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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 - "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 - "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"" ***
Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
AUTHOR LIST: "Author of Asien und Europa nach den Aegyptischen
Denkmälern; &c." 'Aegyptischen' amended from 'Aegptischen'.
ARTICLE GILGIT: "These basins include a system of glaciers of such
gigantic proportions that they are probably unrivalled in any part
of the world." 'part' amended from 'pact'.
ARTICLE GILGIT: "... F. Younghusband, 'Journeys in the Pamirs and
Adjacent Countries,' Proc. R.G.S. vol. xiv., 1892; Curzon,
'Pamirs,' Jour. R.G.S. vol. viii., 1896; Leitnér, Dardistan
(1877)." 'Younghusband' amended from 'Tounghusband'.
ARTICLE GILLRAY, JAMES: "Gillray lived with Miss (often called Mrs)
Humphrey during all the period of his fame. It is believed that he
several times thought of marrying her ..." 'Gillray' amended from
'Gillary'.
ARTICLE GINGUENÉ, PIERRE LOUIS: "... D. J. Garat, Notice sur la vie
et les ouvrages de P. L. Ginguené, prefixed to a catalogue of his
library (Paris, 1817)." 'Ginguené' amended from 'Guingené'.
ARTICLE GINSENG: "Great care is taken in the preparation of the
drug. The account given by Kaempfer of the preparation of nindsin
..." 'Kaempfer' amended from 'Koempfer'.
ARTICLE GIRONDISTS: "... by A. Gramier de Cassagnac (Paris, 1860)
led to the publication of a Protestation by J. Guadet ..."
'publication' amended from 'publicaton'.
ARTICLE GIUSTO DA GUANTO: "Yet there are notable divergences
between these pictures and the 'Communion of the Apostles.'"
'between' amended from 'betweeen'.
ARTICLE GLACIAL PERIOD: "... the side of the hill facing the
advancing ice being rounded and gently curved (German Stossseite),
and the opposite side (Leeseite) steep, abrupt and much less
smooth." 'opposite' amended from 'opposte'.
blowing the hollow bulb into a mould of the required shape. Moulds
are used both for giving shape to vessels and also for impressing
patterns on their surface." 'surface' amended from 'suface'.
ARTICLE GLASS: "It must be remembered that the Romans possessed no
fine porcelain decorated with lively colours and a beautiful glaze;
Samian ware was the most decorative kind of pottery which was then
made." 'porcelain' amended from 'procelain'.
ARTICLE GLASS: "... a squat tumbler covered with prunts, gave rise
to the "Krautstrunk," which is like the "Igel," but longer and
narrow-waisted." 'Krautstrunk' amended from 'Krautsrunk'.
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
FIRST edition, published in three volumes, 1768-1771.
SECOND " " ten " 1777-1784.
THIRD " " eighteen " 1788-1797.
FOURTH " " twenty " 1801-1810.
FIFTH " " twenty " 1815-1817.
SIXTH " " twenty " 1823-1824.
SEVENTH " " twenty-one " 1830-1842.
EIGHTH " " twenty-two " 1853-1860.
NINTH " " twenty-five " 1875-1889.
TENTH " ninth edition and eleven
supplementary volumes, 1902-1903.
ELEVENTH " published in twenty-nine volumes, 1910-1911.
COPYRIGHT
in all countries subscribing to the Bern Convention
by
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
_All rights reserved_
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF
ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XII
GICHTEL to HARMONIUM
New York
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
342 Madison Avenue
Copyright, in the United States of America, 1910,
by
The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
VOLUME XII, SLICE I
Gichtel, Johann to Glory
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
GICHTEL, JOHANN GEORG GIRART DE ROUSSILLON
GIDDINGS, JOSHUA REED GIRAUD, GIOVANNI
GIDEON GIRDLE
GIEBEL, CHRISTOPH ANDREAS GIRGA
GIEN GIRGENTI
GIERS, NICHOLAS KARLOVICH DE GIRISHK
GIESEBRECHT, WILHELM VON GIRNAR
GIESELER, JOHANN KARL LUDWIG GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS
GIESSEN GIRONDE
GIFFARD, GODFREY GIRONDISTS
GIFFARD, WALTER GIRTIN, THOMAS
GIFFARD, WILLIAM GIRVAN
GIFFEN, SIR ROBERT GIRY, ARTHUR
GIFFORD, ROBERT SWAIN GISBORNE
GIFFORD, SANDFORD ROBINSON GISLEBERT OF MONS
GIFFORD, WILLIAM GISORS
GIFT GISSING, GEORGE ROBERT
GIFU GITSCHIN
GIG GIUDICI, PAOLO EMILIANO
GIGLIO GIULIO ROMANO
GIJÓN GIUNTA PISANO
GILAN GIURGEVO
GILBART, JAMES WILLIAM GIUSTI, GIUSEPPE
GILBERT, ALFRED GIUSTINIANI
GILBERT, ANN GIUSTO DA GUANTO
GILBERT, GROVE KARL GIVET
GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY GIVORS
GILBERT, JOHN GJALLAR
GILBERT, SIR JOHN GLABRIO
GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY GLACE BAY
GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ROSANNA GLACIAL PERIOD
GILBERT, NICOLAS JOSEPH LAURENT GLACIER
GILBERT, WILLIAM GLACIS
GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM SCHWENK GLADBACH
GILBERT DE LA PORRÉE GLADDEN, WASHINGTON
GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST GLADIATORS
GILBERT FOLIOT GLADIOLUS
GILBERT ISLANDS GLADSHEIM
GILBEY, SIR WALTER GLADSTONE, JOHN HALL
GILDAS GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART
GILDER, RICHARD WATSON GLADSTONE
GILDERSLEEVE, BASIL LANNEAU GLAGOLITIC
GILDING GLAIR
GILDS GLAISHER, JAMES
GILEAD GLAMIS
GILES, ST GLAMORGANSHIRE
GILFILLAN, GEORGE GLANDERS
GILGAL GLANVILL, JOSEPH
GILGAMESH, EPIC OF GLANVILL, RANULF DE
GILGIT GLAPTHORNE, HENRY
GILL, JOHN GLARUS (Swiss canton)
GILL GLARUS (Swiss city)
GILLES DE ROYE GLAS, GEORGE
GILLES LI MUISIS GLAS, JOHN
GILLESPIE, GEORGE GLASER, CHRISTOPHER
GILLESPIE, THOMAS GLASGOW
GILLIE GLASITES
GILLIES, JOHN GLASS
GILLINGHAM (town of Dorsetshire) GLASS, STAINED
GILLINGHAM (borough of Kent) GLASSBRENNER, ADOLF
GILLOT, CLAUDE GLASS CLOTH
GILLOTT, JOSEPH GLASSIUS, SALOMO
GILLOW, ROBERT GLASSWORT
GILLRAY, JAMES GLASTONBURY
GILLYFLOWER GLATIGNY, JOSEPH ALBERT ALEXANDRE
GILMAN, DANIEL COIT GLATZ
GILMORE, PATRICK SARSFIELD GLAUBER, JOHANN RUDOLF
GILPIN, BERNARD GLAUBER'S SALT
GILSONITE GLAUCHAU
GILYAKS GLAUCONITE
GIMBAL GLAUCOUS
GIMLET GLAUCUS
GIMLI GLAZING
GIMP GLAZUNOV, ALEXANDER CONSTANTINOVICH
GIN GLEBE
GINDELY, ANTON GLEE
GINGALL GLEICHEN
GINGER GLEIG, GEORGE
GINGHAM GLEIM, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG
GINGI GLEIWITZ
GINGUENÉ, PIERRE LOUIS GLENALMOND
GINKEL, GODART VAN GLENCAIRN, EARLS OF
GINSBURG, CHRISTIAN DAVID GLENCOE
GINSENG GLENCORSE, JOHN INGLIS
GIOBERTI, VINCENZO GLENDALOUGH, VALE OF
GIOIOSA-IONICA GLENDOWER, OWEN
GIOJA, MELCHIORRE GLENELG, CHARLES GRANT
GIOLITTI, GIOVANNI GLENELG
GIORDANO, LUCA GLENGARRIFF
GIORGIONE GLEN GREY
GIOTTINO GLENS FALLS
GIOTTO GLENTILT
GIPSIES GLEYRE, MARC CHARLES GABRIEL
GIRAFFE GLIDDON, GEORGE ROBINS
GIRALDI, GIGLIO GREGORIO GLINKA, FEDOR NIKOLAEVICH
GIRALDI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA GLINKA, MICHAEL IVANOVICH
GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS GLINKA, SERGY NIKOLAEVICH
GIRANDOLE GLOBE-FISH
GIRARD, JEAN BAPTISTE GLOBIGERINA
GIRARD, PHILIPPE HENRI DE GLOCKENSPIEL
GIRARD, STEPHEN GLOGAU
GIRARDIN, DELPHINE DE GLORIOSA
GIRARDIN, ÉMILE DE GLORY
GIRARDON, FRANÇOIS
INITIALS USED IN VOLUME XI. TO IDENTIFY INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS,[1] WITH
THE HEADINGS OF THE ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME SO SIGNED.
A. A. R.*
ARTHUR ALCOCK RAMBAUT, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S., F.R.A.S.
Radcliffe Observer, Oxford. Professor of Astronomy in the
University of Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland, 1892-1897.
Grant, Robert.
A. C. Se.
ALBERT CHARLES SEWARD, M.A., F.R.S.
Professor of Botany in the University of Cambridge. Hon. Fellow of
Emmanuel College, Cambridge. President of the Yorkshire
Naturalists' Union, 1910.
Gymnosperms.
A. F. P.
ALBERT FREDERICK POLLARD, M.A., F.R.HIST.S.
Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. Professor of English History
in the University of London. Assistant Editor of the _Dictionary
of National Biography_, 1893-1901. Author of _England under the
Protector Somerset_; _Life of Thomas Cranmer_; &c.
Grindal.
A. Go.*
REV. ALEXANDER GORDON, M.A.
Lecturer on Church History in the University of Manchester.
Grynaeus, Simon;
Haetzer,
A. G. B.*
HON. ARCHIBALD GRAEME BELL, M.INST.CE.
Director of Public Works and Inspector of Mines, Trinidad. Member
of Executive and Legislative Councils, Inst.C.E.
Guiana.
A. H.-S.
SIR A. HOUTUM-SCHINDLER, C.I.E.
General in the Persian Army. Author of _Eastern Persian Irak_.
Giilan;
Hamadan.
A. He.
ARTHUR HERVEY.
Formerly Musical Critic to _Morning Post_ and _Vanity Fair_.
Author of _Masters of French Music_; _French Music in the XIX.
Century_.
Gounod.
A. H. S.
REV. A. H. SAYCE, D.D.
See the biographical article, SAYCE, A. H.
Grammar;
Gyges.
A. J. G.
REV. ALEXANDER JAMES GRIEVE, M.A., B.D.
Professor of New Testament and Church History at the United
Independent College, Bradford. Sometime Registrar of Madras
University and Member of Mysore Educational Service.
Haggai (_in part_).
A. J. H.
ALFRED JAMES HIPKINS.
Formerly Member of Council and Hon. Curator of Royal College of
Music. Member of Committee of the Inventions and Music Exhibition,
1885; of the Vienna Exhibition, 1892; and of the Paris Exhibition,
1900. Author of _Musical Instruments_; _A Description and History
of the Pianoforte_; &c.
Harmonium (_in part_).
A. L.
ANDREW LANG.
See the biographical article, LANG, ANDREW.
Gurney, Edmund.
A. M. C.
AGNES MARY CLERKE.
See the biographical article, CLERKE, A. M.
Halley;
Hansen.
A. N.
ALFRED NEWTON, F.R.S.
See the biographical article, NEWTON, ALFRED.
Goatsucker;
Godwit;
Golden-eye;
Goldfinch;
Goose;
Gos-Hawk;
Grackle;
Grebe;
Greenfinch;
Greenshank;
Grosbeak;
Grouse;
Guacharo;
Guan;
Guillemot;
Guinea-Fowl;
Gull;
Hammer-Kop.
A. Ne.
ALEXANDER NESBITT, F.S.A.
Author of the _Introduction_ to _A Descriptive Catalogue of the
Glass Vessels in South Kensington Museum_.
Glass: _History of Manufacture (in part)_.
A. S. C.
ALAN SUMMERLY COLE, C.B.
Assistant Secretary for Art, Board of Education, 1900-1908. Author
of _Ancient Needle Point and Pillow Lace_; _Embroidery and Lace_;
_Ornament in European Silks_; &c.
Gold and Silver Thread.
A. Sy.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
See the biographical article, SYMONS, A.
Goncourt, De;
Hardy, Thomas.
A. W. H.*
ARTHUR WILLIAM HOLLAND.
Formerly Scholar of St John's College, Oxford. Bacon Scholar of
Gray's Inn, 1900.
Godfrey of Viterbo;
Golden Bull;
Habsburg.
A. W. R.
ALEXANDER WOOD RENTON, M.A., LL.B.
Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon. Editor of
_Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England_.
Ground Rent;
Handwriting.
A. W. W.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, LL.D., LITT.D.
See the biographical article, WARD, A. W.
Greene, Robert.
C. F. A.
CHARLES FRANCIS ATKINSON.
Formerly Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. Captain, 1st City of
London (Royal Fusiliers). Author of _The Wilderness and Cold
Harbour_.
Grand Alliance, War of the;
Grant, Ulysses S. (_in part_);
Great Rebellion.
C. Gr.
CHARLES GROSS, A.M., PH.D., LL.D. (1857-1909).
Professor of History at Harvard University, 1888-1909. Author of
_The Gild Merchant_; _Sources and Literature of English History_;
&c.
Gilds.
C. H.*
SIR C. HOLROYD.
See the biographical article; HOLROYD, SIR C.
Haden, Sir, F. C.
C. H. C.
CHARLES H. COOTE.
Formerly of Map Department, British Museum.
Hakluyt (_in part_).
C. H. Ha.
CARLTON HUNTLEY HAYES, A.M., PH.D.
Assistant Professor of History in Columbia University, New York
City. Member of the American Historical Association.
Gregory: _Popes_, VIII. to XII.;
Guibert.
C. J. L.
SIR CHARLES JAMES LYALL, K.C.S.I., C.I.E., LL.D (Edin.)
Secretary, Judicial and Public Department, India Office. Fellow of
King's College, London. Secretary to Government of India in Home
Department, 1889-1894. Chief Commissioner, Central Provinces,
India, 1895-1898. Author of _Translations of Ancient Arabic
Poetry_; &c.
Hamasa.
C. L.*
CHARLES LAPWORTH, M.SC., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S.
Professor of Geology and Physiography in the University of
Birmingham. Editor of _Monograph on British Graptolites_,
Palaeontographical Society, 1900-1908.
Graptolites.
C. L. K.
CHARLES LETHBRIDGE KINGSFORD, M.A., F.R.HIST.S., F.S.A.
Assistant Secretary to the Board of Education. Author of _Life of
Henry V._ Editor of _Chronicles of London_, and Stow's _Survey of
London_.
Glendower, Owen;
Gloucester, Humphrey, Duke of;
Hallam, Bishop;
Hardyng, John.
C. M.
CARL THEODOR MIRBT, D.TH.
Professor of Church History in the University of Marburg. Author
of _Publizistik im Zeitalter Gregor VII._; _Quellen zur Geschichte
des Papstthums_; &c.
Gregory VII.
C. Mi.
CHEDOMILLE MIJATOVICH.
Senator of the Kingdom of Servia. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of the King of Servia to the Court of St James',
1895-1900 and 1902-1903.
Gundulich.
C. M. W.
SIR CHARLES MOORE WATSON, K.C.M.G., C.B.
Colonel, Royal Engineers. Deputy-Inspector-General of
Fortifications, 1896-1902. Served under General Gordon in the
Soudan, 1874-1875.
Gordon, General.
C. Pf.
CHRISTIAN PFISTER, D.-ÈS-L.
Professor at the Sorbonne, Paris. Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour. Author of _Études sur le règne de Robert le Pieux_.
Gregory, St, of Tours;
Gunther of Schwarzburg.
C. R. B.
CHARLES RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M.A., D.LITT., F.R.G.S., F.R.HIST.S.
Professor of Modem History in the University of Birmingham.
Formerly Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and University Lecturer
in the History of Geography. Lothian Prizeman, Oxford, 1889.
Lowell Lecturer, Boston, 1908. Author of _Henry the Navigator_;
_The Dawn of Modem Geography_; &c.
Gomez;
Hakluyt (_in part_).
C. We.
CECIL WEATHERLY.
Formerly Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law.
Graffito.
C. W. E.
CHARLES WILLIAM ELIOT.
See the biographical article, ELIOT, C. W.
Gray, Asa.
D. C. To.
REV. DUNCAN CROOKES TOVEY, M.A.
Editor of The Letters of Thomas Gray; &c.
Gray, Thomas.
D. F. T.
DONALD FRANCIS TOVEY.
Author of _Essays in Musical Analysis_: comprising The Classical
Concerto, The Goldberg Variations, and analysis of many other
classical works.
Gluck;
Handel.
D. G. H.
DAVID GEORGE HOGARTH, M.A.
Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Fellow of Magdalen
College, Oxford. Fellow of the British Academy. Excavated at
Paphos, 1888; Naucratis, 1899 and 1903; Ephesus, 1904-1905;
Assiut, 1906-1907; Director, British School at Athens, 1897-1900;
Director, Cretan Exploration Fund, 1899.
Halicarnassus.
D. H.
DAVID HANNAY.
Formerly British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Author of _Short
History of Royal Navy, 1217-1688_: _Life of Emilio Castelar_: &c.
Gondomar, Count; Grand Alliance, War of the: _Naval Operations_;
Guichen;
Hamilton, Emma.
D. Ll. T.
DANIEL LLEUFER THOMAS.
Barrister-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn. Stipendiary Magistrate at
Pontypridd and Rhondda.
Glamorganshire;
Gower.
D. Mn.
REV. DUGALD MACFADYEN, M.A.
Minister of South Grove Congregational Church, Highgate. Author of
_Constructive Congregational Ideals_; &c.
Glas, John;
Glasites.
D. M. W.
SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE, K.C.I.E., K.C.V.O.
Extra Groom-in-Waiting to H.M. King George V. Director of the
Foreign Department of _The Times_, 1891-1899. Member of Institut
de Droit International and Officier de l'Instruction Publique of
France. Joint-editor of new volumes (10th edition) of the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Author of _Russia_; _Egypt and the
Egyptian Question_; _The Web of Empire_; &c.
Giers;
Gorchakov.
E. A. F.
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, LL.D.
See the biographical article, FREEMAN, E. A.
Goths (_in part_).
E. A. J.
E. ALFRED JONES.
Author of _Old English Gold Plate_; _Old Church Plate of the Isle
of Man_; _Old Silver Sacramental Vessels of Foreign Protestant
Churches in England_; _Illustrated Catalogue of Leopold de
Rothschild's Collection of Old Plate_; _A Private Catalogue of The
Royal Plate at Windsor Castle_; &c.
Golden Rose (_in part_).
E. B.*
ERNEST CHARLES FRANÇOIS BABELON.
Professor at the Collège de France. Keeper of the department of
Medals and Antiquities at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Member of
the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Paris. Chevalier
of the Legion of Honour. Author of _Descriptions historiques des
monnaies de la république romaine_; _Traités des monnaies grecques
et romaines_; _Catalogue des camées de la bibliothèque nationale_.
Hadrumetum.
E. Br.
ERNEST BARKER, M.A.
Fellow and Lecturer in Modern History at St John's College,
Oxford. Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Merton College. Craven
Scholar, 1895.
Godfrey of Bouillon.
E. C. B.
RT. REV. EDWARD CUTHBERT BUTLER, O.S.B., M.A., D.LITT. (Dublin).
Abbot of Downside Abbey, Bath. Author of "_The Lausaic History of
Palladius_" in _Cambridge Texts and Studies_, vol. vi.
Gilbert of Sempringham, St;
Grandmontines;
Groot.
E. C. Sp.
REV. EDWARD CLARKE SPICER, M.A.
New College, Oxford. Geographical Scholar, 1900.
Glacier.
E. F. G.
EDWIN FRANCIS GAY, PH.D.
Professor of Economics and Dean of the Graduate School of Business
Administration, Harvard University.
Hanseatic League.
E. F. S. D.
LADY DILKE.
See the biographical article, DILKE, SIR C. W., Bart.
Greuze.
E. G.
EDMUND GOSSE, LL.D.
See the biographical article, GOSSE, E.
Gnome.
E. H. P.
EDWARD HENRY PALMER, M.A.
See the biographical article, PALMER, E. H.
Hafiz.
E. J. P.
EDWARD JOHN PAYNE, M.A. (1844-1904).
Formerly Fellow of University College, Oxford. Editor of the
_Select Works of Burke_. Author of _History of European Colonies_;
_History of the New World called America_; _The Colonies_, in the
"British Citizen" Series; &c.
Grey, 2nd Earl.
Ed. M.
EDUARD MEYER, PH.D., D.LITT. (Oxon), LL.D. (Chicago).
Professor of Ancient History in the University of Berlin. Author
of _Geschichte des Alterthums_; _Geschichte des alten Aegyptens_;
_Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme_.
Gotarzes.
E. M. W.
REV. EDWARD MEWBURN WALKER, M.A.
Fellow, Senior Tutor and Librarian of Queen's College, Oxford.
Greece: _History, Ancient, to 146 B.C._
E. O.*
EDMUND OWEN, M.B., F.R.C.S., LL.D., D.SC.
Consulting Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, London, and to the
Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London. Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour. Late Examiner in Surgery at the Universities of
Cambridge, London and Durham. Author of _A Manual of Anatomy for
Senior Students_.
Goitre;
Haemorrhoids.
E. Pr.
EDGAR PRESTAGE.
Special Lecturer in Portuguese Literature in the University of
Manchester. Examiner in Portuguese in the Universities of London,
Manchester, &c. Commendador, Portuguese Order of S. Thiago.
Corresponding Member of Lisbon Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisbon
Geographical Society, &c. Editor of _Letters of a Portuguese Nun_;
_Azurara's Chronicle of Guinea_; &c.
Goes, Damião De;
Gonzaga.
E. R.
LORD LOCHEE OF GOWRIE (Edmund Robertson), P.C., LL.D., K.C.
Civil Lord of the Admiralty, 1892-1895. Secretary to the
Admiralty, 1905-1908. M.P. for Dundee, 1885-1908. Fellow of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford.
Hallam, Henry.
E. S. G.
EDWIN STEPHEN GOODRICH, M.A., F.R.S.
Fellow and Librarian of Merton College, Oxford. Aldrichian
Demonstrator of Comparative Anatomy, University Museum, Oxford.
Haplodrili.
F. C. C.
FREDERICK CORNWALLIS CONYBEARE, M.A., D.TH. (Giessen).
Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Fellow of University
College, Oxford. Author of _The Ancient Armenian Texts of
Aristotle_; _Myth, Magic and Morals_; &c.
Gregory the Illuminator.
F. G. M. B.
FREDERICK GEORGE MEESON BECK, M.A.
Fellow and Lecturer in Classics, Clare College, Cambridge.
Goths (_in part_).
F. G. S.
F. G. STEPHENS.
Formerly Art Critic of the _Athenaeum_. Author of _Artists at
Home_; _George Cruikshank_; _Memorials of W. Mulready_; _French
and Flemish Pictures_; _Sir E. Landseer_; _T. C. Hook, R.A._; &c.
Gilbert, Sir John.
F. H. D.
REV. FREDERICK HOMES DUDDEN, D.D.
Fellow, Tutor and Lecturer in Theology, Lincoln College, Oxford.
Author of _Gregory the Great, his Place in History and Thought_;
&c.
Gregory I.
F. H. H.
FRANKLIN HENRY HOOPER.
Assistant Editor of the _Century Dictionary_.
Hancock, Winfield Scott.
F. J. H.
FRANCIS JOHN HAVERFIELD, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A.
Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.
Fellow of Brasenose College. Fellow of the British Academy. Author
of Monographs on Roman History, especially Roman Britain; &c.
Graham's Dyke.
F. N.
FRIDTJOF NANSEN.
See the biographical article, NANSEN, FRIDTJOF.
Greenland.
F. R. C.
FRANK R. CANA.
Author of _South Africa from the Great Trek to the Union_.
Gold Coast.
F. S. P.
FRANCIS SAMUEL PHILBRICK, A.M., PH.D.
Formerly Scholar and Resident Fellow of Harvard University. Member
of American Historical Association.
Hamilton, Alexander.
F. W. R.*
FREDERICK WILLIAM RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S.
Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, London,
1879-1902. President of the Geologists' Association, 1887-1889.
Gypsum;
Haematite.
G. A. Gr.
GEORGE ABRAHAM GRIERSON, C.I.E., PH.D., D.LITT. (DUBLIN).
Member of the Indian Civil Service, 1873-1903. In charge of
Linguistic Survey of India, 1898-1902. Gold Medallist, Royal
Asiatic Society, 1909. Vice-President of the Royal Asiatic
Society. Formerly Fellow of Calcutta University. Author of _The
Languages of India_; &c.
Gujarati and Rajasthani.
G. C. M.
GEORGE CAMPBELL MACAULAY, M.A.
Lecturer in English in the University of Cambridge. Formerly
Professor of English Language and Literature in the University of
Wales. Editor of the _Works_ of John Gower; &c.
Gower, John.
G. C. W.
GEORGE CHARLES WILLIAMSON, LITT.D.
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Author of _Portrait
Miniatures_; _Life of Richard Cosway, R.A._; _George Engleheart_;
_Portrait Drawings_; &c. Editor of new edition of Bryan's
_Dictionary of Painters and Engravers_.
Greco, El.
G. F. Z.
GEORGE FREDERICK ZIMMER, A.M.INST.CE.
Author of _Mechanical Handling of Material_.
Granaries.
G. G.
SIR ALFRED GEORGE GREENHILL, M.A., F.R.S.
Formerly Professor of Mathematics in the Ordnance College,
Woolwich. Examiner in the University of Wales. Member of the
Aeronautical Committee. Author of _Notes on Dynamics_;
_Hydrostatics_; _Differential and Integral Calculus, with
Applications_; &c.
Gyroscope and Gyrostat.
G. Sn.
GRANT SHOWERMAN, A.M., PH.D.
Professor of Latin in the University of Wisconsin. Member of the
Archaeological Institute of America. Member of American
Philological Association. Author of _With the Professor_; _The
Great Mother of the Gods_; &c.
Great Mother of the Gods.
G. S. C.
SIR GEORGE SYDENHAM CLARKE, G.C.M.G., G.C.I.E., F.R.S.
Governor of Bombay. Author of _Imperial Defence_; _Russia's Great
Sea Power_; _The Last Great Naval War_; &c.
Greco-Turkish War, 1897.
G. W. E. R.
RT. HON. GEORGE WILLIAM ERSKINE RUSSELL, P.C., M.A., LL.D.
Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, 1894-1895; for
India, 1892-1894. M.P. for Aylesbury, 1880-1885; for North Beds.,
1892-1895. Author of _Life of W. E. Gladstone_; _Collections and
Recollections_; &c.
Gladstone, W. E.
G. W. T.
REV. GRIFFITHS WHEELER THATCHER, M.A., B.D.
Warden of Camden College, Sydney, N.S.W. Formerly Tutor in Hebrew
and Old Testament History at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Hajji Khalifa;
Hamadhani;
Handani;
Hammad ar-Rawiya;
Hariri.
H. A. de C.
HENRY ANSELM DE COLYAR, K.C.
Author of _The Law of Guarantees and of Principal and Surety_; &c.
Guarantee.
H. B. Wo.
HORACE BOLINGBROKE WOODWARD, F.R.S., F.G.S.
Formerly Assistant Director of the Geological Survey of England
and Wales. President, Geologists' Association, 1893-1894.
Wollaston Medallist, 1908.
Haidinger, W. K.
H. Ch.
HUGH CHISHOLM, M.A.
Formerly Scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Editor of the
11th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; co-editor of the
10th edition.
Goschen, 1st Viscount;
Granville, 2nd Earl;
Hamilton, Alexander (_in part_);
Harcourt, Sir William.
H. De.
HIPPOLYTE DELEHAYE, S. J.
Assistant in the compilation of the Bollandist publications:
_Analecta Bollandiana_ and _Acta sanctorum_.
Giles, St;
Hagiology.
H. G. H.
HORATIO GORDON HUTCHINSON.
Amateur Golf Champion, 1886-1887. Author of _Hints on Golf_;
_Golf_ (Badminton Library); _Book of Golf and Golfers_; &c.
Golf.
H. J. P.
HARRY JAMES POWELL, F.C.S.
Of Messrs James Powell & Sons, Whitefriars Glass Works, London.
Member of Committee of six appointed by Board of Education to
prepare the scheme for the rearrangement of the Art Collection of
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Author of _Glass Making_; &c.
Glass.
H. Lb.
HORACE LAMB, M.A., LL.D., D.SC, F.R.S.
Professor of Mathematics, University of Manchester. Formerly
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Member
of Council of Royal Society, 1894-1896. Royal Medallist, 1902.
President of London Mathematical Society, 1902-1904. Author of
_Hydrodynamics_; &c.
Harmonic Analysis.
H. L. H.
HARRIET L. HENNESSY, L.R.C.S.I., L.R.C.P.I., M.D.(Brux.)
Gynaecology.
H. M. C.
HECTOR MUNRO CHADWICK, M.A.
Librarian and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. Author of
_Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions_.
Goths: _Gothic Language_.
H. M. Wo.
HAROLD MELLOR WOODCOCK, D.SC.
Assistant to the Professor of Proto-Zoology, London University.
Fellow of University College, London. Author of _Haemoflagellates_
in Sir E. Ray Lankester's _Treatise of Zoology_, and of various
scientific papers.
Gregarines;
Haemosporidia.
H. R.
HENRY REEVE, D.C.L.
See the biographical article, REEVE, HENRY.
Guizot (_in part_).
H. Sw.
HENRY SWEET, M.A., PH.D., LL.D.
University Reader in Phonetics, Oxford. Member of the Academies of
Munich, Berlin, Copenhagen and Helsingfors. Author of _A History
of English Sounds since the Earliest Period_; _A Handbook of
Phonetics_; &c.
Grimm, J. L. C.;
Grimm, Wilhelm Carl.
H. S.-K.
SIR HENRY SETON-KARR, C.M.G., M.A.
M.P. for St. Helen's, 1885-1906. Author of _My Sporting Holidays_;
&c.
Gun.
H. W. C. D.
HENRY WILLIAM CARLESS DAVIS, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. Fellow of All Souls
College, Oxford, 1895-1902. Author of _England under the Normans
and Angevins_; _Charlemagne_.
Gilbert, Foliot;
Gloucester, Robert, Earl of;
Grosseteste.
H. W. R.*
REV. HENRY WHEELER ROBINSON, M.A.
Professor of Church History in Rawdon College, Leeds. Senior
Kennicott Scholar, Oxford University, 1901. Author of _Hebrew
Psychology in Relation to Pauline Anthropology_ (in _Mansfield
College Essays_); &c.
Habakkuk.
I. A.
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A.
Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature, University of
Cambridge. President, Jewish Historical Society of England. Author
of _A Short History of Jewish Literature_; _Jewish Life in the
Middle Ages_.
Graetz;
Habdala;
Halakha;
Halevi;
Haptara;
Harizi.
J. A. F. M.
JOHN ALEXANDER FULLER MAITLAND, M.A., F.S.A.
Musical Critic of _The Times_. Author of _Life of Schumann_; _The
Musician's Pilgrimage_; _Masters of German Music_; _English Music
in the Nineteenth Century_; _The Age of Bach and Handel_. Editor
of new edition of Grove's _Dictionary of Music_; &c.
Grove, Sir George.
J. A. H.
JOHN ALLEN HOWE, B.SC.
Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, London.
Author of _The Geology of Building Stones_.
Glacial Period;
Greensand.
J. A. S.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, LL.D.
See the biographical article, SYMONDS, J. A.
Guarini.
J. Bl.
JAMES BLYTH, M.A., LL.D.
Formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy, Glasgow and West of
Scotland Technical College. Editor of Ferguson's _Electricity_.
Graduation.
J. Bt.
JAMES BARTLETT.
Lecturer on Construction, Architecture, Sanitation, Quantities,
&c., King's College, London. Member of Society of Architects,
Institute of Junior Engineers, Quantity Surveyors' Association.
Author of _Quantities_.
Glazing.
J. D. B.
JAMES DAVID BOURCHIER, M.A., F.R.G.S.
King's College, Cambridge. Correspondent of _The Times_ in
South-Eastern Europe. Commander of the Orders of Prince Danilo of
Montenegro and of the Saviour of Greece, and Officer of the Order
of St Alexander of Bulgaria.
Greece: _Geography and History: Modern_;
Greek Literature: III. _Modern_.
J. E. S.*
JOHN EDWIN SANDYS, M.A., LITT.D., LL.D.
Public Orator in the University of Cambridge. Fellow of St John's
College, Cambridge. Fellow of the British Academy. Author of
_History of Classical Scholarship_; &c.
Greek Law.
J. Fi.
JOHN FISKE.
See the biographical article, FISKE, J.
Grant, Ulysses S.
J. G. C. A.
JOHN GEORGE CLARK ANDERSON, M.A.
Censor and Tutor of Christ Church, Oxford. Formerly Fellow of
Lincoln College. Craven Fellow (Oxford), 1896. Conington Prizeman,
1893.
Gordium.
J. G. R.
JOHN GEORGE ROBERTSON, M.A., PH.D.
Professor of German Language and Literature, University of London.
Author of _History of German Literature_; _Schiller after a
Century_; &c. Editor of the _Modern Language Journal_.
Goethe;
Grillparzer.
J. H. F.
JOHN HENRY FREESE, M.A.
Formerly Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Gracchus;
Gratian;
Hadrian (_in part_).
J. H. H.
JOHN HENRY HESSELS, M.A.
Author of _Gutenberg: an Historical Investigation_.
Gloss;
Gutenberg.
J. H. P.
JOHN HENRY POYNTING, D.SC., F.R.S.
Professor of Physics and Dean of the Faculty of Science in the
University of Birmingham. Formerly Fellow of Trinity College,
Cambridge. Joint-author of _Text-Book of Physics_.
Gravitation (_in part_).
J. Hl. R.
JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, M.A., LITT.D.
Lecturer on Modern History to the Cambridge University Local
Lectures Syndicate. Author of _Life of Napoleon I._; _Napoleonic
Studies_; _The Development of the European Nations_; _The Life of
Pitt_; &c.
Gourgaud, Baron.
J. L. W.
MISS JESSIE LAIDLAY WESTON.
Author of _Arthurian Romances unrepresented in Malory_.
Grail, The Holy;
Guenevere.
J. M. M.
JOHN MALCOLM MITCHELL.
Sometime Scholar of Queen's College, Oxford. Lecturer in Classics,
East London College (University of London). Joint-editor of
Grote's _History of Greece_.
Grote;
Hamilton, Sir William, Bart, (_in part_);
Harem.
J. S. F.
JOHN SMITH FLETT, D.SC., F.G.S.
Petrographer to the Geological Survey. Formerly Lecturer on
Petrology in Edinburgh University. Neill Medallist of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Bigsby Medallist of the Geological Society
of London.
Glauconite;
Gneiss;
Granite;
Granulite;
Gravel;
Greisen;
Greywacke.
J. T. Be.
JOHN T. BEALBY.
Joint author of Stanford's _Europe_. Formerly Editor of the
_Scottish Geographical Magazine_. Translator of Sven Hedin's
_Through Asia, Central Asia and Tibet_; &c.
Gobi.
J. T. S.*
JAMES THOMSON SHOTWELL, PH.D.
Professor of History in Columbia University, New York City.
Golden Rose (_in part_);
Goliad;
Guizot (_in part_).
K. G. J.
KINGSLEY GARLAND JAYNE.
Sometime Scholar of Wadham College, Oxford. Matthew Arnold
Prizeman, 1903. Author of _Vasco da Gama and his Successors_.
Goa.
K. Kr.
KARL KRUMBACHER.
See the biographical article, KRUMBACHER, CARL.
Greek Literature: II. _Byzantine_.
K. S.
MISS KATHLEEN SCHLESINGER.
Editor of the _Portfolio of Musical Archaeology_. Author of _The
Instruments of the Orchestra_; &c.
Glockenspiel;
Gong;
Guitar;
Guitar Fiddle;
Gusla;
Harmonica;
Harmonichord;
Harmonium (_in part_).
L. D.*
LOUIS DUCHESNE.
See the biographical article, DUCHESNE, L. M. O.
Gregory: _Popes_, II.-VI.
L. F. D.
LEWIS FOREMAN DAY, F.S.A. (1845-1909).
Formerly Vice-President of the Society of Arts. Past Master of the
Art Workers' Gild. Author of _Windows, a book about Stained
Glass_; &c.
Glass, Stained.
L. F. V.-H.
LEVESON FRANCIS VERNON-HARCOURT, M.A., M.INST.C.E. (1839-1907).
Formerly Professor of Civil Engineering at University College,
London. Author of _Rivers and Canals_; _Harbours and Docks_;
_Civil Engineering as applied in Construction_; &c.
Harbour.
L. J. S.
LEONARD JAMES SPENCER, M.A.
Assistant in the Department of Mineralogy, British Museum.
Formerly Scholar of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Harkness
Scholar. Editor of the _Mineralogical Magazine_.
Goniometer;
Göthite;
Graphite (_in part_);
Greenockite.
L. R. F.
LEWIS RICHARD FARNELL, M.A., LITT.D.
Fellow and Senior Tutor of Exeter College, Oxford; University
Lecturer in Classical Archaeology; Wilde Lecturer in Comparative
Religion. Author of _Cults of the Greek States_; _Evolution of
Religion_.
Greek Religion.
M.
LORD MACAULAY.
See the biographical article, MACAULAY, T. B. M., BARON.
Goldsmith, Oliver.
M. G.
MOSES GASTER, PH.D.
Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Communities of England.
Vice-President, Zionist Congress, 1898, 1899, 1900. Ilchester
Lecturer at Oxford on Slavonic and Byzantine Literature, 1886 and
1891. President, Folklore Society of England. Vice-President,
Anglo-Jewish Association. Author of _History of Rumanian Popular
Literature_; &c.
Gipsies.
M. H. S.
MARION H. SPIELMANN, F.S.A.
Formerly Editor of the Magazine of Art. Member of Fine Art
Committee of International Exhibitions of Brussels, Paris, Buenos
Aires, Rome and the Franco-British Exhibition, London. Author of
_History of "Punch"_; _British Portrait Painting to the opening of
the Nineteenth Century_; _Works of G. F. Watts, R.A._; _British
Sculpture and Sculptors of Today_; _Henriette Ronner_; &c.
Gilbert, Alfred;
Greenaway, Kate.
M. Ja.
MORRIS JASTROW, JUN., PH.D.
Professor of Semitic Languages, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Author of _Religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians_; &c.
Gilgamesh, Epic of;
Gula.
M. M.
MAX ARTHUR MACAULIFFE.
Formerly Divisional Judge in the Punjab. Author of _The Sikh
Religion, its Gurus, Sacred Writings and Authors_; &c. Editor of
_Life of Guru Nanak_, in the Punjabi language.
Granth.
M. N. T.
MARCUS NIEBUHR TOD, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford. University Lecturer in
Epigraphy. Joint-author of _Catalogue of the Sparta Museum_.
Gythium
M. O. B. C.
MAXIMILIAN OTTO BISMARCK CASPARI, M.A.
Reader in Ancient History at London University. Lecturer in Greek
at Birmingham University, 1905-1908.
Greece: _History: 146 B.C. 1800 A.D._;
Hamilcar Barca;
Hannibal.
M. P.
MARK PATTISON.
See the biographical article, PATTISON, MARK.
Grotius.
M. P.*
LEON JACQUES MAXIME PRINET.
Formerly Archivist to the French National Archives. Auxiliary of
the Institute of France (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences).
Gouffier;
Harcourt.
O. Ba.
OSWALD BARRON, F.S.A.
Editor of _The Ancestor_, 1902-1905. Hon. Genealogist to Standing
Council of the Honourable Society of the Baronetage.
Girdle.
P. A.
PAUL DANIEL ALPHANDÉRY.
Professor of the History of Dogma, École Pratique des Hautes
Études, Sorbonne, Paris. Author of _Les Idées morales chez les
hétérodoxes latines au début du XIII^e siècle_.
Gonzalo de Berceo.
P. A. A.
PHILIP A. ASHWORTH, M.A., DOC. JURIS.
New College, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law. Translator of H. R. von
Gneist's _History of the English Constitution_.
Gneist.
P. C. Y.
PHILIP CHESNEY YORKE, M.A.
Magdalen College, Oxford.
Gunpowder Plot;
Halifax, 1st Marquess of;
Hamilton, 1st Duke of.
P. G.
PERCY GARDNER, M.A.
See the biographical article, GARDNER, PERCY.
Greek Art.
P. Gi.
PETER GILES, M.A., LL.D., LITT.D.
Fellow and Classical Lecturer of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and
University Reader in Comparative Philology. Formerly Secretary of
the Cambridge Philological Society. Author of _Manual of
Comparative Philology_.
Greek Language;
H.
P. G. K.
PAUL GEORGE KONODY.
Art Critic of the _Observer_ and the _Daily Mail_. Formerly Editor
of _The Artist_. Author of _The Art of Walter Crane_; _Velasquez,
Life and Work_; &c.
Hals, Frans.
P. G. T.
PETER GUTHRIE TAIT, LL.D.
See the biographical article, TAIT, PETER GUTHRIE.
Hamilton, Sir William Rowan.
P. La.
PHILIP LAKE, M.A., F.G.S.
Lecturer on Physical and Regional Geography in Cambridge
University. Formerly of the Geological Survey of India. Author of
_Monograph of British Cambrian Trilobites_. Translator and Editor
of Kayser's _Comparative Geology_.
Greece: _Geology_.
P. McC.
PRIMROSE MCCONNELL, F.G.S.
Member of the Royal Agricultural Society. Author of _Diary of a
Working Farmer_; &c.
Grass and Grassland.
R. A. W.
COLONEL ROBERT ALEXANDER WAHAB, C.B., C.M.G., C.I.E.
Formerly H. M. Commissioner, Aden Boundary Delimitation. Served
with Tirah Expeditionary Force, 1897-1898, and on the
Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission, Pamirs, 1895.
Hadramut.
R. A. S. M.
ROBERT ALEXANDER STEWART MACALISTER, M.A., F.S.A.
St John's College, Cambridge. Director of Excavations for the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
Gilead;
Gilgal;
Goshen.
R. C. J.
SIR RICHARD CLAVERHOUSE JEBB, L.L.D., D.C.L.
See the biographical article, JEBB, SIR R. C.
Greek Literature: I. _Ancient_.
R. J. M.
RONALD JOHN MCNEILL, M.A.
Christ Church, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law. Formerly Editor of the
_St James's Gazette_, London.
Gowrie, 3rd Earl of;
Gratton, Henry;
Green Ribbon Club;
Gymnastics;
Harcourt, 1st Viscount;
Hardwicke, 1st Earl of.
R. L.*
RICHARD LYDEKKER, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.
Member of the Staff of the Geological Survey of India, 1874-1882.
Author of _Catalogues of Fossil Mammals, Reptiles and Birds in
British Museum_; _The Deer of all Lands_; _The Game Animals of
Africa_; &c.
Giraffe;
Glutton;
Glyptodon;
Goat;
Gorilla;
Hamster;
Hare.
R. N. B.
ROBERT NISBET BAIN (D. 1909).
Assistant Librarian, British Museum, 1883-1909. Author of
_Scandinavia, the Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden,
1513-1900_; _The First Romanovs, 1613-1725_; _Slavonic Europe, the
Political History of Poland and Russia from 1469 to 1469_; &c.
Golitsuin, Boris, Dmitry, and Vasily;
Golovin, Count;
Golovkin, Count;
Görtz, Baron von;
Griffenfeldt, Count;
Gustavus I., and IV.;
Gyllenstjerna;
Hall, C. C.
R. S. T.
RALPH STOCKMAN TARR.
Professor of Physical Geography, Cornell University.
Grand Canyon.
R. We.
RICHARD WEBSTER, A.M. (Princeton).
Formerly Fellow in Classics, Princeton University. Editor of _The
Elegies of Maximianus_; &c.
Great Awakening.
S. A. C.
STANLEY ARTHUR COOK, M.A.
Editor for Palestine Exploration Fund. Lecturer in Hebrew and
Syriac, and formerly Fellow, Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge. Examiner in Hebrew and Aramaic, London University,
1904-1908. Author of _Glossary of Aramaic Inscriptions_; _The Laws
of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi_; _Critical Notes on Old
Testament History_; _Religion of Ancient Palestine_; &c.
Gideon.
S. Bl.
SIGFUS BLONDAL.
Librarian of the University of Copenhagen.
Hallgrimsson.
S. C.
SIDNEY COLVIN, LL.D.
See the biographical article, COLVIN, SIDNEY.
Giorgione; Giotto.
St. C.
VISCOUNT ST. CYRES.
See the biographical article, IDDESLEIGH, 1ST EARL OF.
Guyon, Madame.
S. N.
SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., D.SC.
See the biographical article, NEWCOMB, SIMON.
Gravitation (_in part_).
T. As.
THOMAS ASHBY, M.A., D.LITT., F.S.A.
Director of the British School of Archaeology at Rome.
Corresponding Member of the Imperial German Archaeological
Institute. Formerly Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. Craven
Fellow, Oxford, 1897. Author of _The Classical Topography of the
Roman Campagna_; &c.
Girgenti;
Gnatia;
Grottaferrata;
Grumentum;
Gubbio;
Hadria;
Halaesa.
T. A. J.
THOMAS ATHOL JOYCE, M.A.
Assistant in Department of Ethnography, British Museum. Hon. Sec.,
Royal Anthropological Institute.
Hamitic Races (I.).
T. Ba.
SIR THOMAS BARCLAY, M.P.
Member of the Institute of International Law. Member of the
Supreme Council of the Congo Free State. Officer of the Legion of
Honour. Author of _Problems of International Practice and
Diplomacy_; &c. M.P. for Blackburn, 1910.
Guerrilla.
T. E. H.
THOMAS ERSKINE HOLLAND, K.C., D.C.L., LL.D.
Fellow of the British Academy. Fellow of All Souls College,
Oxford. Professor of International Law in the University of
Oxford, 1874-1910. Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. Author of _Studies in
International Law_; _The Elements of Jurisprudence_; _Alberici
Gentilis de jure belli_; _The Laws of War on Land_; _Neutral
Duties in a Maritime War_; &c.
Hall, William E.
T. F. C.
THEODORE FREYLINGHUYSEN COLLIER, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of History, Williams College, Williamstown,
Mass., U.S.A.
Gregory: _Popes_, XIII--XV.
T. H. H.*
SIR THOMAS HUNGERFORD HOLDICH, K.C.M.G., K.C.I.E., D.SC., F.R.G.S.
Colonel in the Royal Engineers. Superintendent Frontier Surveys,
India, 1892-1898. Gold Medallist, R.G.S. (London), 1887. H.M.
Commissioner for the Persa-Beluch Boundary, 1896. Author of _The
Indian Borderland_; _The Gates of India_; &c.
Gilgit;
Hari-Rud.
T. K.
THOMAS KIRKUP, M.A., LL.D.
Author of _An Inquiry into Socialism_; _Primer of Socialism_; &c.
Hadrian (_in part_).
T. Se.
THOMAS SECCOMBE, M.A.
Lecturer in History, East London and Birkbeck Colleges, University
of London. Stanhope Prizeman, Oxford, 1887. Formerly Assistant
Editor of _Dictionary of National Biography_, 1891-1901. Author of
_The Age of Johnson_; &c.; Joint-author of _The Bookman History of
English Literature_.
Gilbert, Sir W. S.
V. H. S.
REV. VINCENT HENRY STANTON, M.A., D.D.
Ely Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. Canon of
Ely and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Author of _The
Gospels as Historical Documents_; _The Jewish and the Christian
Messiahs_; &c.
Gospel.
W. A. B. C.
REV. WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BREVOORT COOLIDGE, M.A., F.R.G.S., PH.D.
(Bern).
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Professor of English History,
St David's College, Lampeter, 1880-1881. Author of _Guide du Haut
Dauphiné_; _The Range of the Tödi_; _Guide to Grindelwald_; _Guide
to Switzerland_; _The Alps in Nature and in History_; &c. Editor
of _The Alpine Journal_, 1880-1889; &c.
Glarus;
Goldast Ab Haiminsfeld;
Grasse;
Grenoble;
Grindelwald;
Grisons;
Gruner. G. S.;
Gruyère.
W. A. P.
WALTER ALISON PHILLIPS, M.A.
Formerly Exhibitioner of Merton College and Senior Scholar of St
John's College, Oxford. Author of _Modern Europe_; &c.
Girondists;
Goethe: _Descendants of_;
Greek Independence, War of.
