon. William Robert Spencer (1796-1834). The story is as follows: Prince Llewellyn on returning one day from the chase discovered the cradle of his child overturned and blood-stains on the floor. Immediately concluding that Gellert, whom he had left in charge of the child, had been the culprit, he plunged his sword into the breast of the dog and laid it dead. Too late he found his child safe hidden in the blankets, and by its side the dead body of an enormous wolf. Gellert's tomb is still pointed out in the village of Beddgelert on the S. of Snowdon. A story similar even to details is current in the traditionary lore of many other lands.
Gellert, Christian, a German poet, fabulist, and moralist, born in Saxony; professor of Philosophy at Leipzig; distinguished for the influence of his character and writings on the literature of the period in Germany, in the effect of it culminating in the literature of Schiller and Goethe; Frederick the Great, who had an interview with him, pronounced him the most rational of German professors (1715-1769).
Gellus, Aulus, a Latin grammarian, born at Rome; author of “Noctes Atticæ,” a miscellany professing to have been composed in a country house near Athens during winter nights, and ranging confusedly over topics of all kinds, interesting as abounding in extracts from ancient writings no longer extant.
Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse from 484 to 478 B.C.; rose from the ranks, gained a victory in 480 B.C. on the day of the battle of Salamis over a large host of Carthaginians who had invaded Sicily; d. 478 B.C., leaving behind him an honoured memory.
Gemara, the second part of the Talmud, being a body of notes, comments, &c. on the Mishna or text.
Gemini, the Twins, two stars in the southern hemisphere named Castor and Pollux; also the name of a sign of the zodiac.
Gendarmes (i. e. men-at-arms), a military police in France organised since the Revolution, and charged with maintaining the public safety. The gendarmerie is considered a part of the regular army, and is divided into legions and companies; but the pay is better than that of an ordinary soldier. In the 14th and 15th centuries the name was applied to the heavy French cavalry, and later to the royal bodyguard of the Bourbons.
Genesis, the first book in the Bible, so called in the Septuagint, as containing an account of the origin of the world, of the human family, and of the Jewish race; a book of the oldest date possessing any human interest.
Geneva: 1. The smallest canton (106) of Switzerland, situated at the western extremity of the lake of the name; the surface is hilly, but not mountainous, and is watered by the Rhône and Arve; the soil is unfertile, but the patient industry of the inhabitants has made it fruitful; the cultivation of the vine, fruit-growing, and the manufacture of watches, &c., are the chief industries; 85 per cent, of the people speak French. 2. Capital (78) of the canton, occupies a splendid geographical position at the south-western end of the lake, at the exit of the Rhône; the town existed in Cæsar's time, and after being subject in turn to Rome and Burgundy, ere long won its independence in conjunction with Bern and Freiburg. In Calvin's time it became a centre of Protestantism, and its history, down to the time of its annexation by Napoleon in 1798, is mainly occupied with the struggles between the oligarchical and democratic factions. On the overthrow of Napoleon it joined the Swiss Confederation. Since 1847 the town has been largely rebuilt, and handsomely laid out. Among many fine buildings are the Transition Cathedral of St. Peter (1124), the Academy founded by Calvin and others. The Rhône flows through it, and compasses an island which forms part of the city. It has many literary and historical associations, and was the birthplace of Rousseau.
Geneva, Lake of, or Lake Leman, stretches in crescent shape between Switzerland and France, curving round the northern border of the French department of Haute-Savoie; length, 45 m.; greatest breadth, 9 m.; maximum depth, 1022 ft. On the French side precipitous rocks descend to the water's edge, and contrast with the wooded slopes of the north. The water is of a deep-blue colour; many streams flow into it, notably the Rhône, which flows out at Geneva.
Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, born at Nanterre; by her prayer the city, then called Lutetia (q. v.) was saved from the ravages of Attila (422-512) and his Huns.
Genghis Khan (i. e. Very Mighty Ruler), a celebrated Mongol conqueror, born near Lake Baikal, the son of a Mongol chief; his career as a soldier began at the age of 13, an age at which he boldly assumed the reins of government in succession to his father; by his military skill and daring example he gradually raised his people to a position of supremacy in Asia, and established by means of them a kingdom which, at his death, stretched from the Volga to the Pacific, and from Siberia to the Persian Gulf; he regarded himself as commissioned by Heaven to conquer the world, a destiny which he almost fulfilled (1162-1227).
Genlis, Stephanie Félicité, Comtesse de, a celebrated French novelist, born at Champceri, near Autun, Burgundy; at the age of 16 she was married to the Comte de Genlis, who eventually fell a victim to the fury of the Revolution; in 1770 she was a lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse de Chartres, and 12 years later became governess to the children of the Duc d'Orléans, amongst whom was the future king of the French, Louis-Philippe; the Revolution drove her to Switzerland, but on the elevation of Napoleon she returned to Paris, and received from him a pension, which continued to be paid her even under the restored Bourbon dynasty: she was a voluminous writer of moral tales, comedies, &c., and her works amount to about 90 vols., among them the celebrated “Mémoirs” of her life and times; she was ill-natured, and in her “Memoirs” inaccurate, as well as prejudiced (1746-1830).
Gen`oa (138), a city and chief commercial seaport of Italy, built at the foot of the Apennines as they slope down to the gulf of the name. The encircling hills behind, which are strongly fortified, form a fine background to the picturesquely laid-out city. There is excellent harbourage for the extensive shipping, and an active export and import trade is carried on. In the city are iron-works, cotton and cloth mills, match factories, &c.; the streets are narrow and irregular, but many of the buildings, especially the ducal palaces and the cathedral, are of great historical and architectural interest; there is an excellent university, a public library, and an Academy of Fine Arts; Columbus was born here.
Genre Painting, name given to paintings embracing figures as they appear in ordinary life and in ordinary situations.
Gens, the name among the Romans for what we understand by the word clan as consisting of families.
Gens Braccata, the Gauls, from wearing braccæ or breeches.
Gens Togata, the Roman, from wearing the toga (q. v.) as their distinguishing dress.
Gen`seric, king of the Vandals, son of Godigiselus, founder of the Vandal kingdom in Spain, and bastard brother of Gunderic, whom he succeeded in A.D. 429; from Spain he crossed to Africa, and in conjunction with the Moors added to his kingdom the land lying W. of Carthage, ultimately gaining possession of Carthage itself; he next set himself to organise a naval force, with which he systematically from year to year pillaged Spain, Italy, Greece, and the opposite lands of Asia Minor, sacking Rome in 455; until his death in 477 he continued master of the seas, despite strenuous efforts of the Roman emperors to crush his power.
Gentilly, a southern suburb of Paris, once a village beyond the fortifications.
Gentle Shepherd, a famous pastoral by Allan Ramsay, with some happy descriptive scenes and a pleasant delineation of manners, published in 1723.
Gentle Shepherd, a nickname George Grenville bore from a retort of the elder Pitt one day in Parliament.
Gentlemen-at-arms, next to the yeomen of the guard the oldest corps in the British army, is the bodyguard of the sovereign; was formed by Henry VIII. in 1509; now consists of a captain, lieutenant, standard-bearer, adjutant, and 40 members, whose duties are limited to attendance at State ceremonies.
Gentz, Friedrich von, German politician and author, born at Breslau; while in the Prussian civil service he warmly sympathised with the French Revolution, but his zeal was greatly modified by perusal of Burke's “Reflections,” a treatise he subsequently translated, and in 1802 entered the Austrian public service; in the capacity of a political writer he bitterly opposed Napoleon, but for other purposes his pen and support were at the service of the highest bidder; he was secretary at the Congress of Vienna, and held a similar post in many of the subsequent congresses (1764-1832).
Geoffrey of Monmouth, a celebrated chronicler and ecclesiastic of the 12th century, born in Monmouth, where he was educated in a Benedictine monastery; in 1152 he was made bishop of St. Asaph; his Latin “Chronicon sive Historia Britonum” contains a circumstantial account of British history compiled from Gildas, Nennius, and other early chroniclers, interwoven with current legends and pieced together with additions from his own fertile imagination, the whole professing to be a translation of a chronicle found in Brittany; this remarkable history is the source of the stories of King Lear, Cymbeline, Merlin, and of Arthur and his knights as they have since taken shape in English literature; d. about 1154.
Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Étienne, zoologist and biologist, born at Étampes; he was educated for the Church, but while studying theology at Paris his love for natural science was awakened, and the study of it henceforth became the ruling passion of his life; was made professor of Zoology in the Museum of Natural History in Paris; accompanied Napoleon to Egypt as a member of the scientific commission, and returned with rich collections, while his labours were rewarded by his election to the Academy of Sciences; a scientific mission to Portugal in 1808 next engaged him, and a year later he was nominated to the chair of Zoology in the Faculty of Sciences at Paris; the main object of his scientific writing was to establish, in opposition to the theories of his friend Cuvier, his conception of a grand unity of plan pervading the whole organic kingdom (1772-1844).
Geoffrin, Marie Thérèse, a French patroness of letters, born at Paris, the daughter of a valet-de-chambre; in her fifteenth year she married a wealthy merchant, whose immense fortune she inherited; her love of letters—which she cherished, though but poorly educated herself—and her liberality soon made her salon the most celebrated in Paris; the encyclopédists, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Marmontel, received from her a liberal encouragement in their great undertaking; Walpole, Hume, and Gibbon were among her friends; and Stanislas Poniatowsky, who became king of Poland, acknowledged her generosity to him by styling himself her son and welcoming her royally to his kingdom (1699-1777).
George I., king of Great Britain from 1714 to 1727, and first of the Hanoverian line; son of Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, and of Sophia, granddaughter of James I. of England; born in Hanover; in 1682 he married his cousin, the Princess Sophia Dorothea of Zell, and in 1698 became Elector of Hanover; he co-operated actively with Marlborough in opposing the schemes of Louis XIV., and commanded the Imperial forces; in accordance with the Act of Settlement, he succeeded to the English throne on the death of Queen Anne; his ignorance of English prevented him taking part in Cabinet councils, a circumstance which had important results in the growth of constitutional government, and the management of public affairs during his reign devolved chiefly upon Sir Robert Walpole; the abortive Jacobite rising of 1715, the South Sea Bubble (1720), and the institution of Septennial Parliaments (1716), are among the main events of his reign; in 1694 he divorced his wife on account of an amour with Count Königsmark, and kept her imprisoned abroad till her death in 1724, while he himself during these years lived in open profligacy with his mistresses (1660-1727).
George II., king of Great Britain from 1727 to 1760, and Elector of Hanover, born in Hanover, son of preceding; in 1705 he married Caroline of Anspach, and in 1714 was declared Prince of Wales; he joined his father in the struggle with Louis XIV., and distinguished himself on the side of the Allies at the battle of Oudenarde; the period of his reign is one of considerable importance in English history; Walpole and subsequently Pitt were the great ministers of the age; war was waged against Spain and France; the last Jacobite rising was crushed at Culloden (1746); English power was established in Canada by the brilliant victory of Wolfe at Quebec (1759); an empire was won in India by Clive; the victory of Minden (1759) was gained in the Seven Years' War; Methodism sprang up under Wesley and Whitfield; while a great development in literature and art took place; against these, however, must be set the doubling of the National Debt, mainly due to the Seven Years' War, and a defeat by the French at Fontenoy (1745) (1683-1760).
George III., king of Great Britain from 1760 to 1820, and king of Hanover (Elector from 1760 to 1815), eldest son of Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, and grandson of preceding, born in London; in 1761 he married Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, by whom he had fifteen children; more English in sentiment and education than his two predecessors, George's main interest was centred in his English kingdom, and never during his long life did he once set foot in his Hanoverian possessions; the purity of his domestic life, his devotion to England, and the pathos attaching to his frequent fits of insanity, won him the affections of his people, an affection, however, sorely tried by his obstinate blundering; the 60 years of his reign present a succession of domestic episodes, far-reaching in their consequences to England and to the civilised world; the conclusion of the Seven Years' War left England predominant in North America, and with increased colonial possessions in the West Indies, &c., but under the ill-guided and obstinate policy of Lord North she suffered the loss of her American colonies, an event which also involved her in war with France and Spain; in 1787 the famous trial of Warren Hastings (q. v.) began, and two years later came the French Revolution; the great struggle with Napoleon followed, and gave occasion for the brilliant achievements of Nelson and Wellington; during these long years of war the commercial prosperity of England never slackened, but through the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Compton increased by leaps and bounds; freedom of the press was won by Wilkes; and in 1802 the union with Ireland took place; the majestic figure of Pitt stands out amidst a company of brilliant politicians that included Burke and Fox and Sheridan; literature is represented by a line of brilliant writers that stretches from Johnson to Keats, and includes the names of Burns, Cowper, Shelley, and Byron (1738-1820).
George IV., king of Great Britain and of Hanover from 1820 to 1830, eldest son of the preceding, born in London; in consequence of his father's insanity he became Regent in 1810; a tendency to profligacy early displayed itself in an intrigue with Mrs. Robinson, an actress; and two years afterwards in defiance of the Royal Marriage Act he secretly married Mrs. Fitzherbert (q. v.), a Roman Catholic; in 1795 he publicly espoused Princess Caroline of Brunswick, whom later he endeavoured to divorce; a Burmese War (1823), the victory of Admiral Codrington at Navarino (1827), the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts (1828), and the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill (1829), were occurrences of some importance in an uneventful reign (1762-1830).
George I., king of Greece, son of King Christian of Denmark, and brother of the Princess of Wales; became king of Greece in 1864; b. 1845.
George, Henry, an American writer on social and economic questions, born in Philadelphia; he first tried life on the sea, but in 1858 settled in California as a printer, and there married; in course of time he took to journalism, became an editor, and zealously addressed himself to the discussion of public affairs; his peculiar views on the question of land reform were set forth in “Our Land and Land Policy,” published in 1870, and nine years later appeared his more famous and widely popular work “Progress and Poverty,” in which he promulgated the theory that to the increase in economic rent and land values is due the lack of increase in wages and interest which the increased productive power of modern times should have ensured; he proposed the levying of a tax on land so as to appropriate economic rent to public uses, and the abolition of all taxes falling upon industry and thrift; he lectured in Great Britain and Ireland, Australia, &c.; in 1887 founded the Standard paper in New York; he died during his candidature for the mayoralty of Greater New York (1839-1897).
George, St., the patron saint of chivalry and of England; adopted as such in the reign of Edward III.; believed to have been born in Armorica, and to have suffered martyrdom under Diocletian in A.D. 303; he is represented as mounted on horseback and slaying a dragon (q. v.), conceived as an incarnation of the evil one.
Georgetown: 1 (53), capital of British Guiana, at the mouth of the Demerara River; is the see of an Anglican bishop; is neatly laid out, and has some handsome buildings, but is considered unhealthy; the staple industries are sugar and coffee. 2 (14), a port of entry in the District of Columbia, on the Potomac, 2 m. NW. of Washington; is a terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
Georgia: 1 (1,837), one of the 13 original States of the American Union, lies to the S., fronting the Atlantic between Florida and S. Carolina; is divided into 136 counties, Atlanta being the capital and Savannah the chief port; it is well watered with rivers; is low and swampy for some miles inland, but it rises into plateaux in the interior, and the Appalachians and Blue Mountains intersect it in the NW.; excellent crops of wheat and fruit are grown among the hills, rice in the lowlands, while immense quantities of cotton are raised on the islands skirting the coast; the vast forests of pitch-pine supply an increasing lumber trade; the mountain lands are rich in minerals; the State was named after George II. in 1733 by the founder, James Oglethorpe. 2, The former name of an independent kingdom, which extended along the southern slopes of the Caucasus, and which, since the beginning of the century, has belonged to Russia under the name of Gruzia, and now forms the central portion of Russian Transcaucasia; the Georgians number at present about a million; they are a people of splendid physique, whose history reaches back to the time of Alexander the Great, and who attained their zenith in the 12th century; subsequently they suffered from Persian and Turkish invasion, and eventually, as we have said, fell into the hands of Russia; at present there is a Georgian literature growing, especially in Tiflis, if that is any sign of advance.
Gera (30), a thriving city on the White Elster, 35 m. SW. of Leipzig; has broad streets and fine buildings, with a castle; chief manufactures woollen.
Geraint, Sir, one of the Knights of the Round Table, the husband of Enid, whose fidelity he for a time distrusted, but who proved herself a true wife by the care with which she nursed him when he was wounded.
Gérard, Étienne Maurice, Comte, marshal of France, born at Damvillers, Lorraine; in 1791 he entered the army and fought under Bernadotte in various campaigns; at Austerlitz he won his brigade, and subsequently fought at Jena, Erfurt, and Wagram; he joined Napoleon after his flight from Elba, and was wounded at Wavre; on the downfall of the Emperor he quitted France, but returned in 1817; in 1822 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, and in 1831 assisted in driving the Dutch out of Flanders; he was War Minister under Louis Philippe (1773-1855).
Gérard, François Pascal Simon, Baron, painter, born at Rome, of French and Italian parentage; came to Paris when a youth, where he studied painting under David; in 1795 his “Blind Belisarius” brought him to the front, whilst subsequent work as a portrait-painter raised him above all his contemporaries; his masterpiece, “Entry of Henri IV. into Paris,” brought him a barony at the hands of Louis XVIII.; his historical paintings, characterised by minute accuracy of detail, include “Napoleon in his Coronation Robes,” “Battle of Austerlitz,” &c. (1770-1837).
Gerhardt, Karl Friedrich, chemist, born at Strasburg; after a training at Carlsruhe and Leipzig, worked in Liebig's laboratory at Giessen; in 1838 he began lecturing in Paris, and made experiments along with Cahours on essential oils, which bore fruit in an important treatise; in 1844 he received the chair of Chemistry at Montpellier, but returned to Paris four years later; there he matured and published his theories of types, homologous series, &c., which have greatly influenced the science of chemistry; in 1855 he became professor of Chemistry in Strasburg (1816-1856).
Gerhardt, Paul, a celebrated German hymn-writer of the Lutheran Church, born at Gräfenhainichen, in Saxony; in 1657 he became dean of St. Nicholas in Berlin, an appointment he held till 1666, when he was deposed for his embittered opposition to the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches; he was subsequently pastor at Lübben; his hymns, 123 in number, rank amongst the finest of their class (1607-1676).
Gerizzim, a mountain of 2848 ft. in height in the S. of the valley of Shechem, opposite Ebal (q. v.), and from the slopes of which the blessings were responded to by half the tribes of Israel on their arrival in Canaan (Josh. viii. 30-35); the Samaritans erected a temple on this mountain, ruins of which still remain.
Germ Theory, the doctrine that certain diseases are due to fermentation caused by the presence of germs in the system in the form of minute organisms called bacteria.
German Catholics, a sect formed in 1844 by secession from the Catholic Church of Germany, under the leadership of Johann Ronge, on account of the mummery under papal patronage connected with the exhibition of the Holy Coat of Trèves and the superstitious influence ascribed to it.
German Voltaire, name given sometimes to Wieland and sometimes, but less appropriately, to Goethe.
Germanicus, Cæsar, Roman general, son of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia, daughter of Mark Antony; he served with distinction under his uncle Tiberius in Dalmatia and Pannonia; was awarded a triumph, and in A.D. 12 was elected consul; his success and popularity as leader of the army on the Rhine provoked the jealousy of Tiberius, who transferred him to the East, where he subsequently died; his son Caligula succeeded Tiberius on the imperial throne (15 B.C.-A.D. 19).
Germany (49,428), constituted an empire in 1871, occupies a commanding position in Central Europe, and stretches from Switzerland in the S. to the German Ocean and Baltic Sea on the N.; Austria lies to the SE., Russia to the NE., while France, Belgium, and the Netherlands flank the W.; is made up of 26 States of widely varying size and importance, comprising four kingdoms (of which Prussia is by far the largest and most influential), six grand-duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free towns (Lübeck, Bremen, Hamburg), and one imperial province, Alsace-Lorraine; the main physical divisions are (1) the great lowland plain stretching from the centre to the Baltic and North Sea, well watered by the Ems, Weser, Elbe, Oder, Vistula, and their tributaries, in which, bating large sandy tracts, agriculture employs a large class, and cereals, tobacco, and beetroot are raised; (2) the mountainous district, in the interior of which the Fichtelgebirge is the central knot, in which vast forests abound, and rich deposits of coal, fire-clays, iron, and other metals are worked, giving rise to iron-works and potteries; (3) the basin of the Rhine, on the W., where the vine is largely cultivated, and extensive manufactures of silks, cottons, and hardware are carried on; fine porcelain comes from Saxony and vast quantities of beer from Bavaria; Westphalia is the centre of the steel and iron works; throughout Germany there are 26,000 m. of railway line (chiefly State railways), 57,000 m. of telegraph line, while excellent roads, canals, and navigable rivers facilitate communication; 65 per cent. of the people are Protestants; education is compulsory and more highly developed than in any other European country; the energies of the increasing population have in recent years found scope for their action in their growing colonial possessions; the military system imposes upon every German a term of seven years' service, three in active service, and the remainder in the reserve, and till his forty-sixth year he is liable to be called out on any great emergency; under the emperor the government is carried on by a Federal Council, the members of which are appointed by the governments of the various estates, and the Reichstag, elected by universal suffrage and ballot for three years.
