Part 216 (2/2)
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 flouris.h.i.+ng 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 lectures.h.i.+ps 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, Devons.h.i.+re; 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 ”Maeviad”; his editors.h.i.+p 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 partisans.h.i.+p, but his bitter attacks on the new literature inaugurated by Wordsworth, Sh.e.l.ley, 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 const.i.tutionally 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 Devons.h.i.+re, 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 ill.u.s.trator 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 Esdraelon, 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, nee 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 ent.i.tled ”De Excidio Britanniae,” 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 a.s.sembly; his chief work is ”Aaron's Rod Blossoming,” a vigorous statement and vindication of his Presbyterianism; in 1648 he was Moderator of the General a.s.sembly (1613-1648).
GILPIN, JOHN, a London citizen, on an adventure of whose life Cowper has written a humorous poem.
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