W. Bo.
WILHELM BOUSSET, D.TH.
Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the University of
Göttingen. Author of _Das Wesen der Religion_; _The Antichrist
Legend_; &c.
Gnosticism.
W. Bu.
WILLIAM BURNSIDE, M.A., D.SC., LL.D., F.R.S.
Professor of Mathematics, Royal Naval College, Greenwich. Hon.
Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge. Author of _The Theory of
Groups of Finite Order_.
Groups, Theory of.
W. F. C.
WILLIAM FELLDEN CRAIES, M.A.
Barrister-at-Law, Inner Temple. Lecturer on Criminal Law, King's
College, London. Author of _Craies on Statute Law_. Editor of
Archbold's _Criminal Pleading_ (23rd edition).
Habeas Corpus;
Hanging.
W. G. M.
WALTER GEORGE MCMILLAN, F.C.S., M.I.M.E. (d. 1904).
Formerly Secretary of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and
Lecturer on Metallurgy, Mason College, Birmingham. Author of _A
Treatise on Electro-Metallurgy_.
Graphite (_in part_).
W. Hu.
REV. WILLIAM HUNT, M.A., LITT.D.
President of Royal Historical Society, 1905-1909. Author of
_History of English Church, 597-1906_; _The Church of England in
the Middle Ages_; _Political History of England 1760-1801_.
Green, J. R.
W. H. Be.
WILLIAM HENRY BENNETT, M.A., D.D., D.LITT. (Cantab.).
Professor of Old Testament Exegesis in New and Hackney Colleges,
London. Formerly Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. Lecturer
in Hebrew at Firth College, Sheffield. Author of _Religion of the
Post-Exilic Prophets_; &c.
Gomer;
Ham.
W. H. F.*
WILLIAM HENRY FAIRBROTHER, M.A.
Formerly Fellow and Lecturer, Lincoln College, Oxford. Author of
_Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green_.
Green, Thomas Hill.
W. J. F.
WILLIAM JUSTICE FORD (d. 1904).
Formerly Scholar of St John's College, Cambridge. Headmaster of
Leamington College.
Grace, W. G.
W. McD.
WILLIAM MCDOUGALL, M.A.
Reader in Mental Philosophy in the University of Oxford. Author of
_A Primer of Physiological Psychology_; _An Introduction to Social
Psychology_; &c.
Hallucination.
W. M. M.
W. MAX MÜLLER, PH.D.
Professor of Exegesis in the R.E. Seminary, Philadelphia. Author
of _Asien und Europa nach den Aegyptischen Denkmälern_; &c.
Hamitic Races: II. _Languages_.
W. M. R.
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.
See the biographical article, ROSSETTI, DANTE G.
Giulio Romano;
Gozzoli;
Guido Reni.
W. P. A
LIEUT.-COLONEL WILLIAM PATRICK ANDERSON, M.INST.C.E., F.R.G.S.
Chief Engineer, Department of Marine and Fisheries of Canada.
Member of the Geographic Board of Canada. Past President of
Canadian Society of Civil Engineers.
Great Lakes.
W. P. R.
HON. WILLIAM PEMBER REEVES.
Director of London School of Economics. Agent-General and High
Commissioner for New Zealand, 1896-1909. Minister of Education,
Labour and Justice, New Zealand, 1891-1896. Author of _The Long
White Cloud: a History of New Zealand_; &c.
Grey, Sir George.
W. R.
WHITELAW REID, LL.D.
See the biographical article, REID, WHITELAW.
Greeley, Horace.
W. Ri.
WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, M.A., D.SC.
Professor of Archaeology, Cambridge University, and Brereton
Reader in Classics. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge. Fellow of the British Academy. President of Royal
Anthropological Institute, 1908. President of Anthropological
Section, British Association, 1908. Author of _The Early Age of
Greece_; &c.
Hallstatt.
W. Rn.
W. ROSENHAIN, D.SC.
Superintendent of the Metallurgical Department, National Physical
Laboratory.
Glass (_in part_).
W. R. D.
WYNDHAM ROWLAND DUNSTAN, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.C.S.
Director of the Imperial Institute. President of the International
Association of Tropical Agriculture. Member of the Advisory
Committee for Tropical Agriculture, Colonial Office.
Gutta-Percha.
W. R. E. H.
WILLIAM RICHARD EATON HODGKINSON, PH.D., F.R.S. (EDIN.), F.C.S.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Ordnance College, Woolwich.
Formerly Professor of Chemistry and Physics, R.M.A., Woolwich.
Part-author of Valentin-Hodgkinson's _Practical Chemistry_; &c.
Gun Cotton;
Gunpowder.
W. R. S.
WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH, LL.D.
See the biographical article, SMITH, WILLIAM ROBERTSON.
Haggai (_in part_).
W. R. S. R.
WILLIAM RALSTON SHEDDEN-RALSTON, M.A.
Assistant in the Department of Printed Books, British Museum.
Author of _Russian Folk Tales_; &c.
Gogol.
W. W. R.*
WILLIAM WALKER ROCKWELL, LIC.THEOL.
Assistant Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary,
New York.
Gregory XVI.
PRINCIPAL UNSIGNED ARTICLES
Gilding. Gotland. Guillotine.
Ginger. Gourd. Guise, House of.
Gironde. Government. Gum.
Gladiators. Grain Trade. Gwalior.
Glasgow. Granada. Haddingtonshire.
Glastonbury. Grasses. Hair.
Gloucestershire. Great Salt Lake. Haiti.
Glove. Griqualand East and West. Halo.
Glucose. Guanches. Hamburg.
Glue. Guards. Hamlet.
Glycerin. Guatemala. Hampshire.
Goat. Guelphs and Ghibellines. Hampton Roads.
Gold. Guiacum. Hanover.
Goldbeating.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in
the final volume.
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XII
GICHTEL, JOHANN GEORG (1638-1710), German mystic, was born at
Regensburg, where his father was a member of senate, on the 14th of
March 1638. Having acquired at school an acquaintance with Greek,
Hebrew, Syriac and even Arabic, he proceeded to Strassburg to study
theology; but finding the theological prelections of J. S. Schmidt and
P. J. Spener distasteful, he entered the faculty of law. He was admitted
an advocate, first at Spires, and then at Regensburg; but having become
acquainted with the baron Justinianus von Weltz (1621-1668), a Hungarian
nobleman who cherished schemes for the reunion of Christendom and the
conversion of the world, and having himself become acquainted with
another world in dreams and visions, he abandoned all interest in his
profession, and became an energetic promoter of the "_Christerbauliche
Jesusgesellschaft_," or Christian Edification Society of Jesus. The
movement in its beginnings provoked at least no active hostility; but
when Gichtel began to attack the teaching of the Lutheran clergy and
church, especially upon the fundamental doctrine of justification by
faith, he exposed himself to a prosecution which resulted in sentence of
banishment and confiscation (1665). After many months of wandering and
occasionally romantic adventure, he reached Holland in January 1667, and
settled at Zwolle, where he co-operated with Friedrich Breckling
(1629-1711), who shared his views and aspirations. Having become
involved in the troubles of this friend, Gichtel, after a period of
imprisonment, was banished for a term of years from Zwolle, but finally
in 1668 found a home in Amsterdam, where he made the acquaintance of
Antoinette Bourignon (1616-1680), and in a state of poverty (which,
however, never became destitution) lived out his strange life of visions
and day-dreams, of prophecy and prayer. He became an ardent disciple of
Jakob Boehme, whose works he published in 1682 (Amsterdam, 2 vols.); but
before the time of his death, on the 21st of January 1710, he had
attracted to himself a small band of followers known as Gichtelians or
Brethren of the Angels, who propagated certain views at which he had
arrived independently of Boehme. Seeking ever to hear the authoritative
voice of God within them, and endeavouring to attain to a life
altogether free from carnal desires, like that of "the angels in heaven,
who neither marry nor are given in marriage," they claimed to exercise a
priesthood "after the order of Melchizedek," appeasing the wrath of God,
and ransoming the souls of the lost by sufferings endured vicariously
after the example of Christ. While, however, Boehme "desired to remain a
faithful son of the Church," the Gichtelians became Separatists (cf. J.
A. Dorner, _History of Protestant Theology_, ii. p. 185).
Gichtel's correspondence was published without his knowledge by
Gottfried Arnold, a disciple, in 1701 (2 vols.), and again in 1708 (3
vols.). It has been frequently reprinted under the title _Theosophia
practica_. The seventh volume of the Berlin edition (1768) contains a
notice of Gichtel's life. See also G. C. A. von Harless, _Jakob Böhme
und die Alchimisten_ (1870, 2nd ed. 1882); article in _Allgemeine
deutsche Biographie_.
GIDDINGS, JOSHUA REED (1795-1864), American statesman, prominent in the
anti-slavery conflict, was born at Tioga Point, now Athens, Bradford
county, Pennsylvania, on the 6th of October 1795. In 1806 his parents
removed to Ashtabula county, Ohio, then sparsely settled and almost a
wilderness. The son worked on his father's farm, and, though he received
no systematic education, devoted much time to study and reading. For
several years after 1814 he was a school teacher, but in February 1821
he was admitted to the Ohio bar and soon obtained a large practice,
particularly in criminal cases. From 1831 to 1837 he was in partnership
with Benjamin F. Wade. He served in the lower house of the state
legislature in 1826-1828, and from December 1838 until March 1859 was a
member of the national House of Representatives, first as a Whig, then
as a Free-soiler, and finally as a Republican. Recognizing that slavery
was a state institution, with which the Federal government had no
authority to interfere, he contended that slavery could only exist by a
specific state enactment, that therefore slavery in the District of
Columbia and in the Territories was unlawful and should be abolished,
that the coastwise slave-trade in vessels flying the national flag, like
the international slave-trade, should be rigidly suppressed, and that
Congress had no power to pass any act which in any way could be
construed as a recognition of slavery as a national institution. His
attitude in the so-called "Creole Case" attracted particular attention.
In 1841 some slaves who were being carried in the brig "Creole" from
Hampton Roads, Virginia, to New Orleans, revolted, killed the captain,
gained possession of the vessel, and soon afterwards entered the British
port of Nassau. Thereupon, according to British law, they became free.
The minority who had taken an active part in the revolt were arrested on
a charge of murder, and the others were liberated. Efforts were made by
the United States government to recover the slaves, Daniel Webster, then
secretary of state, asserting that on an American ship they were under
the jurisdiction of the United States and that they were legally
property. On the 21st of March 1842, before the case was settled,
Giddings introduced in the House of Representatives a series of
resolutions, in which he asserted that "in resuming their natural rights
of personal liberty" the slaves "violated no law of the United States."
For offering these resolutions Giddings was attacked with rancour, and
was formally censured by the House. Thereupon he resigned, appealed to
his constituents, and was immediately re-elected by a large majority. In
1859 he was not renominated, and retired from Congress after a
continuous service of more than twenty years. From 1861 until his death,
at Montreal, on the 27th of May 1864, he was U.S. consul-general in
Canada. Giddings published a series of political essays signed
"Pacificus" (1843); _Speeches in Congress_ (1853); _The Exiles of
Florida_ (1858); and a _History of the Rebellion: Its Authors and
Causes_ (1864).
See _The Life of Joshua R. Giddings_ (Chicago, 1892), by his
son-in-law, George Washington Julian (1817-1899), a Free-soil leader
and a representative in Congress in 1849-1851, a Republican
representative in Congress in 1861-1871, a Liberal Republican in the
campaign of 1872, and afterwards a Democrat.
GIDEON (in Hebrew, perhaps "hewer" or "warrior"), liberator, reformer
and "judge" of Israel, was the son of Joash, of the Manassite clan of
Abiezer, and had his home at Ophrah near Shechem. His name occurs in
Heb. xi. 32, in a list of those who became heroes by faith; but, except
in Judges vi.-viii., is not to be met with elsewhere in the Old
Testament. He lived at a time when the nomad tribes of the south and
east made inroads upon Israel, destroying all that they could not carry
away. Two accounts of his deeds are preserved (see JUDGES). According to
one (Judges vi. 11-24) Yahweh appeared under the holy tree which was in
the possession of Joash and summoned Gideon to undertake, in dependence
on supernatural direction and help, the work of liberating his country
from its long oppression, and, in token that he accepted the mission, he
erected in Ophrah an altar which he called "Yahweh-Shalom" (Yahweh is
peace). According to another account (vi. 25-32) Gideon was a great
reformer who was commanded by Yahweh to destroy the altar of Baal
belonging to his father and the _asherah_ or sacred post by its side.
The townsmen discovered the sacrilege and demanded his death. His
father, who, as guardian of the sacred place, was priest of Baal,
enjoined the men not to take up Baal's quarrel, for "if Baal be a god,
let him contend (_rib_) for himself." Hence Gideon received the name
Jerubbaal.[1] From this latter name appearing regularly in the older
narrative (cf. ix.), and from the varying usage in vi.-viii., it has
been held that stories of two distinct heroes (Gideon and Jerubbaal)
have been fused in the complicated account which follows.[2]
The great gathering of the Midianites and their allies on the north side
of the plain of Jezreel; the general muster first of Abiezer, then of
all Manasseh, and lastly of the neighbouring tribes of Asher, Zebulun
and Naphtali; the signs by which the wavering faith of Gideon was
steadied; the methods by which an unwieldy mob was reduced to a small
but trusty band of energetic and determined men; and the stratagem by
which the vast army of Midian was surprised and routed by the handful of
Israelites descending from "above Endor," are indicated fully in the
narratives, and need not be detailed here. The difficulties in the
account of the subsequent flight of the Midianites appear to have arisen
from the composite character of the narratives, and there are signs that
in one of them Gideon was accompanied only by his own clansmen (vi. 34).
So, when the Midianites are put to flight, according to one
representation, the Ephraimites are called out to intercept them, and
the two chiefs, Oreb ("raven") and Zeeb ("wolf"), in making for the
fords of the Jordan, are slain at "the raven's rock" and "the wolf's
press" respectively. As the sequel of this we are told that the
Ephraimites quarrelled with Gideon because their assistance had not been
invoked earlier, and their anger was only appeased by his tactful reply
(viii. 1-3; contrast xii. 1-6). The other narrative speaks of the
pursuit of the Midianite chiefs Zebah and Zalmunna[3] across the
northern end of Jordan, past Succoth and Penuel to the unidentified
place Karkor. Having taken relentless vengeance on the men of Penuel and
Succoth, who had shown a timid neutrality when the patriotic struggle
was at its crisis, Gideon puts the two chiefs to death to avenge his
brothers whom they had killed at Tabor.[4] The overthrow of Midian (cf.
Is. ix. 4, x. 26; Ps. lxxxiii. 9-12) induced "Israel" to offer Gideon
the kingdom. It was refused--out of religious scruples (viii. 22 seq.;
cf. 1 Sam. viii. 7, x. 19, xii. 12, 17, 19), and the ephod idol which he
set up at Ophrah in commemoration of the victory was regarded by a later
editor (v. 27) as a cause of apostasy to the people and a snare to
Gideon and his house; see, however, Ephod. Gideon's achievements would
naturally give him a more than merely local authority, and after his
death the attempt was made by one of his sons to set himself up as chief
(see ABIMELECH).
See further JEWS, section 1; and the literature to the book of Judges.
(S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Baal contends" (or Jeru-baal, "Baal founds," cf. Jeru-el), but
artificially explained in the narrative to mean "let Baal contend
against him," or "let Baal contend for himself," v. 31. In 2 Sam. xi.
21 he is called Jerubbesheth, in accordance with the custom explained
in the article BAAL.
[2] See, on this, Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1719 seq.; Ed. Meyer,
_Die Israeliten_, pp. 482 seq.
[3] The names are vocalized to suggest the fanciful interpretations
"victim" and "protection withheld."
[4] As the account of this has been lost and the narrative is
concerned not with the plain of Jezreel but rather with Shechem, it
has been inferred that the episode implies the existence of a
distinct story wherein Gideon's pursuit is such an act of vengeance.
GIEBEL, CHRISTOPH GOTTFRIED ANDREAS (1820-1881), German zoologist and
palaeontologist, was born on the 13th of September 1820 at Quedlinburg
in Saxony, and educated at the university of Halle, where he graduated
Ph.D. in 1845. In 1858 he became professor of zoology and director of
the museum in the university of Halle. He died at Halle on the 14th of
November 1881. His chief publications were _Paläozoologie_ (1846);
_Fauna der Vorwelt_ (1847-1856); _Deutschlands Petrefacten_ (1852);
_Odontographie_ (1855); _Lehrbuch der Zoologie_ (1857); _Thesaurus
ornithologiae_ (1872-1877);
GIEN, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Loiret, situated on the right bank of the Loire, 39 m.
E.S.E. of Orleans by rail. Pop. (1906) 6325. Gien is a picturesque and
interesting town and has many curious old houses. The Loire is here
crossed by a stone bridge of twelve arches, built by Anne de Beaujeu,
daughter of Louis XI., about the end of the 15th century. Near it stands
a statue of Vercingetorix. The principal building is the old castle used
as a law-court, constructed of brick and stone arranged in geometrical
patterns, and built in 1494 by Anne de Beaujeu. The church of St Pierre
possesses a square tower dating from the end of the 15th century.
Porcelain is manufactured.
GIERS, NICHOLAS KARLOVICH DE (1820-1895), Russian statesman, was born on
the 21st of May 1820. Like his predecessor, Prince Gorchakov, he was
educated at the lyceum of Tsarskoye Selo, near St Petersburg, but his
career was much less rapid, because he had no influential protectors,
and was handicapped by being a Protestant of Teutonic origin. At the age
of eighteen he entered the service of the Eastern department of the
ministry of foreign affairs, and spent more than twenty years in
subordinate posts, chiefly in south-eastern Europe, until he was
promoted in 1863 to the post of minister plenipotentiary in Persia. Here
he remained for six years, and, after serving as a minister in
Switzerland and Sweden, he was appointed in 1875 director of the Eastern
department and assistant minister for foreign affairs under Prince
Gorchakov, whose niece he had married. No sooner had he entered on his
new duties than his great capacity for arduous work was put to a severe
test. Besides events in central Asia, to which he had to devote much
attention, the Herzegovinian insurrection had broken out, and he could
perceive from secret official papers that the incident had far-reaching
ramifications unknown to the general public. Soon this became apparent
to all the world. While the Austrian officials in Dalmatia, with hardly
a pretence of concealment, were assisting the insurgents, Russian
volunteers were flocking to Servia with the connivance of the Russian
and Austrian governments, and General Ignatiev, as ambassador in
Constantinople, was urging his government to take advantage of the
palpable weakness of Turkey for bringing about a radical solution of the
Eastern question. Prince Gorchakov did not want a radical solution
involving a great European war, but he was too fond of ephemeral
popularity to stem the current of popular excitement. Alexander II.,
personally averse from war, was not insensible to the patriotic
enthusiasm, and halted between two opinions. M. de Giers was one of the
few who gauged the situation accurately. As an official and a man of
non-Russian extraction he had to be extremely reticent, but to his
intimate friends he condemned severely the ignorance and light-hearted
recklessness of those around him. The event justified his sombre
previsions, but did not cure the recklessness of the so-called patriots.
They wished to defy Europe in order to maintain intact the treaty of San
Stefano, and again M. de Giers found himself in an unpopular minority.
He had to remain in the background, but all the influence he possessed
was thrown into the scale of peace. His views, energetically supported
by Count Shuvalov, finally prevailed, and the European congress
assembled at Berlin. He was not present at the congress, and
consequently escaped the popular odium for the concessions which Russia
had to make to Great Britain and Austria. From that time he was
practically minister of foreign affairs, for Prince Gorchakov was no
longer capable of continued intellectual exertion, and lived mostly
abroad. On the death of Alexander II. in 1881 it was generally expected
that M. de Giers would be dismissed as deficient in Russian nationalist
feeling, for Alexander III. was credited with strong anti-German
Slavophil tendencies. In reality the young tsar had no intention of
embarking on wild political adventures, and was fully determined not to
let his hand be forced by men less cautious than himself. What he wanted
was a minister of foreign affairs who would be at once vigilant and
prudent, active and obedient, and who would relieve him from the trouble
and worry of routine work while allowing him to control the main lines,
and occasionally the details, of the national policy. M. de Giers was
exactly what he wanted, and accordingly the tsar not only appointed him
minister of foreign affairs on the retirement of Prince Gorchakov in
1882, but retained him to the end of his reign in 1894. In accordance
with the desire of his august master, M. de Giers followed
systematically a pacific policy. Accepting as a _fait accompli_ the
existence of the triple alliance, created by Bismarck for the purpose of
resisting any aggressive action on the part of Russia and France, he
sought to establish more friendly relations with the cabinets of Berlin,
Vienna and Rome. To the advances of the French government he at first
turned a deaf ear, but when the _rapprochement_ between the two
countries was effected with little or no co-operation on his part, he
utilized it for restraining France and promoting Russian interests. He
died on the 26th of January 1895, soon after the accession of Nicholas
II. (D. M. W.)
GIESEBRECHT, WILHELM VON (1814-1889), German historian, was a son of
Karl Giesebrecht (d. 1832), and a nephew of the poet Ludwig Giesebrecht
(1792-1873). Born in Berlin on the 5th of March 1814, he studied under
Leopold von Ranke, and his first important work, _Geschichte Ottos II._,
was contributed to Ranke's _Jahrbücher des deutschen Reichs unter dem
sächsischen Hause_ (Berlin, 1837-1840); In 1841 he published his
_Jahrbücher des Klosters Altaich_, a reconstruction of the lost _Annales
Altahenses_, a medieval source of which fragments only were known to be
extant, and these were obscured in other chronicles. The brilliance of
this performance was shown in 1867, when a copy of the original
chronicle was found, and it was seen that Giesebrecht's text was
substantially correct. In the meantime he had been appointed
_Oberlehrer_ in the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium in Berlin; had paid a visit
to Italy, and as a result of his researches there had published _De
litterarum studiis apud Italos primis medii aevi seculis_ (Berlin,
1845), a study upon the survival of culture in Italian cities during the
middle ages, and also several critical essays upon the sources for the
early history of the popes. In 1851 appeared his translation of the
_Historiae_ of Gregory of Tours, which is the standard German
translation. Four years later appeared the first volume of his great
work, _Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit_, the fifth volume of which
was published in 1888. This work was the first in which the results of
the scientific methods of research were thrown open to the world at
large. Largeness of style and brilliance of portrayal were joined to an
absolute mastery of the sources in a way hitherto unachieved by any
German historian. Yet later German historians have severely criticized
his glorification of the imperial era with its Italian entanglements, in
which the interests of Germany were sacrificed for idle glory.
Giesebrecht's history, however, appeared when the new German empire was
in the making, and became popular owing both to its patriotic tone and
its intrinsic merits. In 1857 he went to Königsberg as professor
ordinarius, and in 1862 succeeded H. von Sybel as professor of history
in the university of Munich. The Bavarian government honoured him in
various ways, and he died at Munich on the 17th of December 1889. In
addition to the works already mentioned, Giesebrecht published a good
monograph on Arnold of Brescia (Munich, 1873), a collection of essays
under the title _Deutsche Reden_ (Munich, 1871), and was an active
member of the group of scholars who took over the direction of the
_Monumenta Germaniae historica_ in 1875. In 1895 B. von Simson added a
sixth volume to the _Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit_, thus bringing
the work down to the death of the emperor Frederick I. in 1190.
See S. Riezler, _Gedächtnisrede auf Wilhelm von Giesebrecht_ (Munich,
1891); and Lord Acton in the _English Historical Review_, vol. v.
(London, 1890).
GIESELER, JOHANN KARL LUDWIG (1792-1854), German writer on church
history, was born on the 3rd of March 1792 at Petershagen, near Minden,
where his father, Georg Christof Friedrich, was preacher. In his tenth
year he entered the orphanage at Halle, whence he duly passed to the
university, his studies being interrupted, however, from October 1813
till the peace of 1815 by a period of military service, during which he
was enrolled as a volunteer in a regiment of chasseurs. On the
conclusion of peace (1815) he returned to Halle, and, having in 1817
taken his degree in philosophy, he in the same year became assistant
head master (_Conrector_) in the Minden gymnasium, and in 1818 was
appointed director of the gymnasium at Cleves. Here he published his
earliest work (_Historisch-kritischer Versuch über die Entstehung u. die
frühesten Schicksale der schriftlichen Evangelien_), a treatise which
had considerable influence on subsequent investigations as to the origin
of the gospels. In 1819 Gieseler was appointed a professor ordinarius in
theology in the newly founded university of Bonn, where, besides
lecturing on church history, he made important contributions to the
literature of that subject in Ernst Rosenmüller's _Repertorium_, K. F.
Stäudlin and H. G. Tschirner's _Archiv_, and in various university
"programs." The first part of the first volume of his well-known _Church
History_ appeared in 1824. In 1831 he accepted a call to Göttingen as
successor to J. G. Planck. He lectured on church history, the history of
dogma, and dogmatic theology. In 1837 he was appointed a
_Consistorialrath_, and shortly afterwards was created a knight of the
Guelphic order. He died on the 8th of July 1854. The fourth and fifth
volumes of the _Kirchengeschichte_, embracing the period subsequent to
1814, were published posthumously in 1855 by E. R. Redepenning
(1810-1883); and they were followed in 1856 by a _Dogmengeschichte_,
which is sometimes reckoned as the sixth volume of the _Church History_.
Among church historians Gieseler continues to hold a high place. Less
vivid and picturesque in style than Karl Hase, conspicuously deficient
in Neander's deep and sympathetic insight into the more spiritual forces
by which church life is pervaded, he excels these and all other
contemporaries in the fulness and accuracy of his information. His
_Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte_, with its copious references to
original authorities, is of great value to the student: "Gieseler wished
that each age should speak for itself, since only by this means can the
peculiarity of its ideas be fully appreciated" (Otto Pfleiderer,
_Development of Theology_, p. 284). The work, which has passed through
several editions in Germany, has partially appeared also in two English
translations. That published in New York (_Text Book of Ecclesiastical
History_, 5 vols.) brings the work down to the peace of Westphalia,
while that published in "Clark's Theological Library" (_Compendium of
Ecclesiastical History_, Edinburgh, 5 vols.) closes with the beginning
of the Reformation. Gieseler was not only a devoted student but also an
energetic man of business. He frequently held the office of pro-rector
of the university, and did much useful work as a member of several of
its committees.
GIESSEN, a town of Germany, capital of the province of Upper Hesse, in
the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, is situated in a beautiful and
fruitful valley at the confluence of the Wieseck with the Lahn, 41 m.
N.N.W. of Frankfort-on-Main on the railway to Cassel; and at the
junction of important lines to Cologne and Coblenz. Pop. (1885) 18,836;
(1905) 29,149. In the old part of the town the streets are narrow and
irregular. Besides the university, the principal buildings are the
Stadtkirche, the provincial government offices, comprising a portion of
the old castle dating from the 12th century, the arsenal (now barracks)
and the town-hall (containing an historical collection). The university,
founded in 1607 by Louis V, landgrave of Hesse, has a large and valuable
library, a botanic garden, an observatory, medical schools, a museum of
natural history, a chemical laboratory which was directed by Justus von
Liebig, professor here from 1824 to 1852, and an agricultural college.
The industries include the manufacture of woollen and cotton cloth of
various kinds, machines, leather, candles, tobacco and beer.
Giessen, the name of which is probably derived from the streams which
pour (_giessen_) their waters here into the Lahn, was formed in the 12th
century out of the villages Selters, Aster and Kroppach, for whose
protection Count William of Gleiberg built the castle of Giessen.
Through marriage the town came, in 1203, into the possession of the
count palatine, Rudolph of Tübingen, who sold it in 1265 to the
landgrave Henry of Hesse. It was surrounded with fortifications in 1530,
which were demolished in 1547, but rebuilt in 1560. In 1805 they were
finally pulled down, and their site converted into promenades.
See O. Buchner, _Führer für Giessen und das Lahntal_ (1891); and _Aus
Glessens Vergangenheit_ (1885).
GIFFARD, GODFREY (c. 1235-1302); chancellor of England and bishop of
Worcester, was a son of Hugh Giffard of Boyton, Wiltshire. Having
entered the church he speedily obtained valuable preferments owing to
the influence of his brother Walter, who became chancellor of England in
1265. In 1266 Godfrey became chancellor of the exchequer, succeeding
Walter as chancellor of England when, in the same year, the latter was
made archbishop of York. In 1268 he was chosen bishop of Worcester,
resigning the chancellorship shortly afterwards; and both before and
after 1279, when he inherited the valuable property of his brother the
archbishop, he was employed on public business by Edward I. His main
energies, however, were devoted to the affairs of his see. He had one
long dispute with the monks of Worcester, another with the abbot of
Westminster, and was vigilant in guarding his material interests. The
bishop died on the 26th of January 1302, and was buried in his
cathedral. Giffard, although inclined to nepotism, was a benefactor to
his cathedral, and completed and fortified the episcopal castle at
Hartlebury.
See W. Thomas, _Survey of Worcester Cathedral_; _Episcopal Registers_;
_Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard_, edited by J. W. Willis-Bund
(Oxford, 1898-1899); and the Annals of Worcester in the _Annales
monastici_, vol. iv., edited by H. R. Luard (London, 1869).
GIFFARD, WALTER (d. 1279), chancellor of England and archbishop of York,
was a son of Hugh Giffard of Boyton, Wiltshire, and after serving as
canon and archdeacon of Wells, was chosen bishop of Bath and Wells in
May 1264. In August 1265 Henry III. appointed him chancellor of England,
and he was one of the arbitrators who drew up the _dictum de Kenilworth_
in 1266. Later in this year Pope Clement IV. named him archbishop of
York, and having resigned the chancellorship he was an able and diligent
ruler of his see, although in spite of his great wealth he was
frequently in pecuniary difficulties. When Henry III. died in November
1272 the archbishopric of Canterbury was vacant, and consequently the
great seal was delivered to the archbishop of York, who was the chief of
the three regents who successfully governed the kingdom until the return
of Edward I. in August 1274. Having again acted in this capacity during
the king's absence in 1275, Giffard died in April 1279, and was buried
in his cathedral.
See _Fasti Eboracenses_, edited by J. Raine (London, 1863). Giffard's
_Register_ from 1266 to 1279 has been edited for the Surtees Society
by W. Brown.
GIFFARD, WILLIAM (d. 1129), bishop of Winchester, was chancellor of
William II. and received his see, in succession to Bishop Walkelin, from
Henry I. (1100). He was one of the bishops elect whom Anselm refused to
consecrate (1101) as having been nominated and invested by the lay
power. During the investitures dispute Giffard was on friendly terms
with Anselm, and drew upon himself a sentence of banishment through
declining to accept consecration from the archbishop of York (1103). He
was, however, one of the bishops who pressed Anselm, in 1106, to give
way to the king. He was consecrated after the settlement of 1107. He
became a close friend of Anselm, aided the first Cistercians to settle
in England, and restored Winchester cathedral with great magnificence.
See Eadmer, _Historia novorum_, edited by M. Rule (London, 1884); and
S. H. Cass, _Bishops of Winchester_ (London, 1827).
GIFFEN, SIR ROBERT (1837-1910), British statistician and economist, was
born at Strathaven, Lanarkshire. He entered a solicitor's office in
Glasgow, and while in that city attended courses at the university. He
drifted into journalism, and after working for the _Stirling Journal_ he
went to London in 1862 and joined the staff of the _Globe_. He also
assisted Mr John (afterwards Lord) Morley, when the latter edited the
_Fortnightly Review_. In 1868 he became Walter Bagehot's
assistant-editor on the _Economist_; and his services were also secured
in 1873 as city-editor of the _Daily News_, and later of _The Times_.
His high reputation as a financial journalist and statistician, gained
in these years, led to his appointment in 1876 as head of the
statistical department in the Board of Trade, and subsequently he became
assistant secretary (1882) and finally controller-general (1892),
retiring in 1897. In connexion with his position as chief statistical
adviser to the government, he was constantly employed in drawing up
reports, giving evidence before commissions of inquiry, and acting as a
government auditor, besides publishing a number of important essays on
financial subjects. His principal publications were _Essays on Finance_
(1879 and 1884), _The Progress of the Working Classes_ (1884), _The
Growth of Capital_ (1890), _The Case against Bimetallism_ (1892), and
_Economic Inquiries and Studies_ (1904). He was president of the
Statistical Society (1882-1884); and after being made a C.B. in 1891 was
created K.C.B. in 1895. In 1892 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society. Sir Robert Giffen continued in later years to take a leading
part in all public controversies connected with finance and taxation,
and his high authority and practical experience were universally
recognized. He died somewhat suddenly in Scotland on the 12th of April
1910.
GIFFORD, ROBERT SWAIN (1840-1905), American marine and landscape
painter, was born on Naushon Island, Massachusetts, on the 23rd of
December 1840. He studied art with the Dutch marine painter Albert van
Beest, who had a studio in New Bedford, and in 1864 he opened a studio
for himself in Boston, subsequently settling in New York, where he was
elected an associate of the National Academy of Design in 1867 and an
academician in 1878. He was also a charter member of the American Water
Color Society and the Society of American Artists. From 1878 until 1896
he was teacher of painting and chief master of the Woman's Art School of
Cooper Union, New York, and from 1896 until his death he was director.
Gifford painted longshore views, sand dunes and landscapes generally,
with charm and poetry. He was an etcher of considerable reputation, a
member of the Society of American Etchers, and an honorary member of the
Society of Painter-Etchers of London. He died in New York on the 13th of
January 1905.
GIFFORD, SANDFORD ROBINSON (1823-1880), American landscape painter, was
born at Greenfield, New York, on the 10th of July 1823. He studied
(1842-1845) at Brown University, then went to New York, and entered the
art schools of the National Academy of Design, of which organization he
was elected an associate in 1851, and an academician in 1854.
Subsequently he studied in Paris and Rome. He was one of the best known
of the Hudson River school group, though it was at Lake George that he
found most of his themes. In his day he enjoyed an enormous popularity,
and his canvases are in many well-known American collections. He died in
New York City on the 29th of August 1880.
GIFFORD, WILLIAM (1756-1826), English publicist and man of letters, was
born at Ashburton, Devon, in April 1756. His father was a glazier of
indifferent character, and before he was thirteen William had lost both
parents. The business was seized by his godfather, on whom William and
his brother, a child of two, became entirely dependent. For about three
months William was allowed to remain at the free school of the town. He
was then put to follow the plough, but after a day's trial he proved
unequal to the task, and was sent to sea with the Brixham fishermen.
After a year at sea his godfather, driven by the opinion of the
townsfolk, put the boy to school once more. He made rapid progress,
especially in mathematics, and began to assist the master. In 1772 he
was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and when he wished to pursue his
mathematical studies, he was obliged to work his problems with an awl on
beaten leather. By the kindness of an Ashburton surgeon, William
Cooksley, a subscription was raised to enable him to return to school.
Ultimately he proceeded in his twenty-third year to Oxford, where he was
appointed a Bible clerk in Exeter College. Leaving the university
shortly after graduation in 1782, he found a generous patron in the
first Earl Grosvenor, who undertook to provide for him, and sent him on
two prolonged continental tours in the capacity of tutor to his son,
Lord Belgrave. Settling in London, Gifford published in 1794 his first
work, a clever satirical piece, after Persius, entitled the _Baviad_,
aimed at a coterie of second-rate writers at Florence, then popularly
known as the Della Cruscans, of which Mrs Piozzi was the leader. A
second satire of a similar description, the _Maeviad_, directed against
the corruptions of the drama, appeared in 1795. About this time Gifford
became acquainted with Canning, with whose help he in August 1797
originated a weekly newspaper of Conservative politics entitled the
_Anti-Jacobin_, which, however, in the following year ceased to be
published. An English version of Juvenal, on which he had been for many
years engaged, appeared in 1802; to this an autobiographical notice of
the translator, reproduced in Nichol's _Illustrations of Literature_,
was prefixed. Two years afterwards Gifford published an annotated
edition of the plays of Massinger; and in 1809, when the _Quarterly
Review_ was projected, he was made editor. The success which attended
the _Quarterly_ from the outset was due in no small degree to the
ability and tact with which Gifford discharged his editorial duties. He
took, however, considerable liberties with the articles he inserted, and
Southey, who was one of his regular contributors, said that Gifford
looked on authors as Izaak Walton did on worms. His bitter opposition to
Radicals and his onslaughts on new writers, conspicuous among which was
the article on Keats's _Endymion_, called forth Hazlitt's _Letter to W.
Gifford_ in 1819. His connexion with the _Review_ continued until within
about two years of his death, which took place in London on the 31st of
December 1826. Besides numerous contributions to the _Quarterly_ during
the last fifteen years of his life, he wrote a metrical translation of
Persius, which appeared in 1821. Gifford also edited the dramas of Ben
Jonson in 1816, and his edition of Ford appeared posthumously in 1827.
His notes on Shirley were incorporated in Dyce's edition in 1833. His
political services were acknowledged by the appointments of commissioner
of the lottery and paymaster of the gentleman pensioners. He left a
considerable fortune, the bulk of which went to the son of his first
benefactor, William Cooksley.
GIFT (a common Teutonic word, cf. Ger. _die Gift_, gift, _das Gift_,
poison, formed from the Teut. stem _gab-_, to give, cf. Dutch _geven_,
Ger. _geben_; in O. Eng. the word appears with initial y, the guttural
of later English is due to Scandinavian influence), a general English
term for a present or thing bestowed, i.e. an alienation of property
otherwise than for a legal consideration, although in law it is often
used to signify alienation with or without consideration. By analogy the
terms "gift" and "gifted" are also used to signify the natural endowment
of some special ability, or a miraculous power, in a person, as being
not acquired in the ordinary way. The legal effect of a gratuitous gift
only need be considered here. Formerly in English law property in land
could be conveyed by one person to another by a verbal gift of the
estate accompanied by delivery of possession. The Statute of Frauds
required all such conveyances to be in writing, and a later statute (8 &
9 Vict. c. 106) requires them to be by deed. Personal property may be
effectually transferred from one person to another by a simple verbal
gift accompanied by delivery. If A delivers a chattel to B, saying or
signifying that he does so by way of gift, the property passes, and the
chattel belongs to B. But unless the actual thing is bodily handed over
to the donee, the mere verbal expression of the donor's desire or
intention has no legal effect whatever. The persons are in the position
of parties to an agreement which is void as being without consideration.
When the nature of the thing is such that it cannot be bodily handed
over, it will be sufficient to put the donee in such a position as to
enable him to deal with it as the owner. For example, when goods are in
a warehouse, the delivery of the key will make a verbal gift of them
effectual; but it seems that part delivery of goods which are capable of
actual delivery will not validate a verbal gift of the part undelivered.
So when goods are in the possession of a warehouseman, the handing over
of a delivery order might, by special custom (but not otherwise, it
appears), be sufficient to pass the property in the goods, although
delivery of a bill of lading for goods at sea is equivalent to an actual
delivery of the goods themselves.
GIFU (IMAIZUMI), a city of Japan, capital of the _ken_ (government) of
Central Nippon, which comprises the two provinces of Mino and Hida. Pop.
about 41,000. It lies E. by N. of Lake Biwa, on the Central railway, on
a tributary of the river Kiso, which flows to the Bay of Miya Uro.
Manufactures of silk and paper goods are carried on. The _ken_ has an
area of about 4000 sq. m. and is thickly peopled, the population
exceeding 1,000,000. The whole district is subject to frequent
earthquakes.
GIG, apparently an onomatopoeic word for any light whirling object, and
so used of a top, as in Shakespeare's _Love's Labour's Lost_, v. i. 70
("Goe whip thy gigge"), or of a revolving lure made of feathers for
snaring birds. The word is now chiefly used of a light two-wheeled cart
or carriage for one horse, and of a narrow, light, ship's boat for oars
or sails, and also of a clinker-built rowing-boat used for rowing on the
Thames. "Gig" is further applied, in mining, to a wooden chamber or box
divided in the centre and used to draw miners up and down a pit or
shaft, and to a textile machine, the "gig-mill" or "gigging machine,"
which raises the nap on cloth by means of teazels. A "gig" or "fish-gig"
(properly "fiz-gig," possibly an adaptation of Span. _fisga_, harpoon)
is an instrument used for spearing fish.
GIGLIO (anc. _Igilium_), an island of Italy, off the S.W. coast of
Italy, in the province of Grosseto, 11 m. to the W. of Monte Argentario,
the nearest point on the coast. It measures about 5 m. by 3 and its
highest point is 1634 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 2062. It is
partly composed of granite, which was quarried here by the Romans, and
is still used; the island is fertile, and produces wine and fruit, the
cultivation of which has taken the place of the forests of which
Rutilius spoke (_Itin._ i. 325, "eminus Igilii silvosa cacumina miror").
Julius Caesar mentions its sailors in the fleet of Domitius Ahenobarbus.
In Rutilius's time it served as a place of refuge from the barbarian
invaders. Charlemagne gave it to the abbey of Tre Fontane at Rome. In
the 14th century it belonged to Pisa, then to Florence, ~~6 Antonio
Piccolomini, nephew of Pius II. In 1558 it was sold to the wife of
Cosimo I. of Florence.
See Archduke Ludwig Salvator, _Die Insel Giglio_ (Prague, 1900).
GIJÓN, a seaport of northern Spain, in the province of Oviedo; on the
Bay of Biscay, and at the terminus of railways from Avilés, Oviedo and
Langreo. Pop. (1900) 47,544. The older parts of Gijón, which are partly
enclosed by ancient walls, occupy the upper slopes of a peninsular
headland, Santa Catalina Point; while its more modern suburbs extend
along the shore to Cape Torres, on the west, and Cape San Lorenzo, on
the east. These suburbs contain the town-hall, theatre, markets, and a
bull-ring with seats for 12,000 spectators. Few of the buildings of
Gijón are noteworthy for any architectural merit, except perhaps the
15th-century parish church of San Pedro, which has a triple raw of
aisles on each side, the palace of the marquesses of Revillajigedo (or
Revilla Gigedo), and the Asturian Institute or Jovellanos Institute. The
last named has a very fine collection of drawings by Spanish and other
artists, a good library and classes for instruction in seamanship,
mathematics and languages. It was founded in 1797 by the poet and
statesman Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744-1811). Jovellanos, a native
of Gijón, is buried in San Pedro.
The Bay of Gijón is the most important roadstead on the Spanish coast
between Ferrol and Santander. Its first quay was constructed by means of
a grant from Charles V. in 1552-1554; and its arsenal, added in the
reign of Philip II. (1556-1598), was used in 1588 as a repairing station
for the surviving ships of the Invincible Armada. A new quay was built
in 1766-1768, and extended in 1859; the harbour was further improved in
1864, and after 1892, when the Musel harbour of refuge was created at
the extremity of the bay. It was, however, the establishment of railway
communication in 1884 which brought the town its modern prosperity, by
rendering it the chief port of shipment for the products of Langreo and
other mining centres in Oviedo. A rapid commercial development followed.
Besides large tobacco, glass and porcelain factories, Gijón possesses
iron foundries and petroleum refineries; while its minor industries
include fisheries, and the manufacture of preserved foods, soap,
chocolate, candles and liqueurs. In 1903 the harbour accommodated 2189
vessels of 358,375 tons. In the same year the imports, consisting
chiefly of machinery, iron, wood and food-stuffs, were valued at
£660,889; while the exports, comprising zinc, copper, iron and other
minerals, with fish, nuts and farm produce, were valued at £100,941.
Gijón is usually identified with the _Gigia_ of the Romans, which,
however, occupied the site of the adjoining suburb of Cima de Villa.
Early in the 8th century Gijón was captured and strengthened by the
Moors, who used the stones of the Roman city for their fortifications,
but were expelled by King Pelayo (720-737). In 844 Gijón successfully
resisted a Norman raid; in 1395 it was burned down; but thenceforward it
gradually rose to commercial importance.
GILAN (GHILAN, GUILAN), one of the three small but important Caspian
provinces of Persia, lying along the south-western shore of the Caspian
Sea between 48° 50´ and 50° 30´ E. with a breadth varying from 15 to 50
m. It has an area of about 5000 sq. m. and a population of about
250,000. It is separated from Russia by the little river Astara, which
flows into the Caspian, and bounded W. by Azerbaïjan, S. by Kazvin and
E. by Mazandaran. The greater portion of the province is a lowland
region extending inland from the sea to the base of the mountains of the
Elburz range and, though the Sefid Rud (White river), which is called
Kizil Uzain in its upper course and has its principal sources in the
hills of Persian Kurdistan, is the only river of any size, the province
is abundantly watered by many streams and an exceptionally great
rainfall (in some years 50 in.).
The vegetation is very much like that of southern Europe, but in
consequence of the great humidity and the mild climate almost tropically
luxuriant, and the forests from the shore of the sea up to an altitude
of nearly 5000 ft. on the mountain slopes facing the sea are as dense as
an Indian jungle. The prevailing types of trees are the oak, maple,
hornbeam, beech, ash and elm. The box tree comes to rare perfection, but
in consequence of indiscriminate cutting for export during many years,
is now becoming scarce. Of fruit trees the apple, pear, plum, cherry,
medlar, pomegranate, fig, quince, as well as two kinds of vine, grow
wild; oranges, sweet and bitter, and other Aurantiaceae thrive well in
gardens and plantations. The fauna also is well represented, but tigers
which once were frequently seen are now very scarce; panther, hyena,
jackal, wild boar, deer (_Cervus maral_) are common; pheasant, woodcock,
ducks, teal, geese and various waterfowl abound; the fisheries are very
productive and are leased to a Russian firm. The ordinary cattle of the
province is the small humped kind, _Bos indicus_, and forms an article
of export to Russia, the humps, smoked, being much in demand as a
delicacy. Rice of a kind not much appreciated in Persia, but much
esteemed in Gilan and Russia, is largely cultivated and a quantity
valued at about £120,000 was exported to Russia during 1904-1905. Tea
plantations, with seeds and plants from Assam, Ceylon and the Himalayas,
were started in the early part of 1900 on the slopes of the hills south
of Resht at an altitude of about 1000 ft. The results were excellent and
very good tea was produced in 1904 and 1905, but the Persian government
gave no support and the enterprise was neglected. The olive thrives well
at Rúdbár and Manjíl in the Sefíd Rúd valley and the oil extracted from
it by a Provençal for some years until 1896, when he was murdered, was
of very good quality and found a ready market at Baku. Since then the
oil has been, as before, only used for the manufacture of soap. Tobacco
from Turkish seed, cultivated since 1875, grows well, and a considerable
quantity of it is exported. The most valuable produce of the province is
silk. In 1866 it was valued at £743,000 and about two-thirds of it was
exported. The silkworm disease appeared in 1864 and the crops decreased
in consequence until 1893 when the value of the silk exported was no
more than £6500. Since then there has been a steady improvement, and in
1905-1906 the value of the produce was estimated at £300,000 and that of
the quantity exported at £200,000. The eggs of the silk-worms, formerly
obtained from Japan, are now imported principally from Brusa by Greeks
under French protection and from France.
There is only one good road in the province, that from Enzeli to Kazvin
by way of Resht; in other parts communication is by narrow and
frequently impassable lanes through the thick forest, or by intricate
pathways through the dense undergrowth.
The province is divided into the following administrative districts:
Resht (with the capital and its immediate neighbourhood), Fumen (with
Tulam and Mesula, where are iron mines), Gesker, Talish (with
Shandarman, Kerganrud, Asalim, Gil-Dulab, Talish-Dulab), Enzeli (the
port of Resht), Sheft, Manjíl (with Rahmetabad and Amarlu), Lahijan
(with Langarud, Rúdsar and Ranehkuh), Dilman and Lashtnisha. The revenue
derived from taxes and customs is about £80,000. The crown lands have
been much neglected and the revenue from them amounts to hardly £3000
per annum. The value of the exports and imports from and into Gilan,
much of them in transit, is close upon £2,000,000.
Gilan was an independent khanate until 1567 when Khan Ahmed, the last of
the Kargia dynasty, which had reigned 205 years, was deposed by Tahmasp
I., the second Safawid shah of Persia (1524-1576). It was occupied by a
Russian force in the early part of 1723; and Tahmasp III., the tenth
Safawid shah (1722-1731); then without a throne and his country occupied
by the Afghans, ceded it, together with Mazandaran and Astarabad, to
Peter the Great by a treaty of the 12th of September of the same year.
Russian troops remained in Gilan until 1734, when they were compelled to
evacuate it.
The derivation of the name Gilan from the modern Persian word _gil_
meaning mud (hence "land of mud") is incorrect. It probably means "land
of the Gil," an ancient tribe which classical writers mention as the
Gelae. (A. H.-S.)