Gérôme, Léon, a celebrated French painter, born at Vésoul; he studied at Paris under Paul Delaroche, with whom he subsequently travelled in Italy; he travelled in the East and familiarised himself with Eastern scenes; in 1863 he was appointed professor of Painting in the Paris School of Fine Arts; among his most famous pictures, all characterised by vivid colouring and strong dramatic effect, are “The Age of Augustus and the Birth of Christ,” “Roman Gladiators in the Amphitheatre,” “Cleopatra and Cæsar,” &c.; b. 1824.
Gerry, Elbridge, American statesman, born in Marblehead, Mass.; in 1773, eight years after graduating at Harvard, he was elected to the Massachusetts Assembly, and in 1789 to the first National Congress; as envoy to France in 1797 he assisted in establishing diplomatic relations with that country, and after his recall in 1810 was chosen governor of his native State; during his tenancy of this office, by an unfair redistribution of the electoral districts in the State he gave undue advantage to his own political party, a proceeding which led to the coining of the word “gerrymandering”; subsequently he held office as Vice-President of the Republic (1744-1814).
Gerson, John Charlier de, an eminent ecclesiastical scholar, born at Gerson, in the diocese of Rheims; in 1395 he became chancellor of his old university at Paris, and earned in that office a high reputation for learning, becoming known as Doctor Christianissimus; he was a prominent member of the councils of Pisa and Constance, advocating, as a remedy for the Western Schism, the resignation of the rival Popes; in consequence of his denunciation of the Duke of Burgundy for the murder of the Duke of Orleans he was forced to become a refugee in Germany for some time, but finally retired into the monastery of Lyons; his various works reveal an intellect of keen intelligence, but somewhat tinged with a cloudy mysticism (1363-1429).
Gerstäcker, Friedrich, German author and traveller, born in Hamburg; when 21 he emigrated to New York, and for six years led a wandering life in different parts of America, working the while now at one occupation now at another, a narrative of which he published on his return to Germany; in 1849 he undertook a journey round the world which occupied him three years; in 1860-61 he crossed S. America; in 1862 he was in Africa with Duke Ernst of Gotha, and in 1863 in Central America; his many writings, descriptive of these countries, exhibit a fresh and graphic style, and have had a wide popularity; he is the author also of several thrilling stories (1816-1872).
Gervase of Tilbury, a mediæval historical writer, born at Tilbury, in Essex; said to have been a nephew of King Henry II.; he held a lectureship in Canon Law at Bologna, and through the influence of Emperor Otto IV. was made marshal of the kingdom of Arles; he was the author of “Otia Imperiala,” a historical and geographical work; d. about 1235.
Gervinus, Georg Gottfried, German historian and Shakespearian critic, born at Darmstadt; he was elected to the chair of History at Göttingen in 1836, an appointment which was cancelled the following year by his signing the protest against the abolition of the Hanoverian constitution; in 1844 he was appointed honorary professor at Heidelberg, and subsequently contributed greatly to the establishment of constitutional liberty in Germany by means of his writings and by founding the Deutsche Zeitung there; in 1848 he became a member of the National Assembly, but shortly afterwards withdrew, disgusted with the course things were taking; he now engaged in literary studies, the fruit of which appeared in his celebrated volumes of Shakespearian criticism (1805-1871).
Geryon, a king of Erytheia (i. e. red island), on the western borders of the world, with three bodies and three heads, who had a herd of oxen guarded by a giant shepherd and his dog, the two-throated Orthros, which were carried off by Hercules at the behest of his fate.
Gesenius, an eminent German Hebraist and Biblical scholar, born in Prussian Saxony, whose labours form an epoch in the study of the Hebrew Scriptures; was 30 years professor of the language in Halle; produced a Hebrew Grammar and Lexicon, and commentary on Isaiah on rationalistic lines (1785-1842).
Gesner, Konrad von, Swiss scholar and naturalist, born at Zurich; hampered by ill-health and poverty in his youth, he yet contrived by unremitting diligence to obtain an excellent education at Strasburg, Bourges, and Paris; in his twenty-first year he obtained an appointment in Zurich University, and in 1537 became professor of Greek at Lausanne; abandoning the idea he entertained of entering the Church, he determined to adopt the medical profession instead, graduated at Basel in 1540, and a year later went to Zurich to occupy the chair of Natural History and to practise as a doctor; his chief works are the “Bibliotheca Universalis” (a catalogue and summary of all Hebrew, Greek, and Latin works then known to exist), and the “Historia Animalium”; these monuments of learning have won him the cognomen of the German Pliny (1516-1565).
Gessler, Albrecht, a governor of the forest cantons of Switzerland, who figures in Swiss legend as an oppressor who was shot as related in the tradition of Tell.
Gessner, Salomon, Swiss poet and artist, born at Zurich; served an apprenticeship to a bookseller in Berlin, and after a sojourn in Hamburg returned to Zurich, where the rest of his life was spent; he published several volumes of poetry, chiefly pastoral and of no great value; his “Death of Abel” is his most notable performance; his paintings are mainly landscapes of a conventional type, several of which he engraved, revealing better abilities as an engraver than as an artist (1730-1788).
Gesta Romanorum (the exploits of the Romans), a collection of short didactic stories, not however solely Roman, written in the Latin tongue, probably towards the close of the 13th century, the authorship of which is uncertain, though it is generally recognised as of English origin; the stories are characterised by naïve simplicity, and have served as materials for many notable literary productions; thus Shakespeare owes to this work the plot of Pericles and the incidents of the caskets and the pound of flesh in the “Merchant of Venice,” Parnell his “Hermit,” Byron his “Three Black Crows,” and Longfellow his “King Robert of Sicily.”
Gethsemane, somewhere on the E. of Kedron, half a mile from Jerusalem, at the foot of Mount Olivet, the scene of the Agony of Christ.
Gettysburg (3), a town in Pennsylvania, built on a group of hills 50 m. SW. of Harrisburg; during the Civil War it was the scene of General Meade's famous victory over the Confederates under General Lee on July 3, 1863.
Geyser, fountains which from time to time, under the expansion of steam, eject columns of steam and hot water, and which are met with in Iceland, North America, and New Zealand, of which the most remarkable is the Great Geyser, 70 m. N. of Reikiavik, in Iceland, which ejects a column of water to 60 ft. in height, accompanied with rumblings underground; these eruptions will continue some 15 minutes, and they recur every few hours.
Gfrörer, August Friedrich, a learned German historian, born in the Black Forest; educated for the Protestant ministry; in 1828, after residence at Geneva and Rome, started as a tutor of theology, and two years later became librarian at Stuttgart; published a number of historical works, including a “Life of Gustavus Adolphus,” “Pope Gregory VII.,” a “History of Primitive Christianity,” “Church History to the Fourteenth Century”; in this last work he showed a strong leaning to Catholicism; was appointed to the chair of History in the university of Freiburg; was elected to the Frankfort parliament, and finally openly professed the Catholic faith (1803-1861).
Ghâts, or Ghauts, Eastern and Western, two mountain ranges running parallel with the E. and W. coasts of S. India, the latter skirting the Malabar coast between 30 and 40 m. from the sea, rising to nearly 5000 ft., and exhibiting fine mountain and forest scenery, and the former skirting the E. of the Deccan, of which tableland it here forms the buttress, and has a much lower mean level; the two ranges converge into one a short distance from Cape Comorin.
Ghazali, Abu Mohammed al-, Arabian philosopher, born at Tûs, Persia; in 1091 he was appointed professor of Philosophy in Bagdad; four years later he went to Mecca, and subsequently taught at Damascus, Jerusalem, and Alexandria; finally, he returned to his native town and there founded a Sufic college; of his numerous philosophic and religious works the most famous is the “Destruction of the Philosophers,” in which he combats the theories and conclusions of the current Arabian scholasticism (1058-1111).
Ghazipur (45), a city of India, on the Ganges, 44 m. NE. of Benares, capital of the district of that name (1,077), in the North-West Provinces; is the head-quarters of the Government Opium Department, and trades in rose-water, sugar, tobacco, &c.; contains the ruins of the Palace of Forty Pillars.
Ghazni (10), a fortified city of Afghanistan, 7726 ft. above the sea, 85 m. SW. of Cabul; it is the chief strategical point on the military route between Kandahar and Cabul; in the 11th and 12th centuries it was the capital of the Kingdom Of Ghaznevids, which stretched from the plains of Delhi to the Black Sea, and which came to an end in 1186.
Gheel (12), a town in Belgium, situated on a fertile spot in the midst of the sandy plain called the Campine, 26 m. SE. of Antwerp; it has been for centuries celebrated as an asylum for the insane, who (about 1300) are now boarded out among the peasants; these cottage asylums are under government control, and the board of the patients in most cases is guaranteed.
Ghent (150), a city of Belgium, capital of East Flanders, situated at the junction of the Scheldt and the Lys, 34 m. NW. of Brussels; rivers and canals divide it into 26 quarters, connected by 270 bridges; in the older part are many quaint and interesting buildings, notably the cathedral of St. Bavon (13th century); it is the first industrial city of Belgium, and is a great emporium of the cotton, woollen, and linen trades; the floriculture is famed, and the flower-shows have won it the name of the “City of Flowers.”
Ghetto, an Italian word applied to the quarters set apart in Italian cities for the Jews, and to which in former times they were restricted; the term is now applied to the Jews' quarters in any city.
Ghibellines, a political party in Italy who, from the 11th to the 14th centuries, maintained the supremacy of the German emperors over the Italian States in opposition to the Guelphs (q. v.).
Ghiberti, Lorenzo, an Italian sculptor and designer, born at Florence; his first notable work was a grand fresco in the palace of Malatesta at Rimini in 1400, but his most famous achievement, which immortalised his name, was the execution of two doorways, with bas-relief designs, in the baptistery at Florence; he spent 50 years at this work, and so noble were the designs and so perfect the execution that Michael Angelo declared them fit to be the gates of Paradise (about 1378-1455).
Ghika, Helena. See Dora d'Istria.
Ghilan (200), a province of NW. Persia, between the SW. border of the Caspian Sea and the Elburz Mountains; is low-lying, swampy, and unhealthy towards the Caspian, but the rising ground to the S. is more salubrious; wild animals are numerous in the vast forests; the soil, where cleared, is fertile and well cultivated; the Caspian fisheries are valuable; the people are of Iranian descent, and speak a Persian dialect.
Ghirlandajo (i. e. Garland-maker), nickname of Domenico Curradi, an Italian painter, born at Florence; acquired celebrity first as a designer in gold; he at 24 turned to painting, and devoted himself to fresco and mosaic work, in which he won wide-spread fame; amongst his many great frescoes it is enough to mention here “The Massacre of the Innocents,” at Florence, and “Christ calling Peter and Andrew,” at Rome; Michael Angelo was for a time his pupil (1449-1494).
Ghuzni. See Ghazni.
Giants, in the Greek mythology often confounded with, but distinct from, the Titans (q. v.), being a mere earthly brood of great stature and strength, who thought by their violence to dethrone Zeus, and were with the assistance of Hercules overpowered and buried under Etna and other volcanoes, doomed to continue their impotent grumbling there.
Giant's Causeway, a remarkable headland of columnar basaltic rock in North Ireland, projecting into the North Channel from the Antrim coast at Bengore Head, 7 m. NE. of Portrush; is an unequal surface 300 yds. long and 30 ft. wide, formed by the tops of the 40,000 closely packed, vertical columns which rise to a height of 400 ft. The legend goes that it was the beginning of a roadway laid down by a giant.
Giaour, the Turkish name for an unbeliever in the Mohammedan faith, and especially for a Christian in that regard.
Gibbon, Edward, eminent historian, born at Putney, near London, of good parentage; his early education was greatly hindered by a nervous complaint, which, however, disappeared by the time he was 14; a wide course of desultory reading had, in a measure, repaired the lack of regular schooling, and when at the age of 15 he was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, he possessed, as he himself quaintly puts it, “a stock of erudition which might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a schoolboy might have been ashamed”; 14 months later he became a convert to Roman Catholicism, and in consequence was obliged to quit Oxford; in the hope of reclaiming him to the Protestant faith he was placed in the charge of the deistical poet Mallet, and subsequently under a Calvinist minister at Lausanne; under the latter's kindly suasion he speedily discarded Catholicism, and during five years' residence established his learning on a solid foundation; time was also found for the one love episode of his life—an amour with Suzanne Curchod, an accomplished young lady, who subsequently became the wife of the French minister M. Neckar, and mother of Madame de Staël; shortly after his return to England in 1758 he published in French an Essay on the Study of Literature, and for some time served in the militia; in 1774, having four years previously inherited his father's estate, he entered Parliament, and from 1779 to 1782 was one of the Lords Commissioners of Trade and Plantations; in 1776 appeared the first volume of his great history “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the conception of which had come to him in 1764 in Rome whilst “musing amongst the ruins of the Capitol”; in 1787 his great work was finished at Lausanne, where he had resided since 1783; modern criticism, working with fresh sources of information, has failed to find any serious flaw in the fabric of this masterpiece in history, but the cynical attitude adopted towards the Christian religion has always been regarded as a defect; “a man of endless reading and research,” was Carlyle's verdict after a final perusal of the “Decline,” “but of a most disagreeable style, and a great want of the highest faculties of what we would call a classical historian, compared with Herodotus, for instance, and his perfect clearness and simplicity in every part”; he, nevertheless, characterised his work to Emerson once as “a splendid bridge from the old world to the new” (1737-1794).
Gibbons, Grinling, a celebrated wood-carver, born at Rotterdam, but brought up in England; through the influence of Evelyn he obtained a post in the Board of Works, and his marvellous skill as a wood-carver won him the patronage of Charles II., who employed him to furnish ornamental carving for the Chapel of Windsor; much of his best work was done for the nobility, and in many of their mansions his carving is yet extant in all its grace and finish, the ceiling of a room at Petworth being considered his masterpiece; he also did some notable work in bronze and marble (1648-1721).
Gibbons, Orlando, an eminent English musician, composer of many exquisite anthems, madrigals, &c., born at Cambridge; in 1604 he obtained the post of organist in the Chapel Royal, London, and two years later received the degree of Mus. Bac. of Cambridge, while Oxford recognised his rare merits in 1622 by creating him a Mus. Doc.; in the following year he became organist of Westminster Abbey, and in 1625 was in official attendance at Canterbury on the occasion of Charles I.'s marriage, but he did not live to celebrate the ceremony, for which he wrote the music; he is considered the last and greatest of the old Church musicians of England (1583-1625).
Gibeon, a place on the northern slopes of a hill 6 or 7 m. S. of Bethel, and the spot over which Joshua bade the sun stand still; its inhabitants, for a trick they played on the invading Israelites, wore condemned to serve them as “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
Gibraltar, a promontory of rock, in the S. of Spain, about 2 m. square and over 1400 ft. in height, connected with the mainland by a spit of sand, forming a strong fortress, with a town (25) of the name at the foot of it on the W. side, and with the Strait of Gibraltar on the S., which at its narrowest is 15 m. broad; the rock above the town is a network of batteries, mounted with heavy cannon, and the town itself is a trade entrepôt for N. Africa; the rock has been held as a stronghold by the British since 1704.
Gibson, John, sculptor, born at Gyffin, near Conway, Wales, of humble parentage; after serving an apprenticeship to a cabinet-maker in Liverpool, he took to carving in wood and stone, and supported by Roscoe became a pupil of Canova and afterwards of Thorwaldsen in Rome; here he made his home and did his best work; mention may be made of “Theseus and the Robber,” “Amazon thrown from her horse,” statues of George Stephenson, Peel, and Queen Victoria; in 1836 he was elected a member of the Royal Academy (1790-1866).
Gibson, Thomas Milner, politician, born at Trinidad; graduated at Cambridge; entered Parliament in the Conservative interest, but becoming a convert to Free-Trade principles, he went over to the Liberal ranks, and became an active and eloquent supporter of the Manchester policy; returned for Manchester in 1841 and 1846, was made a Privy Councillor and Vice-President of the Board of Trade; his earnest advocacy of peace at the Crimean crisis lost him his seat in Manchester, but Ashton-under-Lyne returned him the same year; under Palmerston he was for seven years (1859-66) President of the Board of Trade; his name is honourably associated with the repeal of the Advertisement, Newspaper Stamp, and Paper Duties; in 1868 he retired from public life (1806-1884).
Gideon, one of the most eminent of the Judges of Israel, famous for his defeat of the Midianites at Gilboa, and the peace of 40 years' duration which it ensured to the people under his rule.
Giesebrecht, Wilhelm von, historian, born at Berlin; was professor of History at Königsberg and at Münich; his chief work is “Geschichte der Deutschen Kaiserzeit” (1814-1889).
Gieseler, Johann Karl Ludwig, a learned Church historian, born near Minden; after quitting Halle University adopted teaching as a profession, but in 1813 served in the war against France; on the conclusion of the war he held educational appointments at Minden; was nominated in 1819 to the chair of Theology at Bonn, and in 1831 was appointed to a like professorship in Göttingen; his great work is a “History of the Church” in 6 vols. (1793-1854).
Giessen (21), the chief town of Hesse-Darmstadt, situated at the confluence of the Wieseck and the Lahn, 40 m. N. of Frankfort-on-the-Main; has a flourishing university, and various manufactories.
Gifford, Adam, Lord, a Scottish judge, born in Edinburgh; had a large practice as a barrister, and realised a considerable fortune, which he bequeathed towards the endowment of four lectureships on Natural Theology in connection with each of the four universities in Scotland; was a man of a philosophical turn of mind, and a student of Spinoza; held office as a judge from 1870 to 1881 (1820-1887).
Gifford, William, an English man of letters, born in Ashburton, Devonshire; left friendless and penniless at an early age by the death of his parents, he first served as a cabin-boy, and subsequently for four years worked as a cobbler's apprentice; through the generosity of a local doctor, and afterwards of Earl Grosvenor, he obtained a university training at Oxford, where in 1792 he graduated; a period of travel on the Continent was followed in 1794 by his celebrated satire the “Baviad,” and in two years later by the “Mæviad”; his editorship of the Anti-Jacobin (1797-1798) procured him favour and office at the hands of the Tories; the work of translation, and the editing of Elizabethan poets, occupied him till 1809, when he became the first editor of the Quarterly Review; his writing is vigorous, and marked by strong partisanship, but his bitter attacks on the new literature inaugurated by Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and others reveal a prejudiced and narrow view of literature (1757-1826).
Gigman, Carlyle's name for a man who prides himself on, and pays all respect to, respectability; derived from a definition once given in a court of justice by a witness who, having described a person as respectable, was asked by the judge in the case what he meant by the word; “one that keeps a gig,” was the answer.
Gil Blas, a romance by Le Sage, from the name of the hero, a character described by Scott as honestly disposed, but being constitutionally timid, unable to resist temptation, though capable of brave actions, and intelligent, but apt to be deceived through vanity, with sufficient virtue to make us love him, but indifferent to our respect.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, navigator, born in Devonshire, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh; in 1583 established a settlement in Newfoundland.
Gilbert, Sir John, English artist, President of the Royal Society of Water-Colour Painters; was for long an illustrator of books, among the number an edition of Shakespeare; he was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1817-1897).
Gilbert, William Schwenck, barrister, notable as a play-writer and as the author of the librettos of a series of well-known popular comic operas set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan; b. 1836.
Gilbert Islands, or Kingsmill Group (37), a group of islands in the Pacific, of coral formation, lying on the equator between 172° and 177° E. long; they are 16 in number, were discovered in 1788, and annexed by Britain in 1892.
Gilboa, Mount, a range of hills on the SE. of the Plain of Esdraëlon, in Palestine, attaining a height of 1698 ft.
Gilchrist, Alexander, biographer of William Blake (q. v.), born at Newington Green, son of a Unitarian minister; although called to the bar, literary and art criticism became his main pursuit; settled at Guildford in 1853, where he wrote his Life of the artist Etty; became in 1856 a next-door neighbour of Carlyle at Chelsea, and had all but finished his Life of Blake when he died (1828-1861).—His wife, Anne Gilchrist, née Burrows, was during her life an active contributor to magazines; she completed her husband's Life of Blake, and in 1883 published a Life of Mary Lamb (1828-1885).
Gildas, a monkish historian of Britain, who wrote in the 6th century a Latin work entitled “De Excidio Britanniæ,” which afterwards appeared in two parts, a History and an Epistle.
Gilead, a tableland extending along the E. of the Jordan, at a general level of 2000 ft. above the sea, the highest point near Ramoth-Gilead being 3597 ft.
Giles, St., the patron saint of cripples, beggars, and lepers; was himself a cripple, due to his refusal to be cured of a wound that he might learn to mortify the flesh; was fed by the milk of a hind that visited him daily; had once at his monastery a long interview with St. Louis, without either of them speaking a word to the other.
Gilfillan, George, a critic and essayist, born at Comrie, minister of a Dissenting congregation in Dundee from 1836 to his death; a writer with a perfervid style; author of “Gallery of Literary Portraits,” “Bards of the Bible,” etc., and editor of Nichol's “British Poets,” which extended to 48 vols. (1817-1878).
