Part 216 (1/2)

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 Ma.s.sacre 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 t.i.tANS (q. v.), being a mere earthly brood of great stature and strength, who thought by their violence to dethrone Zeus, and were with the a.s.sistance 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 Stael; 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.sical 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 n.o.bility, 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 entrepot 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 apprentices.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociated with the repeal of the Advertis.e.m.e.nt, 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 Konigsberg and at Munich; 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 professors.h.i.+p in Gottingen; his great work is a ”History of the Church”

in 6 vols. (1793-1854).