GILBART, JAMES WILLIAM (1794-1863), English writer on banking, was born
in London on the 21st of March 1794. From 1813 to 1825 he was clerk in
a London bank. After a two years' residence in Birmingham, he was
appointed manager of the Kilkenny branch of the Provincial Bank of
Ireland, and in 1829 he was promoted to the Waterford branch. In 1834 he
became manager of the London and Westminster Bank; and he did much to
develop the system of joint-stock banking. On more than one occasion he
rendered valuable services to the joint-stock banks by his evidence
before committees of the House of Commons; and, on the renewal of the
bank charter in 1844, he procured the insertion of a clause granting to
joint-stock banks the power of suing by their public officer, and also
the right of accepting bills at less than six months' date. In 1846 he
was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He died in London on the 8th
of August 1863. The Gilbart lectures on banking at King's College are
called after him.
The following are his principal works on banking, most of which have
passed through more than one edition: _Practical Treatise on Banking_
(1827); _The History and Principles of Banking_ (1834); _The History
of Banking in America_ (1837); _Lectures on the History and Principles
of Ancient Commerce_ (1847); _Logic for the Million_ (1851); and
_Logic of Banking_ (1857).
GILBERT, ALFRED (1854- ), British sculptor and goldsmith, born in
London, was the son of Alfred Gilbert, musician. He received his
education mainly in Paris (École des Beaux-Arts, under Cavelier), and
studied in Rome and Florence where the significance of the Renaissance
made a lasting impression upon him and his art. He also worked in the
studio of Sir J. Edgar Boehm, R.A. His first work of importance was the
charming group of the "Mother and Child," then "The Kiss of Victory,"
followed by "Perseus Arming" (1883), produced directly under the
influence of the Florentine masterpieces he had studied. Its success was
great, and Lord Leighton forthwith commissioned "Icarus," which was
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884, along with a remarkable "Study
of a Head," and was received with general applause. Then followed "The
Enchanted Chair," which, along with many other works deemed by the
artist incomplete or unworthy of his powers, was ultimately broken by
the sculptor's own hand. The next year Mr Gilbert was occupied with the
Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, in Piccadilly, London, a work of great
originality and beauty, yet shorn of some of the intended effect through
restrictions put upon the artist. In 1888 was produced the statue of
H.M. Queen Victoria, set up at Winchester, in its main design and in the
details of its ornamentation the most remarkable work of its kind
produced in Great Britain, and perhaps, it may be added, in any other
country in modern times. Other statues of great beauty, at once novel in
treatment and fine in design, are those set up to Lord Reay in Bombay,
and John Howard at Bedford (1898); the highly original pedestal of which
did much to direct into a better channel what are apt to be the
eccentricities of what is called the "New Art" School. The sculptor rose
to the full height of his powers in his "Memorial to the Duke of
Clarence," and his fast developing fancy and imagination, which are the
main characteristics of all his work, are seen in his "Memorial
Candelabrum to Lord Arthur Russell" and "Memorial Font to the son of the
4th Marquess of Bath." Gilbert's sense of decoration is paramount in all
he does, and although in addition to the work already cited he produced
busts of extraordinary excellence of Cyril Flower, John R. Clayton
(since broken up by the artist--the fate of much of his admirable work),
G. F. Watts, Sir Henry Tate, Sir George Birdwood, Sir Richard Owen, Sir
George Grove and various others, it is on his goldsmithery that the
artist would rest his reputation; on his mayoral chain for Preston, the
epergne for Queen Victoria, the figurines of "Victory" (a statuette
designed for the orb in the hand of the Winchester statue), "St Michael"
and "St George," as well as smaller objects such as seals, keys and the
like. Mr Gilbert was chosen associate of the Royal Academy in 1887, full
member in 1892 (resigned 1909), and professor of sculpture (afterwards
resigned) in 1900. In 1889 he won the _Grand Prix_ at the Paris
International Exhibition. He was created a member of the Victorian Order
in 1897. (See SCULPTURE.)
See _The Life and Work of Alfred Gilbert, R.A., M.V.O., D.C.L._, by
Joseph Hatton (_Art Journal_ Office, 1903). (M. H. S.)
GILBERT, ANN (1821-1904), American actress, was born at Rochdale,
Lancashire, on the 21st of October 1821, her maiden name being Hartley.
At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet school connected with the
Haymarket theatre, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer on
the stage. In 1846 she married George H. Gilbert (d. 1866), a performer
in the company of which she was a member. Together they filled many
engagements in English theatres, moving to America in 1849. Mrs
Gilbert's first success in a speaking part was in 1857 as Wichavenda in
Brougham's _Pocahontas_. In 1869 she joined Daly's company, playing for
many years wives to James Lewis's husbands, and old women's parts, in
which she had no equal. Mrs. Gilbert held a unique position on the
American stage, on account of the admiration, esteem and affection which
she enjoyed both in front and behind the footlights. She died at Chicago
on the 2nd of December 1904.
See _Mrs Gilbert's Stage Reminiscences_ (1901).
GILBERT, GROVE KARL (1843- ), American geologist, was born at
Rochester, N.Y., on the 6th of May 1843. In 1869 he was attached to the
Geological Survey of Ohio and in 1879 he became a member of the United
States Geological Survey, being engaged on parts of the Rocky Mountains,
in Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona. He is distinguished for his
researches on mountain-structure and on the Great Lakes, as well as on
glacial phenomena, recent earth movements, and on topographic features
generally. His report on the _Geology of the Henry Mountains_ (1877), in
which the volcanic structure known as a laccolite was first described;
his _History of the Niagara River_ (1890) and _Lake Bonneville_
(1891--the first of the Monographs issued by the United States
Geological Survey) are specially important. He was awarded the Wollaston
medal by the Geological Society of London in 1900.
GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY (c. 1539-1583), English soldier, navigator and
pioneer colonist in America, was the second son of Otho Gilbert, of
Compton, near Dartmouth, Devon, and step-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh.
He was educated at Eton and Oxford; intended for the law; introduced at
court by Raleigh's aunt, Catherine Ashley, and appointed (July 1566)
captain in the army of Ireland under Sir Henry Sidney. In April 1566 he
had already joined with Antony Jenkinson in a petition to Elizabeth for
the discovery of the North-East Passage; in November following he
presented an independent petition for the "discovering of a passage by
the north to go to Cataia." In October 1569 he became governor of
Munster; on the 1st of January 1570 he was knighted; in 1571 he was
returned M.P. for Plymouth; in 1572 he campaigned in the Netherlands
against Spain without much success; from 1573 to 1578 he lived in
retirement at Limehouse, devoting himself especially to the advocacy of a
North-West Passage (his famous _Discourse_ on this subject was published
in 1576). Gilbert's arguments, widely circulated even before 1575, were
apparently of weight in promoting the Frobisher enterprises of 1576-1578.
On the 11th of June 1578, Sir Humphrey obtained his long-coveted charter
for North-Western discovery and colonization, authorizing him, his heirs
and assigns, to discover, occupy and possess such remote "heathen lands
not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as should seem
good to him or them." Disposing not only of his patrimony but also of the
estates in Kent which he had through his wife, daughter of John Aucher of
Ollerden, he fitted out an expedition which left Dartmouth on the 23rd of
September 1578, and returned in May 1579, having accomplished nothing. In
1579 Gilbert aided the government in Ireland; and in 1583, after many
struggles--illustrated by his appeal to Walsingham on the 11th of July
1582, for the payment of moneys due to him from government, and by his
agreement with the Southampton venturers--he succeeded in equipping
another fleet for "Western Planting." On the 11th of June 1583, he sailed
from Plymouth with five ships and the queen's blessing; on the 13th of
July the "Ark Raleigh," built and manned at his brother's expense,
deserted the fleet; on the 30th of July he was off the north coast of
Newfoundland; on the 3rd of August he arrived off the present St John's,
and selected this site as the centre of his operations; on the 5th of
August he began the plantation of the first English colony in North
America. Proceeding southwards with three vessels, exploring and
prospecting, he lost the largest near Cape Breton (29th of August);
immediately after (31st of August) he started to return to England with
the "Golden Hind" and the "Squirrel," of forty and ten tons respectively.
Obstinately refusing to leave the "frigate" and sail in his "great ship,"
he shared the former's fate in a tempest off the Azores. "Monday the 9th
of September," reports Hayes, the captain of the "Hind," "the frigate was
near cast away, ... yet at that time recovered; and, giving forth signs
of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out
unto us in the 'Hind,' 'We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.'....
The same Monday night, about twelve, the frigate being ahead of us in the
'Golden Hind,' suddenly her lights were out, ... in that moment the
frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea."
See Hakluyt, _Principal Navigations_ (1599); vol. iii. pp. 135-181;
Gilbert's _Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia_,
published by George Gascoigne in 1576, with additions, probably
without Gilbert's authority; Hooker's _Supplement_ to Holinshed's
_Irish Chronicle_; Roger Williams, _The Actions of the Low Countries_
(1618); _State Papers, Domestic_ (1577-1583); Wood's _Athenae
Oxonienses_; _North British Review_, No. 45; Fox Bourne's _English
Seamen under the Tudors_; Carlos Slafter, _Sir H. Gylberte and his
Enterprise_ (Boston, 1903), with all important documents. Gilbert's
interesting writings on the need of a university for London,
anticipating in many ways not only the modern London University but
also the British Museum library and its compulsory sustenance through
the provisions of the Copyright Act, have been printed by Furnivall
(_Queen Elizabeth's Achademy_) in the Early English Text Society
Publications, extra series, No. viii.
GILBERT, JOHN (1810-1889); American actor, whose real name was Gibbs,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of February 1810, and
made his first appearance there as Jaffier in _Venice Preserved_. He
soon found that his true vein was in comedy, particularly in old-men
parts. When in London in 1847 he was well received both by press and
public, and played with Macready. He was the leading actor at Wallack's
from 1861-1888. He died on the 17th of June 1889.
See William Winter's _Life of John Gilbert_ (New York, 1890).
GILBERT, SIR JOHN (1817-1897), English painter and illustrator, one of
the eight children of George Felix Gilbert, a member of a Derbyshire
family, was born at Blackheath on the 21st of July 1817. He went to
school there, and even in childhood displayed an extraordinary fondness
for drawing and painting. Nevertheless, his father's lack of means
compelled him to accept employment for the boy in the office of Messrs
Dickson & Bell, estate agents, in Charlotte Row, London. Yielding,
however, to his natural bent, his parents agreed that he should take up
art in his own way, which included but little advice from others, his
only teacher being Haydon's pupil, George Lance, the fruit painter. This
artist gave him brief instructions in the use of colour. In 1836 Gilbert
appeared in public for the first time. This was at the gallery of the
Society of British Artists, where he sent drawings, the subjects of
which were characteristic, being "The Arrest of Lord Hastings," from
Shakespeare, and "Abbot Boniface," from _The Monastery_ of Scott. "Inez
de Castro" was in the same gallery in the next year; it was the first of
a long series of works in the same medium, representing similar themes,
and was accompanied, from 1837, by a still greater number of works in
oil which were exhibited at the British Institution. These included "Don
Quixote giving advice to Sancho Panza," 1841; "Brunette and Phillis,"
from _The Spectator_, 1844; "The King's Artillery at Marston Moor,"
1860; and "Don Quixote comes back for the last time to his Home and
Family," 1867. In that year the Institution was finally closed. Gilbert
exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1838, beginning with the "Portrait
of a Gentleman," and continuing, except between 1851 and 1867, till his
death to exhibit there many of his best and more ambitious works. These
included such capital instances as "Holbein painting the Portrait of
Anne Boleyn," "Don Quixote's first Interview with the Duke and Duchess,"
1842, "Charlemagne visiting the Schools," 1846. "Touchstone and the
Shepherd," and "Rembrandt," a very fine piece, were both there in 1867;
and in 1873 "Naseby," one of his finest and most picturesque designs,
was also at the Royal Academy. Gilbert was elected A.R.A. 29th January
1872, and R.A. 29th June 1876. Besides these mostly large and powerful
works, the artist's true arena of display was undoubtedly the gallery of
the Old Water Colour Society, to which from 1852, when he was elected an
Associate exhibitor, till he died forty-five years later, he contributed
not fewer than 270 drawings, most of them admirable because of the
largeness of their style, massive coloration, broad chiaroscuro, and the
surpassing vigour of their designs. These qualities induced the leading
critics to claim for him opportunities for painting mural pictures of
great historic themes as decorations of national buildings. "The
Trumpeter," "The Standard-Bearer," "Richard II. resigning his Crown"
(now at Liverpool), "The Drug Bazaar at Constantinople," "The Merchant
of Venice" and "The Turkish Water-Carrier" are but examples of that
wealth of art which added to the attractions of the gallery in Pall
Mall. There Gilbert was elected a full Member in 1855, and president of
the Society in 1871, shortly after which he was knighted. As an
illustrator of books, magazines and periodicals of every kind he was
most prolific. To the success of the _Illustrated London News_ his
designs lent powerful aid, and he was eminently serviceable in
illustrating the _Shakespeare_ of Mr Howard Staunton. He died on the 6th
of October 1897. (F. G. S.)
GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY (1817-1901); English chemist, was born at Hull
on the 1st of August 1817. He studied chemistry first at Glasgow under
Thomas Thomson; then at University College, London, in the laboratory of
A. T. Thomson (1778-1849), the professor of medical jurisprudence, also
attending Thomas Graham's lectures; and finally at Giessen under Liebig.
On his return to England from Germany he acted for a year or so as
assistant to his old master A. T. Thomson at University College, and in
1843, after spending a short time in the study of calico dyeing and
printing near Manchester, accepted the directorship of the chemical
laboratory at the famous experimental station established by Sir J. B.
Lawes at Rothamsted, near St Albans, for the systematic and scientific
study of agriculture. This position he held for fifty-eight years, until
his death on the 23rd of December 1901. The work which he carried out
during that long period in collaboration with Lawes was of a most
comprehensive character, involving the application of many branches of
science, such as chemistry, meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable
physiology, and geology; and its influence in improving the methods of
practical agriculture extended all over the civilized world. Gilbert was
chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 was awarded a
royal medal jointly with Lawes. In 1880 he presided over the Chemical
Section of the British Association at its meeting at Swansea, and in
1882 he was president of the London Chemical Society, of which he had
been a member almost from its foundation in 1841. For six years from
1884 he filled the Sibthorpian chair of rural economy at Oxford, and he
was also an honorary professor at the Royal Agricultural College,
Cirencester. He was knighted in 1893, the year in which the jubilee of
the Rothamsted experiments was celebrated.
GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ELIZA ROSANNA ["LOLA MONTEZ"] (1818-1861), dancer
and adventuress, the daughter of a British army officer, was born at
Limerick, Ireland, in 1818. Her father dying in India when she was seven
years old, and her mother marrying again, the child was sent to Europe
to be educated, subsequently joining her mother at Bath. In 1837 she
made a runaway match with a Captain James of the Indian army, and
accompanied him to India. In 1842 she returned to England, and shortly
afterwards her husband obtained a decree _nisi_ for divorce. She then
studied dancing, making an unsuccessful first appearance at Her
Majesty's theatre, London, in 1843, billed as "Lola Montez, Spanish
dancer." Subsequently she appeared with considerable success in
Germany, Poland and Russia. Thence she went to Paris, and in 1847
appeared at Munich, where she became the mistress of the old king of
Bavaria, Ludwig I.; she was naturalized, created comtesse de Landsfeld,
and given an income of £2000 a year. She soon proved herself the real
ruler of Bavaria, adopting a liberal and anti-Jesuit policy. Her
political opponents proved, however, too strong for her, and in 1848 she
was banished. In 1849 she came to England, and in the same year was
married to George Heald, a young officer in the Guards. Her husband's
guardian instituted a prosecution for bigamy against her on the ground
that her divorce from Captain James had not been made absolute, and she
fled with Heald to Spain. In 1851 she appeared at the Broadway theatre,
New York, and in the following year at the Walnut Street theatre,
Philadelphia. In 1853 Heald was drowned at Lisbon, and in the same year
she married the proprietor of a San Francisco newspaper, but did not
live long with him. Subsequently she appeared in Australia, but
returned, in 1857, to act in America, and to lecture on gallantry. Her
health having broken down, she devoted the rest of her life to visiting
the outcasts of her own sex in New York, where, stricken with paralysis,
she died on the 17th of January 1861.
See E. B. D'Auvergne, _Lola Montez_ (New York, 1909).
GILBERT, NICOLAS JOSEPH LAURENT (1751-1780), French poet, was born at
Fontenay-le-Château in Lorraine in 1751. Having completed his education
at the college of Dôle, he devoted himself for a time to a
half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his
way to the capital. As an opponent of the Encyclopaedists and a
panegyrist of Louis XV., he received considerable pensions. He died in
Paris on the 12th of November 1780 from the results of a fall from his
horse. The satiric force of one or two of his pieces, as _Mon Apologie_
(1778) and _Le Dix-huitième Siècle_ (1775), would alone be sufficient to
preserve his reputation, which has been further increased by modern
writers, who, like Alfred de Vigny in his _Stello_ (chaps. 7-13),
considered him a victim to the spite of his philosophic opponents. His
best-known verses are the _Ode imitée de plusieurs psaumes_, usually
entitled Adieux à la vie.
Among his other works may be mentioned _Les Familles de Darius et
d'Éridame, histoire persane_ (1770), _Le Carnaval des auteurs_ (1773),
_Odes nouvelles et patriotiques_ (1775). Gilbert's _Oeuvres complètes_
were first published in 1788, and they have since been edited by
Mastrella (Paris, 1823), by Charles Nodier (1817 or 1825), and by M.
de Lescure (1882).
GILBERT (or GYLBERDE), WILLIAM (1544-1603), the most distinguished man
of science in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the
father of electric and magnetic science, was a member of an ancient
Suffolk family, long resident in Clare, and was born on the 24th of May
1544 at Colchester, where his father, Hierome Gilbert, became recorder.
Educated at Colchester school, he entered St John's College, Cambridge,
in 1558, and after taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in due course,
graduated M.D. in 1569, in which year he was elected a senior fellow of
his college. Soon afterwards he left Cambridge, and after spending three
years in Italy and other parts of Europe, settled in 1573 in London,
where he practised as a physician with "great success and applause." He
was admitted to the College of Physicians probably about 1576, and from
1581 to 1590 was one of the censors. In 1587 he became treasurer,
holding the office till 1592, and in 1589 he was one of the committee
appointed to superintend the preparation of the _Pharmacopoeia
Londinensis_ which the college in that year decided to issue, but which
did not actually appear till 1618. In 1597 he was again chosen
treasurer, becoming at the same time consiliarius, and in 1599 he
succeeded to the presidency. Two years later he was appointed physician
to Queen Elizabeth, with the usual emolument of £100 a year. After this
time he seems to have removed to the court, vacating his residence,
Wingfield House, which was on Peter's Hill, between Upper Thames Street
and Little Knightrider Street, and close to the house of the College of
Physicians. On the death of the queen in 1603 he was reappointed by her
successor; but he did not long enjoy the honour, for he died, probably
of the plague, on the 30th of November (10th of December, N.S.) 1603,
either in London or in Colchester. He was buried in the latter town, in
the chancel of Holy Trinity church, where a monument was erected to his
memory. To the College of Physicians he left his books, globes,
instruments and minerals, but they were destroyed in the great fire of
London.
Gilbert's principal work is his treatise on magnetism, entitled _De
magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure_ (London,
1600; later editions--Stettin, 1628, 1633; Frankfort, 1629, 1638). This
work, which embodied the results of many years' research, was
distinguished by its strict adherence to the scientific method of
investigation by experiment, and by the originality of its matter,
containing, as it does, an account of the author's experiments on
magnets and magnetical bodies and on electrical attractions, and also
his great conception that the earth is nothing but a large magnet, and
that it is this which explains, not only the direction of the magnetic
needle north and south, but also the variation and dipping or
inclination of the needle. Gilbert's is therefore not merely the first,
but the most important, systematic contribution to the sciences of
electricity and magnetism. A posthumous work of Gilbert's was edited by
his brother, also called William, from two MSS. in the possession of Sir
William Boswell; its title is _De mundo nostro sublunari philosophia
nova_ (Amsterdam, 1651). He is the reputed inventor besides of two
instruments to enable sailors "to find out the latitude without seeing
of sun, moon or stars," an account of which is given in Thomas
Blondeville's _Theoriques of the Planets_ (London, 1602). He was also
the first advocate of Copernican views in England, and he concluded that
the fixed stars are not all at the same distance from the earth.
It is a matter of great regret for the historian of chemistry that
Gilbert left nothing on that branch of science, to which he was deeply
devoted, "attaining to great exactness therein." So at least says Thomas
Fuller, who in his _Worthies of England_ prophesied truly how he would
be afterwards known: "Mahomet's tomb at Mecca," he says, "is said
strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone; but the
memory of this doctor will never fall to the ground, which his
incomparable book _De magnete_ will support to eternity."
An English translation of the _De magnete_ was published by P. F.
Mottelay in 1893, and another, with notes by S. P. Thompson, was
issued by the Gilbert Club of London in 1900.
GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM SCHWENK (1836- ), English playwright and
humorist, son of William Gilbert (a descendant of Sir Humphrey Gilbert),
was born in London on the 18th of November 1836. His father was the
author of a number of novels, the best-known of which were _Shirley Hall
Asylum_ (1863) and _Dr Austin's Guests_ (1866). Several of these
novels--which were characterized by a singular acuteness and lucidity of
style, by a dry, subacid humour, by a fund of humanitarian feeling and
by a considerable medical knowledge, especially in regard to the
psychology of lunatics and monomaniacs--were illustrated by his son, who
developed a talent for whimsical draughtsmanship. W. S. Gilbert was
educated at Boulogne, at Ealing and at King's College, graduating B.A.
from the university of London in 1856. The termination of the Crimean
War was fatal to his project of competing for a commission in the Royal
Artillery, but he obtained a post in the education department of the
privy council office (1857-1861). Disliking the routine work, he left
the Civil Service, entered the Inner Temple, was called to the bar in
November 1864, and joined the northern circuit. His practice was
inconsiderable, and his military and legal ambitions were eventually
satisfied by a captaincy in the volunteers and appointment as a
magistrate for Middlesex (June 1891). In 1861 the comic journal _Fun_
was started by H. J. Byron, and Gilbert became from the first a valued
contributor. Failing to obtain an _entrée to Punch_, he continued
sending excellent comic verse to _Fun_, with humorous illustrations, the
work of his own pen, over the signature of "Bab." A collection of these
lyrics, in which deft craftsmanship unites a titillating satire on the
deceptiveness of appearances with the irrepressible nonsense of a Lewis
Carroll, was issued separately in 1869 under the title of _Bab Ballads_,
and was followed by _More Bab Ballads_. The two collections and _Songs
of a Savoyard_ were united in a volume issued in 1898, with many new
illustrations. The best of the old cuts, such as those depicting the
"Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo" and the "Discontented Sugar Broker," were
preserved intact.
While remaining a staunch supporter of _Fun_, Gilbert was soon immersed
in other journalistic work, and his position as dramatic critic to the
_Illustrated Times_ turned his attention to the stage. He had not to
wait long for an opportunity. Early in December 1866 T. W. Robertson was
asked by Miss Herbert, lessee of the St James's theatre, to find some
one who could turn out a bright Christmas piece in a fortnight, and
suggested Gilbert; the latter promptly produced _Dulcamara_, a burlesque
of _L'Elisire d'amore_, written in ten days, rehearsed in a week, and
duly performed at Christmas. He sold the piece outright for £30, a piece
of rashness which he had cause to regret, for it turned out a commercial
success. In 1870 he was commissioned by Buckstone to write a blank verse
fairy comedy, based upon _Le Palais de la vérité_, the novel by Madame
de Genlis. The result was _The Palace of Truth_, a fairy drama, poor in
structure but clever in workmanship, which served the purpose of Mr and
Mrs Kendal in 1870 at the Haymarket. This was followed in 1871 by
_Pygmalion and Galatea_, another three-act "mythological comedy," a
clever and effective but artificial piece. Another fairy comedy, _The
Wicked World_, written for Buckstone and the Kendals, was followed in
March 1873 by a burlesque version, in collaboration with Gilbert à
Beckett, entitled _The Happy Land_. Gilbert's next dramatic ventures
inclined more to the conventional pattern, combining sentiment and a
cynical humour in a manner strongly reminiscent of his father's style.
Of these pieces, _Sweethearts_ was given at the Prince of Wales's
theatre, 7th November 1874; _Tom Cobb_ at the St James's, 24th April
1875; _Broken Hearts_ at the Court, 9th December 1875; _Dan'l Druce_ (a
drama in darker vein, suggested to some extent by _Silas Marner_) at the
Haymarket, 11th September 1876; and _Engaged_ at the Haymarket, 3rd
October 1877. The first and last of these proved decidedly popular.
_Gretchen_, a verse drama in four acts, appeared in 1879. A one-act
piece, called _Comedy and Tragedy_, was produced at the Lyceum, 26th
January, 1884. Two dramatic trifles of later date were _Foggerty's
Fairy_ and _Rozenkrantz and Guildenstern_, a travesty of _Hamlet_,
performed at the Vaudeville in June 1891. Several of these dramas were
based upon short stories by Gilbert, a number of which had appeared from
time to time in the Christmas numbers of various periodicals. The best
of them have been collected in the volume entitled _Foggerty's Fairy,
and other Stories_. In the autumn of 1871 Gilbert commenced his
memorable collaboration (which lasted over twenty years) with Sir Arthur
Sullivan. The first two comic operas, _Thespis; or The Gods grown Old_
(26th September 1871) and _Trial by Jury_ (Royalty, 25th March 1875)
were merely essays. Like one or two of their successors, they were, as
regards plot, little more than extended "Bab Ballads." Later (especially
in the _Yeomen of the Guard_), much more elaboration was attempted. The
next piece was produced at the Opera Comique (17th November 1877) as
_The Sorcerer_. At the same theatre were successfully given _H.M.S.
Pinafore_ (25th May 1878), _The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of
Duty_ (3rd April 1880), and _Patience; or Bunthorne's Bride_ (23rd April
1881). In October 1881 the successful _Patience_ was removed to a new
theatre, the Savoy, specially built for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas
by Richard D'Oyly Carte. _Patience_ was followed, on 25th November 1882,
by _Iolanthe; or The Peer and the Peri_; and then came, on 5th January
1884, _Princess Ida; or Castle Adamant_, a re-cast of a charming and
witty fantasia which Gilbert had written some years previously, and had
then described as a "respectful perversion of Mr. Tennyson's exquisite
poem." The impulse reached its fullest development in the operas that
followed next in order--_The Mikado; or The Town of Titipu_ (14th March
1885); _Ruddigore_ (22nd January 1887); _The Yeomen of the Guard_ (3rd
October 1888); and _The Gondoliers_ (7th December 1889). After the
appearance of _The Gondoliers_ a coolness occurred between the composer
and librettist, owing to Gilbert's considering that Sullivan had not
supported him in a business disagreement with D'Oyly Carte. But the
estrangement was only temporary. Gilbert wrote several more librettos,
and of these _Utopia Limited_ (1893) and the exceptionally witty _Grand
Duke_ (1896) were written in conjunction with Sullivan. As a master of
metre Gilbert had shown himself consummate, as a dealer in quips and
paradoxes and ludicrous dilemmas, unrivalled. Even for the music of the
operas he deserves some credit, for the rhythms were frequently his own
(as in "I have a Song to Sing, O"), and the metres were in many cases
invented by himself. One or two of his librettos, such as that of
_Patience_, are virtually flawless. Enthusiasts are divided only as to
the comparative merit of the operas. _Princess Ida_ and _Patience_ are
in some respects the daintiest. There is a genuine vein of poetry in
_The Yeomen of the Guard_. Some of the drollest songs are in _Pinafore_
and _Ruddigore_. _The Gondoliers_ shows the most charming lightness of
touch, while with the general public _The Mikado_ proved the favourite.
The enduring popularity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was
abundantly proved by later revivals. Among the birthday honours in June
1907 Gilbert was given a knighthood. In 1909 his _Fallen Fairies_ (music
by Edward German) was produced at the Savoy. (T. Se.)
GILBERT DE LA PORRÉE, frequently known as Gilbertus Porretanus or
Pictaviensis (1070-1154); scholastic logician and theologian, was born
at Poitiers. He was educated under Bernard of Chartres and Anselm of
Laon. After teaching for about twenty years in Chartres, he lectured on
dialectics and theology in Paris (from 1137), and in 1141 returned to
Poitiers, being elected bishop in the following year. His heterodox
opinions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity drew upon his works the
condemnation of the church. The synod of Reims in 1148 procured papal
sanction for four propositions opposed to certain of Gilbert's tenets,
and his works were condemned until they should be corrected in
accordance with the principles of the church. Gilbert seems to have
submitted quietly to this judgment; he yielded assent to the four
propositions, and remained on friendly terms with his antagonists till
his death on the 4th of September 1154. Gilbert is almost the only
logician of the 12th century who is quoted by the greater scholastics of
the succeeding age. His chief logical work, the treatise _De sex
principiis_, was regarded with a reverence almost equal to that paid to
Aristotle, and furnished matter for numerous commentators, amongst them
Albertus Magnus. Owing to the fame of this work, he is mentioned by
Dante as the _Magister sex principiorum_. The treatise itself is a
discussion of the Aristotelian categories, specially of the six
subordinate modes. Gilbert distinguishes in the ten categories two
classes, one essential, the other derivative. Essential or inhering
(_formae inhaerentes_) in the objects themselves are only _substance_,
_quantity_, _quality_ and _relation_ in the stricter sense of that term.
The remaining six, _when_, _where_, _action_, _passion_, _position_ and
_habit_, are relative and subordinate (_formae assistentes_). This
suggestion has some interest, but is of no great value, either in logic
or in the theory of knowledge. More important in the history of
scholasticism are the theological consequences to which Gilbert's
realism led him. In the commentary on the treatise _De Trinitate_
(erroneously attributed to Boëtius) he proceeds from the metaphysical
notion that pure or abstract being is prior in nature to that which is.
This pure being is God, and must be distinguished from the triune God as
known to us. God is incomprehensible, and the categories cannot be
applied to determine his existence. In God there is no distinction or
difference, whereas in all substances or things there is duality,
arising from the element of matter. Between pure being and substances
stand the ideas or forms, which subsist, though they are not substances.
These forms, when materialized, are called _formae substantiales_ or
_formae nativae_; they are the essences of things, and in themselves
have no relation to the accidents of things. Things are temporal, the
ideas perpetual, God eternal. The pure form of existence, that by which
God is God, must be distinguished from the three persons who are God by
participation in this form. The form or essence is one, the persons or
substances three. It was this distinction between Deitas or Divinitas
and Deus that led to the condemnation of Gilbert's doctrine.
_De sex principiis_ and commentary on the _De Trinitate_ in Migne,
_Patrologia Latina_, lxiv. 1255 and clxxxviii. 1257; see also Abbé
Berthaud, _Gilbert de la Porrée_ (Poitiers, 1892); B. Hauréau, _De la
philosophie scolastique_, pp. 294-318; R. Schmid's article "Gilbert
Porretanus" in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyk. f. protest. Theol._ (vol. 6,
1899); Prantl, _Geschichte d. Logik_, ii. 215; Bach,
_Dogmengeschichte_, ii. 133; article SCHOLASTICISM.
GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST, founder of the Gilbertines, the only
religious order of English origin, was born at Sempringham in
Lincolnshire, c. 1083-1089. He was educated in France, and ordained in
1123, being presented by his father to the living of Sempringham. About
1135 he established there a convent for nuns; and to perform the heavy
work and cultivate the fields he formed a number of labourers into a
society of lay brothers attached to the convent. Similar establishments
were founded elsewhere, and in 1147 Gilbert tried to get them
incorporated in the Cistercian order. Failing in this, he proceeded to
form communities of priests and clerics to perform the spiritual
ministrations needed by the nuns. The women lived according to the
Benedictine rule as interpreted by the Cistercians; the men according to
the rule of St Augustine, and were canons regular. The special
constitutions of the order were largely taken from those of the
Premonstratensian canons and of the Cistercians. Like Fontevrault (q.v.)
it was a double order, the communities of men and women living side by
side; but, though the property all belonged to the nuns, the superior of
the canons was the head of the whole establishment, and the general
superior was a canon, called "Master of Sempringham." The general
chapter was a mixed assembly composed of two canons and two nuns from
each house; the nuns had to travel to the chapter in closed carts. The
office was celebrated together in the church, a high stone screen
separating the two choirs of canons and nuns. The order received papal
approbation in 1148. By Gilbert's death (1189) there were nine double
monasteries and four of canons only, containing about 700 canons and
1000 nuns in all. At the dissolution there were some 25 monasteries,
whereof 4 ranked among the greater monasteries (see list in F. A.
Gasquet's _English Monastic Life_). The order never spread beyond
England. The habit of the Gilbertines was black, with a white cloak.
See Bollandists' _Acta Sanctorum_ (4th of Feb.); William Dugdale,
_Monasticon_ (1846); Helyot, _Hist. des ordres religieux_ (1714); ii.
c. 29. The best modern account is _St Gilbert of Sempringham, and the
Gilbertines_, by Rose Graham (1901). The art. in _Dictionary of
National Biography_ gives abundant information on St Gilbert, but is
unsatisfactory on the order, as it might easily convey the impression
that the canons and nuns lived together, whereas they were most
carefully separated; and altogether undue prominence is given to a
single scandal. Miss Graham declares that the reputation of the order
was good until the end. (E. C. B.)
GILBERT FOLIOT (d. 1187), bishop of Hereford, and of London, is first
mentioned as a monk of Cluny, whence he was called in 1136 to plead the
cause of the empress Matilda against Stephen at the Roman court. Shortly
afterwards he became prior of Cluny; then prior of Abbéville, a house
dependent upon Cluny. In 1139 he was elected abbot of Gloucester. The
appointment was confirmed by Stephen, and from the ecclesiastical point
of view was unexceptionable. But the new abbot proved himself a valuable
ally of the empress, and her ablest controversialist. Gilbert's
reputation grew rapidly. He was respected at Rome; and he acted as the
representative of the primate, Theobald, in the supervision of the Welsh
church. In 1148, on being nominated by the pope to the see of Hereford,
Gilbert with characteristic wariness sought confirmation both from Henry
of Anjou and from Stephen. But he was an Angevin at heart, and after
1154 was treated by Henry II. with every mark of consideration. He was
Becket's rival for the primacy, and the only bishop who protested
against the king's choice. Becket, with rare forbearance, endeavoured to
win his friendship by procuring for him the see of London (1163). But
Gilbert evaded the customary profession of obedience to the primate, and
apparently aspired to make his see independent of Canterbury. On the
questions raised by the Constitutions of Clarendon he sided with the
king, whose confessor he had now become. He urged Becket to yield, and,
when this advice was rejected, encouraged his fellow-bishops to
repudiate the authority of the archbishop. In the years of controversy
which followed Becket's flight the king depended much upon the bishop's
skill as a disputant and diplomatist. Gilbert was twice excommunicated
by Becket, but both on these and on other occasions he showed great
dexterity in detaching the pope from the cause of the exile. To him it
was chiefly due that Henry avoided an open conflict with Rome of the
kind which John afterwards provoked. Gilbert was one of the bishops
whose excommunication in 1170 provoked the king's knights to murder
Becket; but he cannot be reproached with any share in the crime. His
later years were uneventful, though he enjoyed great influence with the
king and among his fellow bishops. Scholarly, dignified, ascetic in his
private life, devoted to the service of the Church, he was nevertheless
more respected than loved. His nature was cold; he made few friends; and
the taint of a calculating ambition runs through his whole career. He
died in the spring of 1187.
See Gilbert's _Letters_, ed. J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1845); _Materials
for the History of Thomas Becket_, ed. J. C. Robertson (Rolls series,
1875-1885); and Miss K. Norgate's _England under the Angevin Kings_
(1887). (H. W. C. D.)
GILBERT (KINGSMILL) ISLANDS, an extensive archipelago belonging to Great
Britain in the mid-western Pacific Ocean, lying N. and S. of the
equator, and between 170° and 180° E. There are sixteen islands, all
coral reefs or atolls, extending in crescent form over about five
degrees of latitude. The principal is Taputenea or Drummond Island. The
soil, mostly of coral sand, is productive of little else than the
coco-nut palm, and the chief source of food supply is the sea. The
population of these islands presents a remarkable phenomenon; in spite
of adverse conditions of environment and complete barbarism it is
exceedingly dense, in strong contradistinction to that of many other
more favoured islands. The land area of the group is only 166 m., yet
the population is about 30,000. The Gilbert islanders are a dark and
coarse type of the Polynesian race, and show signs of much crossing.
They are tall and stout, with an average height of 5 ft. 8 in., and are
of a vigorous, energetic temperament. They are nearly always naked, but
wear a conical hat of pandanus leaf. In war they have an armour of
plaited coco-nut fibres. They are fierce fighters, their chief weapon
being a sword armed with sharks' teeth. Their canoes are well made of
coco-nut wood boards sewn neatly together and fastened on frames.
British and American missionary work has been prosecuted with some
success. The large population led to the introduction of natives from
these islands into Hawaii as labourers in 1878-1884, but they were not
found satisfactory. The islands were discovered by John Byron in 1765
(one of them bearing his name); Captains Gilbert and Marshall visited
them in 1788; and they were annexed by Great Britain in 1892.
GILBEY, SIR WALTER, 1ST BART. (1831- ), English wine-merchant, was
born at Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1831. His father, the owner
and frequently the driver of the daily coach between Bishop Stortford
and London, died when he was eleven years old, and young Gilbey was
shortly afterwards placed in the office of an estate agent at Tring,
subsequently obtaining a clerkship in a firm of parliamentary agents in
London. On the outbreak of the Crimean War, Walter Gilbey and his
younger brother, Alfred, volunteered for civilian service at the front,
and were employed at a convalescent hospital on the Dardanelles.
Returning to London on the declaration of peace, Walter and Alfred
Gilbey, on the advice of their eldest brother, Henry Gilbey, a wholesale
wine-merchant, started in the retail wine and spirit trade. The heavy
duty then levied by the British government on French, Portuguese and
Spanish wines was prohibitive of a sale among the English middle
classes, and especially lower middle classes, whose usual alcoholic
beverage was accordingly beer. Henry Gilbey was of opinion that these
classes would gladly drink wine if they could get it at a moderate
price, and by his advice Walter and Alfred determined to push the sales
of colonial, and particularly of Cape, wines, on which the duty was
comparatively light. Backed by capital obtained through Henry Gilbey,
they accordingly opened in 1857 a small retail business in a basement in
Oxford Street, London. The Cape wines proved popular, and within three
years the brothers had 20,000 customers on their books. The creation of
the off-licence system by Mr Gladstone, then chancellor of the
exchequer, in 1860, followed by the large reduction in the duty on
French wines effected by the commercial treaty between England and
France in 1861, revolutionized their trade and laid the foundation of
their fortunes. Three provincial grocers, who had been granted the new
off-licence, applied to be appointed the Gilbeys' agents in their
respective districts, and many similar applications followed. These were
granted, and before very long a leading local grocer was acting as the
firm's agents in every district in England. The grocer who dealt in the
Gilbeys' wines and spirits was not allowed to sell those of any other
firm, and the Gilbeys in return handed over to him all their existing
customers in his district. This arrangement was of mutual advantage, and
the Gilbeys' business increased so rapidly that in 1864 Henry Gilbey
abandoned his own undertaking to join his brothers. In 1867 the three
brothers secured the old Pantheon theatre and concert hall in Oxford
Street for their headquarters. In 1875 the firm purchased a large
claret-producing estate in Médôc, on the banks of the Gironde, and
became also the proprietors of two large whisky-distilleries in
Scotland. In 1893 the business was converted, for family reasons, into a
private limited liability company, of which Walter Gilbey, who in the
same year was created a baronet, was chairman. Sir Walter Gilbey also
became well known as a breeder of shire horses, and he did much to
improve the breed of English horses (other than race-horses) generally,
and wrote extensively on the subject. He became president of the Shire
Horse Society, of the Hackney Horse Society, and of the Hunters'
Improvement Society, and he was the founder and chairman of the London
Cart Horse Parade Society. He was also a practical agriculturist, and
president of the Royal Agricultural Society.
GILDAS, or GILDUS (c. 516-570), the earliest of British historians (see
CELT: _Literature_, "Welsh"), surnamed by some Sapiens, and by others
Badonicus, seems to have been born in the year 516. Regarding him little
certain is known, beyond some isolated particulars that may be gathered
from hints dropped in the course of his work. Two short treatises exist,
purporting to be lives of Gildas, and ascribed respectively to the 11th
and 12th centuries; but the writers of both are believed to have
confounded two, if not more, persons that had borne the name. It is from
an incidental remark of his own, namely, that the year of the siege of
Mount Badon--one of the battles fought between the Saxons and the
Britons--was also the year of his own nativity, that the date of his
birth has been derived; the place, however, is not mentioned. His
assertion that he was moved to undertake his task mainly by "zeal for
God's house and for His holy law," and the very free use he has made of
quotations from the Bible, leave scarcely a doubt that he was an
ecclesiastic of some order or other. In addition, we learn that he went
abroad, probably to France, in his thirty-fourth year, where, after 10
years of hesitation and preparation, he composed, about 560, the work
bearing his name. His materials, he tells us, were collected from
foreign rather than native sources, the latter of which had been put
beyond his reach by circumstances. The _Cambrian Annals_ give 570 as the
year of his death.
The writings of Gildas have come down to us under the title of _Gildae
Sapientis de excidio Britanniae liber querulus_. Though at first written
consecutively, the work is now usually divided into three portions,--a
preface, the history proper, and an epistle,--the last, which is largely
made up of passages and texts of Scripture brought together for the
purpose of condemning the vices of his countrymen and their rulers,
being the least important, though by far the longest of the three. In
the second he passes in brief review the history of Britain from its
invasion by the Romans till his own times. Among other matters reference
is made to the introduction of Christianity in the reign of Tiberius;
the persecution under Diocletian; the spread of the Arian heresy; the
election of Maximus as emperor by the legions in Britain, and his
subsequent death at Aquileia; the incursions of the Picts and Scots into
the southern part of the island; the temporary assistance rendered to
the harassed Britons by the Romans; the final abandonment of the island
by the latter; the coming of the Saxons and their reception by
Guortigern (Vortigern); and, finally, the conflicts between the Britons,
led by a noble Roman, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the new invaders.
Unfortunately, on almost every point on which he touches, the statements
of Gildas are vague and obscure. With one exception already alluded to,
no dates are given, and events are not always taken up in the order of
their occurrence. These faults are of less importance during the period
when Greek and Roman writers notice the affairs of Britain; but they
become more serious when, as is the case from nearly the beginning of
the 5th century to the date of his death, Gildas's brief narrative is
our only authority for most of what passes current as the history of our
island during those years. Thus it is on his sole, though in this
instance perhaps trustworthy, testimony that the famous letter rests,
said to have been sent to Rome in 446 by the despairing Britons,
commencing:--"To Agitius (Aetius), consul for the third time, the groans
of the Britons."
Gildas's treatise was first published in 1525 by Polydore Vergil, but
with many avowed alterations and omissions. In 1568 John Josseline,
secretary to Archbishop Parker, issued a new edition of it more in
conformity with manuscript authority; and in 1691 a still more
carefully revised edition appeared at Oxford by Thomas Gale. It was
frequently reprinted on the Continent during the 16th century, and
once or twice since. The next English edition, described by Potthast
as _editio pessima_, was that published by the English Historical
Society in 1838, and edited by the Rev. J. Stevenson. The text of
Gildas founded on Gale's edition collated with two other MSS., with
elaborate introductions, is included in the _Monumenta historica
Britannica_, edited by Petrie and Sharpe (London, 1848). Another
edition is in A. W. Haddan and W. Stubbs, _Councils and Eccles.
Documents_ relating to Great Britain (Oxford, 1869); the latest
edition is that by Theodor Mommsen in _Monum. Germ. hist. auct.
antiq._ xiii. (Chronica min. iii.), 1894.
GILDER, RICHARD WATSON (1844-1909), American editor and poet, was born
in Bordentown, New Jersey, on the 8th of February 1844, a brother of
William Henry Gilder (1838-1900), the Arctic explorer. He was educated
at Bellevue Seminary, an institution conducted by his father, the Rev.
William Henry Gilder (1812-1864), in Flushing, Long Island. After three
years (1865-1868) on the Newark, New Jersey, _Daily Advertiser_, he
founded, with Newton Crane, the Newark _Morning Register_. In 1869 he
became editor of _Hours at Home_, and in 1870 assistant editor of
_Scribner's Monthly_ (eleven years later re-named _The Century
Magazine_), of which he became editor in 1881. He was one of the
founders of the Free Art League, of the International Copyright League,
and of the Authors' Club; was chairman of the New York Tenement House
Commission in 1894; and was a prominent member of the National Institute
of Arts and Letters, of the Council of the National Civil Service Reform
League, and of the executive committee of the Citizens' Union of New
York City. His poems, which are essentially lyrical, have been collected
in various volumes, including _Five Books of Song_ (1894), _In Palestine
and other Poems_ (1898), _Poems and Inscriptions_ (1901), and _In the
Heights_ (1905). A complete edition of his poems was published in 1908.
He also edited _"Sonnets from the Portuguese" and other Poems by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning_; _"One Word More" and other Poems by Robert
Browning_ (1905). He died in New York on the 18th of November 1909. His
wife, Helena de Kay, a grand-daughter of Joseph Rodman Drake, assisted,
with Saint Gaudens and others, in founding the Society of American
Artists, now merged in the National Academy, and the Art Students'
League of New York. She translated Sensier's biography of Millet, and
painted, before her marriage in 1874, studies in flowers and ideal
heads, much admired for their feeling and delicate colouring.
GILDERSLEEVE, BASIL LANNEAU (1831- ), American classical scholar, was
born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 23rd of October 1831, son of
Benjamin Gildersleeve (1791-1875), a Presbyterian evangelist, and editor
of the Charleston _Christian Observer_ in 1826-1845, of the Richmond
(Va.) _Watchman and Observer_ in 1845-1856, and of _The Central
Presbyterian_ in 1856-1860. The son graduated at Princeton in 1849,
studied under Franz in Berlin, under Friedrich Ritschl at Bonn and under
Schneidewin at Göttingen, where he received his doctor's degree in 1853.
From 1856 to 1876 he was professor of Greek in the University of
Virginia, holding the chair of Latin also in 1861-1866; and in 1876 he
became professor of Greek in the newly founded Johns Hopkins University.
In 1880 _The American Journal of Philology_, a quarterly published by
the Johns Hopkins University, was established under his editorial
charge, and his strong personality was expressed in the department of
the _Journal_ headed "Brief Report" or "Lanx Satura," and in the
earliest years of its publication every petty detail was in his hands.
His style in it, as elsewhere, is in striking contrast to that of the
typical classical scholar, and accords with his conviction that the true
aim of scholarship is "that which is." He published a _Latin Grammar_
(1867; revised with the co-operation of Gonzalez B. Lodge, 1894 and
1899) and a Latin Series for use in secondary schools (1875), both
marked by lucidity of order and mastery of grammatical theory and
methods. His edition of _Persius_ (1875) is of great value. But his bent
was rather toward Greek than Latin. His special interest in Christian
Greek was partly the cause of his editing in 1877 _The Apologies of
Justin Martyr_, "which" (to use his own words) "I used unblushingly as a
repository for my syntactical formulae." Gildersleeve's studies under
Franz had no doubt quickened his interest in Greek syntax, and his
logic, untrammelled by previous categories, and his marvellous sympathy
with the language were displayed in this most unlikely of places. His
_Syntax of Classic Greek_ (Part I., 1900, with C. W. E. Miller) collects
these formulae. Gildersleeve edited in 1885 _The Olympian and Pythian
Odes of Pindar_, with a brilliant and valuable introduction. His views
on the function of grammar were summarized in a paper on _The Spiritual
Rights of Minute Research_ delivered at Bryn Mawr on the 16th of June
1895. His collected contributions to literary periodicals appeared in
1890 under the title _Essays and Studies Educational and Literary_.
GILDING, the art of spreading gold, either by mechanical or by chemical
means, over the surface of a body for the purpose of ornament. The art
of gilding was known to the ancients. According to Herodotus, the
Egyptians were accustomed to gild wood and metals; and gilding by means
of gold plates is frequently mentioned in the Old Testament. Pliny
informs us that the first gilding seen at Rome was after the destruction
of Carthage, under the censorship of Lucius Mummius, when the Romans
began to gild the ceilings of their temples and palaces, the Capitol
being the first place on which this enrichment was bestowed. But he adds
that luxury advanced on them so rapidly that in a little time you might
see all, even private and poor persons, gild the walls, vaults, and
other parts of their dwellings. Owing to the comparative thickness of
the gold-leaf used in ancient gilding, the traces of it which yet remain
are remarkably brilliant and solid. Gilding has in all times occupied an
important place in the ornamental arts of Oriental countries; and the
native processes pursued in India at the present day may be taken as
typical of the arts as practised from the earliest periods. For the
gilding of copper, employed in the decoration of temple domes and other
large works, the following is an outline of the processes employed. The
metal surface is thoroughly scraped, cleaned and polished, and next
heated in a fire sufficiently to remove any traces of grease or other
impurity which may remain from the operation of polishing. It is then
dipped in an acid solution prepared from dried unripe apricots, and
rubbed with pumice or brick powder. Next, the surface is rubbed over
with mercury which forms a superficial amalgam with the copper, after
which it is left some hours in clean water, again washed with the acid
solution, and dried. It is now ready for receiving the gold, which is
laid on in leaf, and, on adhering, assumes a grey appearance from
combining with the mercury, but on the application of heat the latter
metal volatilizes, leaving the gold a dull greyish hue. The colour is
brought up by means of rubbing with agate burnishers. The weight of
mercury used in this process is double that of the gold laid on, and
the thickness of the gilding is regulated by the circumstances or
necessities of the case. For the gilding of iron or steel, the surface
is first scratched over with chequered lines, then washed in a hot
solution of green apricots, dried and heated just short of red-heat. The
gold-leaf is then laid on, and rubbed in with agate burnishers, when it
adheres by catching into the prepared scratched surface.