Gillespie, George, a celebrated Scotch divine, born at Kirkcaldy; trained at St. Andrews, and ordained to a charge at Wemyss; in 1642 he was called to Edinburgh, and in the following year appointed one of a deputation of four to represent Scotland at the Westminster Assembly; his chief work is “Aaron's Rod Blossoming,” a vigorous statement and vindication of his Presbyterianism; in 1648 he was Moderator of the General Assembly (1613-1648).
Gilpin, John, a London citizen, on an adventure of whose life Cowper has written a humorous poem.
Gilpin, William, of Boldre, an English author, who by his series of “Picturesque Tours” exercised an influence on English literature similar to that of White's “Selborne,” at the same time (1724-1804).
Gilray, James, English caricaturist, born in Chelsea; distinguished for his broad humour and keen satire; his works were numerous and highly popular; died insane (1757-1815).
Gioberti, Vincenzo, an Italian philosophical and political writer, born at Turin; in 1825 he was appointed to the chair of Theology in his native city, and in 1831 chaplain to the Court of Charles Albert of Sardinia; two years later was exiled on a charge of complicity in the plots of the Young Italy party, and till 1847 remained abroad, chiefly in Brussels, busy with his pen on literary, philosophical, and political subjects; in 1848 he was welcomed back to Italy, and shortly afterwards rose to be Prime Minister of a short-lived government; his later years were spent in diplomatic work at Paris; in philosophy he reveals Platonic tendencies, while his political ideal was a confederated Italy, with the Pope at the head and the king of Sardinia as military guardian (1801-1852).
Giordano, Luca, Italian painter, born at Naples; studied under various celebrated masters at Naples, Rome, Lombardy, and other places, finally returning to Naples; in 1692 he received a commission from Charles II. of Spain to adorn the Escurial, and in the execution of this work remained at Madrid till 1700, when he again settled in his native city; he was famous in his day for marvellous rapidity of workmanship, but this fluency combined with a too slavish adherence to the methods of the great masters has somewhat robbed his work of individuality; his frescoes in the Escurial at Madrid and others in Florence and Rome are esteemed his finest work (1632-1705).
Giorgione (i. e. Great George), the sobriquet given to Giorgio Barbarella, one of the early masters of the Venetian school, born near Castelfranco, in the NE. of Italy; at Venice he studied under Giovanni Bellini, and had Titian as a fellow-pupil; his portraits are among the finest of the Italian school, and exhibit a freshness of colour and conception and a firmness of touch unsurpassed in his day; his works deal chiefly with scriptural and pastoral scenes, and include a “Holy Family” in the Louvre, “Virgin and Child” in Venice, and “Moses Rescued” (1447-1511).
Giotto, a great Italian painter, born at a village near Florence; was a shepherd's boy, and at 10 years of age, while tending his flock and drawing pictures of them, was discovered by Cimabue, who took him home and made a pupil of him; “never,” says Ruskin, “checked the boy from the first day he found him, showed him all he knew, talked with him of many things he himself felt unable to paint; made him a workman and a gentleman, above all, a Christian, yet left him a shepherd.... His special character among the great painters of Italy was that he was a practical person; what others dreamt of he did; he could work in mosaic, could work in marble, and paint; could build ... built the Campanile of the Duomo, because he was then the best master of sculpture, painting, and architecture in Florence, and supposed in such business to be without a superior in the world.... Dante was his friend and Titian copied him.... His rules in art were: You shall see things as they are; and the least with the greatest, because God made them; and the greatest with the least, because God made you, and gave you eyes and a heart; he threw aside all glitter and conventionality, and the most significant thing in all his work is his choice of moments.” Cimabue still painted the Holy Family in the old conventional style, “but Giotto came into the field, and saw with his simple eyes a lowlier worth; and he painted the Madonna, St. Joseph, and the Christ,—yes, by all means if you choose to call them so, but essentially—Mamma, Papa, and the Baby; and all Italy threw up its cap” (1276-1336). See Ruskin's “Mornings in Florence.”
Giotto's O, a perfectly round O, such as Giotto is said to have sent the Pope in evidence of his ability to do some decorative work for his Holiness.
Giraldus Cambrensis (i. e. Giraldus of Cambria), ecclesiastic and author, born in Pembrokeshire, of Norman descent; studied with distinction in Paris; was a zealous churchman; obtained ecclesiastical preferment in England; was twice elected bishop of St. David's, but both times set aside; travelled in Ireland as well as Wales, and left record of his impressions, which give an entertaining picture and a valuable account of the times, though disfigured by credulity and personal vanity (1147-1223).
Girard, Stephen, a philanthropist, born at Bordeaux; in early life followed the career of a seaman and rose to be captain of an American coast-trader; in 1769 set up as a trader in Philadelphia, and in course of time establishing a bank, accumulated an immense fortune; during his lifetime he exhibited a strange mixture of niggardliness, scepticism, public charitableness, and a philanthropy which moved him during a yellow-fever epidemic to labour as a nurse in the hospital; at his death he bequeathed $2,000,000 to found an orphanage for boys, attaching to the bequest the remarkable condition, that no clergyman should ever be on the board or ever be permitted to enter the building (1750-1831).
Girardin, Émile de, journalist and politician, born in Switzerland, the natural son of General Alexandre de Girardin; took to stockbroking, but quitting it for journalism he soon established a reputation as a ready, vivacious writer, and in 1836 started La Presse, the first French penny paper; his rapid change of front in politics earned for him the nickname of “The Weathercock”; latterly he adhered to the Republican cause, and founded La France in its interest; he published many political brochures and a few plays, and was for some years editor of La Liberté (1806-1881).—His wife, Delphine Gay, enjoyed a wide celebrity both as a beauty and authoress; her poems, plays, and novels fill six vols. (1806-1881).
Girardin, François Saint-Marc, a French professor and littérateur, born at Paris; in 1827 was professor in the College Louis-le-Grand, and in 1834 was nominated to the chair of Literature in the Sorbonne; as leader-writer in the Journal des Débats he vigorously opposed the Democrats, and sat in the Senate from 1834 to 1848; in 1869, as Saint-Beuve's successor, he took up the editorship of the Journal des Savants, and in 1871 became a member of the National Assembly; he published his collected essays and also his popular literary lectures (1801-1873).
Gironde (794), a maritime department in SW. France, facing the Bay of Biscay on the W. and lying N. and S. between Charente-Inférieure and Landes; the Garonne and the Dordogne flowing through it form the Gironde estuary, and with their tributaries sufficiently water the undulating land; agriculture and some manufactories flourish, but wine is the chief product.
Girondins or Girondists, a party of moderate republican opinions in the French Revolution; “men,” says Carlyle, “of fervid constitutional principles, of quick talent, irrefragable logic, clear respectability, who would have the reign of liberty establish itself, but only by respectable methods.” The leaders of it were from the Gironde district, whence their name, were in succession members of the Legislative Body and of the Convention, on the right in the former, on the left in the latter, and numbered among them such names as Condorcet, Brissot, Roland, Carnot, and others; they opposed the court and the clerical party, and voted for the death of the king, but sought to rescue him by a proposal of appeal to the people; overpowered by the Jacobins in June 1793, with whom they came to open rupture, they sought in vain to provoke a rising in their favour; on October 24 they were arraigned before the Revolutionary tribunal, and on the 31st twenty-one of them were brought to the guillotine, singing the “Marseillaise” as they went and on the scaffold, while the rest, all to a few, perished later on either the same way or by their own hands.
Girtin, Thomas, a landscape-painter, born in London; painted in water-colour views of scenes near Paris and London; was a friend of Turner (1773-1802).
Girton College, a celebrated college for women, founded in 1869 at Hitchin, but since 1873 located at Girton, near Cambridge; the ordinary course extends to three years, and degree certificates of the standard of the Cambridge B.A. are granted; the staff consists of a “head” and five resident lecturers, all women, but there is a large accession of lecturers from Cambridge; the students number upwards of 100, the fee for board and education £35 per term.
Gizeh or Ghizeh (11), a town in Egypt, on the Nile, opposite Old Cairo, to which it is joined by a suspension bridge spanning the river; in the neighbourhood are the Great Pyramids.
Glacier, a more or less snow-white mass of ice occupying an Alpine valley and moving slowly down its bed like a viscous substance, being fed by semi-melted snow at the top called nevé and forming streams at the bottom; it has been defined by Prof. J. D. Forbes (q. v.) as “a viscous body which is urged down slopes of a certain inclination by the mutual pressure of its parts”; in the Alps alone they number over 1000, have an utmost depth of 1500 ft., and an utmost length of 12 m.
Gladiator, one who fought in the arena at Rome with men or beasts for the amusement of the people, originally in connection with funeral games, under the belief, it is said, that the spirits of the dead were appeased at the sight of blood; exhibitions of the kind were common under the emperors, and held on high occasions; if the gladiator was wounded in the contest, the spectators decided whether he was to live or die by, in the former case, turning their thumbs downwards, and in the latter turning them upwards.
Gladstone, William Ewart, statesman, orator, and scholar, born at Liverpool, son of a Liverpool merchant, sometime of Leith, and of Ann, daughter of Andrew Robertson, Stornoway; educated at Eton and Oxford; entered Parliament in 1832 as member for Newark in the Tory interest; delivered his maiden speech on slavery emancipation on May 17, 1833; accepted office under Sir Robert Peel in 1834, and again in 1841 and 1846; and as member for Oxford, separating from the Tory party, took office under Lord Aberdeen, and in 1859, under Lord Palmerston, became Chancellor of the Exchequer; elected member for South Lancashire, 1865, he became leader of the Commons under Lord John Russell; elected for Greenwich, he became Premier for the first time in 1869, holding office till 1875; after a brilliant campaign in Midlothian he was returned for that county in 1880, and became Premier for the second time; became Premier a third time in 1886, and a fourth time in 1892. During his tenure of office he introduced and carried a great number of important measures, but failed from desertion in the Liberal ranks to carry his pet measure of Home Rule for Ireland, so he retired from office into private life in 1895; his last days he spent chiefly in literary work, the fruit of which, added to earlier works, gives evidence of the breadth of his sympathies and the extent of his scholarly attainments; but being seized by a fatal malady, his strong constitution gradually sank under it, and he died at Hawarden, May 19, 1898; he was buried in Westminster Abbey at the expense of the nation and amid expressions of sorrow on the part of the whole community; he was a man of high moral character, transcendent ability, and strong will, and from the day he took the lead the acknowledged chief of the Liberal party in the country (1809-1898).
Glaisher, James, meteorologist and founder of the Royal Meteorological Society, born in London; his first observations in meteorology were done as an officer of the Irish Ordnance Survey; in 1836, after service in the Cambridge Observatory, he went to Greenwich, and from 1840 to 1874 he superintended the meteorological department of the Royal Observatory; in connection with atmospheric investigations he made a series of 28 balloon ascents, rising on one occasion to a height of 7 m., the greatest elevation yet attained: b. 1809.
Glamorganshire (687), a maritime county in S. Wales, fronting the Bristol Channel, between Monmouth and Carmarthen; amid the hilly country of the N. lie the rich coal-fields and iron-stone quarries which have made it by far the most populous and wealthiest county of Wales; the S. country—the garden of Wales—is a succession of fertile valleys and wooded slopes; dairy-farming is extensively engaged in, but agriculture is somewhat backward; the large towns are actively engaged in the coal-trade and in the smelting of iron, copper, lead, and tin; some interesting Roman remains exist in the county.
Glanvill, Joseph, born at Plymouth, graduated at Oxford; was at first an Aristotelian and Puritan in his opinions, but after the Restoration entered the Church, and obtained preferment in various sees; his fame rests upon his eloquent appeal for freedom of thought in “The Vanity of Dogmatising” (1661) and upon his two works in defence of a belief in witches; he was one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society; he seems to have made Sir Thomas Browne his model, though he is not equal to him in the vigour of his thinking or the harmony of his style (1636-1680).
Glanvill, Ranulf de, Chief-Justiciary of England in the reign of Henry II., born at Stratford, in Suffolk; is the author of the earliest treatise on the laws of England, a work in 14 books; was deposed by Richard I., and, joining the Crusaders, fell before Acre; d. 1190.
Glasgow (815, including suburbs), the second city of the empire and the chief centre of industry in Scotland, is situated on the Clyde, in Lanarkshire, 45 m. W. from Edinburgh and 405 from London; it is conjectured that the origin of the name is found in Cleschu (“beloved green spot”), the name of a Celtic village which occupied the site previously, near which St. Mungo, or Kentigern, erected his church about A.D. 560; although a royal burgh in 1636, it was not till after the stimulus to trade occasioned by the Union (1707) that it began to display its now characteristic mercantile activity; since then it has gone forward by leaps and bounds, owing not a little of its success to its exceptionally favourable situation; besides the advantages of waterway derived from the Clyde, it is in the heart of a rich coal and iron district; spinning and weaving, shipbuilding, foundries, chemical and iron works, and all manner of industries, flourish; the city is spaciously and handsomely laid out; the cathedral (1197) is the chief building of historical and architectural interest; there is a university (1451) and a variety of other colleges, besides several public libraries and art schools; Glasgow returns seven members of Parliament.
Glasse, Mrs., authoress, real or fictitious, of a cookery book, once in wide-spread repute; credited with the sage prescription, “First catch your hare.”
Glassites, a Christian sect founded in Scotland about 1730 by John Glas (1695-1773), a minister of the Church of Scotland, who in 1730 was deposed for denouncing all national establishments of religion as “inconsistent with the true nature of the Church of Christ,” and maintaining that a Church and its office-bearers owed allegiance to none other than Christ; the sect, which developed peculiarities of doctrine and worship in conformity with those of the primitive Church, spread to England and America, where they became known as Sandemanians, after Robert Sandeman (1718-1771), son-in-law to Glas, and his zealous supporter.
Glastonbury (4), an ancient town in Somersetshire, 36 m. S. of Bristol, on the Brue; it is associated with many interesting legends and historical traditions that point to its existence in very early times; thus it was the Avalon of Arthurian legend, and the place where Joseph of Arimathea, when he brought the Holy Grail, is said to have founded the first Christian Church; ruins are still extant of the old abbey founded by Henry II., which itself succeeded the ancient abbey of St. Dunstan (946); there is trade in gloves, mats, rugs, &c.
Glein, Ludwig, German lyric poet, known as Father Glein for the encouragement he gave to young German authors; composed war songs for the Prussian army (1719-1803).
Glencoe, a wild and desolate glen in the N. of Argyllshire, running eastward from Ballachulish 10 m.; shut in by two lofty and rugged mountain ranges; the Coe flows through the valley and enhances its lonely grandeur. See following.
Glencoe, Massacre of, a treacherous slaughter of the Macdonalds of that glen on the morning of 13th February 1691, to the number of 38, in consequence of the belated submission of MacIan, the chief, to William and Mary after the Revolution; the perpetrators of the deed were a body of soldiers led by Captain Campbell, who came among the people as friends, and stayed as friends among them for 12 days.
Glendower, Owen, a Welsh chief and patriot, a descendant of the old Welsh princes who stirred up a rebellion against the English under Henry IV., which, with the help of the Percies of Northumberland and Charles VI. of France, he conducted with varied success for years, but eventual failure (1349-1415). See Shakespeare's “Henry IV.”
Glenlivet, a valley in Banffshire, through which the Livet Water runs, about 20 m. SW. of Huntly; famed for its whisky.
Glenroy, a narrow glen 14 m. long, in Inverness-shire, in the Lochaber district; Fort William lies 13 m. NE. of its SW. extremity; the Roy flows through the valley; the steep sides are remarkable for three regular and distinctly-formed shelves or terraces running parallel almost the entire distance of the glen, the heights on either side exactly corresponding; these are now regarded as the margins of a former loch which gradually sank as the barrier of glacial ice which dammed the waters up slowly melted.
Glogau (20), a town with a strong fortress in Silesia, on the Oder, 35 m. NW. of Liegnitz; is a place of manufacture; was brilliantly taken by Frederick the Great in the Silesian War on the 9th March 1741 by scalade, in one hour, at the very break of day.
Glommen or Stor-Elv (i. e. Great River), the largest river in Norway; has its source in Lake Aursund, and, after a southward course of 350 m., broken by many falls, and for the most part unnavigable, discharges into the Skager Rack at Frederikstad.
Gloriana, Queen Elizabeth, represented in her capacity as sovereign in Spenser's “Faërie Queen.”
Gloucester: 1 (39), the capital of Gloucestershire, on the Severn, 38 m. NE. of Bristol; a handsomely laid out town, the main lines of its ground-plan testifying to its Roman origin; conspicuous among several fine buildings is the cathedral, begun in 1088 (restored in 1853) and exhibiting features of Perpendicular and Norman architecture; the river, here tidal, is spanned by two stone bridges, and a flourishing commerce is favoured by fine docks and a canal; chemicals, soap, &c., are manufactured. 2 (25), a seaport of Massachusetts, U.S., 30 m. NE. of Boston; is a favourite summer resort, an important fishing-station, and has an excellent harbour; granite is hewn in large quantities in the neighbouring quarries.
Gloucester, Robert of, English chronicler; was a monk of Gloucester Abbey, and lived in the 13th century; his chronicle, which is in verse, traces the history of England from the siege of Troy to 1271, the year before the accession of Edward I.
Gloucestershire (600), a west midland county of England, which touches Warwick in the centre of the country, and extends SW. to the estuary of the Severn; it presents three natural and well-defined districts known as the Hill, formed by the Cotswold Hills in the E.; the Vale, through which the Severn runs, in the centre; the Forest of Dean (the largest in England) in the W.; coal is wrought in two large fields, but agricultural and dairy-farming are the main industries; antiquities abound; the principal rivers are the Wye, Severn, Lower and Upper Avon, and Thames; Bristol (q. v.) is the largest town.
Glück, Christoph von, a German musical composer and reformer of the opera; made his first appearance in Vienna; studied afterwards for some years under San-Martini of Milan, and brought out his first opera “Artaxerxes,” followed by seven others in the Italian style; invited to London, he studied Händel, attained a loftier ideal, and returned to the Continent, where, especially at Vienna and Paris, he achieved his triumphs, becoming founder of a new era in operatic music; in Paris he had a rival in Piccini, and the public opinion was for a time divided, but the production by him of “Iphigénie en Aulide” established his superiority, and he carried off the palm (1714-1787).
Gnomes, a set of imaginary beings misshapen in form and of diminutive size, viewed as inhabiting the interior of the earth and presiding over its secret treasures.
Gnostics, heretics, consisting of various sects that arose in the Apostolic age of Christianity, and that sought, agreeably to the philosophic opinions which they had severally embraced, to extract an esoteric meaning out of the letter of Scripture and the facts especially of the Gospel history, such as only those of superior speculative insight could appreciate; they set a higher value on Knowledge (gnosis, whence their name) than Faith; thus their understanding of Christianity was speculative, not spiritual, and their knowledge of it the result of thinking, not of life; like the Jews they denied the possibility of the Word becoming flesh and of a realisation of the infinite in the finite; indeed, Gnosticism was at once a speculative and a practical denial that Christ was God manifest in the flesh, and that participation in Christianity was, as He presented it (John vi. 53), participation in His flesh. See Christianity.
Goa (495), a Portuguese possession in W. India, lying between the Western Ghâts and the sea-coast, 250 m. SE. of Bombay; large quantities of rice are raised in it; is hilly on the E. and covered with forests; it was captured in 1510 by Albuquerque. Old Goa, the former capital, has fallen from a populous and wealthy city into utter decay, its place being taken by Nova Goa or Panjim (8), on the Mandavi, 3 m. from the coast.
Gobelins, Gilles and Jean, brothers, celebrated dyers, who in the 15th century introduced into France the art of dyeing in scarlet, subsequently adding on tapestry-weaving to their establishment; their works in Paris were taken over by government in Louis XIV.'s reign, and the tapestry, of gorgeous design, then put forth became known as Gobelins; Le Brun, the famous artist, was for a time chief designer, and the tapestries turned out in his time have a world-wide celebrity; the works are still in operation, and a second establishment, supported by government, for the manufacture of Gobelins exists at Beauvais.
Godav`ari, an important river of India, rises on the E. side of W. Ghâts, traverses in a SE. direction the entire Deccan, and forming a large delta, falls into the Bay of Bengal by seven mouths after a course of 900 m.; its mighty volume of water supplies irrigating and navigable canals for the whole Deccan; it is one of the 12 sacred rivers of India, and once in 12 years a bathing festival is celebrated on its banks.
Godet, Frederick, Swiss theologian, born at Neuchâtel; became professor of Theology there; author of commentaries on St. John's and Luke's Gospels and on the Epistles to the Romans and the Corinthians, along with other works; b. 1812.
Godfrey of Bouillon, a renowned Crusader, eldest son of Eustace II., Count of Boulogne; he served with distinction under the Emperor Henry II., being present at the storming of Rome in 1084; his main title to fame rests on the gallantry and devotion he displayed in the first Crusade, of which he was a principal leader; a series of victories led up to the capture of Jerusalem in 1099, and he was proclaimed “Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre,” but declined to wear a king's crown in the city where his Saviour had borne a crown of thorns; his defeat of the sultan of Egypt at Ascalon in the same year confirmed him in the possession of Palestine (1061-1100).
