GEORGE I. II. III. and IV. kings of Great Britain. See Britain. George, or Knights of St George, has been the denomination of several military orders, of which that of the Garter is one of the most illustrious.

King George’s Islands are two islands in the South Seas, lying in west longitude 144. 56. and south latitude 14. 28. See Polynesia. George, St, or Georgeo∕ Cappadocia, a name by which several orders, both military and religious, are denominated. It took its rise from a saint or hero famous throughout all the East, called by the Greeks iΛtγah>μaζrυ1, or the Great Martyr.

On some medals of the emperors John and Manuel Comneni may be seen the figure of St George armed, holding a sword or javelin in one hand, and in the other a buckler, with this inscription, an O, containing therein A, and

ΓΕ—l’IOC, making Ο AΓIO2 ΓΕΟΡΓΙΟ2, or the Holy O

George. He is generally represented on horseback, being supposed to have frequently engaged in combat in that manner. He is highly venerated throughout Armenia, Muscovy, and all the countries which adhere to the Greek ritual; from the Greek his worship has long ago been received into that of the Latin church; and England and Portugal have both chosen him as their patron saint.

Great difficulties have been raised about this saint or hero, whose very existence has been called in question. Dr Heylin, who wrote most largely concerning him, concluded[7:10:468] by giving him up entirely, and supposing him only a symbolical device; whilst Dr Pettingal turned him into a mere Basilidian symbol of victory. But Mr Pegg, in a paper in the Archoeologia, attempted to restore the hero; and, finally, Mr Gibbon sunk him into an Arian bishop in the reigns of Constantius and Julian.

George the Cappadocian was so surnamed, according to some, from his parents or education, and was born at Epiphania, in Cilicia, in a fuller’s shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the patrons whom he had assiduously flattered procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative commission or contract to supply the army with bacon. His employment was mean, and he rendered it infamous. He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his malversations were so notorious that he was at length compelled to escape from the pursuit of justice. After this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his character, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love or the ostentation of learning, he collected a valuable library of history, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology; and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. His conduct in this station is represented by historians as polluted by cruelty and avarice, and his death is considered as a just punishment for the enormities of his life, amongst which Mr Gibbon seems to rank his enmity to the gods.

The immediate occasion of his death, however, as narrated by ecclesiastical writers, does not appear calculated to add any stain to his memory. There was in the city of Alexandria a place in which the heathen priests had been accustomed to offer human sacrifices. This place, as being of no use, Constantius gave to the church of Alexandria, and George the bishop issued orders that it should be cleared in order to build a Christian church on the spot. In doing this they discovered an immense subterranean cavern, in which the heathen mysteries had been performed, and where there were many human skulls. These, and other things which they found in the place, the Christians brought out and exposed to public ridicule. Provoked at this exhibition, the heathens suddenly took arms, and rushing upon the Christians, killed many of them with swords, clubs, and stones; some also they strangled, and several they crucified. The Christians, therefore, proceeded no farther in clearing the temple; but the heathens, pursuing their advantage, seized the bishop whilst he was in the church, and threw him into prison. The next day they dispatched him; and then fastening,the body to a camel, they dragged it about the streets all day, and in the evening burned the corpse and the camel together. This fate, according to Sozomen, the bishop owed in part to his haughtiness whilst in favour with Constantius; and some think that the friends of Athanasius were concerned in this murder; but the former ascribes it chiefly to the inveteracy of the heathens, whose superstitions he had been active in abolishing.

This George, the Arian bishop of Alexandria, was a man of letters, and had a valuable library, which Julian ordained to be seized for his own use. In his orders concerning the collection, he says that many of the books were on philosophical and rhetorical subjects, though many of them related to the doctrine of the impious Galileans, as he affected to call the Christians. “These books,” says he, “I could wish to have utterly destroyed; but lest books of value should be destroyed along with them, let those also be carefully sought for.”

But Mr Gibbon gives a different version of the affair of Georges murder, winch he relates with different circumstances. “The Pagans," says he, “excited his devout avarice; and the rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the haughty prelate, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone, ‘ How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand ?' Under the reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent struggle that the civil and military powers of the state could restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious ministers, Count Diodorus, and Darcontius, master of the mint, was ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel; and the inactivity of the Athanasian party was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the future honours of these martyrs, who had been punished, like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. The fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of these sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the Garter.”

Knights of St George. See Garter. There have been various other orders under this denomination, most of which are now extinct, particularly one founded by the Emperor Frederick III. in the year 1470, to guard the frontiers of Bohemia and Hungary against the Turks; and another, called St George of Alfama, founded by the kings of Aragon; and another in Austria and Carinthia.

Religious of St George. Of these there were different orders and congregations, particularly canons regular of St George in Alga, at Venice, established by authority of Pope Boniface IX. in the year 1404. The foundation of this order was laid by Bartolomeo Colonna, who preached in 1396 at Padua, and some other villages in the state of Venice. Pope Pius V. in 1570, gave these canons precedence over all other religious orders.

St George, a fort and town of Asia, in the peninsula on this side the Ganges, and on the coast of Coromandel, belonging to the British. It is otherwise called Madras, and by the natives Chilipatam. See Madras. St George's, the largest of the Bermuda or Summer Islands. Long. G5. 10. W. Lat. 32. 30. N.

Cross of St George, a red cross in a field argent, forming part of the British standard.

George, Lake, a lake in the state of New York, North America. It lies to the south of Lake Champlain, and communicates with it. Lake George is a romantic and beautiful sheet of water, about thirty-seven miles in length, and from one to four or five miles in breadth. It is remarkable for the transparency of its waters, which contain an abundance of excellent fish. The lake is in general very deep, and interspersed with numerous islands, one ol which, Diamond island, formerly possessed a fort.

George’s Channel, a dangerous passage in the Eastern Seas, between the great Nicoar Island and the others [7:10:469]The danger in this passage arises from the rapidity with which the tide runs, which is at the rate of about five miles an hour, and from rocks, so that it is not safe for any vessel to enter it.