Modern gilding is applied to numerous and diverse surfaces and by
various distinct processes, so that the art is prosecuted in many ways,
and is part of widely different ornamental and useful arts. It forms an
important and essential part of frame-making (see CARVING AND GILDING);
it is largely employed in connexion with cabinet-work, decorative
painting and house ornamentation; and it also bulks largely in
bookbinding and ornamental leather work. Further, gilding is much
employed for coating baser metals, as in button-making, in the gilt toy
trade, in electro-gilt reproductions and in electro-plating; and it is
also a characteristic feature in the decoration of pottery, porcelain
and glass. The various processes fall under one or other of two
heads--mechanical gilding and gilding by chemical agency.
_Mechanical Gilding_ embraces all the operations by which gold-leaf is
prepared (see GOLDBEATING), and the several processes by which it is
mechanically attached to the surfaces it is intended to cover. It thus
embraces the burnish or water-gilding and the oil-gilding of the
carver and gilder, and the gilding operations of the house decorator,
the sign-painter, the bookbinder, the paper-stainer and several
others. Polished iron, steel and other metals are gilt mechanically by
applying gold-leaf to the metallic surface at a temperature just under
red-heat, pressing the leaf on with a burnisher and reheating, when
additional leaf may be laid on. The process is completed by cold
burnishing.
_Chemical Gilding_ embraces those processes in which the gold used is
at some stage in a state of chemical combination. Of these the
following are the principal:--
_Cold Gilding._--In this process the gold is obtained in a state of
extremely fine division, and applied by mechanical means. Cold gilding
on silver is performed by a solution of gold in aqua-regia, applied by
dipping a linen rag into the solution, burning it, and rubbing the
black and heavy ashes on the silver with the finger or a piece of
leather or cork. _Wet gilding_ is effected by means of a dilute
solution of chloride of gold with twice its quantity of ether. The
liquids are agitated and allowed to rest, when the ether separates and
floats on the surface of the acid. The whole mixture is then poured
into a funnel with a small aperture, and allowed to rest for some
time, when the acid is run off and the ether separated. The ether will
be found to have taken up all the gold from the acid, and may be used
for gilding iron or steel, for which purpose the metal is polished
with the finest emery and spirits of wine. The ether is then applied
with a small brush, and as it evaporates it deposits the gold, which
can now be heated and polished. For small delicate figures a pen or a
fine brush may be used for laying on the ether solution.
_Fire-gilding_ or _Wash-gilding_ is a process by which an amalgam of
gold is applied to metallic surfaces, the mercury being subsequently
volatilized, leaving a film of gold or an amalgam containing from 13
to 16% of mercury. In the preparation of the amalgam the gold must
first be reduced to thin plates or grains, which are heated red hot,
and thrown into mercury previously heated, till it begins to smoke.
Upon stirring the mercury with an iron rod, the gold totally
disappears. The proportion of mercury to gold is generally as six or
eight to one. When the amalgam is cold it is squeezed through chamois
leather for the purpose of separating the superfluous mercury; the
gold, with about twice its weight of mercury, remains behind, forming
a yellowish silvery mass of the consistence of butter. When the metal
to be gilt is wrought or chased, it ought to be covered with mercury
before the amalgam is applied, that this may be more easily spread;
but when the surface of the metal is plain, the amalgam may be applied
to it direct. When no such preparation is applied, the surface to be
gilded is simply bitten and cleaned with nitric acid. A deposit of
mercury is obtained on a metallic surface by means of "quicksilver
water," a solution of nitrate of mercury,--the nitric acid attacking
the metal to which it is applied, and thus leaving a film of free
metallic mercury. The amalgam being equally spread over the prepared
surface of the metal, the mercury is then sublimed by a heat just
sufficient for that purpose; for, if it is too great, part of the gold
may be driven off, or it may run together and leave some of the
surface of the metal bare. When the mercury has evaporated, which is
known by the surface having entirely become of a dull yellow colour,
the metal must undergo other operations, by which the fine gold colour
is given to it. First, the gilded surface is rubbed with a scratch
brush of brass wire, until its surface be smooth; then it is covered
over with a composition called "gilding wax," and again exposed to the
fire until the wax is burnt off. This wax is composed of beeswax mixed
with some of the following substances, viz. red ochre, verdigris,
copper scales, alum, vitriol, borax. By this operation the colour of
the gilding is heightened; and the effect seems to be produced by a
perfect dissipation of some mercury remaining after the former
operation. The dissipation is well effected by this equable
application of heat. The gilt surface is then covered over with nitre,
alum or other salts, ground together, and mixed up into a paste with
water or weak ammonia. The piece of metal thus covered is exposed to a
certain degree of heat, and then quenched in water. By this method its
colour is further improved and brought nearer to that of gold,
probably by removing any particles of copper that may have been on the
gilt surface. This process, when skilfully carried out, produces
gilding of great solidity and beauty; but owing to the exposure of the
workmen to mercurial fumes, it is very unhealthy, and further there is
much loss of mercury. Numerous contrivances have been introduced to
obviate these serious evils. Gilt brass buttons used for uniforms are
gilt by this process, and there is an act of parliament (1796) yet
unrepealed which prescribes 5 grains of gold as the smallest quantity
that may be used for the gilding of 12 dozen of buttons 1 in. in
diameter.
_Gilding of Pottery and Porcelain._--The quantity of gold consumed for
these purposes is very large. The gold used is dissolved in aqua-regia,
and the acid is driven off by heat, or the gold may be precipitated by
means of sulphate of iron. In this pulverulent state the gold is mixed
with 1/12th of its weight of oxide of bismuth, together with a small
quantity of borax and gum water. The mixture is applied to the articles
with a camel's hair pencil, and after passing through the fire the gold
is of a dingy colour, but the lustre is brought out by burnishing with
agate and bloodstone, and afterwards cleaning with vinegar or
white-lead.
GILDS, or GUILDS. Medieval gilds were voluntary associations formed for
the mutual aid and protection of their members. Among the gildsmen there
was a strong spirit of fraternal co-operation or Christian brotherhood,
with a mixture of worldly and religious ideals--the support of the body
and the salvation of the soul. Early meanings of the root _gild_ or
_geld_ were expiation, penalty, sacrifice or worship, feast or banquet,
and contribution or payment; it is difficult to determine which is the
earliest meaning, and we are not certain whether the gildsmen were
originally those who contributed to a common fund or those who
worshipped or feasted together. Their fraternities or societies may be
divided into three classes: religious or benevolent, merchant and craft
gilds. The last two categories, which do not become prominent anywhere
in Europe until the 12th century, had, like all gilds, a religious
tinge, but their aims were primarily worldly, and their functions were
mainly of an economic character.
1. _Origin._--Various theories have been advanced concerning the origin
of gilds. Some writers regard them as a continuation of the Roman
_collegia_ and _sodalitates_, but there is little evidence to prove the
unbroken continuity of existence of the Roman and Germanic fraternities.
A more widely accepted theory derives gilds wholly or in part from the
early Germanic or Scandinavian sacrificial banquets. Much influence is
ascribed to this heathen element by Lujo Brentano, Karl Hegel, W. E.
Wilda and other writers. This view does not seem to be tenable, for the
old sacrificial carousals lack two of the essential elements of the
gilds, namely corporative solidarity or permanent association and the
spirit of Christian brotherhood. Dr Max Pappenheim has ascribed the
origin of Germanic gilds to the northern "foster-brotherhood" or
"sworn-brotherhood," which was an artificial bond of union between two
or more persons. After intermingling their blood in the earth and
performing other peculiar ceremonies, the two contracting parties with
grasped hands swore to avenge any injury done to either of them. The
objections to this theory are fully stated by Hegel (_Städte und
Gilden_, i. 250-253). The foster-brotherhood seems to have been unknown
to the Franks and the Anglo-Saxons, the nations in which medieval gilds
first appear; and hence Dr Pappenheim's conclusions, if tenable at all,
apply only to Denmark or Scandinavia.
No theory on this subject can be satisfactory which wholly ignores the
influence of the Christian church. Imbued with the idea of the
brotherhood of man, the church naturally fostered the early growth of
gilds and tried to make them displace the old heathen banquets. The work
of the church was, however, directive rather than creative. Gilds were a
natural manifestation of the associative spirit which is inherent in
mankind. The same needs produce in different ages associations which
have striking resemblances, but those of each age have peculiarities
which indicate a spontaneous growth. It is not necessary to seek the
germ of gilds in any antecedent age or institution. When the old
kin-bond or _maegth_ was beginning to weaken or dissolve, and the state
did not yet afford adequate protection to its citizens, individuals
naturally united for mutual help.
Gilds are first mentioned in the Carolingian capitularies of 779 and
789, and in the enactments made by the synod of Nantes early in the 9th
century, the text of which has been preserved in the ecclesiastical
ordinances of Hincmar of Rheims (A.D. 852). The capitularies of 805 and
821 also contain vague references to sworn unions of some sort, and a
capitulary of 884 prohibits villeins from forming associations "vulgarly
called gilds" against those who have despoiled them. The Carolingians
evidently regarded such "conjurations" as "conspirations" dangerous to
the state. The gilds of Norway, Denmark and Sweden are first mentioned
in the 11th, 12th and 14th centuries respectively; those of France and
the Netherlands in the 11th.
Many writers believe that the earliest references to gilds come from
England. The laws of Ine speak of _gegildan_ who help each other pay the
_wergeld_, but it is not entirely certain that they were members of gild
fraternities in the later sense. These are more clearly referred to in
England in the second half of the 9th century, though we have little
information concerning them before the 11th century. To the first half
of that century belong the statutes of the fraternities of Cambridge,
Abbotsbury and Exeter. They are important because they form the oldest
body of gild ordinances extant in Europe. The thanes' gild at Cambridge
afforded help in blood-feuds, and provided for the payment of the
_wergeld_ in case a member killed any one. The religious element was
more prominent in Orcy's gild at Abbotsbury and in the fraternity at
Exeter; their ordinances exhibit much solicitude for the salvation of
the brethren's souls. The Exeter gild also gave assistance when property
was destroyed by fire. Prayers for the dead, attendance at funerals of
gildsmen, periodical banquets, the solemn entrance oath, fines for
neglect of duty and for improper conduct, contributions to a common
purse, mutual assistance in distress, periodical meetings in the
gildhall,--in short, all the characteristic features of the later gilds
already appear in the statutes of these Anglo-Saxon fraternities. Some
continental writers, in dealing with the origin of municipal government
throughout western Europe, have, however, ascribed too much importance
to the Anglo-Saxon gilds, exaggerating their prevalence and contending
that they form the germ of medieval municipal government. This view
rests almost entirely on conjecture; there is no good evidence to show
that there was any organic connexion between gilds and municipal
government in England before the coming of the Normans. It should also
be noted that there is no trace of the existence of either craft or
merchant gilds in England before the Norman Conquest. Commerce and
industry were not yet sufficiently developed to call for the creation of
such associations.
2. _Religious Gilds after the Norman Conquest._--Though we have not much
information concerning the religious gilds in the 12th century, they
doubtless flourished under the Anglo-Norman kings, and we know that they
were numerous, especially in the boroughs, from the 13th century onward.
In 1388 parliament ordered that every sheriff in England should call
upon the masters and wardens of all gilds and brotherhoods to send to
the king's council in Chancery, before the 2nd of February 1389, full
returns regarding their foundation, ordinances and property. Many of
these returns were edited by J. Toulmin Smith (1816-1869), and they
throw much light on the functions of the gilds. Their ordinances are
similar to those of the above-mentioned Anglo-Saxon fraternities. Each
member took an oath of admission, paid an entrance-fee, and made a small
annual contribution to the common fund. The brethren were aided in old
age, sickness and poverty, often also in cases of loss by robbery,
shipwreck and conflagration; for example, any member of the gild of St
Catherine, Aldersgate, was to be assisted if he "fall into poverty or be
injured through age, or through fire or water, thieves or sickness."
Alms were often given even to non-gildsmen; lights were supported at
certain altars; feasts and processions were held periodically; the
funerals of brethren were attended; and masses for the dead were
provided from the common purse or from special contributions made by the
gildsmen. Some of the religious gilds supported schools, or helped to
maintain roads, bridges and town-walls, or even came, in course of time,
to be closely connected with the government of the borough; but, as a
rule, they were simply private societies with a limited sphere of
activity. They are important because they played a prominent rôle in the
social life of England, especially as eleemosynary institutions, down to
the time of their suppression in 1547. Religious gilds, closely
resembling those of England, also flourished on the continent during the
middle ages.
3. _The Gild Merchant._--The merchant and craft fraternities are
particularly interesting to students of economic and municipal history.
The gild merchant came into existence in England soon after the Norman
Conquest, as a result of the increasing importance of trade, and it may
have been transplanted from Normandy. Until clearer evidence of foreign
influence is found, it may, however, be safer to regard it simply as a
new application of the old gild principle, though this new application
may have been stimulated by continental example. The evidence seems to
indicate the pre-existence of the gild merchant in Normandy, but it is
not mentioned anywhere on the continent before the 11th century. It
spread rapidly in England, and from the reign of John onward we have
evidence of its existence in many English boroughs. But in some
prominent towns, notably London, Colchester, Norwich and the Cinque
Ports, it seems never to have been adopted. In fact it played a more
conspicuous rôle in the small boroughs than in the large ones. It was
regarded by the townsmen as one of their most important privileges. Its
chief function was to regulate the trade monopoly conveyed to the
borough by the royal grant of _gilda mercatoria_. A grant of this sort
implied that the gildsmen had the right to trade freely in the town, and
to impose payments and restrictions upon others who desired to exercise
that privilege. The ordinances of a gild merchant thus aim to protect
the brethren from the commercial competition of strangers or
non-gildsmen. More freedom of trade was allowed at all times in the
selling of wares by wholesale, and also in retail dealings during the
time of markets and fairs. The ordinances were enforced by an alderman
with the assistance of two or more deputies, or by one or two masters,
wardens or keepers. The _Morwenspeches_ were periodical meetings at
which the brethren feasted, revised their ordinances, admitted new
members, elected officers and transacted other business.
It has often been asserted that the gild merchant and the borough were
identical, and that the former was the basis of the whole municipal
constitution. But recent research has discredited this theory both in
England and on the continent. Much evidence has been produced to show
that gild and borough, gildsmen and burgesses, were originally distinct
conceptions, and that they continued to be discriminated in most towns
throughout the middle ages. Admission to the gild was not restricted to
burgesses; nor did the brethren form an aristocratic body having control
over the whole municipal polity. No good evidence has, moreover, been
advanced to prove that this or any other kind of gild was the germ of
the municipal constitution. On the other hand, the gild merchant was
certainly an official organ or department of the borough administration,
and it exerted considerable influence upon the economic and corporative
growth of the English municipalities.
Historians have expressed divergent views regarding the early relations
of the craftsmen and their fraternities to the gild merchant. One of the
main questions in dispute is whether artisans were excluded from the
gild merchant. Many of them seem to have been admitted to membership.
They were regarded as merchants, for they bought raw material and sold
the manufactured commodity; no sharp line of demarcation was drawn
between the two classes in the 12th and 13th centuries. Separate
societies of craftsmen were formed in England soon after the gild
merchant came into existence; but at first they were few in number. The
gild merchant did not give birth to craft fraternities or have anything
to do with their origin; nor did it delegate its authority to them. In
fact, there seems to have been little or no organic connexion between
the two classes of gilds. As has already been intimated, however, many
artisans probably belonged both to their own craft fraternity and to the
gild merchant, and the latter, owing to its great power in the town, may
have exercised some sort of supervision over the craftsmen and their
societies. When the king bestowed upon the tanners or weavers or any
other body of artisans the right to have a gild, they secured the
monopoly of working and trading in their branch of industry. Thus with
every creation of a craft fraternity the gild merchant was weakened and
its sphere of activity was diminished, though the new bodies were
subsidiary to the older and larger fraternity. The greater the
commercial and industrial prosperity of a town, the more rapid was the
multiplication of craft gilds, which was a natural result of the
ever-increasing division of labour. The old gild merchant remained
longest intact and powerful in the smaller boroughs, in which, owing to
the predominance of agriculture, few or no craft gilds were formed. In
some of the larger towns the crafts were prominent already in the 13th
century, but they became much more prominent in the first half of the
14th century. Their increase in number and power was particularly rapid
in the time of Edward III., whose reign marks an era of industrial
progress. Many master craftsmen now became wealthy employers of labour,
dealing extensively in the wares which they produced. The class of
dealers or merchants, as distinguished from trading artisans, also
greatly increased and established separate fraternities. When these
various unions of dealers and of craftsmen embraced all the trades and
branches of production in the town, little or no vitality remained in
the old gild merchant; it ceased to have an independent sphere of
activity. The tendency was for the single organization, with a general
monopoly of trade, to be replaced by a number of separate organizations
representing the various trades and handicrafts. In short, the function
of guarding and supervising the trade monopoly split up into various
fragments, the aggregate of the crafts superseding the old general gild
merchant. This transference of the authority of the latter to a number
of distinct bodies and the consequent disintegration of the old
organization was a gradual spontaneous movement,--a process of slow
displacement, or natural growth and decay, due to the play of economic
forces,--which, generally speaking, may be assigned to the 14th and 15th
centuries, the very period in which the craft gilds attained the zenith
of their power. While in most towns the name and the old organization of
the gild merchant thus disappeared and the institution was displaced by
the aggregate of the crafts towards the close of the middle ages, in
some places it survived long after the 15th century either as a
religious fraternity, shorn of its old functions, or as a periodical
feast, or as a vague term applied to the whole municipal corporation.
On the continent of Europe the medieval gild merchant played a less
important rôle than in England. In Germany, France and the Netherlands
it occupies a less prominent place in the town charters and in the
municipal polity, and often corresponds to the later fraternities of
English dealers established either to carry on foreign commerce or to
regulate a particular part of the local trade monopoly.
4. _Craft Gilds._--A craft gild usually comprised all the artisans in a
single branch of industry in a particular town. Such a fraternity was
commonly called a "mistery" or "company" in the 15th and 16th centuries,
though the old term "gild" was not yet obsolete. "Gild" was also a
common designation in north Germany, while the corresponding term in
south Germany was _Zunft_, and in France _métier_. These societies are
not clearly visible in England or on the continent before the early part
of the 12th century. With the expansion of trade and industry the number
of artisans increased, and they banded together for mutual protection.
Some German writers have maintained that these craft organizations
emanated from manorial groups of workmen, but strong arguments have
been advanced against the validity of this theory (notably by F.
Keutgen). It is unnecessary to elaborate any profound theory regarding
the origin of the craft gilds. The union of men of the same occupation
was a natural tendency of the age. In the 13th century the trade of
England continued to expand and the number of craft gilds increased. In
the 14th century they were fully developed and in a flourishing
condition; by that time each branch of industry in every large town had
its gild. The development of these societies was even more rapid on the
continent than in England.
Their organization and aims were in general the same throughout western
Europe. Officers, commonly called wardens in England, were elected by
the members, and their chief function was to supervise the quality of
the wares produced, so as to secure good and honest workmanship.
Therefore, ordinances were made regulating the hours of labour and the
terms of admission to the gild, including apprenticeship. Other
ordinances required members to make periodical payments to a common
fund, and to participate in certain common religious observances,
festivities and pageants. But the regulation of industry was always
paramount to social and religious aims; the chief object of the craft
gild was to supervise the processes of manufacture and to control the
monopoly of working and dealing in a particular branch of industry.
We have already called attention to the gradual displacement of the gild
merchant by the craft organizations. The relations of the former to the
latter must now be considered more in detail. There was at no time a
general struggle in England between the gild merchant and the craft
gilds, though in a few towns there seems to have been some friction
between merchants and artisans. There is no exact parallel in England to
the conflict between these two classes in Scotland in the 16th century,
or to the great continental revolution of the 13th and 14th centuries,
by which the crafts threw off the yoke of patrician government and
secured more independence in the management of their own affairs and
more participation in the civic administration. The main causes of these
conflicts on the continent were the monopoly of power by the patricians,
acts of violence committed by them, their bad management of the finances
and their partisan administration of justice. In some towns the victory
of the artisans in the 14th century was so complete that the whole civic
constitution was remodelled with the craft fraternities as a basis. A
widespread movement of this sort would scarcely be found in England,
where trade and industry were less developed than on the continent, and
where the motives of a class conflict between merchants and craftsmen
were less potent. Moreover, borough government in England seems to have
been mainly democratic until the 14th or 15th century; there was no
oligarchy to be depressed or suppressed. Even if there had been motives
for uprisings of artisans such as took place in Germany and the
Netherlands, the English kings would probably have intervened. True,
there were popular uprisings in England, but they were usually conflicts
between the poor and the rich; the crafts as such seldom took part in
these tumults. While many continental municipalities were becoming more
democratic in the 14th century, those of England were drifting towards
oligarchy, towards government by a close "select body." As a rule the
craft gilds secured no dominant influence in the boroughs of England,
but remained subordinate to the town government. Whatever power they did
secure, whether as potent subsidiary organs of the municipal polity for
the regulation of trade, or as the chief or sole medium for the
acquisition of citizenship, or as integral parts of the common council,
was, generally speaking, the logical sequence of a gradual economic
development, and not the outgrowth of a revolutionary movement by which
oppressed craftsmen endeavoured to throw off the yoke of an arrogant
patrician gild merchant.
Two new kinds of craft fraternities appear in the 14th century and
become more prominent In the 15th, namely, the merchants' and the
journeymen's companies. The misteries or companies of merchants traded
in one or more kinds of wares. They were pre-eminently dealers, who
sold what others produced. Hence they should not be confused with the
old gild merchant, which originally comprised both merchants and
artisans, and had the whole monopoly of the trade of the town. In most
cases, the company of merchants was merely one of the craft
organizations which superseded the gild merchant.
In the 14th century the journeymen or yeomen began to set up
fraternities in defence of their rights. The formation of these
societies marks a cleft within the ranks of some particular class of
artisans--a conflict between employers, or master artisans, and workmen.
The journeymen combined to protect their special interests, notably as
regards hours of work and rates of wages, and they fought with the
masters over the labour question in all its aspects. The resulting
struggle of organized bodies of masters and journeymen was widespread
throughout western Europe, but it was more prominent in Germany than in
France or England. This conflict was indeed one of the main features of
German industrial life in the 15th century. In England the fraternities
of journeymen, after struggling a while for complete independence, seem
to have fallen under the supervision and control of the masters' gilds;
in other words, they became subsidiary or affiliated organs of the older
craft fraternities.
An interesting phenomenon in connexion with the organization of crafts
is their tendency to amalgamate, which is occasionally visible in
England in the 15th century, and more frequently in the 16th and 17th. A
similar tendency is visible in the Netherlands and in some other parts
of the continent already in the 14th century. Several fraternities--old
gilds or new companies, with their respective cognate or heterogeneous
branches of industry and trade--were fused into one body. In some towns
all the crafts were thus consolidated into a single fraternity; in this
case a body was reproduced which regulated the whole trade monopoly of
the borough, and hence bore some resemblance to the old gild merchant.
In dealing briefly with the modern history of craft gilds, we may
confine our attention to England. In the Tudor period the policy of the
crown was to bring them under public or national control. Laws were
passed, for example in 1503, requiring that new ordinances of
"fellowships of crafts or misteries" should be approved by the royal
justices or by other crown officers; and the authority of the companies
to fix the price of wares was thus restricted. The statute of 5
Elizabeth, c. 4, also curtailed their jurisdiction over journeymen and
apprentices (see APPRENTICESHIP).
The craft fraternities were not suppressed by the statute of 1547 (1
Edward VI.). They were indeed expressly exempted from its general
operation. Such portions of their revenues as were devoted to definite
religious observances were, however, appropriated by the crown. The
revenues confiscated were those used for "the finding, maintaining or
sustentation of any priest or of any anniversary, or obit, lamp, light
or other such things." This has been aptly called "the disendowment of
the religion of the misteries." Edward VI.'s statute marks no break of
continuity in the life of the craft organizations. Even before the
Reformation, however, signs of decay had already begun to appear, and
these multiplied in the 16th and 17th centuries. The old gild system was
breaking down under the action of new economic forces. Its dissolution
was due especially to the introduction of new industries, organized on a
more modern basis, and to the extension of the domestic system of
manufacture. Thus the companies gradually lost control over the
regulation of industry, though they still retained their old monopoly in
the 17th century, and in many cases even in the 18th. In fact, many
craft fraternities still survived in the second half of the 18th
century, but their usefulness had disappeared. The medieval form of
association was incompatible with the new ideas of individual liberty
and free competition, with the greater separation of capital and
industry, employers and workmen, and with the introduction of the
factory system. Intent only on promoting their own interests and
disregarding the welfare of the community, the old companies had become
an unmitigated evil. Attempts have been made to find in them the
progenitors of the trades unions, but there seems to be no immediate
connexion between the latter and the craft gilds. The privileges of the
old fraternities were not formally abolished until 1835; and the
substantial remains or spectral forms of some are still visible in other
towns besides London.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--W. E. Wilda, _Das Gildenwesen im Mittelalter_ (Halle,
1831); E. Levasseur; _Histoire des classes ouvrières en France_ (2
vols., Paris, 1859, new ed. 1900); Gustav von Schönberg, "Zur
wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung des deutschen Zunftwesens im Mittelalter,"
in _Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik_, ed. B. Hildebrand,
vol. ix. pp. 1-72, 97-169 (Jena, 1867); Joshua Toulmin Smith, _English
Gilds_, with Lujo Brentano's introductory essay on the _History and
Development of Gilds_ (London, 1870); Max Pappenheim, _Die
altdänischen Schutzgilden_ (Breslau, 1885); W. J. Ashley,
_Introduction to English Economic History_ (2 vols., London,
1888-1893; 3rd ed. of vol. i., 1894); C. Gross, _The Gild Merchant_ (2
vols., Oxford, 1890); Karl Hegel, _Städte und Gilden der germanischen
Völker_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1891); J. Malet Lambert, _Two Thousand
Years of Gild Life_ (Hull, 1891); Alfred Doren, _Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte der Kaufmannsgilden_ (Leipzig, 1893); H. Vander Linden,
_Les Gildes marchandes dans les Pays-Bas au moyen âge_ (Ghent, 1896);
E. Martin Saint-Léon, _Histoire des corporations de métiers_ (Paris,
1897); C. Nyrop, _Danmarks Gilde- og Lavsskraaer fra middelalderen_ (2
vols., Copenhagen, 1899-1904); F. Keutgen, _Ämter und Zünfte_ (Jena,
1903); George Unwin, _Industrial Organization in the Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries_ (Oxford, 1904). For bibliographies of gilds,
see H. Blanc, _Bibliographie des corporations ouvrières_ (Paris,
1885); G. Gonetta, _Bibliografia delle corporazioni d' arti e
mestieri_ (Rome, 1891); C. Gross, _Bibliography of British Municipal
History_, including Gilds (New York, 1897); W. Stieda, in
_Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_, ed. J. Conrad (2nd ed.,
Jena, 1901, under "Zunftwesen"). (C. Gr.)
GILEAD (i.e. "hard" or "rugged," a name sometimes used, both in earlier
and in later writers, to denote the whole of the territory occupied by
the Israelites eastward of Jordan, extending from the Arnon to the
southern base of Hermon (Deut. xxxiv. 1; Judg. xx. 1; Jos. _Ant._ xii.
8. 3, 4). More precisely, however, it was the usual name of that
picturesque hill country which is bounded on the N. by the Hieromax
(Yarmuk), on the W. by the Jordan, on the S. by the Arnon, and on the E.
by a line which may be said to follow the meridian of Amman
(Philadelphia or Rabbath-Ammon). It thus lies wholly within 31° 25´ and
32° 42´ N. lat. and 35° 34´ and 36° E. long., and is cut in two by the
Jabbok. Excluding the narrow strip of low-lying plain along the Jordan,
it has an average elevation of 2500 ft. above the Mediterranean; but, as
seen from the west, the relative height is very much increased by the
depression of the Jordan valley. The range from the same point of view
presents a singularly uniform outline, having the appearance of an
unbroken wall; in reality, however, it is traversed by a number of deep
ravines (wadis), of which the most important are the Yabis, the Ajlun,
the Rajib, the Zerka (Jabbok), the Hesban, and the Zerka Ma'in. The
great mass of the Gilead range is formed of Jura limestone, the base
slopes being sandstone partly covered by white marls. The eastern slopes
are comparatively bare of trees; but the western are well supplied with
oak, terebinth and pine. The pastures are everywhere luxuriant, and the
wooded heights and winding glens, in which the tangled shrubbery is here
and there broken up by open glades and flat meadows of green turf,
exhibit a beauty of vegetation such as is hardly to be seen in any other
district of Palestine.
The first biblical mention of "Mount Gilead" occurs in connexion with
the reconcilement of Jacob and Laban (Genesis xxxi.). The composite
nature of the story makes an identification of the exact site difficult,
but one of the narrators (E) seems to have in mind the ridge of what is
now known as Jebel Ajlun, probably not far from Mahneh (Mahanaim), near
the head of the wadi Yabis. Some investigators incline to Suf, or to the
Jebel Kafkafa. At the period of the Israelite conquest the portion of
Gilead northward of the Jabbok (Zerka) belonged to the dominions of Og,
king of Bashan, while the southern half was ruled by Sihon, king of the
Amorites, having been at an earlier date wrested from Moab (Numb. xxi.
24; Deut. iii. 12-16). These two sections were allotted respectively to
Manasseh and to Reuben and Gad, both districts being peculiarly suited
to the pastoral and nomadic character of these tribes. A somewhat wild
Bedouin disposition, fostered by their surroundings, was retained by the
Israelite inhabitants of Gilead to a late period of their history, and
seems to be to some extent discernible in what we read alike of
Jephthah, of David's Gadites, and of the prophet Elijah. As the eastern
frontier of Palestine, Gilead bore the first brunt of Syrian and
Assyrian attacks.
After the close of the Old Testament history the word Gilead seldom
occurs. It seems to have soon passed out of use as a precise
geographical designation; for though occasionally mentioned by
Apocryphal writers, by Josephus, and by Eusebius, the allusions are all
vague, and show that those who made them had no definite knowledge of
Gilead proper. In Josephus and the New Testament the name Peraea or
[Greek: peran tou Iordanou] is most frequently used; and the country is
sometimes spoken of by Josephus as divided into small provinces called
after the capitals in which Greek colonists had established themselves
during the reign of the Seleucidae. At present Gilead south of the
Jabbok alone is known by the name of Jebel Jilad (Mount Gilead), the
northern portion between the Jabbok and the Yarmuk being called Jebel
Ajlun. Jebel Jilad includes Jebel Osha, and has for its capital the town
of Es-Salt. The cities of Gilead expressly mentioned in the Old
Testament are Ramoth, Jabesh and Jazer. The first of these has been
variously identified with Es-Salt, with Reimun, with Jerash or Gerasa,
with er-Remtha, and with Salhad. Opinions are also divided on the
question of its identity with Mizpeh-Gilead (see _Encyc. Biblica_, art.
"Ramoth-Gilead"). Jabesh is perhaps to be found at Meriamin, less
probably at ed-Deir; Jazer, at Yajuz near Jogbehah, rather than at Sar.
The city named Gilead (Judg. x. 17, xii. 7; Hos. vi. 8, xii. 11) has
hardly been satisfactorily explained; perhaps the text has suffered.
The "balm" (Heb. _sori_) for which Gilead was so noted (Gen. xlvii. 11;
Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. 11; Ezek. xxvii. 17), is probably to be identified
with mastic (Gen. xxxvii. 25, R.V. marg.) i.e. the resin yielded by the
_Pistachia Lentiscus_. The modern "balm of Gilead" or "Mecca balsam," an
aromatic gum produced by the _Balsamodendron opobalsamum_, is more
likely the Hebrew _mor_, which the English Bible wrongly renders
"myrrh."
See G. A. Smith, _Hist. Geog._ xxiv. foll. (R. A. S. M.)
GILES (GIL, GILLES), ST, the name given to an abbot whose festival is
celebrated on the 1st of September. According to the legend, he was an
Athenian ([Greek: Aigidios], Aegidius) of royal descent. After the death
of his parents he distributed his possessions among the poor, took ship,
and landed at Marseilles. Thence he went to Arles, where he remained for
two years with St Caesarius. He then retired into a neighbouring desert,
where he lived upon herbs and upon the milk of a hind which came to him
at stated hours. He was discovered there one day by Flavius, the king of
the Goths, who built a monastery on the place, of which he was the first
abbot. Scholars are very much divided as to the date of his life, some
holding that he lived in the 6th century, others in the 7th or 8th. It
may be regarded as certain that St Giles was buried in the hermitage
which he had founded in a spot which was afterwards the town of
St-Gilles (diocese of Nîmes, department of Gard). His reputation for
sanctity attracted many pilgrims. Important gifts were made to the
church which contained his body, and a monastery grew up hard by. It is
probable that the Visigothic princes who were in possession of the
country protected and enriched this monastery, and that it was destroyed
by the Saracens at the time of their invasion in 721. But there are no
authentic data before the 9th century concerning his history. In 808
Charlemagne took the abbey of St-Gilles under his protection, and it is
mentioned among the monasteries from which only prayers for the prince
and the state were due. In the 12th century the pilgrimages to St-Gilles
are cited as among the most celebrated of the time. The cult of the
saint, who came to be regarded as the special patron of lepers, beggars
and cripples, spread very extensively over Europe, especially in
England, Scotland, France, Belgium and Germany. The church of St Giles,
Cripplegate, London, was built about 1090, while the hospital for lepers
at St Giles-in-the-Fields (near New Oxford Street) was founded by Queen
Matilda in 1117. In England alone there are about 150 churches dedicated
to this saint. In Edinburgh the church of St Giles could boast the
possession of an arm-bone of its patron. Representations of St Giles are
very frequently met with in early French and German art, but are much
less common in Italy and Spain.
See _Acta Sanctorum_ (September), i. 284-299; Devic and Vaissete,
_Histoire générale de Languedoc_, pp. 514-522 (Toulouse, 1876); E.
Rembry, _Saint Gilles, sa vie, ses reliques, son culte en Belgique et
dans le nord de la France_ (Bruges, 1881); F. Arnold-Forster, _Studies
in Church Dedications, or England's Patron Saints_, ii. 46-51, iii.
15, 363-365 (1899); A. Jameson, _Sacred and Legendary Art_, 768-770
(1896); A. Bell, _Lives and Legends of the English Bishops and Kings,
Medieval Monks, and other later Saints_, pp. 61, 70, 74-78, 84, 197
(1904). (H. De.)
GILFILLAN, GEORGE (1813-1878), Scottish author, was born on the 30th of
January 1813, at Comrie, Perthshire, where his father, the Rev. Samuel
Gilfillan, the author of some theological works, was for many years
minister of a Secession congregation. After an education at Glasgow
University, in March 1836 he was ordained pastor of a Secession
congregation in Dundee. He published a volume of his discourses in 1839,
and shortly afterwards another sermon on "Hades," which brought him
under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters, and was ultimately withdrawn
from circulation. Gilfillan next contributed a series of sketches of
celebrated contemporary authors to the _Dumfries Herald_, then edited by
Thomas Aird; and these, with several new ones, formed his first _Gallery
of Literary Portraits_, which appeared in 1846, and had a wide
circulation. It was quickly followed by a _Second_ and a _Third
Gallery_. In 1851 his most successful work, the _Bards of the Bible_,
appeared. His aim was that it should be "a poem on the Bible"; and it
was far more rhapsodical than critical. His _Martyrs and Heroes of the
Scottish Covenant_ appeared in 1832, and in 1856 he produced a partly
autobiographical, partly fabulous, _History of a Man_. For thirty years
he was engaged upon a long poem, on _Night_, which was published in
1867, but its theme was too vast, vague and unmanageable, and the result
was a failure. He also edited an edition of the _British Poets_. As a
lecturer and as a preacher he drew large crowds, but his literary
reputation has not proved permanent. He died on the 13th of August 1878.
He had just finished a new life of Burns designed to accompany a new
edition of the works of that poet.
GILGAL (Heb. for "circle" of sacred stones), the name of several places
in Palestine, mentioned in the Old Testament. The name is not found east
of the Jordan.
1. The first and most important was situated "in the east border of
Jericho" (Josh. iv. 19), on the border between Judah and Benjamin (Josh.
xv. 7). Josephus (Ant. v. 1. 4) places it 50 stadia from Jordan and 10
from Jericho (the New Testament site). Jerome (_Onomasticon_, s.v.
"Galgal") places Gilgal 2 Roman miles from Jericho, and speaks of it as
a deserted place held in wonderful veneration ("miro cultu") by the
natives. This site, which in the middle ages appears to have been
lost--Gilgal being shown farther north--was in 1865 recovered by a
German traveller (Hermann Zschokke), and fixed by the English survey
party, though not beyond dispute. It is about 2 m. east of the site of
Byzantine Jericho, and 1 m. from modern er-Riha. A fine tamarisk, traces
of a church (which is mentioned in the 8th century), and a large
reservoir, now filled up with mud, remain. The place is called
Jiljulieh, and its position north of the valley of Achor (Wadì Kelt) and
east of Jericho agrees well with the biblical indications above
mentioned. A tradition connected with the fall of Jericho is attached to
the site (see C. R. Conder, _Tent Work_, 203 ff.). This sanctuary and
camp of Israel held a high place in the national regard, and is often
mentioned in Judges and Samuel. But whether this is the Gilgal spoken of
by Amos and Hosea in connexion with Bethel is by no means certain [see
(3) below].
2. Gilgal, mentioned in Josh. xii. 23 in connexion with Dor, appears to
have been situated in the maritime plain. Jerome (_Onomasticon_, s.v.
"Gelgel") speaks of a town of the name 6 Roman miles north of
Antipatris (Ras el 'Ain). This is apparently the modern Kalkilia, but
about 4 m. north of Antipatris is a large village called Jiljulieh,
which is more probably the biblical town.
3. The third Gilgal (2 Kings iv. 38) was in the mountains (compare 1
Sam. vii. 16, 2 Kings ii. 1-3) near Bethel. Jerome mentions this place
also (_Onomasticon_, s.v. "Galgala"). It appears to be the present
village of Jiljilia, about 7 English miles north of Beitin (Bethel). It
may have absorbed the old shrine of Shiloh and been the sanctuary famous
in the days of Amos and Hosea.
4. Deut. xi. 30 seems to imply a Gilgal near Gerizim, and there is still
a place called Juleijil on the plain of Makhna, 2½ m. S.E. of Shechem.
This may have been Amos's Gilgal and was almost certainly that of 1
Macc. ix. 2.
5. The Gilgal described in Josh. xv. 7 is the same as the Beth-Gilgal of
Neh. xii. 29; its site is not known. (R. A. S. M.)
GILGAMESH, EPIC OF, the title given to one of the most important
literary products of Babylonia, from the name of the chief personage in
the series of tales of which it is composed.
Though the Gilgamesh Epic is known to us chiefly from the fragments
found in the royal collection of tablets made by Assur-bani-pal, the
king of Assyria (668-626 B.C.) for his palace at Nineveh, internal
evidence points to the high antiquity of at least some portions of it,
and the discovery of a fragment of the epic in the older form of the
Babylonian script, which can be dated as 2000 B.C., confirms this view.
Equally certain is a second observation of a general character that the
epic originating as the greater portion of the literature in
Assur-bani-pal's collection in Babylonia is a composite product, that is
to say, it consists of a number of independent stories or myths
originating at different times, and united to form a continuous
narrative with Gilgamesh as the central figure. This view naturally
raises the question whether the independent stories were all told of
Gilgamesh or, as almost always happens in the case of ancient tales,
were transferred to Gilgamesh as a favourite popular hero. Internal
evidence again comes to our aid to lend its weight to the latter theory.
While the existence of such a personage as Gilgamesh may be admitted, he
belongs to an age that could only have preserved a dim recollection of
his achievements and adventures through oral traditions. The name[1] is
not Babylonian, and what evidence as to his origin there is points to
his having come from Elam, to the east of Babylonia. He may have
belonged to the people known as the Kassites who at the beginning of the
18th century B.C. entered Babylonia from Elam, and obtained control of
the Euphrates valley. Why and how he came to be a popular hero in
Babylonia cannot with our present material be determined, but the epic
indicates that he came as a conqueror and established himself at Erech.
In so far we have embodied in the first part of the epic dim
recollections of actual events, but we soon leave the solid ground of
fact and find ourselves soaring to the heights of genuine myth.
Gilgamesh becomes a god, and in certain portions of the epic clearly
plays the part of the sun-god of the spring-time, taking the place
apparently of Tammuz or Adonis, the youthful sun-god, though the story
shows traits that differentiate it from the ordinary Tammuz myths. A
separate stratum in the Gilgamesh epic is formed by the story of
Eabani--introduced as the friend of Gilgamesh, who joins him in his
adventures. There can be no doubt that Eabani, who symbolizes primeval
man, was a figure originally entirely independent of Gilgamesh, but his
story was incorporated into the epic by that natural process to be
observed in the national epics of other peoples, which tends to connect
the favourite hero with all kinds of tales that for one reason or the
other become embedded in the popular mind. Another stratum is
represented by the story of a favourite of the gods known as
Ut-Napishtim, who is saved from a destructive storm and flood that
destroys his fellow-citizens of Shurippak. Gilgamesh is artificially
brought into contact with Ut-Napishtim, to whom he pays a visit for the
purpose of learning the secret of immortal life and perpetual youth
which he enjoys. During the visit Ut-Napishtim tells Gilgamesh the story
of the flood and of his miraculous escape. Nature myths have been
entwined with other episodes in the epic and finally the theologians
took up the combined stories and made them the medium for illustrating
the truth and force of certain doctrines of the Babylonian religion. In
its final form, the outcome of an extended and complicated literary
process, the Gilgamesh Epic covered twelve tablets, each tablet devoted
to one adventure in which the hero plays a direct or indirect part, and
the whole covering according to the most plausible estimate about 3000
lines. Of all twelve tablets portions have been found among the remains
of Assur-bani-pal's library, but some of the tablets are so incomplete
as to leave even their general contents in some doubt. The fragments do
not all belong to one copy. Of some tablets portions of two, and of some
tablets portions of as many as four, copies have turned up, pointing
therefore to the great popularity of the production. The best preserved
are Tablets VI. and XI., and of the total about 1500 lines are now
known, wholly or in part, while of those partially preserved quite a
number can be restored. A brief summary of the contents of the twelve
may be indicated as follows:
In the 1st tablet, after a general survey of the adventures of
Gilgamesh, his rule at Erech is described, where he enlists the services
of all the young able-bodied men in the building of the great wall of
the city. The people sigh under the burden imposed, and call upon the
goddess Aruru to create a being who might act as a rival to Gilgamesh,
curb his strength, and dispute his tyrannous control. The goddess
consents, and creates Eabani, who is described as a wild man, living
with the gazelles and the beasts of the field. Eabani, whose name,
signifying "Ea creates," points to the tradition which made Ea (q.v.)
the creator of humanity, symbolizes primeval man. Through a hunter,
Eabani and Gilgamesh are brought together, but instead of becoming
rivals, they are joined in friendship. Eabani is induced by the snares
of a maiden to abandon his life with the animals and to proceed to
Erech, where Gilgamesh, who has been told in several dreams of the
coming of Eabani, awaits him. Together they proceed upon several
adventures, which are related in the following four tablets. At first,
indeed, Eabani curses the fate which led him away from his former life,
and Gilgamesh is represented as bewailing Eabani's dissatisfaction. The
sun-god Shamash calls upon Eabani to remain with Gilgamesh, who pays him
all honours in his palace at Erech. With the decision of the two friends
to proceed to the forest of cedars in which the goddess Irnina--a form
of Ishtar--dwells, and which is guarded by Khumbaba, the 2nd tablet
ends. In the 3rd tablet, very imperfectly preserved, Gilgamesh appeals
through a Shamash priestess Rimat-Belit to the sun-god Shamash for his
aid in the proposed undertaking. The 4th tablet contains a description
of the formidable Khumbaba, the guardian of the cedar forest. In the 5th
tablet Gilgamesh and Eabani reach the forest. Encouraged by dreams, they
proceed against Khumbaba, and despatch him near a specially high cedar
over which he held guard. This adventure against Khumbaba belongs to the
Eabani stratum of the epic, into which Gilgamesh is artificially
introduced. The basis of the 6th tablet is the familiar nature-myth of
the change of seasons, in which Gilgamesh plays the part of the youthful
solar god of the springtime, who is wooed by the goddess of fertility,
Ishtar. Gilgamesh, recalling to the goddess the sad fate of those who
fall a victim to her charms, rejects the offer. In the course of his
recital snatches of other myths are referred to, including he famous
Tammuz-Adonis tale, in which Tammuz, the youthful bridegroom, is slain
by his consort Ishtar. The goddess, enraged at the insult, asks her
father Anu to avenge her. A divine bull is sent to wage a contest
against Gilgamesh, who is assisted by his friend Eabani. This scene of
the fight with the bull is often depicted on seal cylinders. The two
friends by their united force succeed in killing the bull, and then
after performing certain votive and purification rites return to Erech,
where they are hailed with joy. In this adventure it is clearly Eabani
who is artificially introduced in order to maintain the association with
Gilgamesh. The 7th tablet continues the Eabani stratum. The hero is
smitten with sore disease, but the fragmentary condition of this and the
succeeding tablet is such as to envelop in doubt the accompanying
circumstances, including the cause and nature of his disease. The 8th
tablet records the death of Eabani. The 9th and 10th tablets,
exclusively devoted to Gilgamesh, describe his wanderings in quest of
Ut-Napishtim, from whom he hopes to learn how he may escape the fate
that has overtaken his friend Eabani. He goes through mountain passes
and encounters lions. At the entrance to the mountain Mashu,
scorpion-men stand guard, from one of whom he receives advice as to how
to pass through the Mashu district. He succeeds in doing so, and finds
himself in a wonderful park, which lies along the sea coast. In the 10th
tablet the goddess Sabitu, who, as guardian of the sea, first bolts her
gate against Gilgamesh, after learning of his quest, helps him to pass
in a ship across the sea to the "waters of death." The ferry-man of
Ut-Napishtim brings him safely through these waters, despite the
difficulties and dangers of the voyage, and at last the hero finds
himself face to face with Ut-Napishtim. In the 11th tablet, Ut-Napishtim
tells the famous story of the Babylonian flood, which is so patently
attached to Gilgamesh in a most artificial manner. Ut-Napishtim and his
wife are anxious to help Gilgamesh to new life. He is sent to a place
where he washes himself clean from impurity. He is told of a weed which
restores youth to the one grown old. Scarcely has he obtained the weed
when it is snatched away from him, and the tablet closes somewhat
obscurely with the prediction of the destruction of Erech. In the 12th
tablet Gilgamesh succeeds in obtaining a view of Eabani's shade, and
learns through him of the sad fate endured by the dead. With this
description, in which care of the dead is inculcated as the only means
of making their existence in Aralu, where the dead are gathered,
bearable, the epic, so far as we have it, closes.
The reason why the flood episode and the interview with the dead Eabani
are introduced is quite clear. Both are intended as illustrations of
doctrines taught in the schools of Babylonia; the former to explain that
only the favourites of the gods can hope under exceptional circumstances
to enjoy life everlasting; the latter to emphasize the impossibility for
ordinary mortals to escape from the inactive shadowy existence led by
the dead, and to inculcate the duty of proper care for the dead. That
the astro-theological system is also introduced into the epic is clear
from the division into twelve tablets, which correspond to the yearly
course of the sun, while throughout there are indications that all the
adventures of Gilgamesh and Eabani, including those which have an
historical background, have been submitted to the influence of this
system and projected on to the heavens. This interpretation of the
popular tales, according to which the career of the hero can be followed
in its entirety and in detail in the movements in the heavens, in time,
with the growing predominance of the astral-mythological system,
overshadowed the other factors involved, and it is in this form, as an
astral myth, that it passes through the ancient world and leaves its
traces in the folk-tales and myths of Hebrews, Phoenicians, Syrians,
Greeks and Romans throughout Asia Minor and even in India.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The complete edition of the Gilgamesh Epic by Paul
Haupt under the title _Das babylonische Nimrodepos_ (Leipzig,
1884-1891), with the 12th tablet in the _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_,
i. 48-79; German translation by Peter Jensen in vol. vi. of Schrader's
_Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 116-273. See also
the same author's comprehensive work, _Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der
Weltliteratur_ (vol. i. 1906, vol. ii. to follow). An English
translation of the chief portions in Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia
and Assyria_ (Boston, 1898), ch. xxiii. (M. Ja.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The name of the hero, written always ideographically, was for a
long time provisionally read _Izdubar_; but a tablet discovered by T.