Godiva, Lady, wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry, who pled in vain with her husband on behalf of the inhabitants of the place for relief from heavy exactions he had laid upon them, till one day he relented and consented he would grant her prayer if she would ride through Coventry on horseback naked, which, with his leave, she at once undertook to do, and did, not one soul of the place peering through to look at her save Peeping Tom, who paid for his curiosity by being smitten thereafter with blindness.
Godolphin, Sydney Godolphin, Earl of, a celebrated English statesman and financier, born at Godolphin Hall, near Helston, Cornwall; at 19 was a royal page in the Court of Charles II., and in 1678 engaged on a political mission in Holland; in the following year entered Parliament and was appointed to a post in the Treasury, of which, five years later, he became First Commissioner, being at the same time raised to the peerage; under James II, was again at the head of the Treasury, and at the Revolution supported James, till the abdication, when he voted in favour of a regency; on the elevation of William to the throne was immediately reinstated at the Treasury, where he continued eight years, till the Whig ascendency brought about his dismissal; for six months in 1700 he once more assumed his former post, and under Anne fulfilled the duties of Lord High-Treasurer from 1702 to 1710, administering the finances with sagacity and integrity during the great campaigns of his friend Marlborough, and in 1706 he was created an Earl (1645-1712).
Godoy, Manuel de, minister of Charles IV. of Spain, born at Badajoz; played a conspicuous part in the affairs of Spain during the French Revolution and the Empire; received the title of Prince of Peace for an offensive and defensive treaty he concluded with France in 1796, in opposition to the general wish of the nation; lost all and died in Paris (1767-1851).
Godwin, Earl of the West Saxons, a powerful English noble of the 11th century and father of Harold II.; first comes into prominence in the reign of Cnut; was created an earl previous to 1018, and shortly afterwards became related to the king by marriage; he was a zealous supporter of Harthacnut in the struggle which followed the demise of Cnut; subsequently was instrumental in raising Edward the Confessor to the throne, to whom he gave his daughter Edith in marriage; continued for some years virtual ruler of the kingdom, but in 1051 his opposition to the growing Norman influence brought about his banishment and the confiscation of his estates; in 1052 he returned to England and was received with so great popular acclaim that the king was forced to restore to him his estates and offices; d. 1054.
Godwin, Mary Wollstonecraft, an English authoress, and first to publicly assert the Rights of Women, born at Hoxton, of humble Irish parentage; at 19 she began to support herself by teaching, and continued to do so till 1788, when she established herself in London to push her way as a writer, having already published “Thoughts on the Education of Daughters”; in 1791 she replied to Burke's “Reflections,” and in the following year appeared her famous “Vindication of the Rights of Women”; while in Paris in 1793 she formed a liaison with an American, Captain Imlay, whose cruel desertion of her two years later induced her to attempt suicide by drowning; in 1796 she became attached to William Godwin, a friend of five years' standing, and with him lived for some months, although, in accord with their own pronounced opinions, no marriage ceremony had been performed; in deference to the opinions of others, however, they departed from this position, and a marriage was duly celebrated five months before the birth of their daughter Mary (Shelley's second wife); contemporary opinion shows her to have been generous and gentle of nature, and animated throughout by a noble zeal for the welfare of humanity (1759-1797).
Godwin, William, a political writer and novelist, the son of a Presbyterian minister, born at Wisbeach, Somersetshire; was educated for the Church, and was for five years in the ministry; during this period his opinions on politics and religion underwent a radical change, and when in 1787 he threw up his holy office to engage in literature, he had become a republican in the one and a free-thinker in the other; various works had come from his pen, including three novels, before his celebrated “Political Justice” appeared in 1793, “Caleb Williams,” a novel, and his best-known work, being published in the following year; in 1797 he married Mary Wollstonecraft (see preceding), who died the same year, and four years later he married a widow, Mrs. Clement; to the close of his long life he was a prolific writer on literary, historical, and political subjects, but his carelessness and lack of business habits left him little profit from all his literary activity; his writings are clear and vigorous in the expression, if visionary and impracticable in theory (1756-1836).
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, a great poet and wise man, the greatest, it is alleged, the world has seen since Shakespeare left it, and who, being born in Frankfort-on-the-Main 10 years before Robert Burns, died in the small duchy of Weimar the same year as Sir Walter Scott; was the son of an imperial chancellor, a formal man and his pedagogue in boyhood, and of Elizabeth Textor, daughter of the chief magistrate of the city, a woman of bright intelligence, who was only eighteen at the time of his birth. Spiritually and bodily he was the most perfectly formed, symetrically proportioned, justly balanced, and completely cultivated man perhaps that ever lived, whose priceless value to the world lies in this, that in his philosophy and life there is found the union in one of what to smaller people appears entirely and absolutely antagonistic, of utmost scientific scepticism and highest spiritual faith and worth. “He was filled full with the scepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and thousandfold contradictions of his time, till his heart was like to break; yet he subdued all this, rose victorious over this, and manifoldly, by word and act, showed others that came after how to do the like.” Carlyle, who is never done recalling his worth, confesses an indebtedness to him—which he found it beyond his power to express: “It was he,” he writes to Emerson, “that first proclaimed to me (convincingly, for I saw it done): 'behold, even in this scandalous Sceptico-Epicurean generation, when all is gone but hunger and cant, it is still possible that Man be Man.'” “He was,” says he, “king of himself and his world;... his faculties and feelings were not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union under the mild sway of Reason; as the fierce primeval elements of chaos were stilled at the coming of Light, and bound together, under its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent Creation.” His life lies latent in his successive works, above all in “Goetz,” in “Werter,” in “Faust,” and in “Meister”; but as these have not been duly read it has not yet been duly written, though an attempt is being made to do so in the said connection. Of the last of the four works named, Carlyle, who has done more than any one else yet to bring Goethe near us, once said, “There are some ten pages of that book that, if ambition had been my object, I would rather have written than all the literature of my time.” “One counsel,” says Carlyle, “he has to give, the secret of his whole poetic alchemy, 'Think of living! Thy life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own, it is all thou hast to front eternity with.'” “Never thought on thinking,” he has said, Nie ans Denken gedacht. “What a thrift,” exclaims Carlyle, “of faculty here!” Some think he had one weakness: he lived for culture, believed in culture, irrespective of the fact and the need of individual regeneration. And Emerson, who afterwards in his “Representative Men” did Goethe full justice, in introducing him as, if not a world-wise man, at all events as a world-related, once complained that “he showed us the actual rather than the ideal.” To which Carlyle answered, “That is true; but it is not the whole truth. The actual well seen is the ideal. The actual, what really is and exists; the past, the present, and the future do all lie there” (1749-1832).
Goetz von Berlichingen (of the Iron Hand), a German knight of the 16th century; was involved in turbulent movements, and lost his right hand at the siege of Landshut, which he replaced by one of his own invention made of steel; spent his life in feuds, and left an autobiography which interested Goethe, who dramatised his story, “to save,” as he said, “the memory of a brave man from darkness,” a drama that had the honour of being translated by Sir Walter Scott.
Gog and Magog, names that occur in the Bible of foes of Israel, and designative in the Apocalypse of enemies of the kingdom of God, as also of a Scythian tribe N. of the Caucasus. The names are applied likewise to two giants, survivors of a race found in Britain by Brute of Troy, effigies of whom stood at the Guildhall Gate, symbolic defenders of the city.
Gogol, Nicolai Vasilievitch, a popular Russian novelist, born in Poltava; in 1829 he started as a writer in St. Petersburg, but met with little success till the appearance of his “Evenings in a Farm near Dikanka”; the success of the included sketches of provincial life induced him to produce a second series in 1834, which are characterised by the same freshness and fidelity to nature; in 1837 appeared his masterpiece “Dead Souls,” in which all his powers of pathos, humour, and satire are seen at their best; for some time he tried public teaching, being professor of History at St. Petersburg, and from 1836 to 1846 lived chiefly at Rome; many of his works, which rank beside those of Puschkin and Turgenieff, are translated into English (1809-1852).
Golconda, a fortified town in the Nizam's dominions, 7 m. W. of Hyderabad; famous for its diamonds, found in the neighbourhood; beside it are the ruins of the ancient city, the former capital of the old kingdom; the fort is garrisoned, and is the treasury of the Nizam; it is also a State prison.
Gold Coast (1,475, of whom 150 are Europeans), a British crown colony on the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa, with a coast-line of 350 m.; from the low and marshy foreshore the country slopes upward and inward to Ashanti; the climate is very unhealthy; palm-oil, india-rubber, gold dust, &c., are exported; Cape Coast Castle is the capital.
Golden Age, the age of happy innocence under the reign of Cronos or Saturn, in which, as fabled, the earth yielded all fulness without toil, and every creature lived at peace with every other; the term is applied to the most flourishing period in the history of a nation. See Ages.
Golden Ass, a romance of Apuleius (q. v.).
Golden Bull, an Imperial edict, issued by the Emperor Charles IV., which determined the law in the matter of the Imperial elections, and that only one member of each electoral house should have a vote; so called from the gold case enclosing the Imperial seal attached.
Golden Fleece, the fleece of a ram which Phryxos (q. v.), after he had sacrificed him to Zeus, gave to Æëtes, king of Colchis, who hung it on a sacred oak, and had it guarded by a monstrous dragon, and which it was the object of the Argonautic expedition under Jason to recover and bring back to Greece, an object which they achieved. See Argonauts.
Golden Fleece, Order of the, an order of knighthood founded by Philip III., Duke of Burgundy and the Netherlands in 1429, and instituted for the protection of the Church.
Golden Horn, the inlet on which Constantinople is situated.
Golden Legend, a collection of lives of saints and other tales, such as that of the “Seven Sleepers” and “St. George and the Dragon,” made in the 13th century by Jacques de Voragine, a Dominican monk, to the glory especially of his brotherhood.
Golden Rose, a cluster of roses on a thorny stem, all of gold; perfumed, and blessed by the Pope on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and sent to a prince who has during the year shown most zeal for the Church.
Goldoni, Carlo, the founder of Italian comedy, born at Venice; in his youth he studied medicine and subsequently law, but in 1732 appeared as a dramatist with his tragedy “Belisario”; moving from place to place as a strolling-player, he in 1736 returned to Venice, and finding his true vocation in comedy-writing, turned out a rapid succession of sparkling character plays after the manner of Molière; in 1761 he went to Paris as a playwright to the Italian theatre; became Italian master to Louis XV.'s daughters, and subsequently was pensioned; his comedies displaced the burlesques and farces till then in vogue on the stage in Italy (1707-1793).
Goldschmidt, Madame. See Lind, Jenny.
Goldsmith, Oliver, English man of letters, born at Pallas or Pallasmore, co. Longford, Ireland, and celebrated in English literature as the author of the “Vicar of Wakefield”; a born genius, but of careless ways, and could not be trained to any profession, either in the Church, in law, or in medicine, though more or less booked for all three in succession; set out on travel on the Continent without a penny, and supported himself by his flute and other unknown means; came to London, tried teaching, then literature, doing hack-work, his first work in that department being “An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe,” which was succeeded by his “Citizen of the World”; became a member of the “Literary Club,” and associated with Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and others; produced poems, “The Traveller” and the “Deserted Village,” besides comedies, such as “She Stoops to Conquer”; lived extravagantly, and died in debt; wrote histories of Greece and Rome, and “Animated Nature”; was a charming writer (1728-1774).
Golf, a game played with a bent club and a small ball on commons with short grass, in which the player who drives the ball into a succession of small holes in the ground, usually 18, with the fewest strokes, or who reckons up the most holes in the round by taking them with the fewest strokes, is the winner; an old popular Scotch game, and first introduced into English on Blackheath by James I., which has of late years been revived, and in connection with which clubs have established themselves far and wide over the globe, even at Bagdad.
Goliath, a Philistine giant of Gath slain by David with pebbles from a brook by a sling (1 Sam. xvii.).
Gomarists, a sect of Calvinists in Holland, so called from their leader Gomarus (1563-1641), a bitter enemy of Arminius (q. v.).
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de, French novelists, born, the former at Nancy, the latter at Paris; a habit of elaborate note-taking whilst on sketching tours first drew the brothers towards literature, and inoculated them with the habit of minute and accurate observation which gave value to their subsequent writings; their first real venture was a series of historical studies, designed to reproduce with every elaboration of detail French society in the later half of the 18th century, including a “History of French Society during the Revolution”; later they found their true province in the novel, and a series of striking works of fiction became the product of their joint labours, works which have influenced subsequent novelists not a little; “Les Hommes de Lettres” (1860) was the first of these, and “Madame Gervaisais” (1869) is perhaps their best; their collaboration was broken in 1870 by the death of Jules; but Edmond still continued to write, and produced amongst other novels “La Fille Élisa”; the “Journal” of the brothers appeared in 1888 in six vols. (Edmond, 1822-1888; Jules, 1830-1870).
Gondar (4), a once populous city and the capital of Amhara (q. v.), situated on a basaltic ridge in the Wogra Mountains, 23 m. N. of Lake Tzana; there are ruins of an old castle, churches and mosques, and establishments for the training of Abyssinian priests.
Goneral, an unnatural daughter of King Lear.
Gonsalez, a Spanish hero of the 10th century, celebrated for his adventures, and whose life was twice saved by his wife.
Gonzaga, the name of a princely family from Germany, settled in Mantua, from which the dukes were descended who ruled the territory from 1328 to 1708.
Gonzalvo di Cordova (the popular name of Gonzalo Hernandez y Aguilar), a renowned Spanish soldier, born at Montilla, near Cordova; he first became prominent in the wars with the Moors of Granada and with Portugal, and was rewarded with an estate and pensioned; in 1498 he so distinguished himself in assisting the king of Naples (Ferdinand II.) to drive out the French that he became known henceforth as El Gran Capitan, and was created Duke of San Angelo; subsequent heroic achievements in Naples, which won the kingdom for Spain (1503), roused a feeling of jealousy in the Spanish king, so that Gonzalvo was recalled and ill-requited for his great services (1453-1515).
Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, held sacred from early times by the Church in commemoration of the crucifixion of Christ, observed originally with fasting and prayer.
Good Regent, the Regent Murray (q. v.).
Good Templars, a total abstinence fraternity organised in New York in 1851, which has lodges, subordinate, district, and grand, now all over the world; they exact a pledge of lifelong abstinence, and advocate the suppression of the vice by statute; there is a juvenile section pledged to abstinence from tobacco, gambling, and bad language, as well as drink.
Goodfellow, Robin, a merry domestic spirit, full of tricks and practical jokes, and a constant attendant upon the English fairy court.
Goodman of Ballengeich, a name assumed by James V. of Scotland in his disguised perambulations about Edinburgh o' nights.
Goodsir, John, eminent Scotch anatomist, born at Anstruther; was trained at St. Andrews and Edinburgh, in which latter city he served an apprenticeship in dentistry; he settled in Anstruther and there wrote his noted essay on “Teeth”; in 1840 he became keeper of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and lecturer on Diseases of the Bone in 1842; four years later he succeeded Dr. Monro in the chair of Anatomy in Edinburgh University, which he adorned, having for some time previously acted as assistant (1814-1867).
Goodwin Sands, a famous sandbank stretching 10 m. along the E. coast of Kent, about 5½ m. from the shore; with the flowing of the tidal current the hidden sands are apt to shift and change their outline, and when storms of great violence sweep over them, despite their being well marked by four lightships and nine buoys, they have often been the occasion of a long series of melancholy shipwrecks; the shoal forms a splendid breakwater for the Downs, an excellent anchorage, stretching between the Goodwins and the shore; they are supposed popularly to be the remnants of an estate which belonged to the great Earl of Godwin (q. v.), but this supposition is a mere fable.
Goody Two Shoes, a character in a nursery story published in 1765, and supposed to have been written by Goldsmith when in straits.
Goodyear, Charles, the inventor of vulcanised rubber, born at New Haven, Connecticut; his career was a troubled one; he failed as an iron-founder, and when, after 10 years labour, amidst every disadvantage of poverty and privation, he in 1844 produced his new method of hardening rubber by means of sulphur, he became involved in a fresh series of troubles, as well as poverty, consequent on the infringement of his inventions; his patents latterly amounted to 60, and medals and honours, were awarded him both in London and Paris (1800-1860).
Goorkhas or Gurkhas, a brave and powerful native race in Nepal claiming Hindu descent; in 1814 they were subdued by the British, and have since rendered valuable service to Britain in the Mutiny, in the Afghan and in the Sikh Wars; there are now ten regiments of Goorkhas.
Gordian Knot, a knot by which the yoke was fastened to the beam of the chariot of Gordius (q. v.), and which no one could untie except the man who was destined to be the conqueror of Asia; Alexander the Great being ambitious to achieve this feat, tried hard to undo it, but failing, cut it with his sword and marched on to conquest.
Gordianus, the name of three Roman Emperors, father, son, and grandson. Marcus Antonius Gordianus, surnamed Africanus, rose to be an ædile, consul twice, and subsequently became proconsul of Africa; on the deposition of the Emperor Maximinus in 238, he, then in his eightieth year, was proclaimed emperor, his son (b. A.D. 192) being associated with him in the imperial office; grief at the death of his son, killed in battle, caused him to commit suicide a month after he had assumed the purple; he was a man of refined and generous nature. Marcus Antonius Gordianus, grandson of preceding, was early raised to the dignity of Cæsar, and in 238 rose to the rank of Augustus; his most important achievement was his driving back of the Persians beyond the Euphrates and his relief of Antioch; he was assassinated in 244 by his own soldiers while preparing to cross the Euphrates.
Gordius, a boor, the father of Midas (q. v.), who was proclaimed king of Phrygia because he happened, in response to the decree of an oracle, to be the first to ride into Gordium during a particular assembly of the people; he rode into the city on a waggon, to which the yoke was attached by the Gordian knot, and which he dedicated to Zeus.
Gordon, General Charles George, born at Woolwich, son of an artillery officer; entered the Royal Engineers; served in the Crimea as an officer in that department, and was, after the war, employed in defining the boundaries of Asiatic Turkey and Russia; being employed in 1860 on a mission to square up matters with the Chinese, on the settlement of the quarrel lent himself to the Emperor in the interest of good order, and it was through him that the Taiping Rebellion in 1863-64 was extinguished, whereby he earned the title of “Chinese” Gordon; he returned to England in 1865, and was for the next six years engaged in completing the defences of the Thames at Gravesend; he was Vice-Consul of the delta of the Danube during 1871-73, at the end of which term he conducted an expedition into Africa under the Khedive of Egypt, and was in 1877 appointed governor of the Soudan, in which capacity, by the confidence his character inspired, he succeeded in settling no end of troubles and allaying lifelong feuds; he relinquished this post in 1880, and in 1884, the English Government having resolved to evacuate the Soudan, he was commissioned to superintend the operation; he started off at once, and arrived at Khartoum in February of that year, where, by the end of April, all communication between him and Cairo was cut off; an expedition was fitted out for his relief, but was too late in arriving, the place was stormed by the Arabs, and he with his comrades fell dead under a volley of Arab musketry, January 28; from the commencement to the close of his career he distinguished himself as a genuine Christian and a brave man (1833-1885).
Gordon, Lord George, Anti-Papal agitator, born in London, son of the Duke of Gordon; he adopted the navy as a profession, and rose to be lieutenant; entered Parliament, and soon made himself conspicuous by his indiscriminate attacks on both Whigs and Tories; gave a passionate support to the London Protestant Association formed for the purpose of bringing about the repeal of the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1778; in 1780, as President of the Association, took the leading part in the famous No Popery riots in London; was tried but acquitted, mainly through the eloquent defence of Erskine; subsequently he was excommunicated for contempt of court, and eventually, after endeavouring to escape prosecution for two treasonable pamphlets, was apprehended, and died in Newgate (1751-1793).
Gordon, Sir John Watson, a portrait-painter, born in Edinburgh; was a pupil of Raeburn's, and his successor as a painter of portraits; executed portraits of most of the eminent Scotchmen of his time, and among the number Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Cockburn, Dr. Chalmers, and Professor Wilson (1788-1864).
Gore, Charles, canon of Westminster, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, is an exponent of High Church tenets; the editor of Lux Mundi, and the author of the Bampton Lecture for 1891, on “The Incarnation of the Son of God”; b. 1853.
Görgei, Arthur, a Hungarian patriot; at the age of 27 entered the army, and designed to devote himself to the study of chemistry and the administration of his estate; but on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1848 he joined the revolutionists; crushed the Croatians at Ozora; at the head of a patriot army faced the Austrians under Windischgrätz on the western frontier, and despite a temporary repulse, succeeded in asserting the supremacy of the Hungarian cause in a series of victories; Russian assistance accorded to Austria, however, changed the fortune of war; Kossuth resigned, and Görgei became dictator; but hopeless of success, he immediately negotiated a peace with the Russians; in 1851 he published a vindication of his policy and surrender, and in 1885 was exonerated by his compatriots from the charges of treachery brought against him by Kossuth; b. 1818.