G. Pinches gave the equivalent _Gilgamesh_ (see Jastrow, _Religion of
Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 468).
GILGIT, an outlying province in the extreme north-west of India, over
which Kashmir has reasserted her sovereignty. Only a part of the basin
of the river Gilgit is included within its political boundaries. There
is an intervening width of mountainous country, represented chiefly by
glaciers and ice-fields, and intersected by narrow sterile valleys,
measuring some 100 to 150 m. in width, to the north and north-east,
which separates the province of Gilgit from the Chinese frontier beyond
the Muztagh and Karakoram. This part of the Kashmir borderland includes
Kanjut (or Hunza) and Ladakh. To the north-west, beyond the sources of
the Yasin and Ghazar in the Shandur range (the two most westerly
tributaries of the Gilgit river) is the deep valley of the Yarkhun or
Chitral. Since the formation of the North-West Frontier Province in
1901, the political charge of Chitral, Dir and Swat, which was formerly
included within the Gilgit agency, has been transferred to the chief
commissioner of the new province, with his capital at Peshawar. Gilgit
proper now forms a _wazarat_ of the Kashmir state, administered by a
_wazir_. Gilgit is also the headquarters of a British political agent,
who exercises some supervision over the _wazir_, and is directly
responsible to the government of India for the administration of the
outlying districts or petty states of Hunza, Nagar, Ashkuman, Yasin and
Ghizar, the little republic of Chilas, &c. These states acknowledge the
suzerainty of Kashmir, paying an annual tribute in gold or grain, but
they form no part of its territory.
Within the wider limits of the former Gilgit agency are many mixed
races, speaking different languages, which have all been usually classed
together under the name Dard. The Dard, however, is unknown beyond the
limits of the Kohistan district of the Indus valley to the south of the
Hindu Koh, the rest of the inhabitants of the Indus valley belonging to
Shin republics, or Chilas. The great mass of the Chitral population are
Kho (speaking Khowar), and they may be accepted as representing the
aboriginal population of the Chitral valley. (See HINDU KUSH.) Between
Chitral and the Indus the "Dards" of Dardistan are chiefly Yeshkuns and
Shins, and it would appear from the proportions in which these people
occupy the country that they must have primarily moved up from the
valley of the Indus in successive waves of conquest, first the Yeshkuns,
and then the Shins. No one can put a date to these invasions, but
Biddulph is inclined to class the Yeshkuns with the Yuechi who conquered
the Bactrian kingdom about 120 B.C. The Shins are obviously a Hindu race
(as is testified by their veneration for the cow), who spread themselves
northwards and eastwards as far as Baltistan, where they collided with
the aboriginal Tatar of the Asiatic highlands. But the ethnography of
"Dardistan," or the Gilgit agency (for the two are, roughly speaking,
synonymous), requires further investigation, and it would be premature
to attempt to frame anything like an ethnographical history of these
regions until the neighbouring provinces of Tangir and Darel have been
more fully examined. The _wazarat_ of Gilgit contains a population
(1901) of 60,885, all Mahommedans, mostly of the Shiah sect, but not
fanatical. The dominant race is that of the Shins, whose language is
universally spoken. This is one of the so-called Pisacha languages, an
archaic Aryan group intermediate between the Iranian and the Sanskritic.
In general appearance and dress all the mountain-bred peoples extending
through these northern districts are very similar. Thick felt coats
reaching below the knee, loose "pyjamas" with cloth "putties" and boots
(often of English make) are almost universal, the distinguishing feature
in their costume being the felt cap worn close to the head and rolled up
round the edges. They are on the whole a light-hearted, cheerful race of
people, but it has been observed that their temperament varies much with
their habitat--those who live on the shadowed sides of mountains being
distinctly more morose and more serious in disposition than the dwellers
in valleys which catch the winter sunlight. They are, at the same time,
bloodthirsty and treacherous to a degree which would appear incredible
to a casual observer of their happy and genial manners, exhibiting a
strange combination (as has been observed by a careful student of their
ways) of "the monkey and the tiger." Addicted to sport of every kind,
they pursue no manufacturing industries whatsoever, but they are
excellent agriculturists, and show great ingenuity in their local
irrigation works and in their efforts to bring every available acre of
cultivable soil within the irrigated area. Gold washing is more or less
carried on in most of the valleys north of the river Gilgit, and gold
dust (contained in small packets formed with the petals of a cup-shaped
flower) is an invariable item in their official presents and offerings.
Gold dust still constitutes part of the annual tribute which, strangely
enough, is paid by Hunza to China, as well as to Kashmir.
_Routes in the Gilgit Agency._--One of the oldest recorded routes
through this country is that which connects Mastuj in the Chitral
valley with Gilgit, passing across the Shandur range (12,250). It now
forms the high-road between Gilgit and Chitral, and has been
engineered into a passable route. From the north three great
glacier-bred affluents make their way to the river of Gilgit, joining
it at almost equal intervals, and each of them affords opportunity for
a rough passage northwards. (1) The Yasin river, which follows a
fairly straight course from north to south for about 40 m. from the
foot of the Darkôt pass across the Shandur range (15,000) to its
junction with the river Gilgit, close to the little fort of Gupis, on
the Gilgit-Mastuj road. Much of this valley is cultivated and
extremely picturesque. At the head of it is a grand group of glaciers,
one of which leads up to the well-known pass of Darkôt. (2) 25 m. (by
map measurement) below Gupis the Gilgit receives the Ashkuman affluent
from the north. The little Lake of Karumbar is held to be its source,
as it lies at the head of the river. The same lake is sometimes called
the source of the river Yarkhun or Chitral; and it seems possible that
a part of its waters may be deflected in each direction. The Karumbar,
or Ashkuman, is nearly twice the length of the Yasin, and the upper
half of the valley is encompassed by glaciers, rendering the route
along it uncertain and difficult. (3) 40 m. or so below the Ashkuman
junction, and nearly opposite the little station of Gilgit, the river
receives certain further contributions from the north which are
collected in the Hunza and Nagar basins. These basins include a system
of glaciers of such gigantic proportions that they are probably
unrivalled in any part of the world. The glacial head of the Hunza is
not far from that of the Karumbar, and, like the Karumbar, the river
commences with a wide sweep eastwards, following a course roughly
parallel to the crest of the Hindu Kush (under whose southern slopes
it lies close) for about 40 m. Then striking south for another 40 m.,
it twists amidst the barren feet of gigantic rock-bound spurs which
reach upwards to the Muztagh peaks on the east and to a mass of
glaciers and snow-fields on the west, hidden amidst the upper folds of
mountains towering to an average of 25,000 ft. The next great bend is
again to the west for 30 m., before a final change of direction to the
south at the historical position of Chalt and a comparatively straight
run of 25 m. to a junction with the Gilgit. The valley of Hunza lies
some 10 m. from the point of this westerly bend, and 20 (as the crow
flies) from Chalt. Much has been written of the magnificence of Hunza
valley scenery, surrounded as it is by a stupendous ring of
snow-capped peaks and brightened with all the radiant beauty that
cultivation adds to these mountain valleys; but such scenery must be
regarded as exceptional in these northern regions.
_Glaciers and Mountains._--Conway and Godwin Austen have described the
glaciers of Nagar which, enclosed between the Muztagh spurs on the
north-east and the frontier peaks of Kashmir (terminating with
Rakapushi) on the south-west, and massing themselves in an almost
uninterrupted series from the Hunza valley to the base of those
gigantic peaks which stand about Mount Godwin Austen, seem to be set
like an ice-sea to define the farthest bounds of the Himalaya. From
its uttermost head to the foot of the Hispar, overhanging the valley
above Nagar, the length of the glacial ice-bed known under the name of
Biafo is said to measure about 90 m. Throughout the mountain region of
Kanjut (or Hunza) and Nagar the valleys are deeply sunk between
mountain ranges, which are nowhere less than 15,000 ft. in altitude,
and which must average above 20,000 ft. As a rule, these valleys are
bare of vegetation. Where the summits of the loftier ranges are not
buried beneath snow and ice they are bare, bleak and splintered, and
the nakedness of the rock scenery extends down their rugged spurs to
the very base of them. On the lower slopes of tumbled débris the sun
in summer beats with an intensity which is unmitigated by the cloud
drifts which form in the moister atmosphere of the monsoon-swept
summits of the Himalaya. Sun-baked in summer and frost-riven in
winter, the mountain sides are but immense ramps of loose rock débris,
only awaiting the yearly melting of the upper snow-fields, or the
advent of a casual rainstorm, to be swept downwards in an avalanche of
mud and stones into the gorges below. Here it becomes piled and massed
together, till the pressure of accumulation forces it out into the
main valleys, where it spreads in alluvial fans and silts up the
plains. This formation is especially marked throughout the high level
valleys of the Gilgit basin.
_Passes._--Each of these northern affluents of the main stream is
headed by a pass, or a group of passes, leading either to the Pamir
region direct, or into the upper Yarkhun valley from which a Pamir
route diverges. The Yasin valley is headed by the Darkôt pass (15,000
ft.), which drops into the Yarkhun not far from the foot of the
Baroghil group over the main Hindu Kush watershed. The Ashkuman is
headed by the Gazar and Kora Bohrt passes, leading to the valley of
the Ab-i-Punja; and the Hunza by the Kilik and Mintaka, the connecting
links between the Taghdumbash Pamir and the Gilgit basin. They are all
about the same height--15,000 ft. All are passable at certain times of
the year to small parties, and all are uncertain. In no case do they
present insuperable difficulties in themselves, glaciers and
snow-fields and mountain staircases being common to all; but the
gorges and precipices which distinguish the approaches to them from
the south, the slippery sides of shelving spurs whose feet are washed
by raging torrents, the perpetual weary monotony of ascent and descent
over successive ridges multiplying the gradient indefinitely--these
form the real obstacles blocking the way to these northern passes.
_Gilgit Station._--The pretty little station of Gilgit (4890 ft. above
sea) spreads itself in terraces above the right bank of the river
nearly opposite the opening leading to Hunza, almost nestling under
the cliffs of the Hindu Koh, which separates it on the south from the
savage mountain wilderness of Darel and Kohistan. It includes a
residency for the British political officer, with about half a dozen
homes for the accommodation of officials, barracks suitable for a
battalion of Kashmir troops, and a hospital. Evidences of Buddhist
occupation are not wanting in Gilgit, though they are few and
unimportant. Such as they are, they appear to prove that Gilgit was
once a Buddhist centre, and that the old Buddhist route between Gilgit
and the Peshawar plain passed through the gorges and clefts of the
unexplored Darel valley to Thakot under the northern spurs of the
Black Mountain.
_Connexion with India._--The Gilgit river joins the Indus a few miles
above the little post of Bunji, where an excellent suspension bridge
spans the river. The valley is low and hot, and the scenery between
Gilgit and Bunji is monotonous; but the road is now maintained in
excellent condition. A little below Bunji the Astor river joins the
Indus from the south-east, and this deep pine-clad valley indicates
the continuation of the highroad from Gilgit to Kashmir via the
Tragbal and Burzil passes. Another well-known route connecting Gilgit
with the Abbottabad frontier of the Punjab lies across the Babusar
pass (13,000 ft.), linking the lovely Hazara valley of Kaghan to
Chilas; Chilas (4150 ft.) being on the Indus, some 50 m. below Bunji.
This is a more direct connexion between Gilgit and the plains of the
Punjab than that afforded by the Kashmir route via Gurais and Astor,
which latter route involves two considerable passes--the Tragbal
(11,400) and the Burzil (13,500); but the intervening strip of
absolutely independent territory (independent alike of Kashmir and the
Punjab), which includes the hills bordering the road from the Babusar
pass to Chilas, renders it a risky route for travellers unprotected by
a military escort. Like the Kashmir route, it is now defined by a good
military road.
_History._--The Dards are located by Ptolemy with surprising accuracy
(_Daradae_) on the west of the Upper Indus, beyond the head-waters of
the Swat river (_Soastus_), and north of the _Gandarae_, i.e. the
Gandharis, who occupied Peshawar and the country north of it. The
_Dardas_ and _Chinas_ also appear in many of the old Pauranic lists of
peoples, the latter probably representing the _Shin_ branch of the
Dards. This region was traversed by two of the Chinese pilgrims of the
early centuries of our era, who have left records of their journeys,
viz. Fahien, coming from the north, c. 400, and Hsüan Tsang, ascending
from Swat, c. 631. The latter says: "Perilous were the roads, and dark
the gorges. Sometimes the pilgrim had to pass by loose cords, sometimes
by light stretched iron chains. Here there were ledges hanging in
mid-air; there flying bridges across abysses; elsewhere paths cut with
the chisel, or footings to climb by." Yet even in these inaccessible
regions were found great convents, and miraculous images of Buddha. How
old the name of _Gilgit_ is we do not know, but it occurs in the
writings of the great Mahommedan savant al-Biruni, in his notices of
Indian geography. Speaking of Kashmir, he says: "Leaving the ravine by
which you enter Kashmir and entering the plateau, then you have for a
march of two more days on your left the mountains of Bolor and Shamilan,
Turkish tribes who are called _Bhattavaryan_. Their king has the title
Bhatta-Shah. Their towns are _Gilgit_, Aswira and Shiltash, and their
language is the Turkish. Kashmir suffers much from their inroads" (Trs.
Sachau, i. 207). There are difficult matters for discussion here. It is
impossible to say what ground the writer had for calling the people
_Turks_. But it is curious that the _Shins_ say they are all of the same
race as the Moguls of India, whatever they may mean by that. Gilgit, as
far back as tradition goes, was ruled by rajas of a family called
Trakane. When this family became extinct the valley was desolated by
successive invasions of neighbouring rajas, and in the 20 or 30 years
ending with 1842 there had been five dynastic revolutions. The most
prominent character in the history was a certain Gaur Rahman or Gauhar
Aman, chief of Yasin, a cruel savage and man-seller, of whom many evil
deeds are told. Being remonstrated with for selling a _mullah_, he said,
"Why not? The Koran, the word of God, is sold; why not sell the
expounder thereof?" The Sikhs entered Gilgit about 1842, and kept a
garrison there. When Kashmir was made over to Maharaja Gulab Singh of
Jammu in 1846, by Lord Hardinge, the Gilgit claims were transferred with
it. And when a commission was sent to lay down boundaries of the tracts
made over, Mr Vans Agnew (afterwards murdered at Multan) and Lieut.
Ralph Young of the Engineers visited Gilgit, the first Englishmen who
did so. The Dogras (Gulab Singh's race) had much ado to hold their
ground, and in 1852 a catastrophe occurred, parallel on a smaller scale
to that of the English troops at Kabul. Nearly 2000 men of theirs were
exterminated by Gaur Rahman and a combination of the Dards; only one
person, a soldier's wife, escaped, and the Dogras were driven away for
eight years. Gulab Singh would not again cross the Indus, but after his
death (in 1857) Maharaja Ranbir Singh longed to recover lost prestige.
In 1860 he sent a force into Gilgit. Gaur Rahman just then died, and
there was little resistance. The Dogras after that took Yasin twice, but
did not hold it. They also, in 1866, invaded Darel, one of the most
secluded Dard states, to the south of the Gilgit basin, but withdrew
again. In 1889, in order to guard against the advance of Russia, the
British government, acting as the suzerain power of Kashmir, established
the Gilgit agency; in 1901, on the formation of the North-West Frontier
province, the rearrangement was made as stated above.
AUTHORITIES.--Biddulph, _The Tribes of the Hindu Kush_ (Calcutta,
1880); W. Lawrence, _The Kashmir Valley_ (London, 1895); Tanner, "Our
Present Knowledge of the Himalaya," _Proc. R.G.S._ vol. xiii., 1891;
Durand, _Making a Frontier_ (London, 1899); _Report of Lockhart's
Mission_ (Calcutta, 1886); E. F. Knight, _Where Three Empires Meet_
(London, 1892); F. Younghusband, "Journeys in the Pamirs and Adjacent
Countries," _Proc. R.G.S._ vol. xiv., 1892; Curzon, "Pamirs," _Jour.
R.G.S._ vol. viii., 1896; Leitnér, _Dardistan_ (1877). (T. H. H.*)
GILL, JOHN (1697-1771), English Nonconformist divine, was born at
Kettering, Northamptonshire. His parents were poor and he owed his
education chiefly to his own perseverance. In November 1716 he was
baptized and began to preach at Higham Ferrers and Kettering, until the
beginning of 1719, when he became pastor of the Baptist congregation at
Horsleydown in Southwark. There he continued till 1757, when he removed
to a chapel near London Bridge. From 1729 to 1756 he was Wednesday
evening lecturer in Great Eastcheap. In 1748 he received the degree of
D.D. from the university of Aberdeen. He died at Camberwell on the 14th
of October 1771. Gill was a great Hebrew scholar, and in his theology a
sturdy Calvinist.
His principal works are _Exposition of the Song of Solomon_ (1728);
_The Prophecies of the Old Testament respecting the Messiah_ (1728);
_The Doctrine of the Trinity_ (1731); _The Cause of God and Truth_ (4
vols., 1731); _Exposition of the Bible_, in 10 vols. (1746-1766), in
preparing which he formed a large collection of Hebrew and Rabbinical
books and MSS.; _The Antiquity of the Hebrew Language--Letters, Vowel
Points, and Accents_ (1767); _A Body of Doctrinal Divinity_ (1767); _A
Body of Practical Divinity_ (1770); and _Sermons and Tracts_, with a
memoir of his life (1773). An edition of his _Exposition of the Bible_
appeared in 1816 with a memoir by John Rippon, which has also appeared
separately.
GILL. (1) One of the _branchiae_ which form the breathing apparatus of
fishes and other animals that live in the water. The word is also
applied to the _branchiae_ of some kinds of worm and arachnids, and by
transference to objects resembling the _branchiae_ of fishes, such as
the wattles of a fowl, or the radiating films on the under side of
fungi. The word is of obscure origin. Danish has _giaelle_, and Swedish
_gäl_ with the same meaning. The root which appears in "yawn," "chasm,"
has been suggested. If this be correct, the word will be in origin the
same as "gill," often spelled "ghyll," meaning a glen or ravine, common
in northern English dialects and also in Kent and Surrey. The _g_ in
both these words is hard. (2) A liquid measure usually holding
one-fourth of a pint. The word comes through the O. Fr. _gelle_, from
Low Lat. _gello_ or _gillo_, a measure for wine. It is thus connected
with "gallon." The _g_ is soft. (3) An abbreviation of the feminine name
Gillian, also often spelled Jill, as it is pronounced. Like Jack for a
boy, with which it is often coupled, as in the nursery rhyme, it is used
as a homely generic name for a girl.
GILLES DE ROYE, or EGIDIUS DE ROYA (d. 1478), Flemish chronicler, was
born probably at Montdidier, and became a Cistercian monk. He was
afterwards professor of theology in Paris and abbot of the monastery of
Royaumont at Asnières-sur-Oise, retiring about 1458 to the convent of
Notre Dame des Dunes, near Furnes, and devoting his time to study.
Gilles wrote the _Chronicon Dunense_ or _Annales Belgici_, a résumé and
continuation of the work of another monk, Jean Brandon (d. 1428), which
deals with the history of Flanders, and also with events in Germany,
Italy and England from 792 to 1478.
The Chronicle was published by F. R. Sweert in the _Rerum Belgicarum
annales_ (Frankfort, 1620); and the earlier part of it by C. B. Kervyn
de Lettenhove in the _Chroniques relatives à l'histoire de la
Belgique_ (Brussels, 1870).
GILLES LI MUISIS, or LE MUISET (c. 1272-1352), French chronicler, was
born probably at Tournai, and in 1289 entered the Benedictine abbey of
St Martin in his native city, becoming prior of this house in 1327, and
abbot four years later. He only secured the latter position after a
contest with a competitor, but he appears to have been a wise ruler of
the abbey. Gilles wrote two Latin chronicles, _Chronicon majus_ and
_Chronicon minus_, dealing with the history of the world from the
creation until 1349. This work, which was continued by another writer to
1352, is valuable for the history of northern France, and Flanders
during the first half of the 14th century. It is published by J. J. de
Senet in the _Corpus chronicorum Flandriae_, tome ii. (Brussels, 1841);
Gilles also wrote some French poems, and these _Poésies de Gilles li
Muisis_ have been published by Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove (Louvain,
1882).
See A. Molinier, _Les Sources de l'histoire de France_, tome iii.
(Paris, 1903).
GILLESPIE, GEORGE (1613-1648), Scottish divine, was born at Kirkcaldy,
where his father, John Gillespie, was parish minister, on the 21st of
January 1613, and entered the university of St Andrews as a "presbytery
bursar" in 1629. On the completion of a brilliant student career, he
became domestic chaplain to John Gordon, 1st Viscount Kenmure (d. 1634),
and afterwards to John Kennedy, earl of Cassillis, his conscience not
permitting him to accept the episcopal ordination which was at that time
in Scotland an indispensable condition of induction to a parish. While
with the earl of Cassillis he wrote his first work, _A Dispute against
the English Popish Ceremonies obtruded upon the Church of Scotland_,
which, opportunely published shortly after the "Jenny Geddes" incident
(but without the author's name) in the summer of 1637, attracted
considerable attention, and within a few months had been found by the
privy council to be so damaging that by their orders all available
copies were called in and burnt. In April 1638, soon after the authority
of the bishops had been set aside by the nation, Gillespie was ordained
minister of Wemyss (Fife) by the presbytery of Kirkcaldy, and in the
same year was a member of the famous Glasgow Assembly, before which he
preached (November 21st) a sermon against royal interference in matters
ecclesiastical so pronounced, as to call for some remonstrance on the
part of Argyll, the lord high commissioner. In 1642 Gillespie was
translated to Edinburgh; but the brief remainder of his life was chiefly
spent in the conduct of public business in London. Already, in 1640, he
had accompanied the commissioners of the peace to England as one of
their chaplains; and in 1643 he was appointed by the Scottish Church one
of the four commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. Here, though the
youngest member of the Assembly, he took a prominent part in almost all
the protracted discussions on church government, discipline and worship,
supporting Presbyterianism by numerous controversial writings, as well
as by an unusual fluency and readiness in debate. Tradition long
preserved and probably enhanced the record of his victories in debate,
and especially of his encounter, with John Selden on Matt. xviii.
15-17. In 1645 he returned to Scotland, and is said to have drawn the
act of assembly sanctioning the directory of public worship. On his
return to London he had a hand in drafting the Westminster confession of
faith, especially chap. i. Gillespie was elected moderator of the
Assembly in 1648, but the laborious duties of that office (the court
continued to sit from the 12th of July to the 12th of August) told
fatally on an overtaxed constitution; he fell into consumption, and,
after many weeks of great weakness, he died at Kirkcaldy on the 17th of
December 1648. In acknowledgment of his great public services, a sum of
£1000 Scots was voted, though destined never to be paid, to his widow
and children by the committee of estates. A simple tombstone, which had
been erected to his memory in Kirkcaldy parish church, was in 1661
publicly broken at the cross by the hand of the common hangman, but was
restored in 1746.
His principal publications were controversial and chiefly against
Erastianism: Three sermons against Thomas Coleman; _A Sermon before
the House of Lords_ (August 27th), on Matt. iii. 2, _Nihil Respondem_
and _Male Audis_; _Aaron's Rod Blossoming, or the Divine Ordinance of
Church-government vindicated_ (1646), which is deservedly regarded as
a really able statement of the case for an exclusive spiritual
jurisdiction in the church; _One Hundred and Eleven Propositions
concerning the Ministry and Government of the Church_ (Edinburgh,
1647). The following were posthumously published by his brother: _A
Treatise of Miscellany Questions_ (1649); _The Ark of the New
Testament_ (2 vols., 1661-1667); _Notes of Debates and Proceedings of
the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, from February 1644 to January
1645_. See _Works_, with memoir, published by Hetherington (Edinburgh,
1843-1846).
GILLESPIE, THOMAS (1708-1774), Scottish divine, was born at Clearburn,
in the parish of Duddingston, Midlothian, in 1708. He was educated at
the university of Edinburgh, and studied divinity first at a small
theological seminary at Perth, and afterwards for a brief period under
Philip Doddridge at Northampton, where he received ordination in January
1741. In September of the same year he was admitted minister of the
parish of Carnock, Fife, the presbytery of Dunfermline agreeing not only
to sustain as valid the ordination he had received in England, but also
to allow a qualification of his subscription to the church's doctrinal
symbol, so far as it had reference to the sphere of the civil magistrate
in matters of religion. Having on conscientious grounds persistently
absented himself from the meetings of presbytery held for the purpose of
ordaining one Andrew Richardson, an unacceptable presentee, as minister
of Inverkeithing, he was, after an unobtrusive but useful ministry of
ten years, deposed by the Assembly of 1752 for maintaining that the
refusal of the local presbytery to act in this case was justified. He
continued, however, to preach, first at Carnock, and afterwards in
Dunfermline, where a large congregation gathered round him. His conduct
under the sentence of deposition produced a reaction in his favour, and
an effort was made to have him reinstated; this he declined unless the
policy of the church were reversed. In 1761, in conjunction with Thomas
Boston of Jedburgh and Collier of Colinsburgh, he formed a distinct
communion under the name of "The Presbytery of Relief,"--relief, that is
to say, "from the yoke of patronage and the tyranny of the church
courts." The Relief Church eventually became one of the communions
combining to form the United Presbyterian Church. He died on the 19th of
January 1774. His only literary efforts were an _Essay on the
Continuation of Immediate Revelations in the Church, and a Practical
Treatise on Temptation_. Both works appeared posthumously (1774). In the
former he argues that immediate revelations are no longer vouchsafed to
the church, in the latter he traces temptation to the work of a personal
devil.
See Lindsay's _Life and Times of the Rev. Thomas Gillespie_;
Smithers's _History of the Relief Church_; for the Relief Church see
UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
GILLIE (from the Gael. _gille_, Irish _gille_ or _giolla_, a servant or
boy), an attendant on a Gaelic chieftain; in this sense its use, save
historically, is rare. The name is now applied in the Highlands of
Scotland to the man-servant who attends a sportsman in shooting or
fishing. A _gillie-wetfoot_, a term now obsolete (a translation of
_gillie-casfliuch_, from the Gaelic _cas_, foot, and _fliuch_, wet),
was the gillie whose duty it was to carry his master over streams. It
became a term of contempt among the Lowlanders for the "tail" (as his
attendants were called) of a Highland chief.
GILLIES, JOHN (1747-1836), Scottish historian and classical scholar, was
born at Brechin, in Forfarshire, on the 18th of January 1747. He was
educated at Glasgow University, where, at the age of twenty, he acted
for a short time as substitute for the professor of Greek. In 1784 he
completed his _History of Ancient Greece, its Colonies and Conquests_
(published 1786). This work, valuable at a time when the study of Greek
history was in its infancy, and translated into French and German, was
written from a strong Whig bias, and is now entirely superseded (see
GREECE: _Ancient History_, "Authorities"). On the death of William
Robertson (1721-1793), Gillies was appointed historiographer-royal for
Scotland. In his old age he retired to Clapham, where he died on the
15th of February 1836.
Of his other works, none of which are much read, the principal are:
_View of the Reign of Frederic II. of Prussia, with a Parallel between
that Prince and Philip II. of Macedon_ (1789), rather a panegyric than
a critical history; translations of Aristotle's _Rhetoric_ (1823) and
_Ethics and Politics_ (1786-1797); of the _Orations_ of Lysias and
Isocrates (1778); and _History of the World from Alexander to
Augustus_ (1807), which, although deficient in style, was commended
for its learning and research.
GILLINGHAM, a market town in the northern parliamentary division of
Dorsetshire, England, 105 m. W.S.W. from London by the London &
South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 3380. The church of St Mary the
Virgin has a Decorated chancel. There is a large agricultural trade, and
manufactures of bricks and tiles, cord, sacking and silk, brewing and
bacon-curing are carried on. The rich undulating district in which
Gillingham is situated was a forest preserved by King John and his
successors, and the site of their lodge is traceable near the town.
GILLINGHAM, a municipal borough of Kent, England, in the parliamentary
borough of Chatham and the mid-division of the county, on the Medway
immediately east of Chatham, on the South-Eastern & Chatham railway.
Pop. (1891) 27,809; (1901) 42,530. Its population is largely industrial,
employed in the Chatham dockyards, and in cement and brick works in the
neighbourhood. The church of St Mary Magdalene ranges in date from Early
English to Perpendicular, retaining also traces of Norman work and some
early brasses. A great battle between Edmund Ironside and Canute, c.
1016, is placed here; and there was formerly a palace of the archbishops
of Canterbury. Gillingham was incorporated in 1903, and is governed by a
mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. The borough includes the populous
districts of Brompton and New Brompton. Area, 4355 acres.
GILLOT, CLAUDE (1673-1722), French painter, best known as the master of
Watteau and Lancret, was born at Langres. His sportive mythological
landscape pieces, with such titles as "Feast of Pan" and "Feast of
Bacchus," opened the Academy of Painting at Paris to him in 1715; and he
then adapted his art to the fashionable tastes of the day, and
introduced the decorative _fêtes champêtres_, in which he was afterwards
surpassed by his pupils. He was also closely connected with the opera
and theatre as a designer of scenery and costumes.
GILLOTT, JOSEPH (1799-1873); English pen-maker, was born at Sheffield on
the 11th of October 1799. For some time he was a working cutler there,
but in 1821 removed to Birmingham, where he found employment in the
"steel toy" trade, the technical name for the manufacture of steel
buckles, chains and light ornamental steel-work generally. About 1830 he
turned his attention to the manufacture of steel pens by machinery, and
in 1831 patented a process for placing elongated points on the nibs of
pens. Subsequently he invented other improvements, getting rid of the
hardness and lack of flexibility, which had been a serious defect in
nibs, by cutting, in addition to the centre slit, side slits, and cross
grinding the points. By 1859 he had built up a very large business.
Gillott was a liberal art-patron, and one of the first to recognize the
merits of J. M. W. Turner. He died at Birmingham on the 5th of January
1873. His collection of pictures, sold after his death, realized
£170,000.
GILLOW, ROBERT (d. 1773), the founder at Lancaster of a distinguished
firm of English cabinet-makers and furniture designers whose books begin
in 1731. He was succeeded by his eldest son Richard (1734-1811), who
after being educated at the Roman Catholic seminary at Douai was taken
into partnership about 1757, when the firm became Gillow & Barton, and
his younger sons Robert and Thomas, and the business was continued by
his grandson Richard (1778-1866). In its early days the firm of Gillow
were architects as well as cabinet-makers, and the first Richard Gillow
designed the classical Custom House at Lancaster. In the middle of the
18th century the business was extended to London, and about 1761
premises were opened in Oxford Street on a site which was continuously
occupied until 1906. For a long period the Gillows were the best-known
makers of English furniture--Sheraton and Heppelwhite both designed for
them, and replicas are still made of pieces from the drawings of Robert
Adam. Between 1760 and 1770 they invented the original form of the
billiard-table; they were the patentees (about 1800) of the telescopic
dining-table which has long been universal in English houses; for a
Captain Davenport they made, if they did not invent, the first
writing-table of that name. Their vogue is indicated by references to
them in the works of Jane Austen, Thackeray and the first Lord Lytton,
and more recently in one of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas.
GILLRAY, JAMES (1757-1815), English caricaturist, was born at Chelsea in
1757. His father, a native of Lanark, had served as a soldier, losing an
arm at Fontenoy, and was admitted first as an inmate, and afterwards as
an outdoor pensioner, at Chelsea hospital. Gillray commenced life by
learning letter-engraving, in which he soon became an adept. This
employment, however, proving irksome, he wandered about for a time with
a company of strolling players. After a very checkered experience he
returned to London, and was admitted a student in the Royal Academy,
supporting himself by engraving, and probably issuing a considerable
number of caricatures under fictitious names. Hogarth's works were the
delight and study of his early years. "Paddy on Horseback," which
appeared in 1779, is the first caricature which is certainly his. Two
caricatures on Rodney's naval victory, issued in 1782, were among the
first of the memorable series of his political sketches. The name of
Gillray's publisher and printseller, Miss Humphrey--whose shop was first
at 227 Strand, then in New Bond Street, then in Old Bond Street, and
finally in St James's Street--is inextricably associated with that of
the caricaturist. Gillray lived with Miss (often called Mrs) Humphrey
during all the period of his fame. It is believed that he several times
thought of marrying her, and that on one occasion the pair were on their
way to the church, when Gillray said: "This is a foolish affair,
methinks, Miss Humphrey. We live very comfortably together; we had
better let well alone." There is no evidence, however, to support the
stories which scandalmongers invented about their relations. Gillray's
plates were exposed in Humphrey's shop window, where eager crowds
examined them. A number of his most trenchant satires are directed
against George III., who, after examining some of Gillray's sketches,
said, with characteristic ignorance and blindness to merit, "I don't
understand these caricatures." Gillray revenged himself for this
utterance by his splendid caricature entitled, "A Connoisseur Examining
a Cooper," which he is doing by means of a candle on a "save-all"; so
that the sketch satirizes at once the king's pretensions to knowledge of
art and his miserly habits.
The excesses of the French Revolution made Gillray conservative; and he
issued caricature after caricature, ridiculing the French and Napoleon,
and glorifying John Bull. He is not, however, to be thought of as a keen
political adherent of either the Whig or the Tory party; he dealt his
blows pretty freely all round. His last work, from a design by Bunbury,
is entitled "Interior of a Barber's Shop in Assize Time," and is dated
1811. While he was engaged on it he became mad, although he had
occasional intervals of sanity, which he employed on his last work. The
approach of madness must have been hastened by his intemperate habits.
Gillray died on the 1st of June 1815, and was buried in St James's
churchyard, Piccadilly.
The times in which Gillray lived were peculiarly favourable to the
growth of a great school of caricature. Party warfare was carried on
with great vigour and not a little bitterness; and personalities were
freely indulged in on both sides. Gillray's incomparable wit and humour,
knowledge of life, fertility of resource, keen sense of the ludicrous,
and beauty of execution, at once gave him the first place among
caricaturists. He is honourably distinguished in the history of
caricature by the fact that his sketches are real works of art. The
ideas embodied in some of them are sublime and poetically magnificent in
their intensity of meaning; while the coarseness by which others are
disfigured is to be explained by the general freedom of treatment common
in all intellectual departments in the 18th century. The historical
value of Gillray's work has been recognized by accurate students of
history. As has been well remarked: "Lord Stanhope has turned Gillray to
account as a veracious reporter of speeches, as well as a suggestive
illustrator of events." His contemporary political influence is borne
witness to in a letter from Lord Bateman, dated November 3, 1798. "The
Opposition," he writes to Gillray, "are as low as we can wish them. You
have been of infinite service in lowering them, and making them
ridiculous." Gillray's extraordinary industry may be inferred from the
fact that nearly 1000 caricatures have been attributed to him; while
some consider him the author of 1600 or 1700. He is invaluable to the
student of English manners as well as to the political student. He
attacks the social follies of the time with scathing satire; and nothing
escapes his notice, not even a trifling change of fashion in dress. The
great tact Gillray displays in hitting on the ludicrous side of any
subject is only equalled by the exquisite finish of his sketches--the
finest of which reach an epic grandeur and Miltonic sublimity of
conception.
Gillray's caricatures are divided into two classes, the political
series and the social. The political caricatures form really the best
history extant of the latter part of the reign of George III. They
were circulated not only over Britain but throughout Europe, and
exerted a powerful influence. In this series, George III., the queen,
the prince of Wales, Fox, Pitt, Burke and Napoleon are the most
prominent figures. In 1788 appeared two fine caricatures by Gillray.
"Blood on Thunder fording the Red Sea" represents Lord Thurlow
carrying Warren Hastings through a sea of gore: Hastings looks very
comfortable, and is carrying two large bags of money. "Market-Day"
pictures the ministerialists of the time as horned cattle for sale.
Among Gillray's best satires on the king are: "Farmer George and his
Wife," two companion plates, in one of which the king is toasting
muffins for breakfast, and in the other the queen is frying sprats;
"The Anti-Saccharites," where the royal pair propose to dispense with
sugar, to the great horror of the family; "A Connoisseur Examining a
Cooper"; "Temperance enjoying a Frugal Meal"; "Royal Affability"; "A
Lesson in Apple Dumplings"; and "The Pigs Possessed." Among his other
political caricatures may be mentioned: "Britannia between Scylla and
Charybdis," a picture in which Pitt, so often Gillray's butt, figures
in a favourable light; "The Bridal Night"; "The Apotheosis of Hoche,"
which concentrates the excesses of the French Revolution in one view;
"The Nursery with Britannia reposing in Peace"; "The First Kiss these
Ten Years" (1803), another satire on the peace, which is said to have
greatly amused Napoleon; "The Handwriting upon the Wall"; "The
Confederated Coalition," a fling at the coalition which superseded the
Addington ministry; "Uncorking Old Sherry"; "The Plum-Pudding in
Danger"; "Making Decent," i.e. "Broad-bottomites getting into the
Grand Costume"; "Comforts of a Bed of Roses"; "View of the Hustings in
Covent Garden"; "Phaëthon Alarmed"; and "Pandora opening her Box." The
miscellaneous series of caricatures, although they have scarcely the
historical importance of the political series, are more readily
intelligible, and are even more amusing. Among the finest are:
"Shakespeare Sacrificed"; "Flemish Characters" (two plates); "Twopenny
Whist"; "Oh! that this too solid flesh would melt"; "Sandwich
Carrots"; "The Gout"; "Comfort to the Corns"; "Begone Dull Care"; "The
Cow-Pock," which gives humorous expression to the popular dread of
vaccination; "Dilletanti Theatricals"; and "Harmony before Matrimony"
and "Matrimonial Harmonics"--two exceedingly good sketches in violent
contrast to each other.
A selection of Gillray's works appeared in parts in 1818; but the
first good edition was Thomas M'Lean's, which was published, with a
key, in 1830. A somewhat bitter attack, not only on Gillray's
character, but even on his genius, appeared in the _Athenaeum_ for
October 1, 1831, which was successfully refuted by J. Landseer in the
_Athenaeum_ a fortnight later. In 1851 Henry G. Bohn put out an
edition, from the original plates, in a handsome folio, the coarser
sketches being published in a separate volume. For this edition Thomas
Wright and R. H. Evans wrote a valuable commentary, which is a good
history of the times embraced by the caricatures. The next edition,
entitled _The Works of James Gillray, the Caricaturist: with the Story
of his Life and Times_ (Chatto & Windus, 1874), was the work of Thomas
Wright, and, by its popular exposition and narrative, introduced
Gillray to a very large circle formerly ignorant of him. This edition,
which is complete in one volume, contains two portraits of Gillray,
and upwards of 400 illustrations. Mr J. J. Cartwright, in a letter to
the _Academy_ (Feb. 28, 1874), drew attention to the existence of a
MS. volume, in the British Museum, containing letters to and from
Gillray, and other illustrative documents. The extracts he gave were
used in a valuable article in the _Quarterly Review_ for April 1874.
See also the _Academy_ for Feb. 21 and May 16, 1874.
There is a good account of Gillray in Wright's _History of Caricature
and Grotesque in Literature and Art_ (1865); See also the article
CARICATURE.
GILLYFLOWER, a popular name applied to various flowers, but principally
to the clove, _Dianthus Caryophyllus_, of which the carnation is a
cultivated variety, and to the stock, _Matthiola incana_, a well-known
garden favourite. The word is sometimes written gilliflower or
gilloflower, and is reputedly a corruption of July-flower, "so called
from the month they blow in." Henry Phillips (1775-1838); in his _Flora
historica_, remarks that Turner (1568) "calls it gelouer, to which he
adds the word stock, as we would say gelouers that grow on a stem or
stock, to distinguish them from the clove-gelouers and the
wall-gelouers. Gerard, who succeeded Turner, and after him Parkinson,
calls it gilloflower, and thus it travelled from its original
orthography until it was called July-flower by those who knew not whence
it was derived." Dr Prior, in his useful volume on the _Popular Names of
British Plants_, very distinctly shows the origin of the name. He
remarks that it was "formerly spelt gyllofer and gilofre with the _o_
long, from the French _giroflée_, Italian _garofalo_ (M. Lat.
_gariofilum_), corrupted from the Latin _Caryophyllum_, and referring to
the spicy odour of the flower, which seems to have been used in
flavouring wine and other liquors to replace the more costly clove of
India. The name was originally given in Italy to plants of the pink
tribe, especially the carnation, but has in England been transferred of
late years to several cruciferous plants." The gillyflower of Chaucer
and Spenser and Shakespeare was, as in Italy, _Dianthus Caryophyllus_;
that of later writers and of gardeners, _Matthiola_. Much of the
confusion in the names of plants has doubtless arisen from the vague use
of the French terms _giroflée_, _oeillet_ and _violette_, which were all
applied to flowers of the pink tribe, but in England were subsequently
extended and finally restricted to very different plants. The use made
of the flowers to impart a spicy flavour to ale and wine is alluded to
by Chaucer, who writes:
"And many a clove gilofre
To put in ale";
also by Spenser, who refers to them by the name of sops in wine, which
was applied in consequence of their being steeped in the liquor. In both
these cases, however, it is the clove-gillyflower which is intended, as
it is also in the passage from Gerard, in which he states that the
conserve made of the flowers with sugar "is exceeding cordiall, and
wonderfully above measure doth comfort the heart, being eaten now and
then." The principal other plants which bear the name are the
wallflower, _Cheiranthus Cheiri_, called wall-gillyflower in old books;
the dame's violet, _Hesperis matronalis_, called variously the queen's,
the rogue's and the winter gillyflower; the ragged-robin, _Lychnis
Flos-cuculi_, called marsh-gillyflower and cuckoo-gillyflower; the
water-violet, _Hottonia palustris_, called water-gillyflower; and the
thrift, _Armeria vulgaris_, called sea-gillyflower. As a separate
designation it is nowadays usually applied to the wallflower.
GILMAN, DANIEL COIT (1831-1908), American educationist, was born in
Norwich, Connecticut, on the 6th of July 1831. He graduated at Yale in
1852, studied in Berlin, was assistant librarian of Yale in 1856-1858
and librarian in 1858-1865, and was professor of physical and political
geography in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University and a
member of the Governing Board of this School in 1863-1872. From 1856 to
1860 he was a member of the school board of New Haven, and from August
1865 to January 1867 secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education. In
1872 he became president of the University of California at Berkeley. On
the 30th of December 1874 he was elected first president of Johns
Hopkins University (q.v.) at Baltimore. He entered upon his duties on
the 1st of May 1875, and was formally inaugurated on the 22nd of
February 1876. This post he filled until 1901. From 1901 to 1904 he was
the first president of the Carnegie Institution at Washington, D.C. He
died at Norwich, Conn., on the 13th of October 1908. He received the
honorary degree of LL.D. from Harvard, St John's, Columbia, Yale, North
Carolina, Princeton, Toronto, Wisconsin and Clark Universities, and
William and Mary College. His influence upon higher education in America
was great, especially at Johns Hopkins, where many wise details of
administration, the plan of bringing to the university as lecturers for
a part of the year scholars from other colleges, the choice of a
singularly brilliant and able faculty, and the marked willingness to
recognize workers in new branches of science were all largely due to
him. To the organization of the Johns Hopkins hospital, of which he was
made director in 1889, he contributed greatly. He was a singularly good
judge of men and an able administrator, and under him Johns Hopkins had
an immense influence, especially in the promotion of original and
productive research. He was always deeply interested in the researches
of the professors at Johns Hopkins, and it has been said of him that his
attention as president was turned inside and not outside the university.
He was instrumental in determining the policy of the Sheffield
Scientific School of Yale University while he was a member of its
governing board; on the 28th of October 1897 he delivered at New Haven a
semi-centennial discourse on the school, which appears in his
_University Problems_. He was a prominent member of the American
Archaeological Society and of the American Oriental Society; was one of
the original trustees of the John F. Slater Fund (for a time he was
secretary, and from 1893 until his death was president of the board);
from 1891 until his death was a trustee of the Peabody Educational Fund
(being the vice-president of the board); and was an original member of
the General Education Board (1902) and a trustee of the Russell Sage
Foundation for Social Betterment (1907). In 1896-1897 he served on the
Venezuela Boundary Commission appointed by President Cleveland. In 1901
he succeeded Carl Schurz as president of the National Civil Service
Reform League and served until 1907. Some of his papers and addresses
are collected in a volume entitled _University Problems in the United
States_ (1888). He wrote, besides, _James Monroe_ (1883), in the
American Statesmen Series; a _Life of James D. Dana_, the geologist
(1899); _Science and Letters at Yale_ (1901), and _The Launching of a
University_ (1906), an account of the early years of Johns Hopkins.
GILMORE, PATRICK SARSFIELD (1829-1892), American bandmaster, was born in
Ireland, and settled in America about 1850. He had been in the band of
an Irish regiment, and he had great success as leader of a military band
at Salem, Massachusetts, and subsequently (1859) in Boston. He increased
his reputation during the Civil War, particularly by organizing a
monster orchestra of massed bands for a festival at New Orleans in 1864;
and at Boston in 1869 and 1872 he gave similar performances. He was
enormously popular as a bandmaster, and composed or arranged a large
variety of pieces for orchestra. He died at St Louis on the 24th of
September 1892.
GILPIN, BERNARD (1517-1583), the "Apostle of the North," was descended
from a Westmorland family, and was born at Kentmere in 1517. He was
educated at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating B.A. in 1540, M.A. in
1542 and B.D. in 1549. He was elected fellow of Queen's and ordained in
1542; subsequently he was elected student of Christ Church. At Oxford he
first adhered to the conservative side, and defended the doctrines of
the church against Hooper; but his confidence was somewhat shaken by
another public disputation which he had with Peter Martyr. In 1552 he
preached before King Edward VI. a sermon on sacrilege, which was duly
published, and displays the high ideal which even then he had formed of
the clerical office; and about the same time he was presented to the
vicarage of Norton, in the diocese of Durham, and obtained a licence,
through William Cecil, as a general preacher throughout the kingdom as
long as the king lived. On Mary's accession he went abroad to pursue his
theological investigations at Louvain, Antwerp and Paris; and from a
letter of his own, dated Louvain, 1554, we get a glimpse of the quiet
student rejoicing in an "excellent library belonging to a monastery of
Minorites." Returning to England towards the close of Queen Mary's
reign, he was invested by his mother's uncle, Tunstall, bishop of
Durham, with the archdeaconry of Durham, to which the rectory of
Easington was annexed. The freedom of his attacks on the vices, and
especially the clerical vices, of his times excited hostility against
him, and he was formally brought before the bishop on a charge
consisting of thirteen articles. Tunstall, however, not only dismissed
the case, but presented the offender with the rich living of
Houghton-le-Spring; and when the accusation was again brought forward,
he again protected him. Enraged at this defeat, Gilpin's enemies laid
their complaint before Bonner, bishop of London, who secured a royal
warrant for his apprehension. Upon this Gilpin prepared for martyrdom;
and, having ordered his house-steward to provide him with a long
garment, that he might "goe the more comely to the stake," he set out
for London. Fortunately, however, for him, he broke his leg on the
journey, and his arrival was thus delayed till the news of Queen Mary's
death freed him from further danger. He at once returned to Houghton,
and there he continued to labour till his death on the 4th of March
1583. When the Roman Catholic bishops were deprived he was offered the
see of Carlisle; but he declined this honour and also the provostship of
Queen's, which was offered him in 1560. At Houghton his course of life
was a ceaseless round of benevolent activity. In June 1560 he
entertained Cecil and Dr Nicholas Wotton on their way to Edinburgh. His
hospitable manner of living was the admiration of all. His living was a
comparatively rich one, his house was better than many bishops' palaces,
and his position was that of a clerical magnate. In his household he
spent "every fortnight 40 bushels of corn, 20 bushels of malt and an ox,
besides a proportional quantity of other kinds of provisions." Strangers
and travellers found a ready reception; and even their horses were
treated with so much care that it was humorously said that, if one were
turned loose in any part of the country, it would immediately make its
way to the rector of Houghton. Every Sunday from Michaelmas till Easter
was a public day with Gilpin. For the reception of his parishioners he
had three tables well covered--one for gentlemen, the second for
husbandmen, the third for day-labourers; and this piece of hospitality
he never omitted, even when losses or scarcity made its continuance
difficult. He built and endowed a grammar-school at a cost of upwards of
£500, educated and maintained a large number of poor children at his own
charge, and provided the more promising pupils with means of studying at
the universities. So many young people, indeed, flocked to his school
that there was not accommodation for them in Houghton, and he had to fit
up part of his house as a boarding establishment. Grieved at the
ignorance and superstition which the remissness of the clergy permitted
to flourish in the neighbouring parishes, he used every year to visit
the most neglected parts of Northumberland, Yorkshire, Cheshire,
Westmorland and Cumberland; and that his own flock might not suffer, he
was at the expense of a constant assistant. Among his parishioners he
was looked up to as a judge, and did great service in preventing
law-suits amongst them. If an industrious man suffered a loss, he
delighted to make it good; if the harvest was bad, he was liberal in the
remission of tithes. The boldness which he could display at need is well
illustrated by his action in regard to duelling. Finding one day a
challenge-glove stuck up on the door of a church where he was to preach,
he took it down with his own hand, and proceeded to the pulpit to
inveigh against the unchristian custom. His theological position was not
in accord with any of the religious parties of his age, and Gladstone
thought that the catholicity of the Anglican Church was better
exemplified in his career than in those of more prominent ecclesiastics
(pref. to A. W. Hutton's edition of S. R. Maitland's _Essays on the
Reformation_). He was not satisfied with the Elizabethan settlement, had
great respect for the Fathers, and was with difficulty induced to
subscribe. Archbishop Sandys' views on the Eucharist horrified him; but
on the other hand he maintained friendly relations with Bishop
Pilkington and Thomas Lever, and the Puritans had some hope of his
support.
A life of Bernard Gilpin, written by George Carleton, bishop of
Chichester, who had been a pupil of Gilpin's at Houghton, will be
found in Bates's _Vitae selectorum aliquot virorum_, &c. (London,
1681). A translation of this sketch by William Freake, minister, was
published at London, 1629; and in 1852 it was reprinted in Glasgow,
with an introductory essay by Edward Irving. It forms one of the lives
in Christopher Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_ (vol. iii., 4th
ed.), having been compared with Carleton's Latin text. Another
biography of Gilpin, which, however, adds little to Bishop Carleton's,
was written by William Gilpin, M.A., prebendary of Ailsbury (London,
1753 and 1854). See also _Dict. Nat. Biog._
GILSONITE (so named after S. H. Gilson of Salt Lake City), or UINTAHITE,
or UINTAITE, a description of asphalt occurring in masses several inches
in diameter in the Uinta (or Uintah) valley, near Fort Duchesne, Utah.
It is of black colour; its fracture is conchoidal, and it has a lustrous
surface. When warmed it becomes plastic, and on further beating fuses
perfectly. It has a specific gravity of 1.065 to 1.070. It dissolves
freely in hot oil of turpentine. The output amounted to 10,916 short
tons for the year 1905, and the value was $4.51 per ton.
GILYAKS, a hybrid people, originally widespread throughout the Lower
Amur district, but now confined to the Amur delta and the north of
Sakhalin. They have been affiliated by some authorities to the Ainu of
Sakhalin and Yezo; but they are more probably a mongrel people, and Dr
A. Anuchin states that there are two types, a Mongoloid with sparse
beard, high cheek-bones and flat face, and a Caucasic with bushy beard
and more regular features. The Chinese call them _Yupitatse_,
"Fish-skin-clad people," from their wearing a peculiar dress made from
salmon skin.
See E. G. Ravenstein, _The Russians on the Amur_ (1861); Dr A.
Anuchin, _Mem. Imp. Soc. Nat. Sc._ xx., Supplement (Moscow, 1877); H.
von Siebold, _Über die Aino_ (Berlin, 1881); J. Deniker in Revue
d'ethnographie (Paris, 1884); L. Schrenck, _Die Völker des Amurlandes_
(St Petersburg, 1891).
GIMBAL, a mechanical device for hanging some object so that it should
keep a horizontal and constant position, while the body from which it is
suspended is in free motion, so that the motion of the supporting body
is not communicated to it. It is thus used particularly for the
suspension of compasses or chronometers and lamps at sea, and usually
consists of a ring freely moving on an axis, within which the object
swings on an axis at right angles to the ring.
The word is derived from the O. Fr. _gemel_, from Lat. _gemellus_,
diminutive of _geminus_, a twin, and appears also in _gimmel_ or
_jimbel_ and as _gemel_, especially as a term for a ring formed of two
hoops linked together and capable of separation, used in the 16th and
17th centuries as betrothal and keepsake rings. They sometimes were made
of three or more hoops linked together.
GIMLET (from the O. Fr. _guimbelet_, probably a diminutive of the O.E.
_wimble_, and the Scandinavian _wammle_, to bore or twist; the modern
French is _gibelet_), a tool used for boring small holes. It is made of
steel, with a shaft having a hollow side, and a screw at the end for
boring the wood; the handle of wood is fixed transversely to the shaft.
A gimlet is always a small tool. A similar tool of large size is called
an "auger" (see TOOL).
GIMLI, in Scandinavian mythology, the great hall of heaven whither the
righteous will go to spend eternity.
GIMP, or GYMP. (1) (Of somewhat doubtful origin, but probably a nasal
form of the Fr. _guipure_, from _guiper_, to cover or "whip" a cord over
with silk), a stiff trimming made of silk or cotton woven around a firm
cord, often further ornamented by a metal cord running through it. It is
also sometimes covered with bugles, beads or other glistening ornaments.
The trimming employed by upholsterers to edge curtains, draperies, the
seats of chairs, &c., is also called gimp; and in lace work it is the
firmer or coarser thread which outlines the pattern and strengthens the
material. (2) A shortened form of gimple (the O.E. _wimple_), the
kerchief worn by a nun around her throat, sometimes also applied to a
nun's stomacher.
GIN, an aromatized or compounded potable spirit, the characteristic
flavour of which is derived from the juniper berry. The word "gin" is an
abbreviation of Geneva, both being primarily derived from the Fr.
_genièvre_ (juniper). The use of the juniper for flavouring alcoholic
beverages may be traced to the invention, or perfecting, by Count de
Morret, son of Henry IV. of France, of juniper wine. It was the custom
in the early days of the spirit industry, in distilling spirit from
fermented liquors, to add in the working some aromatic ingredients, such
as ginger, grains of paradise, &c., to take off the nauseous flavour of
the crude spirits then made. The invention of juniper wine, no doubt,
led some one to try the juniper berry for this purpose, and as this
flavouring agent was found not only to yield an agreeable beverage, but
also to impart a valuable medicinal quality to the spirit, it was
generally made use of by makers of aromatized spirits thereafter. It is
probable that the use of grains of paradise, pepper and so on, in the
early days of spirit manufacture, for the object mentioned above,
indirectly gave rise to the statements which are still found in current
text-books and works of reference as to the use of Cayenne pepper,
_cocculus indicus_, sulphuric acid and so on, for the purpose of
adulterating spirits. It is quite certain that such materials are not
used nowadays, and it would indeed, in view of modern conditions of
manufacture and of public taste, be hard to find a reason for their use.
The same applies to the suggestions that such substances as acetate of
lead, alum or sulphate of zinc are employed for the fining of gin.
There are two distinct types of gin, namely, the Dutch _geneva_ or
_hollands_ and the British gin. Each of these types exists in the shape
of numerous sub-varieties. Broadly speaking, British gin is prepared
with a highly rectified spirit, whereas in the manufacture of Dutch gin
a preliminary rectification is not an integral part of the process. The
old-fashioned Hollands is prepared much after the following fashion. A
mash consisting of about one-third of malted barley or bere and
two-thirds rye-meal is prepared, and infused at a somewhat high
temperature. After cooling, the whole is set to ferment with a small
quantity of yeast. After two to three days the attenuation is complete,
and the wash so obtained is distilled, and the resulting distillate (the
low wines) is redistilled, with the addition of the flavouring matter
(juniper berries, &c.) and a little salt. Originally the juniper berries
were ground with the malt, but this practice no longer obtains, but some
distillers, it is believed, still mix the juniper berries with the wort
and subject the whole to fermentation. When the redistillation over
juniper is repeated, the product is termed _double_ (_geneva_, &c.).
There are numerous variations in the process described, wheat being
frequently employed in lieu of rye. In the manufacture of British
gin,[1] a highly rectified spirit (see SPIRITS) is redistilled in the
presence of the flavouring matter (principally juniper and coriander),
and frequently this operation is repeated several times. The product so
obtained constitutes the "dry" gin of commerce. Sweetened or cordialized
gin is obtained by adding sugar and flavouring matter (juniper,
coriander, angelica, &c.) to the dry variety. Inferior qualities of gin
are made by simply adding essential oils to plain spirit, the
distillation process being omitted. The essential oil of juniper is a
powerful diuretic, and gin is frequently prescribed in affections of the
urinary organs.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The precise origin of the term "Old Tom," as applied to
unsweetened gin, appears to be somewhat obscure. In the English case
of _Boord & Son_ v. _Huddart_ (1903), in which the plaintiffs
established their right to the "Cat Brand" trade-mark, it was proved
before Mr Justice Swinfen Eady that this firm had first adopted about
1849 the punning association of the picture of a Tom cat on a barrel
with the name of "Old Tom"; and it was at one time supposed that this
was due to a tradition that a cat had fallen into one of the vats,
the gin from which was highly esteemed. But the term "Old Tom" had
been known before that, and Messrs Boord & Son inform us that
previously "Old Tom" had been a man, namely "old Thomas Chamberlain
of Hodge's distillery"; an old label book in their possession (1909)
shows a label and bill-head with a picture of "Old Tom" the man on
it, and another label shows a picture of a sailor lad on shipboard
described as "Young Tom."
GINDELY, ANTON (1829-1892), German historian, was the son of a German
father and a Slavonic mother, and was born at Prague on the 3rd of
September 1829. He studied at Prague and at Olmütz, and, after
travelling extensively in search of historical material, became
professor of history at the university of Prague and archivist for
Bohemia in 1862. He died at Prague on the 24th of October 1892.
Gindely's chief work is his _Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Krieges_
(Prague, 1869-1880), which has been translated into English (New York,
1884); and his historical work is mainly concerned with the period of
the Thirty Years' War. Perhaps the most important of his numerous other
works are: _Geschichte der böhmischen Brüder_ (Prague, 1857-1858);
_Rudolf II. und seine Zeit_ (1862-1868), and a criticism of Wallenstein,
_Waldstein während seines ersten Generalats_ (1886). He wrote a history
of Bethlen Gabor in Hungarian, and edited the _Monumenta historiae
Bohemica_. Gindely's posthumous work, _Geschichte der Gegenreformation
in Böhmen_, was edited by T. Tupetz (1894).
See the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, Band 49 (Leipzig, 1904).
GINGALL, or JINGAL (Hindostani _janjal_), a gun used by the natives
throughout the East, usually a light piece mounted on a swivel; it
sometimes takes the form of a heavy musket fired from a rest.
GINGER (Fr. _gingembre_, Ger. _Ingwer_), the rhizome or underground stem
of _Zingiber officinale_ (nat. ord. Zingiberaceae), a perennial
reed-like plant growing from 3 to 4 ft. high. The flowers and leaves are
borne on separate stems, those of the former being shorter than those of
the latter, and averaging from 6 to 12 in. The flowers themselves are
borne at the apex of the stems in dense ovate-oblong cone-like spikes
from 2 to 3 in. long, composed of obtuse strongly-imbricated bracts with
membranous margins, each bract enclosing a single small sessile flower.
The leaves are alternate and arranged in two rows, bright green, smooth,
tapering at both ends, with very short stalks and long sheaths which
stand away from the stem and end in two small rounded auricles. The
plant rarely flowers and the fruit is unknown. Though not found in a
wild state, it is considered with very good reason to be a native of the
warmer parts of Asia, over which it has been cultivated from an early
period and the rhizome imported into England. From Asia the plant has
spread into the West Indies, South America, western tropical Africa, and
Australia. It is commonly grown in botanic gardens in Britain.
The use of ginger as a spice has been known from very early times; it
was supposed by the Greeks and Romans to be a product of southern
Arabia, and was received by them by way of the Red Sea; in India it has
also been known from a very remote period, the Greek and Latin names
being derived from the Sanskrit. Flückiger and Hanbury, in their
_Pharmacographia_, give the following notes on the history of ginger. On
the authority of Vincent's _Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients_, it
is stated that in the list of imports from the Red Sea into Alexandria,
which in the second century of our era were there liable to the Roman
fiscal duty, ginger occurs among other Indian spices. So frequent is the
mention of ginger in similar lists during the middle ages, that it
evidently constituted an important item in the commerce between Europe
and the East. It thus appears in the tariff of duties levied at Acre in
Palestine about 1173, in that of Barcelona in 1221, Marseilles in 1228
and Paris in 1296. Ginger seems to have been well known in England even
before the Norman Conquest, being often referred to in the Anglo-Saxon
leech-books of the 11th century. It was very common in the 13th and 14th
centuries, ranking next in value to pepper, which was then the commonest
of all spices, and costing on an average about 1s. 7d. per lb. Three
kinds of ginger were known among the merchants of Italy about the middle
of the 14th century: (1) _Belledi_ or _Baladi_, an Arabic name, which,
as applied to ginger, would signify country or wild, and denotes common
ginger; (2) _Colombino_, which refers to Columbum, Kolam or Quilon, a
port in Travancore, frequently mentioned in the middle ages; and (3)
_Micchino_, a name which denoted that the spice had been brought from or
by way of Mecca. Marco Polo seems to have seen the ginger plant both in
India and China between 1280 and 1290. John of Montecorvino, a
missionary friar who visited India about 1292, gives a description of
the plant, and refers to the fact of the root being dug up and
transported. Nicolo di Conto, a Venetian merchant in the early part of
the 15th century, also describes the plant and the collection of the
root, as seen by him in India. Though the Venetians received ginger by
way of Egypt, some of the superior kinds were taken from India overland
by the Black Sea. The spice is said to have been introduced into America
by Francisco de Mendoça, who took it from the East Indies to New Spain.
It seems to have been shipped for commercial purposes from San Domingo
as early as 1585, and from Barbados in 1654; so early as 1547
considerable quantities were sent from the West Indies to Spain.
[Illustration: From Bentley & Trimen's _Medicinal Plants_, by permission
of J. & A. Churchill.
Ginger (_Zingiber officinale_), about ½ nat. size, with leafy and
flowering stem; the former cut off short.
1. Flower.
2. Flower in vertical section.
3. Fertile stamen, enveloping the style which projects above it.
4. Piece of leafy stem. 1-3 enlarged.
s, Sepals.
p, Petals.l, Labellum, representing two barren stamens.
st, Fertile stamen.
y, Staminode.
x, Tip of style bearing the stigma.
z, Style.
gl, Honey-secreting glands.]
Ginger is known in commerce in two distinct forms, termed respectively
coated and uncoated ginger, as having or wanting the epidermis. For the
first, the pieces, which are called "races" or "hands," from their
irregular palmate form, are washed and simply dried in the sun. In this
form ginger presents a brown, more or less irregularly wrinkled or
striated surface, and when broken shows a dark brownish fracture, hard,
and sometimes horny and resinous. To produce uncoated ginger the
rhizomes are washed, scraped and sun-dried, and are often subjected to a
system of bleaching, either from the fumes of burning sulphur or by
immersion for a short time in a solution of chlorinated lime. The
whitewashed appearance that much of the ginger has, as seen in the
shops, is due to the fact of its being washed in whiting and water, or
even coated with sulphate of lime. This artificial coating is supposed
by some to give the ginger a better appearance; it often, however,
covers an inferior quality, and can readily be detected by the ease with
which it rubs off, or by its leaving a white powdery substance at the
bottom of the jar in which it is contained. Uncoated ginger, as seen in
trade, varies from single joints an inch or less in length to flattish
irregularly branched pieces of several joints, the "races" or "hands,"
and from 3 to 4 in. long; each branch has a depression at its summit
showing the former attachment of a leafy stem. The colour, when not
whitewashed, is a pale buff; it is somewhat rough or fibrous, breaking
with a short mealy fracture, and presenting on the surfaces of the
broken parts numerous short bristly fibres.
The principal constituents of ginger are starch, volatile oil (to
which the characteristic odour of the spice is due) and resin (to
which is attributed its pungency). Its chief use is as a condiment or
spice, but as an aromatic and stomachic medicine it is also used
internally. "The stimulant, aromatic and carminative properties render
it of much value in atonic dyspepsia, especially if accompanied with
much flatulence, and as an adjunct to purgative medicines to correct
griping." Externally applied as a rubefacient, it has been found to
relieve headache and toothache. The rhizomes, collected in a young
green state, washed, scraped and preserved in syrup, form a delicious
preserve, which is largely exported both from the West Indies and from
China. Cut up into pieces like lozenges and preserved in sugar, ginger
also forms a very agreeable sweetmeat.
GINGHAM, a cotton or linen cloth, for the name of which several origins
are suggested. It is said to have been made at Guingamp, a town in
Brittany; the _New English Dictionary_ derives the word from Malay
_ging-gang_, meaning "striped." The cloth is now of a light or medium
weight, and woven of dyed or white yarns either in a single colour or
different colours, and in stripes, checks or plaids. It is made in
Lancashire and in Glasgow, and also to a large extent in the United
States. Imitations of it are obtained by calico-printing. It is used for
dresses, &c.
GINGI, or GINGEE, a rock fortress of southern India, in the South Arcot
district of Madras. It consists of three hills, connected by walls
enclosing an area of 7 sq. m., and practically impregnable to assault.
The origin of the fortress is shrouded in legend. When occupied by the
Mahrattas at the end of the 17th century, it withstood a siege of eight
years against the armies of Aurangzeb. In 1750 it was captured by the
French, who held it with a strong force for eleven years. It surrendered
to the English in 1761, in the words of Orme, "terminated the long
hostilities between the two rival European powers in Coromandel, and
left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by the authority of
its government in any part of India."
GINGUENÉ, PIERRE LOUIS (1748-1815), French author, was born on the 27th
of April 1748 at Rennes, in Brittany. He was educated at a Jesuit
college in his native town, and came to Paris in 1772. He wrote
criticisms for the _Mercure de France_, and composed a comic opera,
_Pomponin_ (1777). _The Satire des satires_ (1778) and the _Confession
de Zulmé_ (1779) followed. _The Confession_ was claimed by six or seven
different authors, and though the value of the piece is not very great,
it obtained great success. His defence of Piccini against the partisans
of Gluck made him still more widely known. He hailed the first symptoms
of the Revolution, joined Giuseppe Cerutti, the author of the _Mémoire
pour le peuple français_ (1788), and others in producing the _Feuille
villageoise_, a weekly paper addressed to the villages of France. He
also celebrated in an indifferent ode the opening of the states-general.
In his _Lettres sur les confessions de J.-J. Rousseau_ (1791) he
defended the life and principles of his author. He was imprisoned during
the Terror, and only escaped with life by the downfall of Robespierre.
Some time after his release he assisted, as director-general of the
"commission exécutive de l'instruction publique," in reorganizing the
system of public instruction, and he was an original member of the
Institute of France. In 1797 the directory appointed him minister
plenipotentiary to the king of Sardinia. After fulfilling his duties for
seven months, very little to the satisfaction of his employers, Ginguené
retired for a time to his country house of St Prix, in the valley of
Montmorency. He was appointed a member of the tribunate, but Napoleon,
finding that he was not sufficiently tractable, had him expelled at the
first "purge," and Ginguené returned to his literary pursuits. He was
one of the commission charged to continue the _Histoire littéraire de la
France_, and he contributed to the volumes of this series which appeared
in 1814, 1817 and 1820. Ginguené's most important work is the _Histoire
littéraire d'Italie_ (14 vols., 1811-1835). He was putting the finishing
touches to the eighth and ninth volumes when he died on the 11th of
November 1815. The last five volumes were written by Francesco Salfi and
revised by Pierre Daunou.
In the composition of his history of Italian literature he was guided
for the most part by the great work of Girolamo Tiraboschi, but he
avoids the prejudices and party views of his model.
Ginguené edited the _Décade philosophique, politique et littéraire_
till it was suppressed by Napoleon in 1807. He contributed largely to
the _Biographie universelle_, the _Mercure de France_ and the
_Encyclopédie méthodique_; and he edited the works of Chamfort and of
Lebrun. Among his minor productions are an opera, _Pomponin ou le
tuteur mystifié_ (1777); _La Satire des satires_ (1778); _De
l'autorité de Rabelais dans la révolution présente_ (1791); _De M.
Neckar_ (1795); _Fables nouvelles_ (1810); _Fables inédites_ (1814).
See "Éloge de Ginguené" by Dacier, in the _Mémoires de l'institut_,
tom. vii.; "Discours" by M. Daunou, prefixed to the 2nd ed. of the
_Hist. litt. d'Italie_; D. J. Garat, _Notice sur la vie et les
ouvrages de P. L. Ginguené_, prefixed to a catalogue of his library
(Paris, 1817).
GINKEL, GODART VAN (1630-1703); 1st earl of Athlone, Dutch general in
the service of England, was born at Utrecht in 1630. He came of a noble
family, and bore the title of Baron van Reede, being the eldest son of
Godart Adrian van Reede, Baron Ginkel. In his youth he entered the Dutch
army, and in 1688 he followed William, prince of Orange, in his
expedition to England. In the following year he distinguished himself by
a memorable exploit--the pursuit, defeat and capture of a Scottish
regiment which had mutinied at Ipswich, and was marching northward
across the fens. It was the alarm excited by this mutiny that
facilitated the passing of the first Mutiny Act. In 1690 Ginkel
accompanied William III. to Ireland, and commanded a body of Dutch
cavalry at the battle of the Boyne. On the king's return to England
General Ginkel was entrusted with the conduct of the war. He took the
field in the spring of 1691, and established his headquarters at
Mullingar. Among those who held a command under him was the marquis of
Ruvigny, the recognized chief of the Huguenot refugees. Early in June
Ginkel took the fortress of Ballymore, capturing the whole garrison of
1000 men. The English lost only 8 men. After reconstructing the
fortifications of Ballymore the army marched to Athlone, then one of the
most important of the fortified towns of Ireland. The Irish defenders of
the place were commanded by a distinguished French general, Saint-Ruth.
The firing began on June 19th, and on the 30th the town was stormed, the
Irish army retreating towards Galway, and taking up their position at
Aughrim. Having strengthened the fortifications of Athlone and left a
garrison there, Ginkel led the English, on July 12th, to Aughrim. An
immediate attack was resolved on, and, after a severe and at one time
doubtful contest, the crisis was precipitated by the fall of Saint-Ruth,
and the disorganized Irish were defeated and fled. A horrible slaughter
of the Irish followed the struggle, and 4000 corpses were left unburied
on the field, besides a multitude of others that lay along the line of
the retreat. Galway next capitulated, its garrison being permitted to
retire to Limerick. There the viceroy Tyrconnel was in command of a
large force, but his sudden death early in August left the command in
the hands of General Sarsfield and the Frenchman D'Usson. The English
came in sight of the town on the day of Tyrconnel's death, and the
bombardment was immediately begun. Ginkel, by a bold device, crossed the
Shannon and captured the camp of the Irish cavalry. A few days later he
stormed the fort on Thomond Bridge, and after difficult negotiations a
capitulation was signed, the terms of which were divided into a civil
and a military treaty. Thus was completed the conquest or pacification
of Ireland, and the services of the Dutch general were amply recognized
and rewarded. He received the formal thanks of the House of Commons, and
was created by the king 1st earl of Athlone and baron of Aughrim. The
immense forfeited estates of the earl of Limerick were given to him, but
the grant was a few years later revoked by the English parliament. The
earl continued to serve in the English army, and accompanied the king to
the continent in 1693. He fought at the sieges of Namur and the battle
of Neerwinden, and assisted in destroying the French magazine at Givet.
In 1702, waiving his own claims to the position of commander-in-chief,
he commanded the Dutch serving under the duke of Marlborough. He died at
Utrecht on the 11th of February 1703, and was succeeded by his son the
2nd earl (1668-1719), a distinguished soldier in the reigns of William
III. and Anne. On the death of the 9th earl without issue in 1844, the
title became extinct.
GINSBURG, CHRISTIAN DAVID (1831- ), Hebrew scholar, was born at Warsaw
on the 25th of December 1831. Coming to England shortly after the
completion of his education in the Rabbinic College at Warsaw, Dr
Ginsburg continued his study of the Hebrew Scriptures, with special
attention to the Megilloth. The first result of these studies was a
translation of the Song of Songs, with a commentary historical and
critical, published in 1857. A similar translation of Ecclesiastes,
followed by treatises on the Karaites, on the Essenes and on the
Kabbala, kept the author prominently before biblical students while he
was preparing the first sections of his _magnum opus_, the critical
study of the Massorah. Beginning in 1867 with the publication of Jacob
ben Chajim's Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible, Hebrew and English,
with notices, and the Massoreth Ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, in Hebrew,
with translation and commentary, Dr Ginsburg took rank as an eminent
Hebrew scholar. In 1870 he was appointed one of the first members of the
committee for the revision of the English version of the Old Testament.
His life-work culminated in the publication of the Massorah, in three
volumes folio (1880-1886), followed by the Masoretico-critical edition
of the Hebrew Bible (1894), and the elaborate introduction to it (1897).
Dr Ginsburg had one predecessor in the field, the learned Jacob ben
Chajim, who in 1524-1525 published the second Rabbinic Bible, containing
what has ever since been known as the Massorah; but neither were the
materials available nor was criticism sufficiently advanced for a
complete edition. Dr Ginsburg took up the subject almost where it was
left by those early pioneers, and collected portions of the Massorah
from the countless MSS. scattered throughout Europe and the East. More
recently Dr Ginsburg has published _Facsimiles of Manuscripts of the
Hebrew Bible_ (1897 and 1898), and _The Text of the Hebrew Bible in
Abbreviations_ (1903), in addition to a critical treatise "on the
relationship of the so-called Codex Babylonicus of A.D. 916 to the
Eastern Recension of the Hebrew Text" (1899, for private circulation).
In the last-mentioned work he seeks to prove that the St Petersburg
Codex, for so many years accepted as the genuine text of the Babylonian
school, is in reality a Palestinian text carefully altered so as to
render it conformable to the Babylonian recension. He subsequently
undertook the preparation of a new edition of the Hebrew Bible for the
British and Foreign Bible Society. He also contributed many articles to
J. Kitto's _Encyclopaedia_, W. Smith's _Dictionary of Christian
Biography_ and the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.
GINSENG, the root of a species of _Panax_ (_P. Ginseng_), native of
Manchuria and Korea, belonging to the natural order Araliaceae, used in
China as a medicine. Other roots are substituted for it, notably that of
_Panax quinquefolium_, distinguished as American ginseng, and imported
from the United States. At one time the ginseng obtained from Manchuria
was considered to be the finest quality, and in consequence became so
scarce that an imperial edict was issued prohibiting its collection.
That prepared in Korea is now the most esteemed variety. The root of the
wild plant is preferred to that of cultivated ginseng, and the older the
plant the better is the quality of the root considered to be. Great care
is taken in the preparation of the drug. The account given by Kaempfer
of the preparation of nindsin, the root of _Sium ninsi_, in Korea, will
give a good idea of the preparation of ginseng, ninsi being a similar
drug of supposed weaker virtue, obtained from a different plant, and
often confounded with ginseng. "In the beginning of winter nearly all
the population of Sjansai turn out to collect the root, and make
preparations for sleeping in the fields. The root, when collected, is
macerated for three days in fresh water, or water in which rice has been
boiled twice; it is then suspended in a closed vessel over the fire, and
afterwards dried, until from the base to the middle it assumes a hard,
resinous and translucent appearance, which is considered a proof of its
good quality."
Ginseng of good quality generally occurs in hard, rather brittle,
translucent pieces, about the size of the little finger, and varying in
length from 2 to 4 in. The taste is mucilaginous, sweetish and slightly
bitter and aromatic. The root is frequently forked, and it is probably
owing to this circumstance that medicinal properties were in the first
place attributed to it, its resemblance to the body of a man being
supposed to indicate that it could restore virile power to the aged and
impotent. In price it varies from 6 or 12 dollars to the enormous sum of
300 or 400 dollars an ounce.
Lockhart gives a graphic description of a visit to a ginseng merchant.
Opening the outer box, the merchant removed several paper parcels
which appeared to fill the box, but under them was a second box, or
perhaps two small boxes, which, when taken out, showed the bottom of
the large box and all the intervening space filled with more paper
parcels. These parcels, he said, "contained quicklime, for the purpose
of absorbing any moisture and keeping the boxes quite dry, the lime
being packed in paper for the sake of cleanliness. The smaller box,
which held the ginseng, was lined with sheet-lead; the ginseng further
enclosed in silk wrappers was kept in little silken-covered boxes.
Taking up a piece, he would request his visitor not to breathe upon
it, nor handle it; he would dilate upon the many merits of the drug
and the cures it had effected. The cover of the root, according to its
quality, was silk, either embroidered or plain, cotton cloth or
paper." In China the ginseng is often sent to friends as a valuable
present; in such cases, "accompanying the medicine is usually given a
small, beautifully-finished double kettle, in which the ginseng is
prepared as follows. The inner kettle is made of silver, and between
this and the outside vessel, which is a copper jacket, is a small
space for holding water. The silver kettle, which fits on a ring near
the top of the outer covering, has a cup-like cover in which rice is
placed with a little water; the ginseng is put in the inner vessel
with water, a cover is placed over the whole, and the apparatus is put
on the fire. When the rice in the cover is sufficiently cooked, the
medicine is ready, and is then eaten by the patient, who drinks the
ginseng tea at the same time." The dose of the root is from 60 to 90
grains. During the use of the drug tea-drinking is forbidden for at
least a month, but no other change is made in the diet. It is taken in
the morning before breakfast, from three to eight days together, and
sometimes it is taken in the evening before going to bed.
The action of the drug appears to be entirely psychic, and comparable
to that of the mandrake of the Hebrews. There is no evidence that it
possesses any pharmacological or therapeutic properties.
See Porter Smith, _Chinese Materia Medica_, p. 103; _Reports on Trade
at the Treaty Ports of China_ (1868), p. 63; Lockhart, _Med.
Missionary in China_ (2nd ed.), p. 107; _Bull. de la Société Impériale
de Nat. de Moscou_ (1865), No. 1, pp. 70-76; _Pharmaceutical Journal_
(2), vol. iii. pp. 197, 333, (2), vol. ix. p. 77; Lewis, _Materia
Medica_, p. 324; Geoffroy, _Tract. de matière médicale_, t. ii. p.
112; Kaempfer, _Amoenitates exoticae_, p. 824.
GIOBERTI, VINCENZO (1801-1852), Italian philosopher, publicist and
politician, was born in Turin on the 5th of April 1801. He was educated
by the fathers of the Oratory with a view to the priesthood and ordained
in 1825. At first he led a very retired life; but gradually took more
and more interest in the affairs of his country and the new political
ideas as well as in the literature of the day. Partly under the
influence of Mazzini, the freedom of Italy became his ruling motive in
life,--its emancipation, not only from foreign masters, but from modes
of thought alien to its genius, and detrimental to its European
authority. This authority was in his mind connected with papal
supremacy, though in a way quite novel--intellectual rather than
political. This must be remembered in considering nearly all his
writings, and also in estimating his position, both in relation to the
ruling clerical party--the Jesuits--and also to the politics of the
court of Piedmont after the accession of Charles Albert in 1831. He was
now noticed by the king and made one of his chaplains. His popularity
and private influence, however, were reasons enough for the court party
to mark him for exile; he was not one of them, and could not be
depended on. Knowing this, he resigned his office in 1833, but was
suddenly arrested on a charge of conspiracy, and, after an imprisonment
of four months, was banished without a trial. Gioberti first went to
Paris, and, a year later, to Brussels, where he remained till 1845,
teaching philosophy, and assisting a friend in the work of a private
school. He nevertheless found time to write many works of philosophical
importance, with special reference to his country and its position. An
amnesty having been declared by Charles Albert in 1846, Gioberti (who
was again in Paris) was at liberty to return to Italy, but refused to do
so till the end of 1847. On his entrance into Turin on the 29th of April
1848 he was received with the greatest enthusiasm. He refused the
dignity of senator offered him by Charles Albert, preferring to
represent his native town in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was
soon elected president. At the close of the same year, a new ministry
was formed, headed by Gioberti; but with the accession of Victor
Emmanuel in March 1849, his active life came to an end. For a short time
indeed he held a seat in the cabinet, though without a portfolio; but an
irreconcilable disagreement soon followed, and his removal from Turin
was accomplished by his appointment on a mission to Paris, whence he
never returned. There, refusing the pension which had been offered him
and all ecclesiastical preferment, he lived frugally, and spent his days
and nights as at Brussels in literary labour. He died suddenly, of
apoplexy, on the 26th of October 1852.
Gioberti's writings are more important than his political career. In
the general history of European philosophy they stand apart. As the
speculations of Rosmini-Serbati, against which he wrote, have been
called the last link added to medieval thought, so the system of
Gioberti, known as "Ontologism," more especially in his greater and
earlier works, is unrelated to other modern schools of thought. It
shows a harmony with the Roman Catholic faith which caused Cousin to
declare that "Italian philosophy was still in the bonds of theology,"
and that Gioberti was no philosopher. Method is with him a synthetic,
subjective and psychological instrument. He reconstructs, as he
declares, ontology, and begins with the "ideal formula," "the _Ens_
creates _ex nihilo_ the existent." God is the only being (Ens); all
other things are merely existences. God is the origin of all human
knowledge (called _l'idea_, thought), which is one and so to say
identical with God himself. It is directly beheld (intuited) by
reason, but in order to be of use it has to be reflected on, and this
by means of language. A knowledge of being and existences (concrete,
not abstract) and their mutual relations, is necessary as the
beginning of philosophy. Gioberti is in some respects a Platonist. He
identifies religion with civilization, and in his treatise _Del
primato morale e civile degli Italiani_ arrives at the conclusion that
the church is the axis on which the well-being of human life revolves.
In it he affirms the idea of the supremacy of Italy, brought about by
the restoration of the papacy as a moral dominion, founded on religion
and public opinion. In his later works, the _Rinnovamento_ and the
_Protologia_, he is thought by some to have shifted his ground under
the influence of events. His first work, written when he was
thirty-seven, had a personal reason for its existence. A young
fellow-exile and friend, Paolo Pallia, having many doubts and
misgivings as to the reality of revelation and a future life, Gioberti
at once set to work with _La Teorica del sovrannaturale_, which was
his first publication (1838). After this, philosophical treatises
followed in rapid succession. The _Teorica_ was followed by
_Introduzione allo studio della filosofia_ in three volumes
(1839-1840). In this work he states his reasons for requiring a new
method and new terminology. Here he brings out the doctrine that
religion is the direct expression of the _idea_ in this life, and is
one with true civilization in history. Civilization is a conditioned
mediate tendency to perfection, to which religion is the final
completion if carried out; it is the end of the second cycle expressed
by the second formula, the Ens redeems existences. Essays (not
published till 1846) on the lighter and more popular subjects, _Del
bello_ and _Del buono_, followed the _Introduzione_. _Del primato
morale e civile degli Italiani_ and the _Prolegomeni_ to the same, and
soon afterwards his triumphant exposure of the Jesuits, Il Gesuita
moderno, no doubt hastened the transfer of rule from clerical to civil
hands. It was the popularity of these semi-political works, increased
by other occasional political articles, and his _Rinnovamento civile
d'Italia_, that caused Gioberti to be welcomed with such enthusiasm on
his return to his native country. All these works were perfectly
orthodox, and aided in drawing the liberal clergy into the movement
which has resulted since his time in the unification of Italy. The
Jesuits, however, closed round the pope more firmly after his return
to Rome, and in the end Gioberti's writings were placed on the _Index_
(see J. Kleutgen, _Über die Verurtheilung des Ontologismus durch den
heiligen Stuhl_, 1867). The remainder of his works, especially _La
Filosofia della Rivelazione_ and the _Protologia_, give his mature
views on many points. The entire writings of Gioberti, including
those left in manuscript, have been edited by Giuseppe Massari (Turin,
1856-1861).
See Massari, _Vita de V. Gioberti_ (Florence, 1848); A.
Rosmini-Serbati, _V. Gioberti e il panteismo_ (Milan, 1848); C. B.
Smyth, _Christian Metaphysics_ (1851); B. Spaventa, _La Filosofia di
Gioberti_ (Naples, 1854); A. Mauri, _Della vita e delle opere di V.
Gioberti_ (Genoa, 1853); G. Prisco, _Gioberti e l' ontologismo_
(Naples, 1867); P. Luciani, _Gioberti e la filosofia nuova italiana_
(Naples, 1866-1872); D. Berti, _Di V. Gioberti_ (Florence, 1881); see
also L. Ferri, _L'Histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIX^e
siècle_ (Paris, 1869); C. Werner, _Die italienische Philosophie des
19. Jahrhunderts_, ii. (1885); appendix to Ueberweg's _Hist. of
Philosophy_ (Eng. tr.); art. in _Brownson's Quarterly Review_ (Boston,
Mass.), xxi.; R. Mariano, _La Philosophie contemporaine en Italie_
(1866); R. Seydel's exhaustive article in Ersch and Gruber's
_Allgemeine Encyclopädie_. The centenary of Gioberti called forth
several monographs in Italy.
GIOIOSA-IONICA, a town of Calabria, Italy, in the province of Reggio
Calabria, from which it is 65 m. N.E. by rail, and 38 m. direct, 492 ft.
above sea-level. Pop. (1901) town, 9072; commune, 11,200. Near the
station, which is on the E. coast of Calabria 3 m. below the town to the
S.E., the remains of a theatre belonging to the Roman period were
discovered in 1883; the orchestra was 46 ft. in diameter (_Notizie degli
scavi_, 1883, p. 423). The ruins of an ancient building called the
Naviglio, the nature of which does not seem clear, are described (ib.
1884, p. 252).
GIOJA, MELCHIORRE (1767-1829), Italian writer on philosophy and
political economy, was born at Piacenza, on the 20th of September 1767.
Originally intended for the church, he took orders, but renounced them
in 1796 and went to Milan, where he devoted himself to the study of
political economy. Having obtained the prize for an essay on "the kind
of free government best adapted to Italy" he decided upon the career of
a publicist. The arrival of Napoleon in Italy drew him into public life.
He advocated a republic under the dominion of the French in a pamphlet
_I Tedeschi, i Francesi, ed i Russi in Lombardia_, and under the
Cisalpine Republic he was named historiographer and director of
statistics. He was several times imprisoned, once for eight months in
1820 on a charge of being implicated in a conspiracy with the Carbonari.
After the fall of Napoleon he retired into private life, and does not
appear to have held office again. He died on the 2nd of January 1829.
Gioja's fundamental idea is the value of statistics or the collection of
facts. Philosophy itself is with him classification and consideration of
ideas. Logic he regarded as a practical art, and his _Esercizioni
logici_ has the further title, _Art of deriving benefit from
ill-constructed books_. In ethics Gioja follows Bentham generally, and
his large treatise _Del merito e delle recompense_ (1818) is a clear and
systematic view of social ethics from the utilitarian principle. In
political economy this avidity for facts produced better fruits. The
_Nuovo Prospetto delle scienze economiche_ (1815-1817), although long to
excess, and overburdened with classifications and tables, contains much
valuable material. The author prefers large properties and large
commercial undertakings to small ones, and strongly favours association
as a means of production. He defends a restrictive policy and insists on
the necessity of the action of the state as a regulating power in the
industrial world. He was an opponent of ecclesiastical domination. He
must be credited with the finest and most original treatment of division
of labour since the _Wealth of Nations_. Much of what Babbage taught
later on the subject of combined work is anticipated by Gioja. His
theory of production is also deserving of attention from the fact that
it takes into account and gives due prominence to immaterial goods.
Throughout the work there is continuous opposition to Adam Smith.
Gioja's latest work _Filosofia della statistica_ (2 vols., 1826; 4
vols., 1829-1830) contains in brief compass the essence of his ideas on
human life, and affords the clearest insight into his aim and method in
philosophy both theoretical and practical.
See monographs by G. D. Romagnosi (1829), F. Falco (1866); G. Pecchio,
_Storia dell' economia pubblica in Italia_ (1829), and article in
Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine Encyclopädie_; for Gioja's philosophy,
L. Ferri, _Essai sur l'histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIX^e
siècle_ (1869); Ueberweg's _Hist. of Philosophy_ (Eng. tr., appendix
ii.); A. Rosmini-Serbati, _Opuscoli filosofici_, iii. (1844)
(containing an attack on Gioja's "sensualism"); for his political
economy, list of works in J. Conrad's _Handwörterbuch der
Staatswissenschaften_ (1892); L. Cossa, _Introd. to Pol. Econ._ (Eng.
trans., p. 488). Gioja's complete works were published at Lugano
(1832-1849). He was one of the founders of the _Annali universali di
statistica_.
GIOLITTI, GIOVANNI (1842- ), Italian statesman, was born at Mondovì on
the 27th of October 1842. After a rapid career in the financial
administration he was, in 1882, appointed councillor of state and
elected to parliament. As deputy he chiefly acquired prominence by
attacks on Magliani, treasury minister in the Depretis cabinet, and on
the 9th of March 1889 was himself selected as treasury minister by
Crispi. On the fall of the Rudinì cabinet in May 1892, Giolitti, with
the help of a court clique, succeeded to the premiership. His term of
office was marked by misfortune and misgovernment. The building crisis
and the commercial rupture with France had impaired the situation of the
state banks, of which one, the Banca Romana, had been further undermined
by maladministration. A bank law, passed by Giolitti failed to effect an
improvement. Moreover, he irritated public opinion by raising to
senatorial rank the director-general of the Banca Romana, Signor
Tanlongo, whose irregular practices had become a byword. The senate
declined to admit Tanlongo, whom Giolitti, in consequence of an
interpellation in parliament upon the condition of the Banca Romana, was
obliged to arrest and prosecute. During the prosecution Giolitti abused
his position as premier to abstract documents bearing on the case.
Simultaneously a parliamentary commission of inquiry investigated the
condition of the state banks. Its report, though acquitting Giolitti of
personal dishonesty, proved disastrous to his political position, and
obliged him to resign. His fall left the finances of the state
disorganized, the pensions fund depleted, diplomatic relations with
France strained in consequence of the massacre of Italian workmen at
Aigues-Mortes, and Sicily and the Lunigiana in a state of revolt, which
he had proved impotent to suppress. After his resignation he was
impeached for abuse of power as minister, but the supreme court quashed
the impeachment by denying the competence of the ordinary tribunals to
judge ministerial acts. For several years he was compelled to play a
passive part, having lost all credit. But by keeping in the background
and giving public opinion time to forget his past, as well as by
parliamentary intrigue, he gradually regained much of his former
influence. He made capital of the Socialist agitation and of the
repression to which other statesmen resorted, and gave the agitators to
understand that were he premier they would be allowed a free hand. Thus
he gained their favour, and on the fall of the Pelloux cabinet he became
minister of the Interior in Zanardelli's administration, of which he was
the real head. His policy of never interfering in strikes and leaving
even violent demonstrations undisturbed at first proved successful, but
indiscipline and disorder grew to such a pitch that Zanardelli, already
in bad health, resigned, and Giolitti succeeded him as prime minister
(November 1903). But during his tenure of office he, too, had to resort
to strong measures in repressing some serious disorders in various parts
of Italy, and thus he lost the favour of the Socialists. In March 1905,
feeling himself no longer secure, he resigned, indicating Fortis as his
successor. When Sonnino became premier in February 1906, Giolitti did
not openly oppose him, but his followers did, and Sonnino was defeated
in May, Giolitti becoming prime minister once more.
GIORDANO, LUCA (1632-1705), Italian painter, was born in Naples, son of
a very indifferent painter, Antonio, who imparted to him the first
rudiments of drawing. Nature predestined him for the art, and at the age
of eight he painted a cherub into one of his father's pictures, a feat
which was at once noised abroad, and induced the viceroy of Naples to
recommend the child to Ribera. His father afterwards took him to Rome,
to study under Pietro da Cortona. He acquired the nickname of Luca
Fa-presto (Luke Work-fast). One might suppose this nickname to be
derived merely from the almost miraculous celerity with which from an
early age and throughout his life he handled the brush; but it is said
to have had a more express origin. The father, we are told,
poverty-stricken and greedy of gain, was perpetually urging his boy to
exertion with the phrase, "Luca, fà presto." The youth obeyed his parent
to the letter, and would actually not so much as pause to snatch a hasty
meal, but received into his mouth, while he still worked on, the food
which his father's hand supplied. He copied nearly twenty times the
"Battle of Constantine" by Julio Romano, and with proportionate
frequency several of the great works of Raphael and Michelangelo. His
rapidity, which belonged as much to invention as to mere handiwork, and
his versatility, which enabled him to imitate other painters
deceptively, earned for him two other epithets, "The Thunderbolt"
(Fulmine), and "The Proteus," of Painting. He shortly visited all the
main seats of the Italian school of art, and formed for himself a style
combining in a certain measure the ornamental pomp of Paul Veronese and
the contrasting compositions and large schemes of chiaroscuro of Pietro
da Cortona. He was noted also for lively and showy colour. Returning to
Naples, and accepting every sort of commission by which money was to be
made, he practised his art with so much applause that Charles II. of
Spain towards 1687 invited him over to Madrid, where he remained
thirteen years. Giordano was very popular at the Spanish court, being a
sprightly talker along with his other marvellously facile gifts, and the
king created him a cavaliere. One anecdote of his rapidity of work is
that the queen of Spain having one day made some inquiry about his wife,
he at once showed Her Majesty what the lady was like by painting her
portrait into the picture on which he was engaged. Soon after the death
of Charles in 1700 Giordano, gorged with wealth, returned to Naples. He
spent large sums in acts of munificence, and was particularly liberal to
his poorer brethren of the art. He again visited various parts of Italy,
and died in Naples on the 12th of January 1705, his last words being "O
Napoli, sospiro mio" (O Naples, my heart's love!). One of his maxims was
that the good painter is the one whom the public like, and that the
public are attracted more by colour than by design.
Giordano had an astonishing readiness and facility, in spite of the
general commonness and superficiality of his performances. He left many
works in Rome, and far more in Naples. Of the latter one of the most
renowned is "Christ expelling the Traders from the Temple," in the
church of the Padri Girolamini, a colossal work, full of expressive
lazzaroni; also the frescoes of S. Martino, and those in the Tesoro
della Certosa, including the subject of "Moses and the Brazen Serpent";
and the cupola-paintings in the Church of S. Brigida, which contains the
artist's own tomb. In Spain he executed a surprising number of
works,--continuing in the Escorial the series commenced by Cambiasi, and
painting frescoes of the "Triumphs of the Church," the "Genealogy and
Life of the Madonna," the stories of Moses, Gideon, David and Solomon,
and the "Celebrated Women of Scripture," all works of large dimensions.
His pupils, Aniello Rossi and Matteo Pacelli, assisted him in Spain. In
Madrid he worked more in oil-colour, a Nativity there being one of his
best productions. Other superior examples are the "Judgment of Paris" in
the Berlin Museum, and "Christ with the Doctors in the Temple," in the
Corsini Gallery of Rome. In Florence, in his closing days, he painted
the Cappella Corsini, the Galleria Riccardi and other works. In youth he
etched with considerable skill some of his own paintings, such as the
"Slaughter of the Priests of Baal." He also painted much on the crystal
borderings of looking-glasses, cabinets, &c., seen in many Italian
palaces, and was, in this form of art, the master of Pietro Garofolo.
His best pupil, in painting of the ordinary kind, was Paolo de Matteis.
Bellori, in his _Vite de' pittori moderni_, is a leading authority
regarding Luca Giordano. P. Benvenuto (1882) has written a work on the
Riccardi paintings.
GIORGIONE (1477-1510), Italian painter, was born at Castelfranco in
1477. In contemporary documents he is always called (according to the
Venetian manner of pronunciation and spelling) Zorzi, Zorzo or Zorzon of
Castelfranco. A tradition, having its origin in the 17th century,
represented him as the natural son of some member of the great local
family of the Barbarelli, by a peasant girl of the neighbouring village
of Vedelago; consequently he is commonly referred to in histories and
catalogues under the name of Giorgio Barbarelli or Barbarella. This
tradition has, however, on close examination been proved baseless. On
the other hand mention has been found in a contemporary document of an
earlier Zorzon, a native of Vedelago, living in Castelfranco in 1460.
Vasari, who wrote before the Barbarella legend had sprung up, says that
Giorgione was of very humble origin. It seems probable that he was
simply the son or grandson of the afore-mentioned Zorzon the elder; that
the after-claim of the Barbarelli to kindred with him was a mere piece
of family vanity, very likely suggested by the analogous case of
Leonardo da Vinci; and that, this claim once put abroad, the
peasant-mother of Vedelago was invented on the ground of some dim
knowledge that his real progenitors came from that village.