Gorgias, a celebrated Greek sophist, born at Syracuse, in Sicily; settled in Athens, a swashbuckler of a man, who attached himself to the Eleatics (q. v.), and especially Zeno, in order that by their dialectic “he might demonstrate that nothing exists, or if something exists, that it cannot be known, or if it can be known, that it cannot be communicated”; his work bore characteristically enough the title “Of the Non-Existent, or of Nature”!
Gorgons, three sisters, Medusa, Euryale, and Stheino, with hissing serpents on their heads instead of hair, of whom Medusa, the only one that was mortal, had the power of turning into stone any one who looked on her. See Perseus.
Gorham, George Cornelius, an English ecclesiastic; being presented to the vicarage of Bramford Speke, N. Devon, was refused institution by Dr. Philpotts, the bishop of Exeter, because he was unsound in the matter of baptismal regeneration, upon which he appealed to the Court of Arches, which confirmed the bishop's decision, but the sentence of the court was reversed by the Privy Council, and institution granted (1787-1857).
Görlitz (62), a fortified town in Prussian Silesia, 52 m. W. of Liegnitz, on the Meuse, where Jacob Boehme (q. v.) lived and died.
Gortschakoff, Michael, Russian general, brother of the succeeding; served in the war between Russia and Turkey in 1828-1829; commanded in the Danubian Principalities in 1853; distinguished himself in the defence of Sebastopol (1795-1861).
Gortschakoff, Prince, an eminent Russian general; was engaged in Finland in 1809, in the Turkish War in 1810, in the French War 1812-14, and the Crimean War (1789-1866).
Goschen, George Joachim, English statesman, born in London; entered Parliament in the Liberal interest in 1863; served in office under Lord John Russell and Mr. Gladstone; was opposed to Home Rule, joined the Liberal-Unionist party and holds office under Lord Salisbury as First Lord of the Admiralty; b. 1831.
Goshen, a fertile district along a branch of the Nile, in the eastern part of the delta of Lower Egypt; assigned by Pharaoh to the children of Israel when they came to sojourn in the land.
Gospels, the name by which the four accounts in the New Testament of the character, life, and teaching of Christ are designated; have been known since as early as the 3rd century, of which the first three are called “Synoptic,” because they are summaries of the chief events, and go over the same ground in the history, while the author of the fourth gospel follows lines of his own; the former aim mainly at mere narrative, while the object of the latter is dogmatic, as well as probably to supply deficiencies in the former; moreover, the interest of John's account centres in the person of Christ and that of the others in His gospel; the writers were severally represented as attended, Matthew by a man, Mark by a lion, Luke by an ox, and John by an eagle.
Gosport (25), a fortified port and market-town in Hants, on the W. side of Portsmouth harbour, opposite Portsmouth, with which it is connected by a floating bridge; its industries embrace flourishing iron-works, barracks, the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard, and Haslar shipyard for the repair of gunboats.
Gosse, Edmund, poet, essayist, and critic, born in London, the son of the succeeding; author of “History of Eighteenth Century Literature,” a collection of lyrics, and a series of monographs, in particular “Life of Gray”; b. 1849.
Gosse, Philip Henry, naturalist, horn at Worcester, in business in Newfoundland, Canada, and the United States; spent his leisure hours in the study of natural history, chiefly insects; after a visit of two years to Jamaica wrote an account of its birds; compiled several works introductory to the study of animal life, and latterly devoted himself to the study of marine animals (1810-1888).
Gotha (30), northern capital of the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and seat of the reigning prince, the present Duke of Edinburgh, situated on the Leine Canal, 6 m. from the northern border of the Thuringian Forest; is picturesquely laid out, and has considerable manufactures, the famous Perthes' geographical publishing-house; Friedenstein Castle, the ducal residence, built in 1643, has a library of 200,000 vols. and 6000 MSS.
Gotham, a village of N. Nottinghamshire, the natives of which were made a laughing-stock of for their foolish sayings and doings, an instance of the latter being their alleged joining hand in hand round a bush to hedge in a cuckoo.
Gothamites, American cockneys, New York being called Gotham.
Gothard, St., the central mountain mass (9850 ft. high) of the Middle Alps and core of the whole Alpine system; it forms a watershed for rivers flowing in four different directions, including the Rhône and the Rhine; the famous pass (6936 ft.) from Lake Lucerne to Lake Maggiore forms an excellent carriage-way, has two hotels and a hospice at its summit; on the lower slopes is the St. Gothard railway (opened 1882), with its celebrated tunnel (9¼ m.), the longest in the world.
Gothenburg (109), the second town of Sweden, at the mouth of the Gotha, 284 m. SW. of Stockholm, is a clean and modernly built town, intersected by several canals; it has a splendid harbour, and one of the finest botanical gardens in Europe; its industries include shipbuilding, iron-works, sugar-refining, and fisheries; its licensing system has become famous; all shops for the sale of liquor are in the hands of a company licensed by government; profits beyond a five per cent. dividend to the shareholders are handed over to the municipality.
Gothic Architecture, a varied style of architecture distinguished by its high and sharply-pointed arches, clustered columns, which had its origin in the Middle Ages, and prevailed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, though the term Gothic was originally applied to it as indicating a barbarous degeneracy from the classic, which it superseded.
Gothland: 1 (2,595), the southernmost of the three old provinces of Sweden; chiefly mountainous, but with many fertile spaces; forest and lake scenery give a charm to the landscape; Gothenburg is the chief town. 2 (51), a Swedish island in the Baltic, 44 m. E. of the mainland, area 1217 sq. m.; forms, with other islands, the province of Gothland or Wisby; agriculture, fishing, and shipping are the main industries; Wisby is the chief town (also called Gottland).
Goths, a tribe of Teutons who in formidable numbers invaded the Roman empire from the east and north-east from as early as the third century, and though they were beaten back at the battle of Châlons, eventually broke it up.
Gottfried von Strasburg, a medieval German poet and one of the famous minnesingers; flourished in Strasburg at the close of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th; his great poem “Tristan und Isolde,” completed in 1210, extends to 19,552 lines, and has a grace and freshness suggestive of Chaucer.
Göttingen (24), an ancient Hanoverian town, prettily situated in the valley of the Leine, 50 m. S. of Hanover; is chiefly noteworthy on account of its university (1734), with its library of 500,000 vols. and 5000 MSS.; the students exceed 800, and are instructed by 120 professors; there is a flourishing book-trade.
Gottsched, Johann Christoph, a German literary notability, born near Königsberg, professor of philosophy and belles-lettres at Leipzig; was throughout his life the literary dictator of Germany; did much to vindicate the rights and protect the purity of the German tongue, as well as to improve the drama, but he wrote and patronised a style of writing that was cold, stiff, and soulless (1700-1766).
Gough, Hugh, Viscount, a distinguished English general, born at Woodstown, in Limerick; he first saw service at the Cape and in the West Indies; afterwards fought with distinction in the Peninsular war; subsequently, as major-general, he took part in the Indian campaign of 1827, and in 1840 commanded the forces in China; during seven years (1843-50) he was commander-in-chief of the Indian army, and carried through successfully the Sikh Wars, which added the Punjab to the British dominions; in 1849 he was created a viscount, and a field-marshal in 1862 (1779-1869).
Gough, J. B., temperance orator, born in Kent; bred a bookbinder; early a victim to intemperance; took the pledge in 1842, and became an eloquent and powerful advocate of the temperance cause both in England and America (1817-1886).
Goujon, Jean, a celebrated French sculptor and architect, born at Paris; he did the reliefs on the Fountain of the Innocents and the façade of the old Louvre; was a Huguenot, but died before the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572.
Gould, John, eminent ornithologist, born at Lyme Regis, Devonshire; his works are entitled “A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains,” “The Birds of Europe,” “The Birds of Australia,” “The Birds of Asia,” “The Birds of Great Britain,” and “Humming-Birds,” of which last he had an almost complete collection, only one wanting; the volumes in which these works were published were large folios and very expensive, with coloured illustrations of the birds described, the whole done under Mr. Gould's own eye, and in many cases by his own hand (1804-1881).
Gounod, Charles François, an eminent French composer, born at Paris; a prize gained at the Paris Conservatoire followed by a government pension enabled him to continue his studies at Rome, where he gave himself chiefly to the study of religious music; the “Messe Solenelle” was published on his return to Paris; turning his attention to opera he produced “Sappho” in 1851, a popular comic opera “Le Médecin malgré lui” in 1858, and a year later his famous setting of “Faust,” which placed him in the front rank of composers; other operas followed, with various masses, anthems, hymns, &c.; his oratorio “Redemption,” perhaps his masterpiece, appeared in 1882 (1818-1893).
Govan (63), a town in Lanarkshire, Scotland, on S. bank of the Clyde, virtually a western suburb of Glasgow; the staple industry is shipbuilding.
Gow, Nathaniel, youngest son of Neil, won celebrity as a composer of songs and other pieces; his 200 compositions include the popular “Caller Herrin'” (1766-1831).
Gow, Neil, a famous Scotch fiddler, born at Inver, near Dunkeld, of lowly origin; during his long life he enjoyed a wide popularity amongst the Scotch nobility, his especial patron being the Duke of Atholl; Raeburn painted his portrait on several occasions; he composed over a hundred strathspeys, laments, &c., giving a fresh impulse and character to Scotch music, but his fame rests mainly on his violin playing (1727-1807).
Gower, John, an English poet, contemporary and friend of Chaucer, but of an older school; was the author of three works: “Speculum Meditantis,” the “Thinker's Mirror,” written in French, lost for long, but recovered lately; “Vox Clamantis,” the “Voice of One Crying,” written in Latin, an allegorising, moralising poem, “cataloguing the vice of the time,” and suggested by the Wat Tyler insurrection, 1381; and “Confessio Amantis,” “Confession of a Lover,” written in English, treating of the course of love, the morals and metaphysics of it, illustrated by a profusion of apposite tales; was appropriately called by Chaucer the “moral Grower”; his tomb is in St. Mary's, Southwark (1325-1408).
Gowkthrapple, a “pulpit-drumming” Covenanter preacher in “Waverley,” described by Scott as in his own regard a “chosen vessel.”
Gowrie Conspiracy, a remarkable and much disputed episode in the reign of James VI. of Scotland; the story goes that Alexander Ruthven and his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, enticed the king to come to Gowrie House in Perth on the 5th August 1600 for the purpose of murdering or kidnapping him, and that in the scuffle Ruthven and Gowrie perished. Historians have failed to trace any motive incriminating the brothers, while several good reasons have been brought to light why the king might have wished to get rid of them.
Gozo (17), an island in the Mediterranean which, together with Malta and Comino, forms a British crown colony; lies 4 m. NW. of Malta. Babato is the chief town.
Gozzi, Count Carlo, Italian dramatist, born at Venice; was 39 when his first dramatic piece, “Three Oranges,” brought him prominently before the public; he followed up this success with a series of dramas designed to uphold the old methods of Italian dramatic art, and to resist the efforts of Goldoni and Chiari to introduce French models; these plays dealing with wonderful adventures and enchantments in the manner of Eastern tales (“dramatic fairy tales,” he called them), enjoyed a wide popularity, and spread to Germany and France. Schiller translated “Turandot” (1722-1806).—His elder brother, Count Gasparo Gozzi, was an active littérateur; the author of various translations, essays on literature, besides editor of a couple of journals; was press censor in Venice for a time, and was in his later days engaged in school and university work (1713-1786).
Gracchus, Caius Sempronius, Roman tribune and reformer, brother of the succeeding, nine years his junior; devoted himself and his oratory on his brother's death to carry out his measures; was chosen tribune in 123 B.C., and re-elected in 122; his measures of reform were opposed and undone by the Senate, and being declared a public enemy he was driven to bay, his friends rallying round him in arms, when a combat took place in which 3000 fell, upon which Gracchus made his slave put him to death; “overthrown by the Patricians,” he is said, “when struck with the fatal stab, to have flung dust toward heaven, and called on the avenging deities; and from this dust,” says one, “there was born Marius—not so illustrious for exterminating the Cimbri as for overturning in Rome the tyranny of the nobles.”
Gracchus, Tiberius Sempronius, Roman tribune and reformer, eldest son of Cornelia, and brought up by her; proposed, among others, a measure for the more equal distribution of the public land, which he had to battle for against heavy odds three successive times, but carried it the third time; was killed with others of his followers afterwards in a riot, and his body thrown into the Tiber and refused burial, 138 B.C., aged 40.
Grace, the term in Scripture for that which is the free gift of God, unmerited by man and of eternal benefit to him.
Grace, Dr. W. G., the celebrated cricketer, born near Bristol; distinguished as a batsman, fielder, and bowler; earned the title of champion, which was spontaneously and by universal consent conferred on him; has written on cricket; b. 1848.
Grace Cup, a silver bowl with two handles passed round the table after grace at all banquets in London City.
Graces, The, reckoned at one time two in number, but originally they appear to have been regarded as being, what at bottom they are, one. At last they are spoken of as three, and called Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia: Thalia, the blooming one, or life in full bloom; Euphrosyne, the cheerful one, or life in the exuberance of joy and sympathy; and Aglaia, the shining one, or life in its effulgence of sunny splendour and glory. But these three are one, involved each in the other, and made perfect in one. There is not Thalia by herself, or Aglaia, but where one truly is, there, in the same being also, the other two are. They are three sisters, as such always inseparable, and in their inseparability alone are Graces. Their secret is not learned from one, but from all three; and they give grace only with fulness, buoyancy, and radiancy of soul, or life, united all in one. They are in essence the soul in its fulness of life and sympathy, pouring itself rhythmically through every obstruction, before which the most solid becomes fluid, transparent, and radiant of itself.
Graciosa, a princess in a fairy tale, persecuted by her stepmother, and protected by Prince Percinet, her lover.
Gracioso, a fool in a Spanish comedy, who ever and anon appears on the stage during the performance with his jokes and gibes.
Gradgrind, a character in “Hard Times,” who weighs and measures everything by a hard and fast rule and makes no allowances.
Grafton, Augustus Henry Fitzroy, Duke of, English statesman in the reign of George III.; held various offices of State under Rockingham, Chatham, and North; was bitterly assailed in the famous “Junius Letters” (1735-1811).
Graham, Sir John, companion of Sir William Wallace, who fell at the battle of Falkirk.
Graham, John, Viscount Dundee. See Claverhouse.
Graham, Thomas, celebrated Scottish chemist, born in Glasgow, where in 1830 he became professor of Chemistry in the Andersonian University; seven years later he was appointed to a similar chair in University College, London; in 1855 he resigned his professorship on succeeding Herschel as Master of the Mint; his name is honourably associated with important researches relating to the diffusion of gases and liquids, and with contributions to the atomic theory of matter (1805-1869).
Grahame, James, a Scottish poet, born in Glasgow; bred a lawyer; took to the Church; author of a poem on the “Sabbath,” instinct with devout feeling, and containing good descriptive passages (1765-1811).
Graham's Dyke, a Roman wall extending between the Firths of Forth and Clyde.
Grahamstown (16), capital of the eastern province of Cape Colony, 25 m. from the sea and 106 m. NE. of Port Elizabeth; is beautifully situated 1728 ft. above sea-level at the base of the Zuurberg Mountains; has an exceedingly salubrious climate; some fine buildings, and is the seat both of a Catholic and a Protestant bishop.
Graiæ, three old women in the Greek mythology, born with grey hair, had only one tooth and one eye among them, which they borrowed from each other as they wanted them; were personifications of old age.
Grail, The Holy, the cup or vessel, said to have been made of an emerald stone, that was used by Christ at the Last Supper, and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught up the blood that flowed from His wounds on the Cross; it was brought to England by Joseph, it is alleged, but after a term disappeared; to recover it formed an object of quest to the Knights of the Round Table, in which Sir Galahad succeeded, when it was seen by certain other knights, but it has not been seen since, for none is permitted to see it or can set eye on it but such as are of a pure heart.
Gramont or Grammont, Philibert, Comte de, a celebrated French courtier in the age of Louis XIV.; he greatly distinguished himself in the army, as also at the court by his lively wit and gallant bearing, and soon established himself in the king's favour, but an intrigue with one of the royal mistresses brought about his exile from France; at the profligate court of Charles II of England he found a warm welcome and congenial surroundings; left memoirs which were mainly the work of his brother-in-law, Anthony Hamilton, and which give a marvellously witty and brilliant picture of the licentiousness and intrigue of the 17th-century court life (1621-1707).
Grampians, 1, a name somewhat loosely applied to the central and chief mountain system of Scotland, which stretches E. and W. right across the country, with many important offshoots running N. and S.; the principal heights are Ben Nevis (4406 ft), Ben Macdhui (4296 ft.), Cairntoul (4200 ft.). 2, A range of mountains in the W. of Victoria, Australia, highest elevation 5600 ft.
Granada, the last of the ancient Moorish kingdoms to be conquered (1492) in Spain, in the SE. of Andalusia, fronting the Mediterranean, now divided into Granada, Almeria, and Malaga; the modern province (484) has an area of 4928 sq. m.; Granada (72), the capital, is beautifully situated at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, on an eminence 2245 ft. above sea-level, 140 m. SE. of Seville; the Jenil flows past it; has a large university, a cathedral, and monastery; was founded by the Moors in the 8th century, but has been largely rebuilt on modern principles.
Granada, New (9), a commercial town in Nicaragua, Central America, on the NW. shore of Lake Nicaragua.
Granby, John Manners, Marquis of, an English general, eldest son of the third Duke of Rutland; rose to be commander-in-chief of the British army in Germany during the Seven Years' War; distinguished himself at Warburg; in 1763 he was master-general of the ordnance, and in 1766 commander-in-chief of the army; was the victim of some of Junius's most scathing invectives (1721-1770).
Grand Alliance, an alliance signed at Vienna 1689 by England, Germany, and the States-General to prevent the union of France and Spain.
Grand Jury, a jury appointed to decide whether there are grounds for an accusation to warrant a trial.
Grand Lamaism, a belief of the people of Thibet that Providence sends down always an incarnation of Himself into every generation.
Grand Monarque, The, Louis XIV. (q. v.) of France, so called.
Grand Pensionary, a state official in the Dutch Republic; in earlier times the Grand Pensionary was Secretary and also Advocate-General of the province of Holland; later his duties embraced the care of foreign affairs; held office for five years, but was generally re-elected; the office was abolished in 1795.
Grandison, Sir Charles, the hero of one of Richardson's novels, a character representative of an ideal Christian and gentleman.
Grandville, the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, a French caricaturist, born at Nancy; his fame was first established by the “Metamorphoses du Jour,” a series of satirical sketches representing men with animal faces characteristic of them; his subsequent work embraced political cartoons and illustrations for “Gulliver's Travels,” “Don Quixote,” “Robinson Crusoe,” La Fontaine's “Fables,” &c. (1803-1847).
Grangemouth (6), a busy port in Stirlingshire, on the Forth, 3 m. NE. of Falkirk; exports iron-ware and coal; has excellent docks, and does some shipbuilding.
Grani`cus, a river in Asia Minor, flowing from the slopes of Mount Ida and falling into the Sea of Marmora, where Alexander gained, 334 B.C., the first of the three victories which ended in the overthrow of the Persian empire.
Grant, Sir Alexander, of Dalvey, born at New York; graduated at Oxford, and became a Fellow of Oriel College; in 1856 he succeeded to the baronetcy; was appointed Inspector of Schools at Madras; two years later was appointed professor of History and Principal in Elphinstone College there; at Bombay he became Vice-Chancellor of Elgin College, and in 1868 succeeded Sir David Brewster as Principal of Edinburgh University; wrote “The Story of Edinburgh University,” various essays, and edited Aristotle's Ethics; was married to a daughter of Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews (1826-1884).
Grant, Mrs. Anne, née M'Vicar, authoress, born in Glasgow; took to literature as a means of livelihood after the death of her husband, and produced several volumes descriptive of the Highlands of Scotland and the character of the people; “Letters from the Mountains” enjoyed a wide popularity, and first gave to the public some adequate conception of the charm and character of the Highlands (1755-1838).
Grant, Sir Francis, artist, born in Edinburgh; was educated for the Scottish bar, but took to painting, and became celebrated for his hunting pictures, into which portraits of well-known sportsmen were introduced; also executed portraits of the Queen and Prince Consort on horseback, of Palmerston, Macaulay, and others, and became President of the Royal Academy (1803-1878).
Grant, James, novelist, born in Edinburgh; joined the army as an ensign at 17, but after a few years resigned and adopted literature as his profession; “The Romance of War” (1846), his first book, was followed by a series of stirring novels which are yet in repute, and have most of them been translated into Danish, German, and French; he turned Catholic in 1875 (1822-1887).
Grant, Sir James Hope, General, brother of Sir Francis Grant, born at Kilgraston, Perthshire; first distinguished himself in the Sikh Wars, and took a leading part in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny; in 1859 he commanded the British forces in China, and captured Pekin; was created a G.C.B. in 1860 and a general in 1872; he published several works bearing upon the wars in which he had been engaged (1808-1875).
Grant, Ulysses Simpson, General, born at Mount Pleasant, Ohio; bred to the military profession, served in Mexico, and held several appointments in the army; retired to civic life in 1854, but on the outbreak of the Civil War he entered the army and fought on the side of the North with such success that in 1864 he was appointed general-in-chief; he was eventually raised to the Presidency in 1868, and re-elected in 1872; on the expiry of this second term he made a tour round the world, and was everywhere received with the distinction he deserved (1822-1885).