Of the facts of his life we are almost as meagrely informed as of the
circumstances of his birth. The little city, or large fortified village,
for it is scarcely more, of Castelfranco in the Trevisan stands in the
midst of a rich and broken plain at some distance from the last spurs of
the Venetian Alps. From the natural surroundings of Giorgione's
childhood was no doubt derived his ideal of pastoral scenery, the
country of pleasant copses, glades, brooks and hills amid which his
personages love to wander or recline with lute and pipe. How early in
boyhood he went to Venice we do not know, but internal evidence supports
the statement of Ridolfi that he served his apprenticeship there under
Giovanni Bellini; and there he made his fame and had his home. That his
gifts were early recognized we know from the facts, recorded in
contemporary documents, that in 1500, when he was only twenty-three
(that is if Vasari gives rightly the age at which he died), he was
chosen to paint portraits of the Doge Agostino Barberigo and the
condottiere Consalvo Ferrante; that in 1504 he was commissioned to paint
an altarpiece in memory of Matteo Costanzo in the cathedral of his
native town, Castelfranco; that in 1507 he received at the order of the
Council of Ten part payment for a picture (subject not mentioned) on
which he was engaged for the Hall of the Audience in the ducal palace;
and that in 1507-1508 he was employed, with other artists of his own
generation, to decorate with frescoes the exterior of the newly rebuilt
Fondaco dei Tedeschi or German merchants' hall at Venice, having already
done similar work on the exterior of the Casa Soranzo, the Casa Grimani
alii Servi and other Venetian palaces. Vasari gives also as an important
event in Giorgione's life, and one which had influence on his work, his
meeting with Leonardo da Vinci on the occasion of the Tuscan master's
visit to Venice in 1500. In September or October 1510 he died of the
plague then raging in the city, and within a few days of his death we
find the great art-patroness and amateur, Isabella d'Este, writing from
Mantua and trying in vain to secure for her collection a night-piece by
his hand of which the fame had reached her.
All accounts agree in representing Giorgione as a personage of
distinguished and romantic charm, a great lover, a great musician, made
to enjoy in life and to express in art to the uttermost the delight, the
splendour, the sensuous and imaginative grace and fulness, not untinged
with poetic melancholy, of the Venetian existence of his time. They
represent him further as having made in Venetian painting an advance
analogous to that made in Tuscan painting by Leonardo more than twenty
years before; that is as having released the art from the last shackles
of archaic rigidity and placed it in possession of full freedom and the
full mastery of its means. He also introduced a new range of subjects.
Besides altarpieces and portraits he painted pictures that told no
story, whether biblical or classical, or if they professed to tell such,
neglected the action and simply embodied in form and colour moods of
lyrical or romantic feeling, much as a musician might embody them in
sounds. Innovating with the courage and felicity of genius, he had for a
time an overwhelming influence on his contemporaries and immediate
successors in the Venetian school, including Titian, Sebastian del
Piombo, the elder Palma, Cariani and the two Campagnolas, and not a
little even on seniors of long-standing fame such as Giovanni Bellini.
His name and work have exercised, and continue to exercise, no less a
spell on posterity. But to identify and define, among the relics of his
age and school, precisely what that work is, and to distinguish it from
the kindred work of other men whom his influence inspired, is a very
difficult matter. There are inclusive critics who still claim for
Giorgione nearly every painting of the time that at all resembles his
manner, and there are exclusive critics who pare down to some ten or a
dozen the list of extant pictures which they will admit to be actually
his.
To name first those which are either certain or command the most general
acceptance, placing them in something like an approximate and probable
order of date. In the Uffizi at Florence are two companion pieces of the
"Trial of Moses" and the "Judgment of Solomon," the latter the finer and
better preserved of the two, which pass, no doubt justly, as typical
works of Giorgione's youth, and exhibit, though not yet ripely, his
special qualities of colour-richness and landscape romance, the peculiar
facial types of his predilection, with the pure form of forehead, fine
oval of cheek, and somewhat close-set eyes and eyebrows, and the
intensity of that still and brooding sentiment with which, rather than
with dramatic life and movement, he instinctively invests his figures.
Probably the earliest of the portraits by common consent called his is
the beautiful one of a young man at Berlin. His earliest devotional
picture would seem to be the highly finished "Christ bearing his Cross"
(the head and shoulders only, with a peculiarly serene and high-bred
cast of features) formerly at Vicenza and now in the collection of Mrs
Gardner at Boston. Other versions of this picture exist, and it has been
claimed that one in private possession at Vienna is the true original:
erroneously in the judgment of the present writer. Another "Christ
bearing the Cross," with a Jew dragging at the rope round his neck, in
the church of San Rocco at Venice, is a ruined but genuine work, quoted
by Vasari and Ridolfi, and copied with the name of Giorgione appended,
by Van Dyck in that master's Chatsworth sketch-book. (Vasari gives it to
Giorgione in his first and to Titian in his second edition.) The
composition of a lost early picture of the birth of Paris is preserved
in an engraving of the "Teniers Gallery" series, and an old copy of part
of the same picture is at Budapest. In the Giovanelli Palace at Venice
is that fascinating and enigmatical mythology or allegory, known to the
Anonimo Morelliano, who saw it in 1530 in the house of Gabriel
Vendramin, simply as "the small landscape with the storm, the gipsy
woman and the soldier"; the picture is conjecturally interpreted by
modern authorities as illustrating a passage in Statius which describes
the meeting of Adrastus with Hypsipyle when she was serving as nurse
with the king of Nemea. Still belonging to the earlier part of the
painter's brief career is a beautiful, virginally pensive Judith at St
Petersburg, which passed under various alien names, as Raphael, Moretto,
&c., until its kindred with the unquestioned work of Giorgione was in
late years firmly established. The great Castelfranco altarpiece, still,
in spite of many restorations, one of the most classically pure and
radiantly impressive works of Renaissance painting, may be taken as
closing the earlier phase of the young master's work (1504). It shows
the Virgin loftily enthroned on a plain, sparely draped stone structure
with St Francis and a warrior saint (St Liberale) standing in attitudes
of great simplicity on either side of the foot of the throne, a high
parapet behind them, and a beautiful landscape of the master's usual
type seen above it. Nearly akin to this masterpiece, not in shape or
composition but by the type of the Virgin and the very Bellinesque St
Francis, is the altarpiece of the Madonna with St Francis and St Roch at
Madrid. Of the master's fully ripened time is the fine and again
enigmatical picture formerly in the house of Taddeo Contarini at Venice,
described by contemporary witnesses as the "Three Philosophers," and
now, on slender enough grounds, supposed to represent Evander showing
Aeneas the site of Troy as narrated in the eighth Aeneid. The portrait
of a knight of Malta in the Uffizi at Florence has more power and
authority, if less sentiment, than the earlier example at Berlin, and
may be taken to be of the master's middle time. Most entirely central
and typical of all Giorgione's extant works is the Sleeping Venus at
Dresden, first recognized by Morelli, and now universally accepted, as
being the same as the picture seen by the Anonimo and later by Ridolfi
in the Casa Marcello at Venice. An exquisitely pure and severe rhythm of
line and contour chastens the sensuous richness of the presentment: the
sweep of white drapery on which the goddess lies, and of glowing
landscape that fills the space behind her, most harmoniously frame her
divinity. It is recorded that the master left this piece unfinished and
that the landscape, with a Cupid which subsequent restoration has
removed, were completed after his death by Titian. The picture is the
prototype of Titian's own Venus at the Uffizi and of many more by other
painters of the school; but none of them attained the quality of the
first exemplar. Of such small scenes of mixed classical mythology and
landscape as early writers attribute in considerable number to
Giorgione, there have survived at least two which bear strong evidences
of his handiwork, though the action is in both of unwonted liveliness,
namely the Apollo and Daphne of the Seminario at Venice and the Orpheus
and Eurydice of Bergamo. The portrait of Antonio Grocardo at Budapest
represents his fullest and most penetrating power in that branch of art.
In his last years the purity and relative slenderness of form which mark
his earlier female nudes, including the Dresden Venus, gave way to
ideals of ampler mould, more nearly approaching those of Titian and his
successors in Venetian art; as is proved by those last remaining
fragments of the frescoes on the Grand Canal front of the Fondaco dei
Tedeschi which were seen and engraved by Zanetti in 1760, but have now
totally disappeared. Such change of ideal is apparent enough in the
famous "Concert" or "Pastoral Symphony" of the Louvre, probably the
latest, and certainly one of the most characteristic and harmoniously
splendid, of Giorgione's creations that has come down to us, and has
caused some critics too hastily to doubt its authenticity.
We pass now to pictures for which some affirm and others deny the right
to bear Giorgione's name. As youthful in style as the two early pictures
in the Uffizi, and closely allied to them in feeling, though less so in
colour, is an unexplained subject in the National Gallery, sometimes
called for want of a better title the "Golden Age"; this is officially
and by many critics given only to the "school of" Giorgione, but may not
unreasonably be claimed for his own work (No. 1173). There is also in
England a group of three paintings which are certainly by one hand, and
that a hand very closely related to Giorgione if not actually his own,
namely the small oblong "Adoration of the Magi" in the National Gallery
(No. 1160), the "Adoration of the Shepherds" belonging to Lord Allendale
(with its somewhat inferior but still attractive replica at Vienna), and
the small "Holy Family" in the collection of Mr R. H. Benson. The type
of the Madonna in all these three pieces is different from that
customary with the master, but there seems no reason why he should not
at some particular moment have changed his model. The sentiment and
gestures of the figures, the cast of draperies, the technical handling,
and especially, in Lord Allendale's picture, the romantic richness of
the landscape, all incline us to accept the group as original,
notwithstanding the deviation of type already mentioned and certain
weaknesses of drawing and proportion which we should have hardly looked
for. Better known to European students in general are the two fine
pictures commonly given to the master at the Pitti gallery in Florence,
namely the "Three Ages" and the "Concert." Both are very Giorgionesque,
the "Three Ages" leaning rather towards the early manner of Lorenzo
Lotto, to whom by some critics it is actually given. The "Concert" is
held on technical grounds by some of the best judges rather to bear the
character of Titian at the moment when the inspiration of Giorgione was
strongest on him, at least so far as concerns the extremely beautiful
and expressive central figure of the monk playing on the clavichord with
reverted head, a very incarnation of musical rapture and yearning--the
other figures are too much injured to judge.
There are at least two famous single portraits as to which critics will
probably never agree whether they are among the later works of Giorgione
or among the earliest of Titian under his influence: these are the
jovial and splendid half-length of Catherine Cornaro (or a stout lady
much resembling her) with a bas-relief, in the collection of Signor
Crespi at Milan, and the so-called "Ariosto" from Lord Darnley's
collection acquired for the National Gallery in 1904. Ancient and
half-effaced inscriptions, of which there is no cause to doubt the
genuineness, ascribe them both to Titian; both, to the mind of the
present writer at least, are more nearly akin to such undoubted early
Titians as the "Man with the Book" at Hampton Court and the "Man with
the Glove" at the Louvre than to any authenticated work of Giorgione. At
the same time it should be remembered that Giorgione is known to have
actually enjoyed the patronage of Catherine Cornaro and to have painted
her portrait. The Giorgionesque influence and feeling, to a degree
almost of sentimental exaggeration, encounter us again in another
beautiful Venetian portrait at the National Gallery which has sometimes
been claimed for him, that of a man in crimson velvet with white pleated
shirt and a background of bays, long attributed to the elder Palma (No.
636). The same qualities are present with more virility in a very
striking portrait of a young man at Temple Newsam, which stands indeed
nearer than any other extant example to the Brocardo portrait at
Budapest. The full-face portrait of a woman in the Borghese gallery at
Rome has the marks of the master's design and inspiration, but in its
present sadly damaged condition can hardly be claimed for his handiwork.
The head of a boy with a pipe at Hampton Court, a little over life size,
has been enthusiastically claimed as Giorgione's workmanship, but is
surely too slack and soft in handling to be anything more than an early
copy of a lost work, analogous to, though better than, the similar copy
at Vienna of a young man with an arrow, a subject he is known to have
painted. The early records prove indeed that not a few such copies of
Giorgione's more admired works were produced in his own time or shortly
afterwards. One of the most interesting and unmistakable such copies
still extant is the picture formerly in the Manfrin collection at
Venice, afterwards in that of Mr Barker in London, and now at Dresden,
which is commonly called "The Horoscope," and represents a woman seated
near a classic ruin with a young child at her feet, an armed youth
standing looking down at them, and a turbaned sage seated near with
compasses, disk and book. Of important subject pictures belonging to the
debatable borderland between Giorgione and his imitators are the large
and interesting unfinished "Judgment of Solomon" at Kingston Lacy, which
must certainly be the same that Ridolfi saw and attributed to him in the
Casa Grimani at Venice, but has weaknesses of design and drawing
sufficiently baffling to criticism; and the "Woman taken in Adultery" in
the public gallery at Glasgow, a picture truly Giorgionesque in richness
of colour, but betraying in its awkward composition, the relative
coarseness of its types and the insincere, mechanical animation of its
movements, the hand of some lesser master of the school, almost
certainly (by comparison with his existing engravings and woodcuts) that
of Domenico Campagnola. It seems unnecessary to refer, in the present
notice, to any of the numerous other and inferior works which have been
claimed for Giorgione by a criticism unable to distinguish between a
living voice and its echoes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Morelli, _Notizie_, &c. (ed. Frizzoni, 1884): Vasari
(ed. Milanesi), vol. iv.; Ridolfi, _Le Maraviglie dell' arte_, vol.
i.; Zanetti, _Varie Pitture_ (1760); Crowe-Cavalcaselle, _History of
Painting in North Italy_; Morelli, _Kunstkritische Studien_; Gronau,
_Zorzon da Castelfranco, la sua origine_, &c. (1894); Herbert Cook,
_Giorgione_ (in "Great Masters" series, 1900); Ugo Monneret de
Villard, _Giorgione da Castelfranco_ (1905). The two last-named works
are critically far too inclusive, but useful as going over the whole
ground of discussion, with full references to earlier authorities, &c.
(S. C.)
GIOTTINO (1324-1357), an early Florentine painter. Vasari is the
principal authority in regard to this artist; but it is not by any means
easy to bring the details of his narrative into harmony with such facts
as can now be verified. It would appear that there was a painter of the
name of Tommaso (or Maso) di Stefano termed Giottino; and the Giottino
of Vasari is said to have been born in 1324, and to have died early, of
consumption, in 1357,--dates which must be regarded as open to
considerable doubt. Stefano, the father of Tommaso, was himself a
celebrated painter in the early revival of art; his naturalism was
indeed so highly appreciated by contemporaries as to earn him the
appellation of "Scimia della Natura" (ape of nature). He, it seems,
instructed his son, who, however, applied himself with greater
predilection to studying the works of the great Giotto, formed his style
on these, and hence was called Giottino. It is even said that Giottino
was really the son (others say the great-grandson) of Giotto. To this
statement little or no importance can be attached. To Maso di Stefano,
or Giottino, Vasari and Ghiberti attribute the frescoes in the chapel of
S. Silvestro (or of the Bardi family) in the Florentine church of S.
Croce; these represent the miracles of Pope S. Silvestro as narrated in
the "Golden Legend," one conspicuous subject being the sealing of the
lips of a malignant dragon. These works are animated and firm in
drawing, with naturalism carried further than by Giotto. From the
evidence of style, some modern connoisseurs assign to the same hand the
paintings in the funeral vault of the Strozzi family, below the Cappella
degli Spagnuoli in the church of S. Maria Novella, representing the
crucifixion and other subjects. Vasari ascribes also to his Giottino the
frescoes of the life of St Nicholas in the lower church of Assisi. This
series, however, is not really in that part of the church which Vasari
designates, but is in the chapel of the Sacrament; and the works in that
chapel are understood to be by Giotto di Stefano, who worked in the
second half of the 14th century--very excellent productions of their
period. They are much damaged, and the style is hardly similar to that
of the Sylvester frescoes. It might hence be inferred that two different
men produced the works which are unitedly fathered upon the
half-legendary "Giottino," the consumptive youth, solitary and
melancholic, but passionately devoted to his art. A large number of
other works have been attributed to the same hand; we need only mention
an "Apparition of the Virgin to St Bernard," in the Florentine Academy;
a lost painting, very popular in its day, commemorating the expulsion,
which took place in 1343, of the duke of Athens from Florence; and a
marble statue erected on the Florentine campanile. Vasari particularly
praises Giottino for well-blended chiaroscuro.
GIOTTO [GIOTTO DI BONDONE[1]] (1267?-1337), Italian painter, was born at
Vespignano in the Mugello, a few miles north of Florence, according to
one account in 1276, and according to another, which from the few known
circumstances of his life seems more likely to be correct, in 1266 or
1267. His father was a landowner at Colle in the commune of Vespignano,
described in a contemporary document as _vir praeclarus_, but by
biographers both early and late as a poor peasant; probably therefore a
peasant proprietor of no large possessions but of reputable stock and
descent. It is impossible to tell whether there is any truth in the
legend of Giotto's boyhood which relates how he first showed his
disposition for art, and attracted the attention of Cimabue, by being
found drawing one of his father's sheep with a sharp stone on the face
of a smooth stone or slate. With his father's consent, the story goes
on, Cimabue carried off the boy to be his apprentice, and it was under
Cimabue's tuition that Giotto took his first steps in the art of which
he was afterwards to be the great emancipator and renovator. The place
where these early steps can still, according to tradition, be traced, is
in the first and second, reckoning downwards, of the three courses of
frescoes which adorn the walls of the nave in the Upper Church of St
Francis at Assisi. These frescoes represent subjects of the Old and New
Testament, and great labour, too probably futile, has been spent in
trying to pick out those in which the youthful handiwork of Giotto can
be discerned, as it is imagined, among that of Cimabue and his other
pupils. But the truth is that the figure of Cimabue himself, in spite of
Dante's testimony to his having been the foremost painter of Italy until
Giotto arose, has under the search-light of modern criticism melted into
almost mythical vagueness. His accepted position as Giotto's instructor
and the pioneer of reform in his art has been attacked from several
sides as a mere invention of Florentine writers for the glorification of
their own city. One group of critics maintain that the real advance in
Tuscan painting before Giotto was the work of the Sienese school and not
of the Florentine. Another group contend that the best painting done in
Italy down to the last decade of the 13th century was not done by Tuscan
hands at all, but by Roman craftsmen trained in the inherited principles
of Italo-Byzantine decoration in mosaic and fresco, and that from such
Roman craftsmen alone could Giotto have learnt anything worth his
learning. The debate thus opened is far from closed, and considering how
scanty, ambiguous and often defaced are the materials existing for
discussion, it is perhaps never likely to be closed. But there is no
debate as to the general nature of the reform effected by the genius of
Giotto himself. He was the great humanizer of painting; it is his glory
to have been the first among his countrymen to breathe life into
wall-pictures and altar-pieces, and to quicken the dead conventionalism
of inherited practice with the fire of natural action and natural
feeling. Upon yet another point there is no question; and that is that
the reform thus effected by Giotto in painting had been anticipated in
the sister art of sculpture by nearly a whole generation. About the
middle of the 13th century Nicola Pisano had renewed that art, first by
strict imitation of classical models, and later by infusing into his
work a fresh spirit of nature and humanity, perhaps partly caught from
the Gothic schools of France. His son Giovanni had carried the same
re-vitalising of sculpture a great deal further; and hence to some
critics it would seem that the real inspirer and precursor of Giotto was
Giovanni Pisano the sculptor, and not any painter or wall-decorator,
whether of Florence, Siena or Rome.
In this division of opinion it is safer to regard the revival of
painting in Giotto's hands simply as part of the general awakening of
the time, and to remember that, as of all Italian communities Florence
was the keenest in every form of activity both intellectual and
practical, so it was natural that a son of Florence should be the chief
agent in such an awakening. And in considering his career the question
of his possible participation in the primitive frescoes of the upper
courses at Assisi is best left out of account, the more so because of
the deplorable condition in which they now exist. But with reference to
the lowest course of paintings on the same walls, those illustrating the
life of St Francis according to the narrative of St Bonaventura, no one
has any doubt, at least in regard to nineteen or twenty of the
twenty-eight subjects which compose the series, that Giotto himself was
their designer and chief executant. In these, sadly as they too have
suffered from time and wholesale repair, there can nevertheless be
discerned the unmistakable spirit of the young Florentine master as we
know him in his other works--his shrewd realistic and dramatic vigour,
the deep sincerity and humanity of feeling which he knows how to express
in every gesture of his figures without breaking up the harmony of their
grouping or the grandeur of their linear design, qualities inherited
from the earlier schools of impressive but lifeless hieratic decoration.
The "Renunciation of the Saint by his Father," the "Pope's Dream of the
Saint upholding the tottering Church," the "Saint before the Sultan,"
the "Miracle of the Spring of Water," the "Death of the Nobleman of
Celano," the "Saint preaching before Pope Honorius"--these are some of
the most noted and best preserved examples of the painter's power in
this series. Where doubt begins again is as to the relations of date and
sequence which the series bears to other works by the master executed at
Assisi and at Rome in the same early period of his career, that is,
probably between 1295 and 1300. Giotto's remaining undisputed works at
Assisi are the four celebrated allegorical compositions in honour of St
Francis in the vaulting of the Lower Church,--the "Marriage of St
Francis to Poverty," the "Allegory of Chastity," the "Allegory of
Obedience" and the "Vision of St Francis in Glory." These works are
scarcely at all retouched, and relatively little dimmed by time; they
are of a singular beauty, at once severe and tender, both in colour and
design; the compositions, especially the first three, fitted with
admirable art into the cramped spaces of the vaulting, the subjects, no
doubt in the main dictated to the artist by his Franciscan employers,
treated in no cold or mechanical spirit but with a full measure of vital
humanity and original feeling. Had the career and influence of St
Francis had no other of their vast and far-reaching effects in the world
than that of inspiring these noble works of art, they would still have
been entitled to no small gratitude from mankind. Other works at Assisi
which most modern critics, but not all, attribute to Giotto himself are
three miracles of St Francis and portions of a group of frescoes
illustrating the history of Mary Magdalene, both in the Lower Church;
and again, in one of the transepts of the same Lower Church, a series of
ten frescoes of the Life of the Virgin and Christ, concluding with the
Crucifixion. It is to be remarked as to this transept series that
several of the frescoes present not only the same subjects, but with a
certain degree of variation the same compositions, as are found in the
master's great series executed in the Arena chapel at Padua in the
fullness of his powers about 1306; and that the versions in the Assisi
transept show a relatively greater degree of technical accomplishment
than the Paduan versions, with a more attractive charm and more
abundance of accessory ornament, but a proportionately less degree of
that simple grandeur in composition and direct strength of human motive
which are the special notes of Giotto's style. Therefore a minority of
critics refuse to accept the modern attribution of this transept series
to Giotto himself, and see in it later work by an accomplished pupil
softening and refining upon his master's original creations at Padua.
Others, insisting that these unquestionably beautiful works must be by
the hand of Giotto and none but Giotto, maintain that in comparison with
the Paduan examples they illustrate a gradual progress, which can be
traced in other of his extant works, from the relatively ornate and soft
to the austerely grand and simple. This argument is enforced by
comparison with early work of the master's at Rome as to the date of
which we have positive evidence. In 1298 Giotto completed for Cardinal
Stefaneschi for the price of 2200 gold ducats a mosaic of Christ saving
St Peter from the waves (the celebrated "Navicella"); this is still to
be seen, but in a completely restored and transformed state, in the
vestibule of St Peter's. For the same patron he executed, probably just
before the "Navicella," an elaborate ciborium or altar-piece for the
high altar of St Peter's, for which he received 800 ducats. It
represents on the principal face a colossal Christ enthroned with
adoring angels beside him and a kneeling donor at his feet, and the
martyrdoms of St Peter and St Paul on separate panels to right and left;
on the reverse is St Peter attended by St George and other saints,
receiving from the donor a model of his gift, with stately full-length
figures of two apostles to right and two to left, besides various
accessory scenes and figures in the predellas and the margins. The
separated parts of this altar-piece are still to be seen, in a quite
genuine though somewhat tarnished condition, in the sacristy of St
Peter's. A third work by the master at Rome is a repainted fragment at
the Lateran of a fresco of Pope Boniface VIII. proclaiming the jubilee
of 1300. The "Navicella" and the Lateran fragment are too much ruined to
argue from; but the ciborium panels, it is contended, combine with the
aspects of majesty and strength a quality of ornate charm and suavity
such as is remarked in the transept frescoes of Assisi. The sequence
proposed for these several works is accordingly, first the St Peter's
ciborium, next the allegories in the vaulting of the Lower Church, next
the three frescoes of St Francis' miracles in the north transept, next
the St Francis series in the Upper Church; and last, perhaps after an
interval and with the help of pupils, the scenes from the life of Mary
Magdalene in her chapel in the Lower Church. This involves a complete
reversal of the prevailing view, which regards the unequal and sometimes
clumsy compositions of this St Francis series as the earliest
independent work of the master. It must be admitted that there is
something paradoxical in the idea of a progress from the manner of the
Lower Church transept series of the life of Christ to the much ruder
manner of the Upper Church series of St Francis.
A kindred obscurity and little less conflict of opinion await the
inquirer at almost all stages of Giotto's career. In 1841 there were
partially recovered from the whitewash that had overlain them a series
of frescoes executed in the chapel of the Magdalene, in the Bargello or
Palace of the Podestà at Florence, to celebrate (as was supposed) a
pacification between the Black and White parties in the state effected
by the Cardinal d'Acquasparta as delegate of the pope in 1302. In them
are depicted a series of Bible scenes, besides great compositions of
Hell and Paradise, and in the Paradise are introduced portraits of
Dante, Brunetto Latini and Corso Donato. These recovered fragments,
freely "restored" as soon as they were disclosed, were acclaimed as the
work of Giotto and long held in especial regard for the sake of the
portrait of Dante. Latterly it has been shown that if Giotto ever
executed them at all, which is doubtful, it must have been at a later
date than the supposed pacification, and that they must have suffered
grievous injury in the fire which destroyed a great part of the building
in 1332, and been afterwards repainted by some well-trained follower of
the school. To about 1302 or 1303 would belong, if there is truth in it,
the familiar story of Giotto's O. Pope Benedict XI., the successor of
Boniface VIII., sent, as the tale runs, a messenger to bring him proofs
of the painter's powers. Giotto would give no other sample of his talent
than an O drawn with a free sweep of the brush from the elbow; but the
pope was satisfied and engaged him at a great salary to go and adorn
with frescoes the papal residence at Avignon. Benedict, however, dying
at this time (1305), nothing came of this commission; and the remains of
Italian 14th-century frescoes still to be seen at Avignon are now
recognized as the work, not, as was long supposed, of Giotto, but of the
Sienese Simone Martini and his school.
At this point in Giotto's life we come to the greatest by far of his
undestroyed and undisputed enterprises, and one which can with some
certainty be dated. This is the series of frescoes with which he
decorated the entire internal walls of the chapel built at Padua in
honour of the Virgin of the Annunciation by a rich citizen of the town,
Enrico Scrovegni, perhaps in order to atone for the sins of his father,
a notorious usurer whom Dante places in the seventh circle of hell. The
building is on the site of an ancient amphitheatre, and is therefore
generally called the chapel of the Arena. Since it is recorded that
Dante was Giotto's guest at Padua, and since we know that it was in 1306
that the poet came from Bologna to that city, we may conclude that to
the same year, 1306, belongs the beginning of Giotto's great undertaking
in the Arena chapel. The scheme includes a Saviour in Glory over the
altar, a Last Judgment, full of various and impressive incident,
occupying the whole of the entrance wall, with a series of subjects from
the Old and New Testament and the apocryphal Life of Christ painted in
three tiers on either side wall, and lowest of all a fourth tier with
emblematic Virtues and Vices in monochrome; the Virtues being on the
side of the chapel next the incidents of redemption in the entrance
fresco of the Last Judgment, the Vices on the side next the incidents of
perdition. A not improbable tradition asserts that Giotto was helped by
Dante in the choice and disposition of the subjects. The frescoes,
though not free from injury and retouching, are upon the whole in good
condition, and nowhere else can the highest powers of the Italian mind
and hand at the beginning of the 14th century be so well studied as
here. At the close of the middle ages we find Giotto laying the
foundation upon which all the progress of the Renaissance was afterwards
securely based. In his day the knowledge possessed by painters of the
human frame and its structure rested only upon general observation and
not upon detailed or scientific study; while to facts other than those
of humanity their observation had never been closely directed. Of linear
perspective they possessed but elementary and empirical ideas, and their
endeavours to express aerial perspective and deal with the problems of
light and shade were rare and partial. As far as painting could possibly
be carried under these conditions, it was carried by Giotto. In its
choice of subjects, his art is entirely subservient to the religious
spirit of his age. Even in its mode of conceiving and arranging those
subjects it is in part still trammelled by the rules and consecrated
traditions of the past. Many of those truths of nature to which the
painters of succeeding generations learned to give accurate and complete
expression, Giotto was only able to express by way o£ imperfect symbol
and suggestion. But among the elements of art over which he has control
he maintains so just a balance that his work produces in the spectator
less sense of imperfection than that of many later and more accomplished
masters. In some particulars his mature painting, as we see it in the
Arena chapel, has never been surpassed--in mastery of concise and
expressive generalized line and of inventive and harmonious decorative
tint; in the judicious division of the field and massing and scattering
of groups; in the combination of high gravity with complete frankness in
conception, and the union of noble dignity in the types with direct and
vital truth in the gestures of the personages.
The frescoes of the Arena chapel must have been a labour of years, and
of the date of their termination we have no proof. Of many other works
said to have been executed by Giotto at Padua, all that remains consists
of some scarce recognizable traces in the chapter-house of the great
Franciscan church of St Antonio. For twenty years or more we lose all
authentic data as to Giotto's doings and movements. Vasari, indeed,
sends him on a giddy but in the main evidently fabulous round of
travels, including a sojourn in France, which it is certain he never
made. Besides Padua, he is said to have resided and left great works at
Ferrara, Ravenna, Urbino, Rimini, Faenza, Lucca and other cities; in
some of them paintings of his school are still shown, but nothing which
can fairly be claimed to be by his hand. It is recorded also that he was
much employed in his native city of Florence; but the vandalism of later
generations has effaced nearly all that he did there. Among works
whitewashed over by posterity were the frescoes with which he covered no
less than five chapels in the church of Santa Croce. Two of these, the
chapels of the Bardi and the Peruzzi families, were scraped in the early
part of the 19th century, and very important remains were uncovered and
immediately subjected to a process of restoration which has robbed them
of half their authenticity. But through the ruins of time we can trace
in some of these Santa Croce frescoes all the qualities of Giotto's work
at an even higher and more mature development than in the best examples
at Assisi or Padua. The frescoes of the Bardi chapel tell again the
story of St Francis, to which so much of his best power had already been
devoted; those of the Peruzzi chapel deal with the lives of St John the
Baptist and St John the Evangelist. Such scenes as the Funeral of St
Francis, the Dance of Herodias's Daughter, and the Resurrection of St
John the Evangelist, which have to some extent escaped the
disfigurements of the restorer, are among acknowledged classics of the
world's art. The only clues to the dates of any of these works are to be
found in the facts that among the figures in the Bardi chapel occurs
that of St Louis of Toulouse, who was not canonized till 1317, therefore
the painting must be subsequent to that year, and that the "Dance of
Salome" must have been painted before 1331, when it was copied by the
Lorenzetti at Siena. The only other extant works of Giotto at Florence
are a fine "Crucifix," not undisputed, at San Marco, and the majestic
but somewhat heavy altar-piece of the Madonna, probably an early work,
which is placed in the Academy beside a more primitive Madonna supposed
to be the work of Cimabue.
Towards the end of Giotto's life we escape again from confused legend,
and from the tantalizing record of works which have not survived for us
to verify, into the region of authentic document and fact. It appears
that Giotto had come under the notice of Duke Charles of Calabria, son
of King Robert of Naples, during the visits of the duke to Florence
which took place between 1326 and 1328, in which year he died. Soon
afterwards Giotto must have gone to King Robert's court at Naples, where
he was enrolled as an honoured guest and member of the household by a
royal decree dated the 20th of January 1330. Another document shows him
to have been still at Naples two years later. Tradition says much about
the friendship of the king for the painter and the freedom of speech and
jest allowed him; much also of the works he carried out at Naples in the
Castel Nuovo, the Castel dell' Uovo, and the church and convent of Sta
Chiara. Not a trace of these works remains; and others which later
criticism have claimed for him in a hall which formerly belonged to the
convent of Sta Chiara have been proved not to be his.
Meantime Giotto had been advancing, not only in years and worldly fame,
but in prosperity. He was married young, and had, so far as is recorded,
three sons, Francesco, Niccola and Donato, and three daughters, Bice,
Caterina and Lucia. He had added by successive purchases to the plot of
land inherited from his father at Vespignano. His fellow-citizens of all
occupations and degrees delighted to honour him. And now, in his
sixty-eighth year (if we accept the birth-date 1266/7), on his return
from Naples by way of Gaeta, he received the final and official
testimony to the esteem in which he was held at Florence. By a solemn
decree of the _Priori_ on the 12th of April 1334, he was appointed
master of the works of the cathedral of Sta Reparata (later and better
known as Sta Maria del Fiore) and official architect of the city walls
and the towns within her territory. What training as a practical
architect his earlier career had afforded him we do not know, but his
interest in the art from the beginning is made clear by the carefully
studied architectural backgrounds of many of his frescoes. Dying on the
8th of January 1336 (old style 1337), Giotto only enjoyed his new
dignities for two years. But in the course of them he had found time not
only to make an excursion to Milan, on the invitation of Azzo Visconti
and with the sanction of his own government, but to plan two great
architectural works at Florence and superintend the beginning of their
execution, namely the west front of the cathedral and its detached
campanile or bell-tower. The unfinished enrichments of the cathedral
front were stripped away in a later age. The foundation-stone of the
Campanile was laid with solemn ceremony in the presence of a great
concourse of magistrates and people on the 18th of July 1334. Its lower
courses seem to have been completed from Giotto's design, and the first
course of its sculptured ornaments (the famous series of primitive Arts
and Industries) actually by his own hand, before his death. It is not
clear what modifications of his design were made by Andrea Pisano, who
was appointed to succeed him, or again by Francesco Talenti, to whom the
work was next entrusted; but the incomparable structure as we now see it
stands justly in the world's esteem as the most fitting monument to the
genius who first conceived and directed it.
The art of painting, as re-created by Giotto, was carried on throughout
Italy by his pupils and successors with little change or development for
nearly a hundred years, until a new impulse was given to art by the
combined influences of naturalism and classicism in the hands of men
like Donatello and Masaccio. Most of the anecdotes related of the master
are probably inaccurate in detail, but the general character both as
artist and man which tradition has agreed in giving him can never be
assailed. He was from the first a kind of popular hero. He is celebrated
by the poet Petrarch and by the historian Villani. He is made the
subject of tales and anecdotes by Boccaccio and by Franco Sacchetti.
From these notices, as well as from Vasari, we gain a distinct picture
of the man, as one whose nature was in keeping with his country origin;
whose sturdy frame and plain features corresponded to a character rather
distinguished for shrewd and genial strength than for sublimer or more
ascetic qualities; a master craftsman, to whose strong combining and
inventing powers nothing came amiss; conscious of his own deserts, never
at a loss either in the things of art or in the things of life, and
equally ready and efficient whether he has to design the scheme of some
great spiritual allegory in colour or imperishable monument in stone, or
whether he has to show his wit in the encounter of practical jest and
repartee. From his own hand we have a contribution to literature which
helps to substantiate this conception of his character. A large part of
Giotto's fame as painter was won in the service of the Franciscans, and
in the pictorial celebration of the life and ordinances of their
founder. As is well known, it was a part of the ordinances of Francis
that his disciples should follow his own example in worshipping and
being wedded to poverty,--poverty idealized and personified as a
spiritual bride and mistress. Giotto, having on the commission of the
order given the noblest pictorial embodiment to this and other aspects
of the Franciscan doctrine, presently wrote an ode in which his own
views on poverty are expressed; and in this he shows that, if on the one
hand his genius was at the service of the ideals of his time, and his
imagination open to their significance, on the other hand his judgment
was shrewdly and humorously awake to their practical dangers and
exaggerations.
AUTHORITIES.--Ghiberti, _Commentari_; Vasari, _Le Vite_, vol. i.;
Crowe-Cavalcaselle, _History of Painting in Italy_, ed. Langton
Douglas (1903); H. Thode, _Giotto_ (1899); M. G. Zimmermann, _Giotto
und die Kunst Italiens im Mittelalter_ (1899); B. Berenson,
_Florentine Painters of the Renaissance_; F. Mason Perkin, _Giotto_
(in "Great Masters" series) (1902); Basil de Sélincourt, _Giotto_
(1905). (S. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Not to be confused with Giotto di Buondone, a contemporary
citizen and politician of Siena.
GIPSIES, or GYPSIES, a wandering folk scattered through every European
land, over the greater part of western Asia and Siberia; found also in
Egypt and the northern coast of Africa, in America and even in
Australia. No correct estimate of their numbers outside of Europe can be
given, and even in Europe the information derived from official
statistics is often contradictory and unreliable. The only country in
which the figures have been given correctly is Hungary. In 1893 there
were 274,940 in Transleithania, of whom 243,432 were settled, 20,406
only partly settled and 8938 nomads. Of these 91,603 spoke the Gipsy
language in 1890, but the rest had already been assimilated. Next in
numbers stands Rumania, the number varying between 250,000 and 200,000
(1895). Turkey in Europe counted 117,000 (1903), of whom 51,000 were in
Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, 22,000 in the vilayet of Adrianople and
2500 in the vilayet of Kossovo. In Asiatic Turkey the estimates vary
between 67,000 and 200,000. Servia has 41,000; Bosnia and Herzegovina,
18,000; Greece, 10,000; Austria (Cisleithania), 16,000, of whom 13,500
are in Bohemia and Moravia; Germany, 2000; France, 2000 (5000?); Basque
Provinces, 500 to 700; Italy, 32,000; Spain, 40,000; Russia, 58,000;
Poland, 15,000; Sweden and Norway, 1500; Denmark and Holland, 5000;
Persia, 15,000; Transcaucasia, 3000. The rest is mere guesswork. For
Africa, America and Australia the numbers are estimated between 135,000
and 166,000. The estimate given by Miklosich (1878) of 700,000 fairly
agrees with the above statistics. No statistics are forthcoming for the
number in the British Isles. Some estimate their number at 12,000.
The Gipsies are known principally by two names, which have been modified
by the nations with whom they came in contact, but which can easily be
traced to either the one or the other of these two distinct stems. The
one group, embracing the majority of Gipsies in Europe, the compact
masses living in the Balkan Peninsula, Rumania and Transylvania and
extending also as far as Germany and Italy, are known by the name
_Atzigan_ or _Atsigan_, which becomes in time Tshingian (Turkey and
Greece), Tsigan (Bulgarian, Servian, Rumanian), Czigány (Hungarian),
Zigeuner (Germany), Zingari (Italian), and it is not unlikely that the
English word Tinker or Tinkler (the latter no doubt due to a popular
etymology connecting the gaudy gipsy with the tinkling coins or the
metal wares which he carried on his back as a smith and tinker) may be a
local transformation of the German _Zigeuner_. The second name, partly
known in the East, where the word, however, is used as an expression of
contempt, whilst Zigan is not felt by the gipsies as an insult, is
_Egyptian_; in England, Gipsy; in some German documents of the 16th
century _Aegypter_; Spanish _Gitano_; modern Greek _Gyphtos_. They are
also known by the parallel expressions _Faraon_ (Rumanian) and _Phárao
Nephka_ (Hungarian) or Pharaoh's people, which are only variations
connected with the Egyptian origin. In France they are known as
_Bohémiens_, a word the importance of which will appear later. To the
same category belong other names bestowed upon them, such as Walachi,
Saraceni, Agareni, Nubiani, &c. They were also known by the name of
Tartars, given to them in Germany, or as "Heathen," _Heydens_. All these
latter must be considered as nicknames without thereby denoting their
probable origin. The same may have now been the ease with the first name
with which they appear in history, _Atzigan_. Much ingenuity has been
displayed in attempts to explain the name, for it was felt that a true
explanation might help to settle the question of their origin and the
date of their arrival in Europe. Here again two extreme theories have
been propounded, the one supported by Bataillard, who connected them
with the Sigynnoi of Herodotus and identified them with the Komodromoi
of the later Byzantine writers, known already in the 6th century. Others
bring them to Europe as late as the 14th century; and the name has also
been explained by de Goeje from the Persian _Chang_, a kind of harp or
zither, or the Persian _Zang_, black, swarthy. Rienzi (1832) and Trumpp
(1872) have connected the name with the Changars of North-East India,
but all have omitted to notice that the real form was Atzigan or (more
correct) Atzingan and not Tsigan. The best explanation remains that
suggested by Miklosich, who derives the word from the Athinganoi, a name
originally belonging to a peculiar heretical sect living in Asia Minor
near Phrygia and Lycaonia, known also as the Melki-Zedekites. The
members of this sect observed very strict rules of purity, as they were
afraid to be defiled by the touch of other people whom they considered
unclean. They therefore acquired the name of Athinganoi (i.e.
"Touch-me-nots").
Miklosich has collected seven passages where the Byzantine historians of
the 9th century describe the Athinganoi as soothsayers, magicians and
serpent-charmers. From these descriptions nothing definite can be proved
as to the identity of the Athinganoi with the Gipsies, or the reason why
this name was given to soothsayers, charmers, &c. But the inner history
of the Byzantine empire of that period may easily give a clue to it and
explain how it came about that such a nickname was given to a new sect
or to a new race which suddenly appeared in the Greek Empire at that
period. In the history of the Church we find them mentioned in one
breath with the Paulicians and other heretical sects which were
transplanted in their tens of thousands from Asia Minor to the Greek
empire and settled especially in Rumelia, near Adrianople and
Philippopolis. The Greeks called these heretical sects by all kinds of
names, derived from ancient Church traditions, and gave to each sect
such names as first struck them, on the scantiest of imaginary
similarities. One sect was called Paulician, another Melki-Zedekite; so
also these were called Athinganoi, probably being considered the
descendants of the outcast Samer, who, according to ancient tradition,
was a goldsmith and the maker of the Golden Calf in the desert. For this
sin Samer was banished and compelled to live apart from human beings and
even to avoid their touch (Athinganos: "Touch-me-not"). Travelling from
East to West these heretical sects obtained different names in different
countries, in accordance with the local traditions or to imaginary
origins. The Bogomils and Patarenes became Bulgarians in France, and so
the gypsies Bohémiens, a name which was also connected with the
heretical sect of the Bohemian brothers (_Böhmische Brüder_). Curiously
enough the Kutzo-Vlachs living in Macedonia (q.v.) and Rumelia are also
known by the nickname Tsintsari, a word that has not yet been explained.
Very likely it stands in close connexion with Zingari, the name having
been transferred from one people to the other without the justification
of any common ethnical origin, except that the Kutzo-Vlachs, like the
Zingari, differed from their Greek neighbours in race, as in language,
habits and customs; while they probably followed similar pursuits to
those of the Zingari, as smiths, &c. As to the other name, Egyptians,
this is derived from a peculiar tale which the gipsies spread when
appearing in the west of Europe. They alleged that they had come from a
country of their own called Little Egypt, either a confusion between
Little Armenia and Egypt or the Peloponnesus.
Attention may be drawn to a remarkable passage in the Syriac version of
the apocryphal Book of Adam, known as the _Cave of Treasures_ and
compiled probably in the 6th century: "And of the seed of Canaan were
as I said the Aegyptians; and, lo, they were scattered all over the
earth and served as slaves of slaves" (ed. Bezold, German translation,
p. 25). No reference to such a scattering and serfdom of the Egyptians
is mentioned anywhere else. This must have been a legend, current in
Asia Minor, and hence probably transferred to the swarthy Gipsies.
A new explanation may now be ventured upon as to the name which the
Gipsies of Europe give to themselves, which, it must be emphasized, is
not known to the Gipsies outside of Europe. Only those who starting from
the ancient Byzantine empire have travelled westwards and spread over
Europe, America and Australia call themselves by the name of Rom, the
woman being Romni and a stranger Gazi. Many etymologies have been
suggested for the word Rom. Paspati derived it from the word Droma
(Indian), and Miklosich had identified it with Doma or Domba, a "low
caste musician," rather an extraordinary name for a nation to call
itself by. Having no home and no country of their own and no political
traditions and no literature, they would naturally try to identify
themselves with the people in whose midst they lived, and would call
themselves by the same name as other inhabitants of the Greek empire,
known also as the Empire of New Rom, or of the Romaioi, Romeliots,
Romanoi, as the Byzantines used to call themselves before they assumed
the prouder name of Hellenes. The Gipsies would therefore call
themselves also Rom, a much more natural name, more flattering to their
vanity, and geographically and politically more correct than if they
called themselves "low caste musicians." This Greek origin of the name
would explain why it is limited to the European Gipsies, and why it is
not found among that stock of Gipsies which has migrated from Asia Minor
southwards and taken a different route to reach Egypt and North Africa.
_Appearance in Europe._--Leaving aside the doubtful passages in the
Byzantine writers where the Athinganoi are mentioned, the first
appearance of Gipsies in Europe cannot be traced positively further back
than the beginning of the 14th century. Some have hitherto believed that
a passage in what was erroneously called the Rhymed Version of Genesis
of Vienna, but which turns out to be the work of a writer before the
year 1122, and found only in the Klagenfurt manuscript (edited by
Ditmar, 1862), referred to the Gipsies. It runs as follows: Gen. xiii.
15--"Hagar had a son from whom were born the Chaltsmide. When Hagar had
that child, she named it Ismael, from whom the Ismaelites descend who
journey through the land, and we call them Chaltsmide, may evil befall
them! They sell only things with blemishes, and for whatever they sell
they always ask more than its real value. They cheat the people to whom
they sell. They have no home, no country, they are satisfied to live in
tents, they wander over the country, they deceive the people, they cheat
men but rob no one noisily."
This reference to the Chaltsmide (not goldsmiths, but very likely
ironworkers, smiths) has wrongly been applied to the Gipsies. For it is
important to note that at least three centuries before historical
evidence proves the immigration of the genuine Gipsy, there had been
wayfaring smiths, travelling from country to country, and practically
paving the way for their successors, the Gipsies, who not only took up
their crafts but who probably have also assimilated a good proportion of
these vagrants of the west of Europe. The name given to the former, who
probably were Oriental or Greek smiths and pedlars, was then transferred
to the new-comers. The Komodromoi mentioned by Theophanes (758-818), who
speaks under the date 554 of one hailing from Italy, and by other
Byzantine writers, are no doubt the same as the Chaltsmide of the German
writer of the 12th century translated by Ducange as _Chaudroneurs_. We
are on surer ground in the 14th century. Hopf has proved the existence
of Gipsies in Corfu before 1326. Before 1346 the empress Catherine de
Valois granted to the governor of Corfu authority to reduce to vassalage
certain vagrants who came from the mainland; and in 1386, under the
Venetians, they formed the Feudum Acindanorum, which lasted for many
centuries. About 1378 the Venetian governor of Nauplia confirmed to the
"Acingani" of that colony the privileges granted by his predecessor to
their leader John. It is even possible to identify the people described
by Friar Simon in his _Itinerarium_, who, speaking of his stay in Crete
in 1322, says: "We saw there a people outside the city who declare
themselves to be of the race of Ham and who worship according to the
Greek rite. They wander like a cursed people from place to place, not
stopping at all or rarely in one place longer than thirty days; they
live in tents like the Arabs, a little oblong black tent." But their
name is not mentioned, and although the similarity is great between
these "children of Ham" and the Gipsies, the identification has only the
value of an hypothesis. By the end of the 15th century they must have
been settled for a sufficiently long time in the Balkan Peninsula and
the countries north of the Danube, such as Transylvania and Walachia, to
have been reduced to the same state of serfdom as they evidently
occupied in Corfu in the second half of the 14th century. The voivode
Mircea I. of Walachia confirms the grant made by his uncle Vladislav
Voivode to the monastery of St Anthony of Voditsa as to forty families
of "Atsigane," for whom no taxes should be paid to the prince. They were
considered crown property. The same gift is renewed in the year 1424 by
the voivode Dan, who repeats the very same words (i Acigane, m, celiudi.
da su slobodni ot vstkih rabot i dankov) (Hajdau, _Arhiva_, i. 20). At
that time there must already have been in Walachia settled Gipsies
treated as serfs, and migrating Gipsies plying their trade as smiths,
musicians, dancers, soothsayers, horse-dealers, &c., for we find the
voivode Alexander of Moldavia granting these Gipsies in the year 1478
"freedom of air and soil to wander about and free fire and iron for
their smithy." But a certain portion, probably the largest, became
serfs, who could be sold, exchanged, bartered and inherited. It may be
mentioned here that in the 17th century a family when sold fetched forty
Hungarian florins, and in the 18th century the price was sometimes as
high as 700 Rumanian piastres, about £8, 10s. As late as 1845 an auction
of 200 families of Gipsies took place in Bucharest, where they were sold
in batches of no less than 5 families and offered at a "ducat" cheaper
per head than elsewhere. The Gipsies followed at least four distinct
pursuits in Rumania and Transylvania, where they lived in large masses.