Grantham (17), a market-town in Lincolnshire, on the Witham, 25 m. SW. of Lincoln, and has a fine 13th-century church; in the grammar-school Newton was educated, and in 1643 Cromwell won his first victory here; its industries embrace agricultural-implement making, malting, &c.; a 30 m. canal connects it with the Trent.
Granville, George Leveson-Gower, second Earl, statesman; entered Parliament as a Liberal in 1836, and became a supporter of free trade; in 1846 succeeded to the peerage, and in 1851 became Foreign Minister under Lord John Russell; four years later became leader of the Lords; figured in every Liberal cabinet till 1886, usually as Colonial or Foreign Secretary; in 1859 he failed to form a ministry of his own; was a staunch supporter of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule policy (1815-1891).
Gratian, a celebrated canonist of the 12th century, born at Chiusi, Tuscany; was a Benedictine monk at Bologna, and compiled the “Decretum Gratiani” between 1139 and 1142.
Gratianus, Augustus, Roman emperor from 375 to 383, eldest son of Valentinian I., born in Pannonia; at 16, in conjunction with his four-year-old brother, Valentinian II., became ruler over the Western Empire, and three years later found himself, by the death of his uncle Valens, head also of the Eastern Empire, a year after which he summoned Theodosius to be his colleague; his reign is noted for the stern repression of the remains of the heathen worship; in 383, while endeavouring to combat the usurper Maximus, he was captured at Lyons and there put to death (359-383).
Grattan, Henry, great Irish patriot and orator, born in Dublin, and by birth a Protestant; studied at Trinity College, where he stood high in classics; was called to the Irish bar in 1772, and entered the Irish Parliament three years after, where he distinguished himself as the champion of legislative freedom, by maintaining that the crown had no right to legislate on matters affecting Irish interests, and particularly Irish commercial interests, without consulting the Irish Parliament, and by securing thereby in a measure the legislative independence of Ireland; on the question of Irish Parliamentary reform he quarrelled with his compatriots, and he confined his own efforts to Catholic emancipation; in 1798 he retired from public life, but came forth as an opponent of the Union in 1800, though, on its accomplishment, he represented first Malton in Yorkshire, and then Dublin in the United Parliament, devoting the rest of his life to the political emancipation of his Catholic fellow-subjects; before the rupture referred to fell out, he received a grant of £50,000 from the Irish Parliament; in private as in public life, he was a man of irreproachable character, while as an orator he ranks among the foremost of his time (1746-1820).
Gratz or Grätz (112), capital of Styria, in Austria, picturesquely situated on the Mur, 141 m. SW. of Vienna; its many old and interesting buildings include a cathedral (1462), four monasteries, and the Landhaus, an ancient ducal residence; there is a flourishing university, with upwards of 1100 students; its industries embrace iron and steel works, sugar-refining, soap and candle factories, &c.
Gravelotte, a village in Lorraine, 7 m. W. of Metz; was the scene of a German victory over the French in 1870.
Gravesend (35), a thriving river-port and watering-place in Kent, on the Thames, opposite Tilbury Fort, 24 m. SE. of London; the new town rises amid picturesque surroundings above the old town; it is the chief pilot station for the river; there is a busy trade in shipbuilding, iron-founding, brewing, &c.
Gray, Asa, a distinguished American botanist, born at Paris, Oneida County, New York; graduated in medicine in 1842; became Fisher professor of Natural History at Harvard, and in 1874 succeeded Agassiz as Regent of the Smithsonian Institution; his writings did much to promote the study of botany in America on a sound scientific basis, and also to forward the theories of Darwin; in conjunction with Dr. Torrey he wrote “The Flora of North America,” and by himself various manuals of botany and “Natural Science and Religion” (1810-1888).
Gray, Auld Robin, the title of a ballad by Lady Anne Lindsay, from the name of its hero, a good old man who married a young girl whose lover is thought to be dead, but who turns up to claim her a month after.
Gray, John Edward, English naturalist, born at Walsall; studied medicine, and at 24 entered the British Museum as an assistant in the Natural History department; in 1840 he became keeper of the Zoological Collections, of which he made a complete catalogue, enriched with most valuable notes; is the author of books and papers to the number of 500, and was an active promoter of scientific societies in London (1800-1875).
Gray, Thomas, English poet, born in Cornhill, London, for whom Horace Walpole conceived a warm attachment, which, after a brief rupture, lasted with life; gave himself up to the study of Greek literature, and began to cultivate the muse of poetry; produced in 1747 “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College,” and in 1750 his well-known “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard”; these were followed by the “Pindaric Odes,” the “Progress of Poesy,” and the “Bard,” which was finished in 1757; in 1760 he was presented by the Duke of Grafton with the professorship of Modern History in Cambridge, a sinecure office with £400 a year. “All is clear light,” says Stopford Brooke, “in Gray's work. Out of the love of Greek he drew his fine lucidity.... He moved with easy power over many forms of poetry, but there is naturalness and no rudeness in the power. It was adorned by high ornament and finish.... The 'Elegy' will always remain one of the beloved poems of Englishmen; it is not only a piece of exquisite work; it is steeped in England” (1716-1771).
Great Commoner, William Pitt, who became Earl Chatham (q. v.).
Great Duke, Duke of Wellington (q. v.).
Great Eastern, the name of the largest ship ever built; was designed by Brunel and Scott Russell; laid down at Milwall in 1854, and launched in 1858, having cost £732,000; it did not prove a successful venture; was latterly used for laying the Atlantic cables; subsequently became a coal-hulk at Gibraltar, and in the end was sold in 1888 for old iron.
Great Elector, Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1683).
Great Harry, a man-of-war built by Henry VII., the first of any size built in England.
Great Magician, Sir Walter Scott.
Great Moralist, Samuel Johnson (q. v.), from the character of his writings.
Great Salt Lake, in N. of Utah, U.S., stretches upwards of 80 m. along the western base of the Wahsatch Mountains, about 4200 ft. above the sea-level; it is from 20 to 32 m. broad, and very shallow; Antelope Island, 18 m. long, is the largest island; the coast is rugged and desolate; its clear waters hold no fish, and the surplus inflow is carried off by evaporation only.
Great Slave Lake, 300 m. long and 50 at its greatest breadth; lies within the Canadian NW. Territory; the Mackenzie River carries its overflow to the Arctic Ocean.
Great Unknown, The, author of “Waverley” and Waverley novels.
Great Unwashed, The, the artisan class.
Greatheart, in the “Pilgrim's Progress,” the guide of Christiana and her family to the Celestial City.
Greece (2,187), a kingdom of S. Europe occupying the southern portion of a peninsula which projects into the Mediterranean between the peninsula of Italy and the mainland of Turkey in Asia; the N. is bounded by Turkey in Europe; it is made up of the N. and S. divisions connected by the narrow and canalled isthmus of Corinth, the Ionian Islands in the W., and the Cyclades and Sporades in the E.; it is a mountainous region, and many of the peaks are rich in classic associations, e. g. Olympus, Parnassus, and Helicon; the rivers are of no great size, and the lakes though numerous are inconsiderable; in the valleys the soil is fertile and agriculture is actively engaged in, although the methods adopted are still somewhat primitive; but favoured by a delightful climate the vine, olive, and other fruit-trees flourish; currants are the chief article of export, and textiles and cereals the principal imports; milling, dyeing, distilling, and tanning are important industries; various minerals are found, and the marble from Paros is famed as the finest for statue carving; there is a considerable mercantile marine, and a busy shipping trade of a small kind among the islands and along the deeply indented coast, and also valuable coral and sponge fisheries; the government is a limited and hereditary monarchy, and the legislative power is vested in an elected chamber of, at least, 150 paid representatives, called the Boul[=e]; universal suffrage obtains, and the period of election is for four years; the bulk of the people belong to the established Greek Church, but in Thessaly and Epirus there are about 25,000 Mohammedans; education is free and compulsory, but is badly administered, and a good deal of illiteracy exists; the glory of Greece lies in her past, in the imperishable monuments of her ancient literature and art; by 146 B.C. she had fallen before the growing power of the Romans and along with the rest of the Byzantine or Eastern empire was overrun by the Turks in A.D. 1453; her renascence as a modern nation took place between 1821 and 1829, when she threw off the Turkish yoke and reasserted her independence, which she had anew to attempt by arms in 1897, this time with humiliation and defeat, till the other powers of Europe came to the rescue, and put a check to the arrogance of the high-handed Turk.
Greek or Eastern Church, that section of the Church which formerly separated from the Roman or Western in 1054, which assumed an independent existence on account of the arrogant claims of the latter, and which acknowledges the authority of only the first seven general councils; they dissent from the filioque doctrine (q. v.), administer the Eucharist in both kinds to the laity, and are zealously conservative of the orthodoxy of the Church.
Greek Fire, a combustible of highly inflammable quality, but of uncertain composition, used by the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire against the Saracens; a source of great terror to those who were assailed by it, as it was difficult to extinguish, so difficult that it was said to burn under water.
Greeley, Horace, American journalist and politician, born at Amherst, New Hampshire, the son of a poor farmer; was bred a printer, and in 1831 settled in New York; in a few years he started a literary paper the New Yorker, and shortly afterwards made a more successful venture in the Log Cabin, a political paper, following that up by founding the New York Tribune in 1841, and merging his former papers in the Weekly Tribune; till his death he advocated temperance, anti-slavery, socialistic and protectionist principles in these papers; in 1848 he entered Congress and became a prominent member of the Republican party; he visited Europe, and was chairman of one of the juries of the Great Exhibition; in 1872 he unsuccessfully opposed Grant for the Presidency; in religion he was a Universalist; his works include “The American Conflict,” “Recollections,” “Essays,” &c. (1811-1872).
Green, John Richard, historian, born at Oxford; took orders, and was for a time vicar of St. Philip's, Stepney, contributing articles the while on historical subjects to the Saturday Review, and pursuing his historical studies with a zeal that undermined his health; in 1874 he published his “Short History of the English People,” which was speedily adopted in schools, and was accepted at large as one of the ablest summaries of the history of the country; the welcome with which this small work was received induced the author to essay a larger, which he accordingly by-and-by published in 4 volumes, and which he dedicated to “My Masters in the study of English History, Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman”; this was followed by “The Making of England” and “The Conquest of England,” the latter being published after his decease (1837-1883).
Green, Nathanael, a celebrated American general, born at Warwick, Rhode Island; though the son of a Quaker, he promptly took up arms on the outbreak of hostilities with the mother-country, and in 1775, as brigadier-general, headed the force in Rhode Island; his gallant conduct at the battles of Princeton and Brandywine won him promotion, and in 1780 he was advanced to the command of the army of the south; after a temporary reverse from Cornwallis at Guildford Court, he conducted his operations with so much success that, with the crowning victory at Eutaw Springs (1781), he cleared the British from the States; his last days were spent on his estate in Georgia, a gift from government in recognition of his services; next to Washington he was the great hero of the war (1742-1788).
Green, Thomas Hill, philosopher, born in Yorkshire; studied at Balliol College, Oxford; was elected a Fellow and became eventually Whyte's professor of Moral Philosophy; his philosophy had a Kantian root, developed to a certain extent on the lines of Hegel, which, however, he applied less in speculative than a spiritual interest, though he was not slow, on the ground of it, to assail the evolution theory of Herbert Spencer and G. H. Lewes; he was a great moral force in Oxford, and that apart from his philosophical speculations, though there can be little doubt that the philosophy which he had embraced was a potent element in his moral character and his influence; his views on the purely spiritual nature and derivation of the Christian religion have, since his death, attracted attention, and are regarded with some anxiety by those whose faith requires a historical basis (1838-1882).
Greenbacks, a name given to the inconvertible paper currency issued in the United States during the Civil War, so called from the colour of the notes, bonds, &c.; the name has since been popularly applied to the paper money of the States; the notes were made convertible in 1879.
Greenland (11), an extensive but imperfectly defined territory lying mostly within the Arctic circle to the NE. of North America, from which it is separated by Davis Strait and Baffin Bay; the area is variously estimated from 512,000 to 320,000 sq. m.; the land lies submerged beneath a vast plain of ice, pierced here and there by mountain tops, but it is conjectured to consist of one large island-continent engirt by groups of smaller islands; only on the S. coast, during the meagre summer, is there any appearance of vegetation; there is a great variety of birds, and the animals include the wolf, fox, bear, reindeer, musk ox, and Arctic hare, while whales, seals, and many kinds of fish are found; the inhabitants are chiefly Esquimaux, but there are some Danish settlements, begun in 1721, and the trade is a Danish monopoly; the country was known in early times to the Scandinavians (of whose settlements there are interesting remains), and was rediscovered by John Davis in 1585.
Greenock (63), a flourishing seaport of Renfrewshire, on the Firth of Clyde, 22 m. W. of Glasgow; it stretches some 4 m. along the shore and climbs the hill slopes behind, whence it commands a splendid view of the river and Highlands beyond; the west end is handsomely laid out, and contains some fine buildings, including the Watt Institute, with library of 130,000 vols.; the harbourage is excellent, and favours a large foreign shipping trade; the staple industries are shipbuilding, engineering, spinning, sugar-refining, &c.; coal and iron are the chief exports, and sugar and timber the largest imports.
Greenough, Horatio, an American sculptor, spent most of his life in Rome and Florence; executed the colossal statue of Washington in front of the Capitol in Washington City, and a group of figures entitled “The Rescue” (1803-1852).
Greenwich (78), an important borough of Kent (officially within the county of London), on the Thames, 5 m. SE. of London Bridge; its active industries embrace engineering, telegraph works, chemical works, &c.; the Royal Observatory, founded by Charles II. in 1675, occupies a commanding site within the Park; it is from this point that degrees of longitude with us are reckoned.
Greenwich Hospital, founded in 1694 by Queen Mary after designs by Christopher Wren, was from 1705 till 1869 an asylum for disabled sailors; since then the funds, amounting to £167,259 a year, have been distributed in pensions and also utilised for the upkeep of Greenwich Hospital Schools (where 1000 children of seamen receive board and education); since 1873 this hospital has served as the college for the Royal Navy.
Greenwood, Frederick, publicist and journalist; editor of Cornhill Magazine, author of Life of Napoleon III., “Lover's Lexicon,” and “Dreams”; b. 1830.
Greg, William Rathbone, literary and political essayist, born in Manchester; in 1856 became a Commissioner of Customs, and from 1864 till his resignation in 1877 acted as Controller of H.M. Stationery Office; his works embrace “The Creed of Christendom,” “Enigmas of Life,” “Political Problems,” &c., and are marked by vigorous thought couched in a lucid, incisive style; was from his evil prognostications designated Cassandra Greg (1809-1881).
Grégoire, Henri, bishop of Blois, born at Vého, near Lunéville, one of the clerical deputies to the States-General of 1789; attached himself to the Tiers-état, was a member of the National Convention, and a staunch advocate for civil and religious liberty, but refused resolutely to follow “Goose Gobel,” the archbishop of Paris, and renounce the Christian religion and deny his Master (1750-1831). See Carlyle's “French Revolution.”
Gregorian Calendar, the regulation of the year according to the correction introduced by Gregory XIII. in 1582 of the Julian calendar, which allowed the year 11 minutes and 10 seconds too much.
Gregorian Year, the civil year according to the correction of the Gregorian calendar.
Gregory, the name of 16 Popes: G. I., the Great, Pope from 590 to 604; G. II., St., Pope from 715 to 731; G. III., Pope from 731 to 741; G. IV., Pope from 827 to 844; G. V., Pope from 996 to 997; G. VI., Pope from 1045 to 1046; G. VII., Pope from 1073 to 1085; G. VIII., Pope in 1187; G. IX., Pope from 1227 to 1241; G. X., Pope from 1271 to 1276; G. XI, Pope from 1370 to 1378; G. XII., Pope from 1406 to 1415; G. XIII., Pope from 1572 to 1585; G. XIV., Pope from 1590 to 1591; G. XV., Pope from 1621 to 1623; G. XVI., Pope from 1831 1846. Of these the following are worthy of note:—
Gregory I., the Great, and St., born in Rome, son of a senator; made prætor of Rome; relinquished the office and became a monk; devoted himself to the regulation of church worship (instituting, among other things, the liturgy of the Mass), to the reformation of the monks and clergy, and to the propagation of the faith; saw some fair-haired British youths in the slave-market at Rome one day; on being told they were Angles, he said they should be Angels, and resolved from that day on the conversion of the nation they belonged to, and sent over seas for that purpose a body of monks under Augustin.
Gregory II., St., born at Rome and bred a Benedictine; is celebrated for his zeal in promoting the independence of the Church and the supremacy of the see of Rome, and for his defence of the use of images in worship.
Gregory III., born in Syria; was successor of Gregory II., and carried out the same policy to the territorial aggrandisement of the Holy See at a time when it might have been overborne by secular invasions.
Gregory VII., Hildebrand, born in Tuscany; bred up as a monk in a life of severe austerity, he became sensible of the formidable evils tending to the corruption of the clergy, due to their dependence on the Emperor for investiture into their benefices, and he set himself with all his might to denounce the usurpation and prohibit the practice, to the extent of one day ex-communicating certain bishop who had submitted to the royal claim and those who had invested them; his conduct roused the Emperor, Henry IV., who went the length of deposing him, upon which the Pope retaliated with a threat of excommunication; it ended in the final submission of Henry at Canossa (q. v.); the terms of submission imposed were intolerable, and Henry broke them, elected a Pope of his own, entered Rome, was crowned by him, and besieged Gregory in San Angelo, from which Guiscard delivered him to retire to Salerno, where he died, 1035; he was a great man and a good Pope.
Gregory IX., Ugolino, born in Campania; had during his pontificate contests with the Emperor Barbarossa, whom he twice over excommunicated; was the personal friend of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he canonised; died at a very advanced age.
Gregory XIII., born in Bologna; was skilled in canon law; distinguished himself in the Council of Trent, and by his zeal against the Protestants; celebrated the Bartholomew Massacre by public thanksgivings in Rome, and reformed the calendar.
Gregory XVI., born at Belluno; occupied the Papal chair at a time of great civil commotion, and had much to do to stem the revolutionary movements of the time; developed ultramontanist notions, and paved the way for the hierarchical policy of his successor Pio Nono.
Gregory Nazianzen, St., bishop of Constantinople, born in Cappadocia; studied in Athens, where he became the friend of St. Basil, and held discussions with Julian, afterwards emperor and apostate, who was also studying there; had been bishop of Nazianzus before he was raised by Theodosius to the bishopric of Constantinople, which he held only for a year, at the end of which he retired into solitude; he was the champion of orthodoxy, a defender of the doctrine of the Trinity, and famed for his invectives against Julian; he has left writings that have made his name famous, besides letters, sermons, and poems (328-389). Festival, May 9.
Gregory of Nyssa, St., one of the Fathers of the Greek Church, brother of St. Basil, and bishop of Nyssa, in Cappadocia; he was distinguished for his zeal against the Arians, and was banished from his diocese at the instance of the Emperor Valens, who belonged to that sect, but returned to it after his death; he was an eminent theologian and a valiant defender of orthodoxy, on, according to Harnack, something like Hegelian lines (332-400). Festival, March 9.
Gregory of Tours, St., bishop of Tours, French theologian and historian, born at Clermont; was mixed up a good deal in the political strife of the time, and suffered not a little persecution; was the author of a “History of the Franks,” the earliest of French chronicles, entitling him to be regarded as the “Father of Frankish History”; his history contains a great number of valuable documents, though it is written in a barbarous style, and not unfrequently evinces a lack of moral sensibility (540-594).
Gregory Thaumaturgus, St., a theologian of the Greek Church, and a convert and disciple of Origen; became bishop of Neo-Cæsarea in Pontus; was present at the Council of Antioch; numerous conversions from paganism are ascribed to him, as well as numerous miracles; d. 270. Festival November 12.
Gregory, David, nephew of succeeding, born at Aberdeen; became professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh at the age of 23, and in 1691 was appointed Savilian professor of Astronomy at Oxford; was one of the first to publicly teach the principles of Newton's philosophy (1661-1708).
Gregory, James (1), inventor of the reflecting telescope, born in Aberdeen; after a three years' residence in Padua received the appointment of professor of Mathematics in St. Andrews, which he held from 1669 to 1674, when he was elected to the corresponding chair in Edinburgh; author of various mathematical treatises which display a fine originality; he was struck blind whilst working at his telescope (1638-1675).
Gregory, James (2), son of succeeding, was his successor in the chair of Medicine at Edinburgh, and wrote “Philosophical and Literary Essays”; compounded “Gregory's mixture” (1753-1821).
Gregory, John, grandson of James (1), born at Aberdeen, where he became professor of Medicine in 1755, whence ten years later he was translated to fill the corresponding chair in Edinburgh; his works include, among others, “A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World” (1724-1773).
Gregory, William, son of James (2); held successively the chairs of Chemistry in Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh; he translated Liebig's “Agricultural Chemistry,” and was the first to advance and expound Liebig's theories (1803-1858).
Grenada (54), one of the most picturesque of the Windward Islands, in the British West Indies, of volcanic origin; lies about 60 m. N. of Venezuela; the harbour of St. George, the capital, is the most sheltered anchorage in the Windward Islands; fruits, cocoa, and coffee are cultivated; it was ceded by France in 1783.
Grenfell, Sir Francis Wallace, Major-General, late Sirdar of the Egyptian army, born in London; distinguished himself in Zulu, Transvaal, Egyptian, and Nile expeditions (1885-1892), and commanded forces in Egypt (1897-98); was presented by the Khedive with a sword of honour on his retirement, in souvenir of the victories of Giniss, Gamaizo, and Toski; b. 1841.
Grenoble (57), a strongly fortified city of France, capital of the dep. of Isère, on the river Isère, 58 m. SE. of Lyons; there are several fine old cathedrals, and a university with a library of 170,000 vols.; the manufacture of kid gloves is the staple industry.
Grenville, George, statesman, younger brother of Earl Temple; was called to the bar in 1735, and six years later entered Parliament; held various offices of State, and in 1763 succeeded Bute as Prime Minister; his administration is noted for the prosecution of Wilkes (q. v.), and the passing of the American Stamp Act, a measure which precipitated the American Revolution (1712-1770).
Grenville, Sir Richard, a gallant seaman of Queen Elizabeth's time; already a knight, commanded the first expedition sent by Raleigh to colonise Virginia; took part in the defeat of the Armada, and in 1591, while commanding the Revenge in Lord Howard's squadron, engaged single-handed the entire Spanish fleet off the Azores; after a desperate fight of about 18 hours, during which time four of the Spanish vessels were sunk, and upwards of 2000 of their men slain or drowned, he surrendered, was carried wounded on board a Spanish ship, in which he died; the fight is celebrated in Tennyson's noble ballad “The Revenge.”
Grenville, William Wyndham, Lord, statesman; entered Parliament in 1782; was not a man of brilliant parts, but his integrity and capacity for work raised him to the highest offices of State; in 1789 he was Speaker of the House of Commons, and a year later was raised to the peerage and made Home Secretary under Pitt; in 1791 he was Foreign Secretary; supported Catholic Emancipation and the Abolition of the Slave-trade; he was Premier from 1806 to 1807; later he supported Canning and Earl Grey (1759-1834).
Gresham, Sir Thomas, founder of the Royal Exchange, born in London; son of Sir Richard Gresham, a wealthy mercer, who was knighted and made Lord Mayor in Henry VIII.'s reign; after studying at Cambridge entered the Mercers' Company, and in 1552, as “King's agent” in Antwerp, negotiated important loans with the Flemish merchants; under the Catholic régime of Mary he was dismissed, but was shortly after restored, and in 1559 appointed ambassador in Antwerp; between 1566 and 1571 he carried through his project of erecting an Exchange, and his munificence was further displayed in the founding of a college and eight almshouses; in 1569 he was instrumental in bringing about the important fiscal arrangement of borrowing from home merchants instead of as formerly from foreign merchants (1519-1579).
Gresham College, college founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1575, and managed by the Mercer's Company, London, where lectures are delivered, twelve each year, by successive lecturers on physics, rhetoric, astronomy, law, geometry, music, and divinity, to form part of the teaching of University College.
Gretchen, the German diminutive for Margaret, and the name of the guileless girl seduced by Faust in Goethe's tragedy of the name.
Gretna Green, a village in Dumfriesshire, over the border from England, famous from 1754 to 1856 for clandestine marriages, which used latterly to be celebrated in the blacksmith's shop.
Grétry, a celebrated musical composer, born at Liège, composed 40 operas marked by feeling and expression, the “Deux Avares,” “Zemire et Azor,” and “Richard Coeur de Lion” among them; he bought Rousseau's hermitage at Montmorency, where he died (1741-1813).
Greuze, Jean Baptiste, a French painter, much esteemed for his portraits and exquisite genre pieces; he died in poverty (1725-1805).
Grève, Place de, place of public execution in Paris at one time.
Greville, Charles Cavendish Fulke, celebrated for his “Memoirs”; after quitting Oxford he acted as private secretary to Earl Bathurst, and from 1821 to 1860 was Clerk of the Council in Ordinary; it was during his tenure of this office that he enjoyed exceptional opportunities of meeting the public men of his times, and of studying the changing phases of political and court-life of which he gives so lively a picture in his “Memoirs” (1794-1865).
Greville, Fulke, a minor English poet, born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire; was educated at Cambridge and Oxford; travelled on the Continent; played a part in the court-life of Elizabeth's time; was knighted in 1597, and in 1620 was created Lord Brooke; he was murdered in a scuffle with his valet (1554-1628).
Gréville, Henry, the pseudonym of Madame Alice Durand (née Fleury), novelist, born at Paris; her works, which are numerous, contain lively pictures of life in Russia, in which country, in St. Petersburg, she spent 15 years of her life (1857-72), and married Émile Durand, a French professor of Law; since 1872 she has lived in France; b. 1842.
Grévy, François, Paul Jules, French President, born at Mont-sous-Vaudrey, Jura; became prominent at the Paris bar, and after the '48 Revolution entered the Constituent Assembly, of which he became Vice-President; his opposition to Louis Napoleon, and disapproval of his coup d'état, obliged him to retire; but in 1869 he again entered the political arena, and was four times chosen President of the National Assembly; in 1879 he was elected President of the Republic for seven years, and in 1886 was confirmed in his position for a similar period, but ministerial difficulties induced him to resign two years later (1807-1891).
Grey, Charles, first Earl, soldier; as Sir Charles Grey of Howick he distinguished himself in the wars with the American Colonies and the French Republic, and in 1804 was rewarded with a Barony, and two years later was made Earl Grey (1728-1807).
Grey, Charles, 2nd Earl, party to the impeachment of Warren Hastings; tried to impeach Pitt; denounced union with Ireland; became leader of the House of Commons in 1806; carried Act for the Abolition of the African Slave-trade; succeeded to the earldom in 1807, and denounced the Bill against Queen Caroline; becoming Prime Minister in 1830 he was defeated, and resigned twice over the Reform Bill; returning to power in 1832, with permission to make as many peers as might be needed, he succeeded at last in passing the Bill; he was head of a powerful party in the reformed Parliament, and carried the bill abolishing slavery in the Colonies, but resigned over Irish troubles in 1834 (1764-1845).
Grey, Sir George, colonial governor and statesman, born at Lisburn, Ireland; while a captain in the army he, in 1837 and 1838, explored Central Australia and the Swan River district; in 1841, having retired from the army, he became Governor of South Australia; was made K.C.B. for his services: in 1846 was Governor of New Zealand, and in 1854 Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Cape of Good Hope, where he conciliated the Kaffirs; in 1858 a difference with the home government led him to resign, but he was soon re-established; from 1861 to 1867 he was at his former post in New Zealand, where he pacified the Maories; in 1875 he was Superintendent of Auckland, and in 1877-84 was Premier of New Zealand; he is the author of “Journals of Discovery in Australia,” “Polynesian Mythology,” &c. (1812-1898).
Grey, Lady Jane, the ill-fated “nine days' queen,” born at Bradgate, Leicestershire; was the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and the great-granddaughter of Henry VII.; her talents were of a rare order, and sedulously cultivated; she attained to great proficiency in Greek, Latin, and also in modern languages, while she was skilled in all the accomplishments of womanhood; a plot entered into by Suffolk and the Duke of Northumberland, whose son Lady Jane had been forced to espouse at 15, brought about her proclamation as Queen in 1553; the attempted usurpation was crushed in ten days, and four months later Lady Jane and her husband were executed (1537-1554).
Grey Friars, the Franciscans (q. v.), from their grey habit.
Grieg, Edoard, Norwegian composer, born at Bergen, of Scotch descent; received his first musical lessons from his mother, and at 15 went to Leipzig; in 1863 was at Copenhagen and then established himself as a teacher at Christiania, where he continued eight years and became intimate with Ibsen; subsequently, after leading an unsettled life, he received a government pension, and after that devoted himself to musical composition; his music, chiefly pianoforte pieces and songs, achieved a wide popularity in England and Scotland; b. 1843.
Grierson, Sir Robert, of Lag, a notorious persecutor of the Covenanters, whose memory is still regarded with odium among the peasants of Galloway; was for some years Steward of Kirkcudbright; was in 1685 made a Nova Scotia baronet, and awarded a pension (1655-1733).
Griesbach, Johann Jacob, German theologian and biblical critic, born in Hesse-Darmstadt; produced a critical revision of the text of the New Testament, the chief labour of his life, for which he visited and ransacked the various libraries of Europe (1745-1812).
Griffin or Griffon, a chimerical fabulous animal with the body and legs of a lion in symbol of strength, with the wings and beak of an eagle in symbol of swiftness, with the ears of a horse in symbol of watchfulness, and instead of a mane the fin of a fish; figures among heraldic symbols with the significance here indicated.
Grillparzer, Franz, popular Austrian dramatist, born at Vienna; studied law and then entered the Civil Service, in which he remained from 1813 to 1856; his first notable drama was the tragedy “Die Ahnfrau,” the motif of which is an extreme fatalism; “Sappho,” “Das goldene Vliess,” and many others followed, all of which are marked by dramatic power and lyric grace; he stands in the front rank of Austrian poets (1791-1872).
Grimaldi, Joseph, a famous English clown, son of an Italian dancing-master, born in London; was bred to the stage from his infancy, appearing on the boards when not yet two years old; his Memoirs were edited by Dickens, who describes him as “the genuine droll, the grimacing, filching, irresistible clown” (1779-1837).
Grimm, Baron, a German littérateur and critic, born at Ratisbon; a man of versatile powers and vast attainments; settled in Paris and became acquainted with Rousseau and the leading Encyclopédists and Madame d'Epinay; on the breaking out of the Revolution he retired to the court of Gotha and afterwards to that of Catharine II. of Russia, who made him her minister at Hamburg; his correspondence is full of interest, and abounds in piquant literary criticism (1723-1807).
Grimm, Jacob Ludwig, German philologist, born at Hanau; held office as librarian to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia, and afterwards to Göttingen University, as well as a professorship there, devoting himself the while chiefly to studies in early German lore, and afterwards with his brother settled in Berlin; his principal works were, “Deutsche Grammatik,” “Deutsche Mythologie,” “Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache,” and the “Kinder-und-Haus-Märchen” in collaboration with his brother (1785-1863).
Grimm, Wilhelm Karl, philologist, younger brother of the preceding, born at Hanau; was associated both in his appointments and work with his brother, the two being known as the Brothers Grimm; edited several old German poems, his principal work “Die Deutsche Heldensage” (1786-1859).
Grimm's Law, as enunciated by J. L. Grimm, is the law regulating the interchange of mute consonants in languages of Aryan origin, aspirates, flats, and sharps in the classical languages corresponding respectively to flats, sharps, and aspirates in Low German, and to sharps, aspirates, and flats in High German tongues.
Grimsby or Great Grimsby (59), a seaport of Lincolnshire, on the S. shore of the Humber, opposite Spurn Head, 20 m. SE. of Hull; was a port of importance in Edward III.'s time; is now noted as the largest fishing-port in the kingdom; has extensive docks, shipbuilding, tanning, brewing, and other industries.
Grindal, Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury; was suspended for respecting his conscience more than the Queen (Elizabeth), but restored; offered to resign, but the Queen would not accept his resignation; became in the end blind from grief (1519-1583).
Grindelwald, a winter resort in Bernese Oberland, in Switzerland, in a beautiful valley 12½ m. long and 4 m. broad, and nearly 3500 ft. above sea-level.
Gringo, a name of contempt in Mexico and South America for interlopers of English descent or speech.
Gringore, a French poet; flourished in the reigns of Louis XII. and Francis I.; was received with favour at court for political reasons, though he lashed its vices and those of the clergy; wrote satirical farces, and one especially at the instance of Louis against Pope Julius II., entitled “Le Jeu du Prince des Sots” (1476-1544).
Griqualand, West and East, British territories in South Africa. The former (83, 30 whites) lies to the N.E. of Cape Colony, between the Orange River on the S. and Bechuanaland on the N.; the diamond industry, of which Kimberley is the centre, is the chief source of wealth, and was begun in 1867; Kimberley is also the seat of government. The latter (153, 4 whites), situated in No-Man's-Land, between the Kaffir country and S. Natal, is chiefly inhabited by Griquas and Basutos. The first has been part of Cape Colony since 1881, and the second was annexed to that colony in 1871, though it is controlled by a chief-magistrate. Griqua is a name given to half-bloods of Dutch fathers and Hottentot mothers.
Griselda or Griseldis, a famous heroine of mediæval tradition; figures in Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer, and in later dramatists of England, Germany, and Spain; the beautiful daughter of a Piedmontese peasant, she was loved and married by the Marquis Walter of Saluzzo; his jealous affection subjected her to several cruel tests of love, which she bore with “wyfly pacience,” and in the end “love was aye between them twa.”
Grisi, Giulia, a celebrated singer, born in Milan; Paris and London were the chief scenes of her triumphs; her greatest triumph was in playing the part of “Norma,” in the opera of the name; she was famous alike for the beauty of her person and the quality of her voice (1811-1869).
Grisnez, Cape, a headland with a lighthouse on the French coast opposite Dover, and the nearest point in France to England.
Grisons (95), the largest of the Swiss cantons, lies in the SE. between Tyrol and Lombardy; consists of high mountains and valleys, amongst which are some of the most noted Alpine glaciers; the Engadine Valley, through which flows the Inn, is a celebrated health resort, as also the Davos Valley in the E.; some cereals are raised, but pasture and forest land occupy a large part of the canton, and supply the cattle and timber export trade; the population, which is small for the extent of territory, is a mixture of German, Romanic, and Italian elements.
Grocyn, William, classical scholar, born at Bristol; was the first to teach Greek at Oxford, and the tutor in that department of Sir Thomas More and Erasmus (1442-1519).
Grodno, a province and town of Russia; the latter (51) is on the Niemen, 148 m. NE. of Warsaw; has a Polish palace and medical school. The former (1,556) is a wide, pine-covered, swampy, yet fertile district, which produces good crops of cereals, and is a centre of the woollen industry.
Grolier, Jean, a famous bibliophile, whose library was dispersed in 1675; the bindings of the books being ornamented with geometric patterns, have given name to bindings in this style; they bore the inscription, “Io. Grolieri et Amicorum” (the property of Jean Grolier and his friends).
Gröningen (286), a low-lying province in the NE. of Holland, fronting the German Ocean on the N., and having Hanover on its eastern border; its fertile soil favours extensive farming and grazing; shipbuilding is an important industry. The capital (58) is situated on the Hunse, 94 m. NE. of Amsterdam; has several handsome buildings, a university (1614), botanic gardens, shipbuilding yards, and tobacco and linen factories.
Gronovius, the name of two Dutch scholars, father and son, professors successively of belles-lettres at Leyden; John died 1671, and Jacob 1716.
Gros, Antoine Jean, Baron, a French historical painter, born at Paris; his subjects were taken from events in the history of France, and especially in the career of Napoleon; his first work, received with unbounded enthusiasm, was “Pestiféré's de Jaffa,” and his latest, a picture in the cupola of the Church of Geneviève, in Paris (1771-1835).
Grose, Captain Francis, an English antiquary, born at Greenford, Middlesex; was educated for an artist, and exhibited; proved a good draughtsman; became captain of Sussex militia; published the “Antiquities of England and Wales” (1773-1787); came to Scotland in 1789 on an antiquarian tour, and made the acquaintance of Burns, who celebrated him in his “Hear, Land o' Cakes and Brither Scots,” as “a chield's amang you takin' notes, and faith he'll prent it”; was an easy-going man, with a corpulent figure, a smack of humour, and a hearty boon companion; lived to publish his “Antiquities of Scotland and Ireland”; died at Dublin in an apoplectic fit (1731-1791).
Grossmith, George, actor, famous for leading parts in Gilbert and Sullivan's operas, and since as giving single-handed dramatic sketches and songs, written by himself and set to music by himself; b. 1847.
Grossmith, Weedon, actor, artist, and contributor to Art Magazine and Punch; brother of preceding.
Grosseteste, Robert, a famous bishop of Lincoln, born at Stradbroke, Suffolk, of peasant parents; a man of rare learning, he became a lecturer in the Franciscan school at Oxford, and rose through various stages to be bishop of Lincoln in 1235; he was an active Parliamentarian, and gave valuable assistance to his friend Simon de Montfort in the struggle with Henry III., and headed the Church reform party against the nepotism of Innocent IV.; according to Stubbs, “he was the most learned, the most acute, and most holy man of his time” (1175-1253).
Grote, George, historian and politician, born at Clay Hill, near Beckenham, of German descent; was a banker to business; spent his leisure time in the study of philosophy and history; contributed to the Westminster Review, a philosophical Radical organ at that time; represented the City of London in that interest from 1833 to 1841, when he retired to devote all his time to his “History of Greece,” of which the first volumes appeared In 1846 and the last in 1856, making 12 volumes in all; this work contributed to dispel many erroneous impressions, in regard particularly to Athens and its political constitution; wrote on Plato and Aristotle, but his philosophical creed made it impossible for him to do justice to the Greek metaphysics (1791-1871).
Grotefend, Georg Friedrich, antiquary and philologist, born at Minden, Hanover; was director of the Lyceum, Hanover; was the first to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions, a discovery which he gave to the world in 1802 (1775-1853).
Grotesque, The, the combination in art of heterogeneous parts, suggested by some whimsically designed paintings in the artificial grottoes of Roman houses.
Grotius, Hugo, or Huig van Groot, a celebrated Dutch jurist and theologian, born at Delft; studied at Leyden under Scaliger, and displayed an extraordinary precocity in learning; won the patronage of Henri IV. while on an embassy to France; practised at the bar in Leyden, and in 1613 was appointed pensionary of Rotterdam; he became embroiled in a religious dispute, and for supporting the Arminians was sentenced to imprisonment for life; escaped in a book chest (a device of his wife), fled to Paris, and was pensioned by Louis XIII.; in 1625 he published his famous work on international law, “De Jure Belli et Pacis”; from 1634 to 1645 he acted as Swedish ambassador at Paris; his acute scholarship is manifested in various theological, historical, and legal treatises; his work “De Veritate Religionis Christiana;” is well known (1583-1645).
Grouchy, Emmanuel, Marquis de, a French marshal, born at Paris; entered the army in 1780, and later gave enthusiastic support to the Revolution, laying aside his title; took part in the Vendéan campaign, the abortive attempt on Ireland, and, under Joubert, in the conquest of Italy; was a gallant and daring commander in the Piedmontese, Austrian, and Russian campaigns of Napoleon, and by skilful generalship covered the retreat of the French at Leipzig; he was among the first to welcome Napoleon back from Elba, defeated Blücher at Ligny, but failed to be forward in the field of Waterloo; led the remnants of the French army back to Paris afterwards, and then retired to the United States; in 1819 he returned, and in 1831 was reinstated as marshal (1766-1847).
Grove, Sir George, born at Clapham; trained as a civil engineer, and assisted Robert Stephenson in constructing the Britannia tubular bridge; in 1849 he became secretary to the Society of Arts, a position he held till 1852, when he became secretary and director of the Crystal Palace Company; subsequently he was editor of Macmillan's Magazine, a contributor to Smith's “Dictionary of the Bible,” and is best known for the “Dictionary of Music and Musicians” which he edited and partly wrote; was knighted in 1883; b. 1820.
Grove. Sir William Robert, lawyer and physicist, burn at Swansea; called to the bar; was made a judge in 1871, and knighted a year later, and from 1875 to 1887 he was one of the judges in the High Court of Justice; throughout his life he busied himself in optical and electrical research; in 1839 invented the electric battery named after him, and from 1840 to 1847 lectured on Natural Science in the London Institution; in 1866 he was President of the British Association; his scientific publications are various, and are important contributions to their subjects (1811-1896).
Grub Street, a street in London near Moorfields, formerly inhabited by a needy class of jobbing literary men, and the birthplace of inferior literary productions.
Grundtvig, Nikolai Frederik Severin, Danish poet and theologian, born in Zealand; was early smitten with a passion for the old Saga literature of the North, and published in 1808 “Northern Mythology,” which was followed by other works of a similar nature, patriotic songs, and a translation of “Beowulf”; he entered the Church as a curate in 1811; engaged in ardent controversy with the rationalists; became leader of a Church reform party, the Grundtvigians; was for seven years suspended from preaching, and eventually rose to be a bishop in Copenhagen, but had no see (1783-1872).
Grundy, Mrs., an old lady referred to in Thomas Morgan's comedy of “Speed the Plough,” personifying the often affected extreme offence taken by people of the old school at what they consider violations of propriety.
Gruyère, a small town in Freiburg (q. v.), where whole-milk cheese is made.
Guacho, a native of the South American pampas.
Guadalquivir, the most important river of Spain, rises in the Sierra de Cazorla, in the southern province of Jaen, and flows in a SW. direction through Andalusia, passing Cordova and Seville, to which town it is navigable for steamers; after a course of 374 m. it discharges into the Gulf of Cadiz at San Lucar de Barrameda.
Guadeloupe (168), a French island among the Lesser Antilles, in the W. Indies; is subject to earthquakes; produces sugar and coffee; has belonged to France since 1816.
Guadiana, an important river of Spain, has its source in the E. of the plateau of Mancha, and for a short distance is known as the Zancara, flows in a westerly direction as far as Badajoz, where it bends to the S., then forms the border between Portugal and Spain for a short distance, bends into Alemtejo, and again, ere reaching the Gulf of Cadiz, divides the two countries; it is 510 m. long, of which only 42 are navigable.
Guanajuato (1,007), a central province of Mexico; is rich in minerals, especially silver, and mining is the chief occupation; but stock-raising is of some importance, and large cotton and woollen factories have of recent years been introduced. The capital, Guanajuato (52), is built on both sides of a deep ravine traversed by a dashing torrent; it is the centre of the mining industry.
Guatemala (1,510), a republic of Central America, fronting the Pacific on the W., between Mexico on the N., and San Salvador and Honduras on the S.; is for the most part mountainous, with intervening valleys of rich fertility, little explored; minerals are abundant, and gold and silver are worked, but the wealth of the country lies in its fertile soil, which produces abundance of coffee, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and fruits of all kinds; there is some manufacture of textiles, pottery, &c.; the want of good roads has hindered the development of the country; Roman Catholicism prevails, and the government is vested in a President and Council; its independence was proclaimed in 1839. The capital, Guatemala (85), stands on a plateau 72 m. NE. of its port, San José; there is a cathedral and an archbishop's palace, also electric light, and tramway conveyance.
Guayaquil (45), the principal port of Ecuador, stands at the entrance of the river Guayaquil into the Gulf of Guayaquil; the foreign trade is centred here; there are sawmills and iron-works; coffee is by far the largest export; the town is badly laid out, and yellow fever is common.
Gubernatis, Angelo de, a distinguished Italian scholar, born at Turin; in 1863 he was appointed professor of Sanskrit at Florence; was for a time smitten with the anarchist ideas of Bakunin, whose daughter he married, and resigned his chair, but soon returned to his professional labours; in 1891 he became professor of Sanskrit at Rome; his numerous writings witness to his unceasing industry and versatility, and deal with Orientalism, mythology, archæology, and general literature; his work “Zoological Mythology,” published in English by Mr. Trübner, is not unknown to scholars among us; b. 1840.
Gudrun, a heroine in an old German epic so called; betrothed to Herwig, king of Zealand, and carried off by Hochmut, king of Norway, a rejected suitor; preferred out of respect to her vow to serve as a menial in his mother's kitchen rather than be his wife; was rescued from durance by her brother and her betrothed, and being married to Herwig, pardoned the suitor that had stolen her from his embraces.
Guelderland (523), a province of Holland, stretching from the Zuider Zee on the NW. to Prussia on the SE.; agriculture is the staple industry; the Rhine crosses it in the S.
Guelphs, a political party in Italy, who from the 11th to the 14th centuries maintained, against the claims of the Emperors, the independence of Italy, and the supremacy of the Pope, in opposition to the Ghibellines (q. v.).
Guericke, Otto von, a German physicist, born at Magdeburg; experimented on air, and invented the air-pump (1602-1686).
Guerin, Maurice de, a French poet, of noble birth; bred for the Church, but broke away from it; of a genius of marked promise, whose days were cut short by an early death; his works included a prose poem called the “Centaur” (1810-1838).
Guerin, Pierre, a French painter; treated classical subjects in the classical style (1774-1833)
Guernsey (35), the second in size of the Channel Islands (q. v.); fruit and vegetables are largely exported, and it is noted for a fine breed of cows; St. Peter's Port is the only town, and has an excellent harbour.
Guerrazzi, Francesco Domenico, an Italian patriot and author, born at Leghorn; was trained to the law, but took to literature and produced a number of brilliant political novels; after the flight of the Duke of Tuscany in 1849 he was proclaimed dictator of the duchy, although little in sympathy with the republican government, and on the restoration of the duke was imprisoned for three years and banished to Corsica; later he sat in the Turin Parliament from 1862 to 1865 (1804-1873).
Guesclin, Bertrand du. See Du Guesclin, Bertrand.
Guest, Edwin, master of Caius College, Cambridge, antiquary; wrote only one book “History of English Rhythms,” a work of great learning, but contributed papers of great value on the early history of England in learned journals (1800-1880).
Gueux, “the Beggars,” the name assumed by the nobles and others in the Low Countries in the War of Independence against Philip II. of Spain; being called beggars in reproach by the court party, they adopted the name as well as the dress, wore a fox's tail for a plume and a platter for a brooch.
Guiana, an extensive tract of country in the N. of S. America fronting the Atlantic, bordering on Venezuela on the W., and for the rest hemmed in by Brazil; it is divided into British, Dutch, and French Guiana, all fronting the sea; the physical characteristics of all three are practically the same; a fertile alluvial foreshore, with upward-sloping savannahs and forests to the unexplored highlands, dense with luxuriant primeval forest; rivers numerous, climate humid and hot, with a plentiful rainfall; vegetation, fauna, &c., of the richest tropical nature; timber, balsams, medicinal barks, fruits, cane-sugar, rice, cereals, &c., are the chief products; also some gold. British Guiana (278) is the most westerly, and borders on Venezuela; area, 88,650 sq. m., divided into Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo; Georgetown (q. v.) is the capital. Dutch Guiana or Surinam (73) occupies the central position; area, 46,058 sq. m.; capital Paramaribo (q. v.). French Guiana or Cayenne (30) lies to the E.; area, 31,000 sq. m; capital, Cayenne (q. v.).
Guicciardini, an Italian statesman and historian, born in Florence; studied law; became professor of Jurisprudence there; was a disciple of Macchiavelli; did service as a statesman in the Papal territories; took a leading part in the political changes of Florence; secured the restoration of the Medici to power, and on his retirement composed a “History of Italy during his Own Time,” which he had all but completed when he died (1485-1540).
Guichard, Karl, a Prussian officer, born at Magdeburg; joined Frederick the Great at Breslau, “a solid staid man, of a culture unusual for a soldier; brought with him his book, 'Memoirs Militaires sur les Grecs et les Romans,' a solid account of the matter by the first man who ever understood both war and Greek; very welcome to Frederick, whom he took to very warmly; dubbed him Quintus Icilius, and had his name so entered as major on the army books; promoted at length to colonel, a rank he held till the end of the war” (1721-1775). See Carlyle's “Frederick.”
Guicowar, the hereditary title of the Mahratta princes who rule over Baroda (q. v.), in Gujarat, East India.
Guido Aretinus, a Benedictine monk who flourished at Arezzo, in Italy, during the 11th century, the first to promote the theoretical study of music; he is credited, amongst other things, with the invention of counterpoint, and was the first to designate notes by means of alphabetical letters, and to establish the construction of the stave.
Guido Reni, Italian painter of the school of Bologna; best known by his masterpiece “Aurora and the Hours” at Rome, painted on a ceiling, and his unfinished “Nativity” at Naples (1575-1642).
Guienne (a corruption of Aquitania), an ancient province of SW. France, now subdivided into the departments of Gironde, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron, and embraces parts of Lot-et-Garonne and Tarn-et-Garonne.
Guignes, Joseph de, an eminent French Orientalist, and Sinologist especially; was author of “Histoire Générale des Huns, des Turcs, des Moguls, &c.,” a work of vast research (1721-1800).
Guildford (14), capital of Surrey, on the Wey, 30 m. SW. of London, a quaint old town with several interesting buildings, and the ruins of a Norman castle; is noted for its “Surrey wheats” and live-stock markets; and has corn, paper, and powder-mills, also iron-works.
Guildhall, a building in London and a hall for banquets of the City Corporation; destroyed by the fire of 1666 and rebuilt in 1789.
Guildhall School of Music, an institution established by the Corporation of London to provide advanced and thorough instruction in music at a moderate rate, a fine building in connection with which was erected in 1887; started with 62, and has now 3600 pupils. The Corporation have expended £50,000 on it, besides an annual contribution of £2300.
Guilds, associations of craftsmen or tradesmen in the Middle Ages to watch over and protect the interests of their craft or trade, and to see that it is honourably as well as economically conducted, each with a body of officials to superintend its affairs; they were associations for mutual help, and of great benefit to the general community, religiously and morally, as well as municipally.
Guillotine, a beheading-machine invented by a Dr. Guillotin, and recommended by him to the National Convention, which adopted it; “with my machine, Messieurs, I whisk off your head in a twinkling, and you have no pain;” it was anticipated by the Maiden in Scotland.
Guinea, a name somewhat loosely applied to an extensive tract of territory on the W. coast of Africa, generally recognised as extending from the mouth of the Senegal in the N. to Cape Negro in the S., and is further designated as Lower and Upper Guinea, the boundary line being practically the Equator; the territory is occupied by various colonies of Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Belgium, and the Negro Republic of Liberia.
Guinegate, a village in Hainault, SW. of Belgium, where Henry VIII. defeated the French in 1513 in the Battle of the Spurs (q. v.).
Guinevere, the wife of King Arthur; the most beautiful of women, conceived a guilty passion for Lancelot, one of Arthur's knights, and married Modred, her husband's nephew, in the latter's absence on an expedition against the Romans, on hearing of which he returned, met Modred on the field of battle, whom he slew, fell mortally wounded himself, while she escaped to a nunnery. Tennyson gives a different version in his “Idylls.”
Guiscard, Robert, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, born at Coutances, in Normandy; along with his brothers, sons of Tancred de Hauteville, he, the sixth of twelve, following others of the family, invaded S. Italy; won renown by his great prowess, and in the end the dukedom of Apulia; he engaged in war with the Emperor of the East, but returned to suppress a revolt in his own territory; when Pope Gregory VII. was besieged in San Angelo by Henry IV. of Germany he came to the rescue and the emperor made off (1015-1085).
Guise, a celebrated French ducal family deriving its title from the town of Guise in Aisne.
Guise, Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, Duke of, son of the succeeding, and considered the ablest of the Guise family; was archbishop of Rheims in 1538, and cardinal of Lorraine in 1547; was prominent at the Council of Trent, and in conjunction with his brother fiercely opposed Protestantism (1527-1574).
Guise, Claude of Lorraine, first Duke of, fifth son of René II., Duke of Lorraine; distinguished himself in the service of Francis I., who conferred on him the dukedom of Guise; was the grandfather of Mary, Queen of Scots, through his daughter Marie, wife of James V. of Scotland (1496-1550).
Guise, Francis, second Duke of, and son of preceding; rose, to the highest eminence as a soldier, winning, besides many others, the great victory of Metz (1552) over the Germans, and capturing Calais from the English in 1558; along with his brother Charles (q. v.) he was virtual ruler of France during the feeble rule of Francis II., and these two set themselves to crush the rise of Protestantism; he was murdered by a Huguenot at the siege of Orleans (1519-1563).
Guise, Henry I., third Duke of, son of Francis; the murder of his father added fresh zeal to his inborn hatred of the Protestants, and throughout his life he persecuted them with merciless rigour; he was a party to the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572); his ambitious designs on the crown of France brought about his assassination (1550-1588).
Guise, Henry II., fifth Duke of, grandson of preceding; at 15 he became archbishop of Rheims, but the death of his brother placed him in the dukedom (1640); he opposed Richelieu, was condemned to death, but fled to Flanders; with Masaniello he made a fruitless attempt to seize the kingdom of Naples, and eventually settled in Paris, becoming grand-chamberlain to Louis XIV. (1614-1664).
Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume, a celebrated French historian and statesman, born at Nîmes; his boyhood was spent at Geneva, and in 1805 he came to Paris to study law, but he soon took to writing, and in his twenty-fourth year had published several works and translated Gibbon's great history; in 1812 he was appointed to the chair of History in the Sorbonne; on the second restoration (1814) became Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior; the return of Napoleon drove him from office, but on the downfall of the Corsican he received the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Justice; in 1830 he threw in his lot with Louis Philippe, became Minister of Public Instruction, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister; his political career practically closed with the downfall of Louis Philippe; his voluminous historical works, executed between his terms of office and in his closing years, display wide learning and a great faculty of generalisation; the best known are “The History of the English Revolution” and “The History of Civilisation”; as a statesman he was honest, patriotic, but short-sighted (1787-1874).
Gujarat (3,098), a N. maritime province of the Presidency of Bombay, lying between the Gulfs of Cutch and Cambay; it is a rich alluvial country, and chiefly comprises the native States of Kathiawar, Cutch, and Baroda.
Gulf Stream, the most important of the great ocean currents; it issues by the Strait of Florida from the Gulf of Mexico (whence its name), a vast body of water 50 m. wide, with a temperature of 84° and a speed of 5 m. an hour; flows along the coast of the U.S. as far as Newfoundland, whence it spreads itself in a NE. direction across the Atlantic, throwing out a branch which skirts the coasts of Spain and Africa, while the main body sweeps N. between the British Isles and Iceland, its influence being perceptible as far as Spitzbergen; the climate of Britain has been called “the gift of the Gulf Stream,” and it is the genial influence of this great current which gives to Great Britain and Norway their warm and humid atmosphere, and preserves them from experiencing a climate like Labrador and Greenland, a climate which their latitude would otherwise subject them to.
Gull, Sir William Withey, physician, born at Thorpe-le-Soken; received his medical training at London, and in 1843 became professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution; four years later he was appointed clinical lecturer at Guy's Hospital; in 1871 his attendance on the Prince of Wales brought him a baronetcy; published various lectures and papers on cholera, paralysis, &c. (1816-1890).
Gulliver, the hero of Swift's satirical romance entitled “Gulliver's Travels,” which records his adventures among the pigmies of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, the quacks of Laputa, and the Houyhnhnms (q. v.).
Gully, Right Hon. William Court, Speaker of the House of Commons since 1895; has represented Carlisle since 1886, is son of Dr. Gully of water-cure celebrity; b. 1835.
Gun-cotton, a powerful explosive formed by the action of nitric or sulphuric acid on cotton or some similar vegetable fibre.
Gun-metal, a tough, close-grained alloy of copper and tin.
Gunnings, two beautiful Irish girls, Maria (1733-1760) and Elizabeth (1734-1790), the elder of whom became Countess of Cromarty, and the younger married first the Duke of Hamilton (1752) and afterwards the first Duke of Argyll (1759).
Gunpowder Plot, an attempt on the part of a conspiracy to blow up the Parliament of England on Nov. 5, 1605, on the day of the opening, when it was expected the King, Lords, and Commons would be all assembled; the conspirators were a small section of Roman Catholics dissatisfied with King James's government, and were headed by Robert Catesby, the contriver of the plot; the plot was discovered, and Guy Fawkes was arrested as he was proceeding to carry it into execution, while the rest, who fled, were pursued, taken prisoners, and the chief of them put to death.
Gunter, Edmund, mathematician, born in Hertfordshire; was educated at Oxford for the Church, but his natural bent was towards mathematical science, and in 1619 he became professor of Astronomy in Gresham College, London, a position he held till his death; his “Canon Triangulorum” (1620) was the first table of logarithmic sines and tangents drawn up on Briggs's system; amongst other of his inventions was the surveying chain, a quadrant, Gunter's scale, and he was the first to observe the variations of the compass (1581-1626).
Gunther, king of Burgundy and brother of Chriemhild; his ambition was to wed Brunhilda (q. v.), who could only be won by one who surpassed her in three trials of skill and strength; by the help of Siegfried, who veiled himself in a cloak of darkness, he succeeded not only in winning her hand, but in reducing her to wifely subjection after she was wed.
Guppy, the name of a pert, conceited lawyer's clerk who figures in Dickens's “Bleak House.”
Gurney, Joseph John, a Quaker philanthropist and writer, born at Earlham Hall, near Norwich; in 1818 he became a Quaker minister; he energetically co-operated with his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, in bringing about a reform of the prison system, and otherwise spent his life in philanthropic work; his works include “Prison Discipline,” 1819, “Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends,” 1824 (1788-1847).
Gustavus (I.) Vasa or Gustavus Ericssen, king of Sweden from 1523 to 1560, born at Lindholm, in Upland; having conceived the idea of freeing his country from the yoke of Denmark, under which it had fallen in 1519, and his early efforts to infuse a spirit of patriotic rebellion into the Swedes proving ineffectual, he was captured by the Danes; escaping from captivity, he became a wanderer in his own land, working in mines and enduring great privations, but at last, in 1520, the Swedes were goaded to rebellion, and under him eventually drove the Danes from their land in 1523; during his long reign Gustavus gradually brought his at first disorganised empire into a peaceful and united realm (1496-1560).
Gustavus (II.) Adolphus, king of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, born at Stockholm, grandson of preceding and son of Charles IX.; successful territorial wars with Denmark and Russia occupied him during the early years of his reign, and in 1629 he concluded an advantageous truce for six years with Poland; next he espoused the Protestant cause in Germany against the Catholic League; victory crowned his efforts at every step, but in the great battle of Lützen (near Leipzig), whilst facing Wallenstein (q. v.), his most powerful opponent, he fell in the act of rallying his forces, and in the hour of success, not without suspicion of having been assassinated; he ranks amongst the greatest of champions (1594-1632).
Gustavus III., king of Sweden from 1771 to 1792; succeeded his father Adolphus Frederick; he found himself early at conflict with his nobles, and in 1772, supported by popular feeling, imposed a new constitution on the country greatly diminishing their power; Gustavus was an enlightened ruler, but somewhat alienated his people from him by his extravagance and fondness for French modes of life; in 1788 he became embroiled in a purposeless war with Russia; he was assassinated when about to take up arms in behalf of the Bourbon cause against the French Republicans (1746-1792).
Gustavus IV., king of Sweden from 1792 to 1809, son of preceding; his incompetency and stubbornness made him an ill ruler; territory was lost to the French, and Finland to Russia, while an attack on Norway proved a failure; popular indignation rose to a height in 1809; he was deposed, and the crown given to his uncle, Charles XIII.; after this he lived on the Continent (1778-1837).
Gutenburg, Johannes or Henne, also called Gensfleisch, claimed by the Germans to have been the inventor of the art of printing with movable types, born at Mainz; for some time lived in Strasburg as a polisher of precious stones, mirrors, &c.; he set up his first printing-press at Mainz about 1450 (1400-1468).
Guthrie, Thomas, a Scottish clergyman, distinguished as a pulpit orator and a philanthropist, born in Brechin; was minister at Arbirlot, near Arbroath, and then in Edinburgh; left the Established Church at the Disruption, and became minister of St. John's; traversed the country (1845-46) to raise a fund to provide manses for the Disruption ministers, and realised £116,000 for the object; came forward as an advocate for ragged schools, and founded one in Edinburgh; he was a warm-hearted man as well as an eloquent, who could both move his audience to tears and rouse it to enthusiasm (1803-1873).
Gutta-percha, the inspissated juice of a tree found in the Malay Archipelago.
Guy, Thomas, founder of Guy's Hospital, London, born at Horsleydown, Southwark, London; he started as a bookseller in 1668, and after the importation of English Bibles from Holland was stopped he obtained the privilege of printing Bibles for Oxford University; lucky speculation in South Sea stock, combined with his printing business, enabled him to amass an immense fortune, which he devoted largely to charitable purposes; from 1695 to 1702 he sat in Parliament (1645-1724).
Guy of Warwick, a hero of English romance of the 13th century, who won the hand of the daughter of the Earl of Warwick by a succession of astonishing feats of valour, but repented of the slaughter he had made, and went a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; returned to his wife disguised as a palmer; retired into a hermitage; when about to die sent a ring to her, upon which she came and interred him; she died 15 days after him, and was buried by his side.
Guyon, Sir, a knight in Spenser's “Faërie Queene,” the impersonation of temperance and self-control; he subdued the sorceress Acrasia (i. e. intemperance), and was the destroyer of her “Bower of Bliss.”
Gwalior (3,378), a native State of Central India, under British protection since 1803; governed by the Maharajah Sindhia; area, 29,067 sq. m.; consists of scattered districts in the basins of the Jumna and Nerbudda; opium is the chief export. Gwalior, the capital (1,041), is situated 65 m. S. of Agra; the citadel is very strongly posted on a steep rocky base 340 ft. high.
Gwynn, Nell, a “pretty, witty” actress of Drury Lane, who became mistress of Charles II., whose son by her was created Duke of St. Albans; the king was very fond of her and took special thought of her when he was dying (1640-1691).
Gyges, a young shepherd of Lydia, who, according to classic legend, possessed a magic ring of gold by which he could render himself invisible; he repaired to the Court of Candaules, whose first minister he became, whose chamber he entered invisibly, and whom he put to death to reign in his stead.
Gymnosophists, a set of contemplative philosophers among the Hindus who practised an extreme asceticism and went about almost naked.
Gymnotus, an electric eel of South America, and found in the fresh waters of Brazil and Guiana.
Gypsies, a race of people of wandering habits, presumed to be of Indian origin, found scattered over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even in America, who appear to have begun to migrate westward from the valley of the Indus about A.D. 1000, and to have reached Europe in the 14th century, and to owe their name gypsies to their supposed origin in Egypt. They in general adhere to their unsettled habits wherever they go, show the same tastes, and follow the same pursuits, such as tinkering, mat-making, basket-making, fortune-telling. On their first appearance they were mere vagabonds and thieves.