A goodly proportion of them were tied to the soil; in consequence their
position was different from that of the Gipsies who had started
westwards and who are nowhere found to have obtained a permanent abode
for any length of time, or to have been treated, except for a very short
period, with any consideration of humanity.
Their appearance in the West is first noted by chroniclers early in the
15th century. In 1414 they are said to have already arrived in Hesse.
This date is contested, but for 1417 the reports are unanimous of their
appearance in Germany. Some count their number to have been as high as
1400, which of course is exaggeration. In 1418 they reached Hamburg,
1419 Augsburg, 1428 Switzerland. In 1427 they had already entered France
(Provence). A troupe is said to have reached Bologna in 1422, whence
they are said to have gone to Rome, on a pilgrimage alleged to have been
undertaken for some act of apostasy. After this first immigration a
second and larger one seems to have followed in its wake, led by Zumbel.
The Gipsies spread over Germany, Italy and France between the years 1438
and 1512. About 1500 they must have reached England. On the 5th of July
1505 James IV. of Scotland gave to "Antonius Gaginae," count of Little
Egypt, letters of recommendation to the king of Denmark; and special
privileges were granted by James V. on the 15th of February 1540 to
"oure louit johnne Faw Lord and Erle of Litill Egypt," to whose son and
successor he granted authority to hang and punish all Egyptians within
the realm (May 26, 1540).
It is interesting to hear what the first writers who witnessed their
appearance have to tell us; for ever since the Gipsies have remained the
same. Albert Krantzius (Krantz), in his _Saxonia_ (xi. 2), was the first
to give a full description, which was afterwards repeated by Munster in
his _Cosmographia_ (iii. 5). He says that in the year 1417 there
appeared for the first time in Germany a people uncouth, black, dirty,
barbarous, called in Italian "Ciani," who indulge specially in thieving
and cheating. They had among them a count and a few knights well
dressed, others followed afoot. The women and children travelled in
carts. They also carried with them letters of safe-conduct from the
emperor Sigismund and other princes, and they professed that they were
engaged on a pilgrimage of expiation for some act of apostasy.
The guilt of the Gipsies varies in the different versions of the story,
but all agree that the Gipsies asserted that they came from their own
country called "Litill Egypt," and they had to go to Rome, to obtain
pardon for that alleged sin of their forefathers. According to one
account it was because they had not shown mercy to Joseph and Mary when
they had sought refuge in Egypt from the persecution of Herod (_Basel
Chronicle_). According to another, because they had forsaken the
Christian faith for a while (_Rhaetia_, 1656), &c. But these were
fables, no doubt connected with the legend of Cartaphylus or the
Wandering Jew.
Krantz's narrative continues as follows: This people have no country and
travel through the land. They live like dogs and have no religion
although they allow themselves to be baptized in the Christian faith.
They live without care and gather unto themselves also other vagrants,
men and women. Their old women practise fortune-telling, and whilst they
are telling men of their future they pick their pockets. Thus far
Krantz. It is curious that he should use the name by which these people
were called in Italy, "Ciani." Similarly Crusius, the author of the
_Annales Suevici_, knows their Italian name _Zigani_ and the French
_Bohémiens_. Not one of these oldest writers mentions them as
coppersmiths or farriers or musicians. The immunity which they enjoyed
during their first appearance in western Europe is due to the letter of
safe-conduct of the emperor. As it is of extreme importance for the
history of civilization as well as the history of the Gipsies, it may
find a place here. It is taken from the compilation of Felix Oefelius,
_Rerum Boicarum scriptores_ (Augsburg, 1763), ii. 15, who reproduces the
"Diarium sexennale" of "Andreas Presbyter," the contemporary of the
first appearance of the Gipsies in Germany.
"Sigismundus Dei gratia Romanorum Rex semper Augustus, ac Hungariae,
Bohemiae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae, &c. Rex Fidelibus nostris universis
Nobilibus, Militibus, Castellanis, Officialibus, Tributariis,
civitatibus liberis, opidis et eorum iudicibus in Regno et sub domino
nostro constitutis ex existentibus salutem cum dilectione. Fidèles
nostri adierunt in praesentiam personaliter Ladislaus Wayuoda Ciganorum
cum aliis ad ipsum spectantibus, nobis humilimas porrexerunt
supplicationes, huc in sepus in nostra praesentia supplicationum precum
cum instantiâ, ut ipsis gratiâ nostra uberiori providere dignaremur.
Unde nos illorum supplicatione illecti eisdem hanc libertatem duximus
concedendam, qua re quandocunque idem Ladislaus Wayuoda et sua gens ad
dicta nostra dominia videlicet civitates vel oppida pervenerint, ex tunc
vestris fidelitatibus praesentibus firmiter committimus et mandamus ut
eosdem Ladislaum Wayuodam et Ciganos sibi subiectos omni sine
impedimento ac perturbatione aliquali fovere ac conservare debeatis,
immo ab omnibus impetitionibus seu offensionibus tueri velitis: Si autem
inter ipsos aliqua Zizania seu perturbatio evenerit ex parte,
quorumcunque ex tunc non vos nec aliquis alter vestrum, sed idem
Ladislaus Wayuoda iudicandi et liberandi habeat facultatem. Praesentes
autem post earum lecturam semper reddi iubemus praesentanti.
"Datum in Sepus Dominica die ante festum St Georgii Martyris Anno Domini
MCCCCXXIII., Regnorum nostrorum anno Hungar. XXXVI., Romanorum vero
XII., Bohemiae tertio."
Freely translated this reads: "We Sigismund by the grace of God emperor
of Rome, king of Hungary, Bohemia, &c. unto all true and loyal subjects,
noble soldiers, commanders, castellans, open districts, free towns and
their judges in our kingdom established and under our sovereignty, kind
greetings. Our faithful voivode of the Tsigani with others belonging to
him has humbly requested us that we might graciously grant them our
abundant favour. We grant them their supplication, we have vouchsafed
unto them this liberty. Whenever therefore this voivode Ladislaus and
his people should come to any part of our realm in any town, village or
place, we commit them by these presents, strongly to your loyalty and we
command you to protect in every way the same voivode Ladislaus and the
Tsigani his subjects without hindrance, and you should show kindness
unto them and you should protect them from every trouble and
persecution. But should any trouble or discord happen among them from
whichever side it may be, then none of you nor anyone else belonging to
you should interfere, but this voivode Ladislaus alone should have the
right of punishing and pardoning. And we moreover command you to return
these presents always after having read them. Given in our court on
Sunday the day before the Feast of St George in the year of our Lord
1423. The 36th year of our kingdom of Hungary, the 12th of our being
emperor of Rome and the 3rd of our being king of Bohemia."
There is no reason to doubt the authenticity of this document, which is
in no way remarkable considering that at that time the Gipsies must have
formed a very considerable portion of the inhabitants of Hungary, whose
king Sigismund was. They may have presented the emperor's grant of
favours to Alexander prince of Moldavia in 1472, and obtained from him
safe-conduct and protection, as mentioned above.
No one has yet attempted to explain the reason why the Gipsies should
have started in the 14th and especially in the first half of the 15th
century on their march westwards. But if, as has been assumed above, the
Gipsies had lived for some length of time in Rumelia, and afterwards
spread thence across the Danube and the plains of Transylvania, the
incursion of the Turks into Europe, their successive occupation of those
very provinces, the overthrow of the Servian and Bulgarian kingdoms and
the dislocation of the native population, would account to a remarkable
degree for the movement of the Gipsies: and this movement increases in
volume with the greater successes of the Turks and with the peopling of
the country by immigrants from Asia Minor. The first to be driven from
their homes would no doubt be the nomadic element, which felt itself ill
at ease in its new surroundings, and found it more profitable first to
settle in larger numbers in Walachia and Transylvania and thence to
spread to the western countries of Europe. But their immunity from
persecution did not last long.
_Later History._--Less than fifty years from the time that they emerge
out of Hungary, or even from the date of the Charter of the emperor
Sigismund, they found themselves exposed to the fury and the prejudices
of the people whose good faith they had abused, whose purses they had
lightened, whose barns they had emptied, and on whose credulity they had
lived with ease and comfort. Their inborn tendency to roaming made them
the terror of the peasantry and the despair of every legislator who
tried to settle them on the land. Their foreign appearance, their
unknown tongue and their unscrupulous habits forced the legislators of
many countries to class them with rogues and vagabonds, to declare them
outlaws and felons and to treat them with extreme severity. More than
one judicial murder has been committed against them. In some places they
were suspected as Turkish spies and treated accordingly, and the
murderer of a Gipsy was often regarded as innocent of any crime.
Weissenbruch describes the wholesale murder of a group of Gipsies, of
whom five men were broken on the wheel, nine perished on the gallows,
and three men and eight women were decapitated. This took place on the
14th and 15th of November 1726. Acts and edicts were issued in many
countries from the end of the 15th century onwards sentencing the
"Egyptians" to exile under pain of death. Nor was this an empty threat.
In Edinburgh four "Faas" were hanged in 1611 "for abyding within the
kingdome, they being Egiptienis," and in 1636 at Haddington the
Egyptians were ordered "the men to be hangied and the weomen to be
drowned, and suche of the weomen as hes children to be scourgit throw
the burg and burnt in the cheeks." The burning on the cheek or on the
back was a common penalty. In 1692 four Estremadura Gipsies caught by
the Inquisition were charged with cannibalism and made to own that they
had eaten a friar, a pilgrim and even a woman of their own tribe, for
which they suffered the penalty of death. And as late as 1782, 45
Hungarian Gipsies were charged with a similar monstrous crime, and when
the supposed victims of a supposed murder could not be found on the spot
indicated by the Gipsies, they owned under torture and said on the rack,
"We ate them." Of course they were forthwith beheaded or hanged. The
emperor Joseph II., who was also the author of one of the first edicts
in favour of the Gipsies, and who abolished serfdom throughout the
Empire, ordered an inquiry into the incident; it was then discovered
that no murder had been committed, except that of the victims of this
monstrous accusation.
The history of the legal status of the Gipsies, of their treatment in
various countries and of the penalties and inflictions to which they
have been subjected, would form a remarkable chapter in the history of
modern civilization. The materials are slowly accumulating, and it is
interesting to note as one of the latest instances, that not further
back than the year 1907 a "drive" was undertaken in Germany against the
Gipsies, which fact may account for the appearance of some German
Gipsies in England in that year, and that in 1904 the Prussian Landtag
adopted unanimously a proposition to examine anew the question of
granting peddling licences to German Gipsies; that on the 17th of
February 1906 the Prussian minister issued special instructions to
combat the Gipsy nuisance; and that in various parts of Germany and
Austria a special register is kept for the tracing of the genealogy of
vagrant and sedentary Gipsy families.
Different has been the history of the Gipsies in what originally formed
the Turkish empire of Europe, notably in Rumania, i.e. Walachia and
Moldavia, and a careful search in the archives of Rumania would offer
rich materials for the history of the Gipsies in a country where they
enjoyed exceptional treatment almost from the beginning of their
settlement. They were divided mainly into two classes, (1) _Robi_ or
Serfs, who were settled on the land and deprived of all individual
liberty, being the property of the nobles and of churches or monastic
establishments, and (2) the Nomadic vagrants. They were subdivided into
four classes according to their occupation, such as the Lingurari
(woodcarvers; lit. "spoonmakers"), Caldarari (tinkers, coppersmiths and
ironworkers), Ursari (lit. "bear drivers") and Rudari (miners), also
called Aurari (gold-washers), who used formerly to wash the gold out of
the auriferous river-sands of Walachia. A separate and smaller class
consisted of the Gipsy _Laeshi_ or _Vatrashi_ (settled on a homestead or
"having a fireplace" of their own). Each _shatra_ or Gipsy community was
placed under the authority of a judge or leader, known in Rumania as
_jude_, in Hungary as _aga_; these officials were subordinate to the
_bulubasha_ or _voivod_, who was himself under the direct control of the
_yuzbasha_ (or governor appointed by the prince from among his nobles).
The _yuzbasha_ was responsible for the regular income to be derived from
the vagrant Gipsies, who were considered and treated as the prince's
property. These voivodi or yuzbashi who were not Gipsies by origin often
treated the Gipsies with great tyranny. In Hungary down to 1648 they
belonged to the aristocracy. The last Polish _Krolestvo cyganskie_ or
Gipsy king died in 1790. The _Robi_ could be bought and sold, freely
exchanged and inherited, and were treated as the negroes in America down
to 1856, when their final freedom in Moldavia was proclaimed. In Hungary
and in Transylvania the abolition of servitude in 1781-1782 carried with
it the freedom of the Gipsies. In the 18th and 19th centuries many
attempts were made to settle and to educate the roaming Gipsies; in
Austria this was undertaken by the empress Maria Theresa and the emperor
Francis II. (1761-1783), in Spain by Charles III. (1788). In Poland
(1791) the attempt succeeded. In England (1827) and in Germany (1830)
societies were formed for the reclamation of the Gipsies, but nothing
was accomplished in either case. In other countries, however, definite
progress was made. Since 1866 the Gipsies have become Rumanian citizens,
and the latest official statistics no longer distinguish between the
Rumanians and the Gipsies, who are becoming thoroughly assimilated,
forgetting their language, and being slowly absorbed by the native
population. In Bulgaria the Gipsies were declared citizens, enjoying
equal political rights in accordance with the treaty of Berlin in 1878,
but through an arbitrary interpretation they were deprived of that
right, and on the 6th of January 1906 the first Gipsy Congress was held
in Sofia, for the purpose of claiming political rights for the Turkish
Gipsies or Gopti as they call themselves. Ramadan Alief, the
_tzari-bashi_ (i.e. the head of the Gipsies in Sofia), addressed the
Gipsies assembled; they decided to protest and subsequently sent a
petition to the Sobranye, demanding the recognition of their political
rights. A curious reawakening, and an interesting chapter in the history
of this peculiar race.
_Origin and Language of the Gipsies._--The real key to their origin is,
however, the Gipsy language. The scientific study of that language began
in the middle of the 19th century with the work of Pott, and was brought
to a high state of perfection by Miklosich. From that time on monographs
have multiplied and minute researches have been carried on in many parts
of the world, all tending to elucidate the true origin of the Gipsy
language. It must remain for the time being an open question whether the
Gipsies were originally a pure race. Many a strange element has
contributed to swell their ranks and to introduce discordant elements
into their vocabulary. Ruediger (1782), Grellmann (1783) and Marsden
(1783) almost simultaneously and independently of one another came to
the same conclusion, that the language of the Gipsies, until then
considered a thieves' jargon, was in reality a language closely allied
with some Indian speech. Since then the two principal problems to be
solved have been, firstly, to which of the languages of India the
original Gipsy speech was most closely allied, and secondly, by which
route the people speaking that language had reached Europe and then
spread westwards. Despite the rapid increase in our knowledge of Indian
languages, no solution has yet been found to the first problem, nor is
it likely to be found. For the language of the Gipsies, as shown now by
recent studies of the Armenian Gipsies, has undergone such a profound
change and involves so many difficulties, that it is impossible to
compare the modern Gipsy with any modern Indian dialect owing to the
inner developments which the Gipsy language has undergone in the course
of centuries. All that is known, moreover, of the Gipsy language, and
all that rests on reliable texts, is quite modern, scarcely earlier than
the middle of the 19th century. Followed up in the various dialects into
which that language has split, it shows such a thorough change from
dialect to dialect, that except as regards general outlines and
principles of inflexion, nothing would be more misleading than to draw
conclusions from apparent similarities between Gipsy, or any Gipsy
dialect, and any Indian language; especially as the Gipsies must have
been separated from the Indian races for a much longer period than has
elapsed since their arrival in Europe and since the formation of their
European dialects. It must also be borne in mind that the Indian
languages have also undergone profound changes of their own, under
influences totally different from those to which the Gipsy language has
been subjected. The problem would stand differently if by any chance an
ancient vocabulary were discovered representing the oldest form of the
common stock from which the European dialects have sprung; for there can
be no doubt of the unity of the language of the European Gipsies. The
question whether Gipsy stands close to Sanskrit or Prakrit, or shows
forms more akin to Hindi dialects, specially those of the North-West
frontier, or Dardestan and Kafiristan, to which may be added now the
dialects of the Pisaca language (Grierson, 1906), is affected by the
fact established by Fink that the dialect of the Armenian Gipsies shows
much closer resemblance to Prakrit than the language of the European
Gipsies, and that the dialects of Gipsy spoken throughout Syria and Asia
Minor differ profoundly in every respect from the European Gipsy, taken
as a whole spoken. The only explanation possible is that the European
Gipsy represents the first wave of the Westward movement of an Indian
tribe or caste which, dislocated at a certain period by political
disturbances, had travelled through Persia, making a very short stay
there, thence to Armenia staying there a little longer, and then
possibly to the Byzantine Empire at an indefinite period between 1100
and 1200; and that another clan had followed in their wake, passing
through Persia, settling in Armenia and then going farther down to
Syria, Egypt and North Africa. These two tribes though of a common
remote Indian origin must, however, be kept strictly apart from one
another in our investigation, for they stand to each other in the same
relation as they stand to the various dialects in India. The linguistic
proof of origin can therefore now not go further than to establish the
fact that the Gipsy language is in its very essence an originally Indian
dialect, enriched in its vocabulary from the languages of the peoples
among whom the Gipsies had sojourned, whilst in its grammatical
inflection it has slowly been modified, to such an extent that in some
cases, like the English or the Servian, barely a skeleton has remained.
Notwithstanding the statements to the contrary, a Gipsy from Greece or
Rumania could no longer understand a Gipsy of England or Germany, so
profound is the difference. But the words which have entered into the
Gipsy language, borrowed as they were from the Greeks, Hungarians,
Rumanians, &c., are not only an indication of the route taken--and this
is the only use that has hitherto been made of the vocabulary--but they
are of the highest importance for fixing the time when the Gipsies had
come in contact with these languages. The absence of Arabic is a
positive proof that not only did the Gipsies not come via Arabia (as
maintained by De Goeje) before they reached Europe, but that they could
not even have been living for any length of time in Persia after the
Mahommedan conquest, or at any rate that they could not have come in
contact with such elements of the population as had already adopted
Arabic in addition to Persian. But the form of the Persian words found
among European Gipsies, and similarly the form of the Armenian words
found in that language, are a clear indication that the Gipsies could
not have come in contact with these languages before Persian had assumed
its modern form and before Armenian had been changed from the old to the
modern form of language. Still more strong and clear is the evidence in
the case of the Greek and Rumanian words. If the Gipsies had lived in
Greece, as some contend, from very ancient times, some at least of the
old Greek words would be found in their language, and similarly the
Slavonic words would be of an archaic character, whilst on the contrary
we find medieval Byzantine forms, nay, modern Greek forms, among the
Gipsy vocabulary collected from Gipsies in Germany or Italy, England or
France; a proof positive that they could not have been in Europe much
earlier than the approximate date given above of the 11th or 12th
century. We then find from a grammatical point of view the same
deterioration, say among the English or Spanish Gipsies, as has been
noticed in the Gipsy dialect of Armenia. It is no longer Gipsy, but a
corrupt English or Spanish adapted to some remnants of Gipsy
inflections. The purest form has been preserved among the Greek Gipsies
and to a certain extent among the Rumanian. Notably through Miklosich's
researches and comparative studies, it is possible to follow the slow
change step by step and to prove, at any rate, that, as far as Europe is
concerned, the language of these Gipsies was one and the same, and that
it was slowly split up into a number of dialects (13 Miklosich, 14
Colocci) which shade off into one another, and which by their
transitional forms mark the way in which the Gipsies have travelled, as
also proved by historical evidence. The Welsh dialect, known by few, has
retained, through its isolation, some of the ancient forms.
_Religion, Habits and Customs._--Those who have lived among the Gipsies
will readily testify that their religious views are a strange medley of
the local faith, which they everywhere embrace, and some old-world
superstitions which they have in common with many nations. Among the
Greeks they belong to the Greek Church, among the Mahommedans they are
Mahommedans, in Rumania they belong to the National Church. In Hungary
they are mostly Catholics, according to the faith of the inhabitants of
that country. They have no ethical principles and they do not recognize
the obligations of the Ten Commandments. There is extreme moral laxity
in the relation of the two sexes, and on the whole they take life
easily, and are complete fatalists. At the same time they are great
cowards, and they play the rôle of the fool or the jester in the popular
anecdotes of eastern Europe. There the poltroon is always a Gipsy, but
he is good-humoured and not so malicious as those Gipsies who had
endured the hardships of outlawry in the west of Europe.
There is nothing specifically of an Oriental origin in their religious
vocabulary, and the words _Devla_ (God), _Bang_ (devil) or _Trushul_
(Cross), in spite of some remote similarity, must be taken as later
adaptations, and not as remnants of an old Sky-worship or
Serpent-worship. In general their beliefs, customs, tales, &c. belong to
the common stock of general folklore, and many of their symbolical
expressions find their exact counterpart in Rumanian and modern Greek,
and often read as if they were direct translations from these languages.
Although they love their children, it sometimes happens that a Gipsy
mother will hold her child by the legs and beat the father with it. In
Rumania and Turkey among the settled Gipsies a good number are carriers
and bricklayers; and the women take their full share in every kind of
work, no matter how hard it may be. The nomadic Gipsies carry on the
ancient craft of coppersmiths, or workers in metal; they also make
sieves and traps, but in the East they are seldom farriers or
horse-dealers. They are far-famed for their music, in which art they are
unsurpassed. The Gipsy musicians belong mostly to the class who
originally were serfs. They were retained at the courts of the boyars
for their special talent in reciting old ballads and love songs and
their deftness in playing, notably the guitar and the fiddle. The former
was used as an accompaniment to the singing of either love ditties and
popular songs or more especially in recital or heroic ballads and epic
songs; the latter for dances and other amusements. They were the
troubadours and minstrels of eastern Europe; the largest collection of
Rumanian popular ballads and songs was gathered by G. Dem. Teodorescu
from a Gipsy minstrel, Petre Sholkan; and not a few of the songs of the
guslars among the Servians and other Slavonic nations in the Balkans
come also from the Gipsies. They have also retained the ancient tunes
and airs, from the dreamy "doina" of the Rumanian to the fiery "czardas"
of the Hungarian or the stately "hora" of the Bulgarian. Liszt went so
far as to ascribe to the Gipsies the origin of the Hungarian national
music. This is an exaggeration, as seen by the comparison of the Gipsy
music in other parts of south-east Europe; but they undoubtedly have
given the most faithful expression to the national temperament. Equally
famous is the Gipsy woman for her knowledge of occult practices. She is
the real witch; she knows charms to injure the enemy or to help a
friend. She can break the charm if made by others. But neither in the
one case nor in the other, and in fact as little as in their songs, do
they use the Gipsy language. It is either the local language of the
natives as in the case of charms, or a slightly Romanized form of Greek,
Rumanian or Slavonic. The old Gipsy woman is also known for her skill in
palmistry and fortune-telling by means of a special set of cards, the
well-known Tarok of the Gipsies. They have also a large stock of fairy
tales resembling in each country the local fairy tales, in Greece
agreeing with the Greek, and in Rumania with the Rumanian fairy tales.
It is doubtful, however, whether they have contributed to the
dissemination of these tales throughout Europe, for a large number of
Gipsy tales can be shown to have been known in Europe long before the
appearance of the Gipsies, and others are so much like those of other
nations that the borrowing may be by the Gipsy from the Greek, Slav or
Rumanian. It is, however, possible that playing-cards might have been
introduced to Europe through the Gipsies. The oldest reference to cards
is found in the Chronicle of Nicolaus of Cavellazzo, who says that the
cards were first brought into Viterbo in 1379 from the land of the
Saracens, probably from Asia Minor or the Balkans. They spread very
quickly, but no one has been able as yet to trace definitely the source
whence they were first brought. Without entering here into the history
of the playing-cards and of the different forms of the faces and of the
symbolical meaning of the different designs, one may assume safely that
the cards, before they were used for mere pastime or for gambling, may
originally have had a mystical meaning and been used as _sortes_ in
various combinations. To this very day the oldest form is known by the
hitherto unexplained name of Tarock, played in Bologna at the beginning
of the 15th century and retained by the French under the form Tarot,
connected direct with the Gipsies, "Le Tarot des Bohémiens." It was
noted above that the oldest chronicler (Presbyter) who describes the
appearance of the Gipsies in 1416 in Germany knows them by their Italian
name "Cianos," so evidently he must have known of their existence in
Italy previous to any date recorded hitherto anywhere, and it is
therefore not impossible that coming from Italy they brought with them
also their book of divination.
_Physical Characteristics._--As a race they are of small stature varying
in colour from the dark tan of the Arab to the whitish hue of the
Servian and the Pole. In fact there are some white-coloured Gipsies,
especially in Servia and Dalmatia, and these are often not easily
distinguishable from the native peoples, except that they are more lithe
and sinewy, better proportioned and more agile in their movements than
the thick-set Slavs and the mixed race of the Rumanians. By one feature,
however, they are easily distinguishable and recognize one another, viz.
by the lustre of their eyes and the whiteness of their teeth. Some are
well built; others have the features of a mongrel race, due no doubt to
intermarriage with outcasts of other races. The women age very quickly
and the mortality among the Gipsies is great, especially among children;
among adults it is chiefly due to pulmonary diseases. They love display
and Oriental showiness, bright-coloured dresses, ornaments, bangles,
&c.; red and green are the colours mostly favoured by the Gipsies in the
East. Along with a showy handkerchief or some shining gold coins round
their necks, they will wear torn petticoats and no covering on their
feet. And even after they have been assimilated and have forgotten their
own language they still retain some of the prominent features of their
character, such as the love of inordinate display and gorgeous dress;
and their moral defects not only remain for a long time as glaring as
among those who live the life of vagrants, but even become more
pronounced. The Gipsy of to-day is no longer what his forefathers have
been. The assimilation with the nations in the near East and the steps
taken for the suppression of vagrancy in the West, combine to
denationalize the Gipsy and to make "Români Chib" a thing of the past.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The scientific study of the Gipsy language and its
origin, as well as the critical history of the Gipsy race, dates (with
the notable exception of Grellmann) almost entirely from Pott's
researches in 1844.
I. _Collections of Documents, &c._--Lists of older publications
appeared in the books of Pott, Miklosich and the archduke Joseph; Pott
adds a critical appreciation of the scientific value of the books
enumerated. See also _Verzeichnis von Werken und Aufsätzen ... über
die Geschichte und Sprache der Zigeuner, &c._, 248 entries (Leipzig,
1886); J. Tipray, "Adalékok a czigányokról szóló írodalomhoz," in
_Magyar Könyvszemle_ (Budapest, 1877); Ch. G. Leland, _A Collection of
Cuttings ... relating to Gypsies_ (1874-1891), bequeathed by him to
the British Museum. See also the _Orientalischer Jahresbericht_, ed.
Müller (Berlin, 1887 ff.).
II. _History._--(a) The first appearance of the Gipsies in Europe.
Sources: A. F. Oefelius, _Rerum Boicarum scriptores, &c._ (Augsburg,
1763); M. Freher, _Andreae Presbyteri ... chronicon de ducibus
Bavariae ..._ (1602); S. Munster, _Cosmographia ... &c._ (Basel,
1545); J. Thurmaier, _Annalium Boiorum libri septem_, ed. T. Zieglerus
(Ingolstad, 1554); M. Crusius, _Annales Suevici, &c._ (Frankfurt,
1595-1596), _Schwäbische Chronik ..._ (Frankfurt, 1733); A. Krantz,
_Saxonia_ (Cologne, 1520); Simon Simeon, _Itineraria, &c._, ed. J.
Nasmith (Cambridge, 1778). (b) Origin and spread of the Gipsies: H. M.
G. Grellmann, _Die Zigeuner, &c._ (1st ed., Dessau and Leipzig, 1783;
2nd ed., Göttingen, 1787); English by M. Roper (London, 1787; 2nd ed.,
London, 1807), entitled _Dissertation on the Gipsies, &c._; Carl von
Heister, _Ethnographische ... Notizen über die Zigeuner_ (Königsberg,
1842), a third and greatly improved edition of Grellmann and the best
book of its kind up to that date; A. F. Pott, _Die Zigeuner in Europa
und Asien_ (2 vols., Halle, 1844-1845), the first scholarly work with
complete and critical bibliography, detailed grammar, etymological
dictionary and important texts; C. Hopf, _Die Einwanderung der
Zigeuner in Europa_ (Gotha, 1870); F. von Miklosich, "Beiträge zur
Kenntnis der Zigeuner-Mundarten," i.-iv., in _Sitzungsber. d. Wiener
Akad. d. Wissenschaften_ (Vienna, 1874-1878), "Über die Mundarten und
die Wanderungen der Zigeuner Europas," i.-xii., in _Denkschriften d.
Wiener Akad. d. Wissenschaften_ (1872-1880); M. J. de Goeje, _Bijdrage
tot de geschiedenis der Zigeuners_ (Amsterdam, 1875), English
translation by MacRitchie, _Account of the Gipsies of India_ (London,
1886); Zedler, _Universal-Lexicon_, vol. lxii., s.v. "Zigeuner," pp.
520-544 containing a rich bibliography; many publications of P.
Bataillard from 1844 to 1885; A. Colocci, _Storia d' un popolo
errante_, with illustrations, map and Gipsy-Ital. and Ital.-Gipsy
glossaries (Turin, 1889); F. H. Groome, "The Gypsies," in E.
Magnusson, _National Life and Thought_ (1891), and art. "Gipsies" in
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (9th ed., 1879); C. Améro, _Bohémiens,
Tsiganes et Gypsies_ (Paris, 1895); M. Kogalnitschan, _Esquisse sur
l'histoire, les moeurs et la langue des Cigains_ (Berlin, 1837; German
trans., Stuttgart, 1840)--valuable more for the historical part than
for the linguistic; J. Czacki, _Dziela_, vol. iii. (1844-1845)--for
historic data about Gipsies in Poland; I. Kopernicki and J. Moyer,
_Charakterystyka fizyczna ludrosci galicyjskiéj_ (1876)--for the
history and customs of Galician gipsies; _Ungarische statistische
Mitteilungen_, vol. ix. (Budapest, 1895), containing the best
statistical information on the Gipsies; V. Dittrich, A _nagy-idai
czigányok_ (Budapest, 1898); T. H. Schwicker, "Die Zigeuner in Ungarn
u. Siebenbürgen," in vol. xii. of _Die Völker Österreich-Ungarns_
(Vienna, 1883), and in _Mitteilungen d. K. K. geographischen
Gesellschaft_ (Vienna, 1896); Dr J. Polek, _Die Zigeuner in der
Bukowina_ (Czernowitz, 1908); Ficker, "Die Zigeuner der Bukowina," in
_Statist. Monatschrift_, v. 6, _Hundert Jahre 1775-1875: Zigeuner in
d. Bukowina_ (Vienna, 1875), _Die Völkerstämme der österr.-ungar.
Monarchie, &c._ (Vienna, 1869); V. S. Morwood, _Our Gipsies_ (London,
1885); D. MacRitchie, _Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts_
(Edinburgh, 1894); F. A. Coelho, "Os Ciganos de Portugal," in _Bol.
Soc. Geog._ (Lisbon, 1892); A. Dumbarton, _Gypsy Life in the Mysore
Jungle_ (London, 1902).
III. _Linguistic._--[Armenia], F. N. Finck, "Die Sprache der
armenischen Zigeuner," in _Mémoires de l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences_,
viii. (St Petersburg, 1907). [Austria-Hungary], R. von Sowa, _Die
Mundart der slovakischen Zigeuner_ (Göttingen, 1887), and _Die
mährische Mundart der Romsprache_ (Vienna, 1893); A. J. Puchmayer,
_Români Cib_ (Prague, 1821); P. Josef Jesina, _Románi Cib_ (in Czech,
1880; in German, 1886); G. Ihnatko, _Czigány nyelvtan_ (Losoncon,
1877); A. Kalina, _La Langue des Tsiganes slovaques_ (Posen, 1882);
the archduke Joseph, _Czigány nyelvtan_ (Budapest, 1888); H. von
Wlislocki, _Die Sprache der transsilvanischen Zigeuner_ (Leipzig,
1884). [Brazil], A. T. de Mello Moraes, _Os ciganos no Brazil_ (Rio de
Janeiro, 1886). [France, the Basques], A. Baudrimont, _Vocabulaire de
la langue des Bohémiens habitant les pays basques-français_ (Bordeaux,
1862). [Germany], R. Pischel, _Beiträge zur Kenntnis der deutschen
Zigeuner_ (Halle, 1894); R. von Sowa, "Wörterbuch des Dialekts der
deutschen Zigeuner," in _Abhandlungen f. d. Kunde d. Morgenlandes_,
xi. 1, very valuable (Leipzig, 1898); F. N. Finck, _Lehrbuch des
Dialekts der deutschen Zigeuner_--very valuable (Marburg, 1903).
[Great Britain, &c.], Ch. G. Leland, _The English Gipsies and their
Language_ (London and New York, 1873; 2nd ed., 1874), _The Gipsies of
Russia, Austria, England, America, &c._ (London, 1882)--the validity
of Leland's conclusions is often doubtful; B. C. Smart and H. J.
Crofton, _The Dialect of the English Gypsies_ (2nd ed., London, 1875);
G. Borrow, _Romano lavo-lil_ (London, 1874, 1905), _Lavengro_, ed. F.
H. Groome (London, 1899). [Rumania], B. Constantinescu, _Probe de
Limba si literatura Tiganilor din România_ (Bucharest, 1878). [Russia,
Bessarabia], O. Boethlingk, _Über die Sprache der Zigeuner in
Russland_ (St Petersburg, 1852; supplement, 1854). [Russia, Caucasus],
K. Badganian, _Cygany. Nêskoliko slovu o narêcijahu zakavkazskihu
cyganu_ (St Petersburg, 1887); Istomin, _Ciganskij Jazyku_ (1900).
[Spain], G. H. Borrow, _The Zincali, or an Account of the Gipsies of
Spain_ (London, 1841, and numerous later editions); R. Campuzano,
_Origen ... de los Gitanos, y diccionario de su dialecto_ (2nd ed.,
Madrid, 1857); A. de C., _Diccionario del dialecto gitano, &c._
(Barcelona, 1851); M. de Sales y Guindale, _Historia, costumbres y
dialecto de los Gitanos_ (Madrid, 1870); M. de Sales, _El Gitanismo_
(Madrid, 1870); J. Tineo Rebolledo, _"A Chipicalli" la lengua gitana:
diccionario gitano-español_ (Granada, 1900). [Turkey], A. G. Paspati,
_Études sur les Tchinghianés, ou Bohémiens de l'empire ottoman_
(Constantinople, 1870), with grammar, vocabulary, tales and French
glossary; very important. [General], John Sampson, "Gypsy Language and
Origin," in _Journ. Gypsy Lore Soc._ vol. i. (2nd ser., Liverpool,
1907); J. A. Decourdemanche, _Grammaire du Tchingané, &c._ (Paris,
1908)--fantastic in some of its philology; F. Kluge, _Rotwelsche
Quellen_ (Strassburg, 1901); L. Günther, _Das Rotwelsch des deutschen
Gauners_ (Leipzig, 1905), for the influence of Gipsy on argot; L.
Besses, _Diccionario de argot español_ (Barcelona); G. A. Grierson,
_The Pi'saca Languages of North-Western India_ (London, 1906), for
parallels in Indian dialects; G. Borrow, _Criscote e majaró Lucas ...
El evangelio segun S. Lucas ..._ (London, 1837; 2nd ed., 1872)--this
is the only complete translation of any one of the gospels into Gipsy.
For older fragments of such translations, see Pott ii. 464-521.
IV. _Folklore, Tales, Songs, &c._--Many songs and tales are found in
the books enumerated above, where they are mostly accompanied by
literal translations. See also Ch. G. Leland, E. H. Palmer and T.
Tuckey, _English Gipsy Songs in Romany, with Metrical English
Translation_ (London, 1875); G. Smith, _Gipsy Life, &c._ (London,
1880); M. Rosenfeld, _Lieder der Zigeuner_ (1882); Ch. G. Leland, _The
Gypsies_ (Boston, Mass., 1882), _Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune-Telling_
(London, 1891); H. von Wlislocki, _Märchen und Sagen der
transsilvanischen Zigeuner_ (Berlin, 1886)--containing 63 tales, very
freely translated; _Volksdichtungen der siebenbürgischen und
südungarischen Zigeuner_ (Vienna, 1890)--songs, ballads, charms,
proverbs and 100 tales; _Vom wandernden Zigeunervolke_ (Hamburg,
1890); _Wesen und Wirkungskreis der Zauberfrauen bei den
siebenbürgischen Zigeuner_ (1891); "Aus dem inneren Leben der
Zigeuner," in _Ethnologische Mitteilungen_ (Berlin, 1892); R. Pischel,
_Bericht über Wlislocki vom wandernden Zigeunervolke_ (Göttingen,
1890)--a strong criticism of Wlislocki's method, &c.; F. H. Groome,
_Gypsy Folk-Tales_ (London, 1899), with historical introduction and a
complete and trustworthy collection of 76 gipsy tales from many
countries; Katadá, _Contes gitanos_ (Logroño, 1907); M. Gaster,
_Zigeunermärchen aus Rumänien_ (1881); "Tiganii, &c.," in _Revista
pentru Istorie, &c._, i. p. 469 ff. (Bucharest, 1883); "Gypsy
Fairy-Tales" in _Folklore_. The _Journal of the Gipsy-Lore Society_
(Edinburgh, 1888-1892) was revived in Liverpool in 1907.
V. _Legal Status._--A few of the books in which the legal status of
the Gipsies (either alone or in conjunction with "vagrants") is
treated from a juridical point of view are here mentioned, also the
history of the trial in 1726. J. B. Weissenbruch, _Ausführliche
Relation von der famosen Zigeuner-Diebes-Mord und Räuber_ (Frankfurt
and Leipzig, 1727); A. Ch. Thomasius, _Tractatio juridica de
vagabundo, &c._ (Leipzig, 1731); F. Ch. B. Avé-Lallemant, _Das
deutsche Gaunertum, &c._ (Leipzig, 1858-1862); V. de Rochas, _Les
Parias de France et d'Espagne_ (Paris, 1876); P. Chuchul, _Zum Kampfe
gegen Landstreicher und Bettler_ (Kassel, 1881); R. Breithaupt, _Die
Zigeuner und der deutsche Staat_ (Würzburg, 1907); G. Steinhausen,
_Geschichte der deutschen Kultur_ (Leipzig and Vienna, 1904).
(M. G.)
GIRAFFE, a corruption of _Zarafah_, the Arabic name for the tallest of
all mammals, and the typical representative of the family _Giraffidae_,
the distinctive characters of which are given in the article PECORA,
where the systematic position of the group is indicated. The classic
term "camelopard," probably introduced when these animals were brought
from North Africa to the Roman amphitheatre, has fallen into complete
disuse.
In common with the okapi, giraffes have skin-covered horns on the head,
but in these animals, which form the genus _Giraffa_, these appendages
are present in both sexes; and there is often an unpaired one in advance
of the pair on the forehead. Among other characteristics of these
animals may be noticed the great length of the neck and limbs, the
complete absence of lateral toes and the long and tufted tail. The
tongue is remarkable for its great length, measuring about 17 in. in the
dead animal, and for its great elasticity and power of muscular
contraction while living. It is covered with numerous large papillae,
and forms, like the trunk of the elephant, an admirable organ for the
examination and prehension of food. Giraffes are inhabitants of open
country, and owing to their length of neck and long flexible tongues are
enabled to browse on tall trees, mimosas being favourites. To drink or
graze they are obliged to straddle the fore-legs apart; but they seldom
feed on grass and are capable of going long without water. When standing
among mimosas they so harmonize with their surroundings that they are
difficult of detection. Formerly giraffes were found in large herds, but
persecution has reduced their number and led to their extermination from
many districts. Although in late Tertiary times widely spread over
southern Europe and India, giraffes are now confined to Africa south of
the Sahara.
Apart from the distinct Somali giraffe (_Giraffa reticulata_),
characterized by its deep liver-red colour marked with a very coarse
network of fine white lines, there are numerous local forms of the
ordinary giraffe (_Giraffa camelopardalis_). The northern races, such as
the Nubian _G. c. typica_ and the Kordofan _G. c. antiquorum_, are
characterized by the large frontal horn of the bulls, the white legs,
the network type of coloration and the pale tint. The latter feature is
specially developed in the Nigerian _G. c. peralta_, which is likewise
of the northern type. The Baringo _G. c. rothschildi_ also has a large
frontal horn and white legs, but the spots in the bulls are very dark
and those of the females jagged. In the Kilimanjaro _G. c.
tippelskirchi_ the frontal horn is often developed in the bulls, but
the legs are frequently spotted to the fetlocks. Farther south the
frontal horn tends to disappear more or less completely, as in the
Angola _G. c. angolensis_, the Transvaal _G. c. wardi_ and the Cape _G.
c. capensis_, while the legs are fully spotted and the colour-pattern on
the body (especially in the last-named) is more of a blotched type, that
is to say, consists of dark blotches on a fawn ground, instead of a
network of light lines on a dark ground.
[Illustration: The North African or Nubian Giraffe (_Giraffa
camelopardalis_).]
For details, see a paper on the subspecies of _Giraffa
camelopardalis_, by R. Lydekker in the _Proceedings of the Zoological
Society of London_ for 1904. (R. L.*)
GIRALDI, GIGLIO GREGORIO [LILIUS GREGORIUS GYRALDUS] (1479-1552),
Italian scholar and poet, was born on the 14th of June 1479, at Ferrara,
where he early distinguished himself by his talents and acquirements. On
the completion of his literary course he removed to Naples, where he
lived on familiar terms with Jovianus Pontanus and Sannazaro; and
subsequently to Lombardy, where he enjoyed the favour of the Mirandola
family. At Milan in 1507 he studied Greek under Chalcondylas; and
shortly afterwards, at Modena, he became tutor to Ercole (afterwards
Cardinal) Rangone. About the year 1514 he removed to Rome, where, under
Clement VII., he held the office of apostolic protonotary; but having in
the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of
his patron Cardinal Rangone, lost all his property, he returned in
poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven by the
troubles consequent on the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533.
The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and
neglect; and he is alluded to with sorrowful regret by Montaigne in one
of his _Essais_ (i. 34), as having, like Sebastian Castalio, ended his
days in utter destitution. He died at Ferrara in February 1552; and his
epitaph makes touching and graceful allusion to the sadness of his end.
Giraldi was a man of very extensive erudition; and numerous testimonies
to his profundity and accuracy have been given both by contemporary and
by later scholars. His _Historia de diis gentium_ marked a distinctly
forward step in the systematic study of classical mythology; and by his
treatises _De annis et mensibus_, and on the _Calendarium Romanum et
Graecum_, he contributed to bring about the reform of the calendar,
which was ultimately effected by Pope Gregory XIII. His _Progymnasma
adversus literas et literatos_ deserves mention at least among the
curiosities of literature; and among his other works to which reference
is still occasionally made are _Historiae poëtarum Graecorum ac
Latinorum_; _De poëtis suorum temporum_; and _De sepultura ac vario
sepeliendi ritu_. Giraldi was also an elegant Latin poet.
His _Opera omnia_ were published at Leiden in 1696.
GIRALDI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1504-1573), surnamed CYNTHIUS, CINTHIO or
CINTIO, Italian novelist and poet, born at Ferrara in November 1504, was
educated at the university of his native town, where in 1525 he became
professor of natural philosophy, and, twelve years afterwards, succeeded
Celio Calcagnini in the chair of belles-lettres. Between 1542 and 1560
he acted as private secretary, first to Ercole II. and afterwards to
Alphonso II. of Este; but having, in connexion with a literary quarrel
in which he had got involved, lost the favour of his patron in the
latter year, he removed to Mondovi, where he remained as a teacher of
literature till 1568. Subsequently, on the invitation of the senate of
Milan, he occupied the chair of rhetoric at Pavia till 1573, when, in
search of health, he returned to his native town, where on the 30th of
December he died. Besides an epic entitled _Ercole_ (1557), in
twenty-six cantos, Giraldi wrote nine tragedies, the best known of
which, _Orbecche_, was produced in 1541. The sanguinary and disgusting
character of the plot of this play, and the general poverty of its
style, are, in the opinion of many of its critics, almost fully redeemed
by occasional bursts of genuine and impassioned poetry; of one scene in
the third act in particular it has even been affirmed that, if it alone
were sufficient to decide the question, the _Orbecche_ would be the
finest play in the world. Of the prose works of Giraldi the most
important is the _Hecatommithi_ or _Ecatomiti_, a collection of tales
told somewhat after the manner of Boccaccio, but still more closely
resembling the novels of Giraldi's contemporary Bandello, only much
inferior in workmanship to the productions of either author in vigour,
liveliness and local colour. Something, but not much, however, may be
said in favour of their professed claim to represent a higher standard
of morality. Originally published at Monteregale, Sicily, in 1565, they
were frequently reprinted in Italy, while a French translation by
Chappuys appeared in 1583 and one in Spanish in 1590. They have a
peculiar interest to students of English literature, as having
furnished, whether directly or indirectly, the plots of _Measure for
Measure_ and _Othello_. That of the latter, which is to be found in the
_Hecatommithi_ (iii. 7), is conjectured to have reached Shakespeare
through the French translation; while that of the former (_Hecat._ viii.
5) is probably to be traced to Whetstone's _Promos and Cassandra_
(1578), an adaptation of Cinthio's story, and to his _Heptamerone_
(1582), which contains a direct English translation. To Giraldi also
must be attributed the plot of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Custom of the
Country_.
GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS (1146?-1220), medieval historian, also called GERALD
DE BARRI, was born in Pembrokeshire. He was the son of William de Barri
and Augharat, a daughter of Gerald, the ancestors of the Fitzgeralds and
the Welsh princess, Nesta, formerly mistress of King Henry I. Falling
under the influence of his uncle, David Fitzgerald, bishop of St
David's, he determined to enter the church. He studied at Paris, and his
works show that he had applied himself closely to the study of the Latin
poets. In 1172 he was appointed to collect tithe in Wales, and showed
such vigour that he was made archdeacon. In 1176 an attempt was made to
elect him bishop of St David's, but Henry II. was unwilling to see any
one with powerful native connexions a bishop in Wales. In 1180, after
another visit to Paris, he was appointed commissiary to the bishop of St
David's, who had ceased to reside. But Giraldus threw up his post,
indignant at the indifference of the bishop to the welfare of his see.
In 1184 he was made one of the king's chaplains, and was elected to
accompany Prince John on his voyage to Ireland. While there he wrote a
_Topographia Hibernica_, which is full of information, and a strongly
prejudiced history of the conquest, the _Expugnatio Hibernica_. In 1186
he read his work with great applause before the masters and scholars of
Oxford. In 1188 he was sent into Wales with the primate Baldwin to
preach the Third Crusade. Giraldus declares that the mission was highly
successful; in any case it gave him the material for his _Itinerarium
Cambrense_, which is, after the _Expugnatio_, his best known work. He
accompanied the archbishop, who intended him to be the historian of the
Crusade, to the continent, with the intention of going to the Holy Land.
But in 1189 he was sent back to Wales by the king, who knew his
influence was great, to keep order among his countrymen. Soon after he
was absolved from his crusading vow. According to his own statements,
which often tend to exaggeration, he was offered both the sees of Bangor
and Llandaff, but refused them. From 1192 to 1198 he lived in retirement
at Lincoln and devoted himself to literature. It is probably during this
period that he wrote the _Gemma ecclesiastica_ (discussing disputed
points of doctrine, ritual, &c.) and the _Vita S. Remigii_. In 1198 he
was elected bishop of St David's. But Hubert Walter, the archbishop of
Canterbury, was determined to have in that position no Welshman who
would dispute the metropolitan pretensions of the English primates. The
king, for political reasons, supported Hubert Walter. For four years
Giraldus exerted himself to get his election confirmed, and to vindicate
the independence of St David's from Canterbury. He went three times to
Rome. He wrote the _De jure Meneviensis ecclesiae_ in support of the
claims of his diocese. He made alliances with the princes of North and
South Wales. He called a general synod of his diocese. He was accused of
stirring up rebellion among the Welsh, and the justiciar proceeded
against him. At length in 1202 the pope annulled all previous elections,
and ordered a new one. The prior of Llanthony was finally elected.
Gerald was immediately reconciled to the king and archbishop; the utmost
favour was shown to him; even the expenses of his unsuccessful election
were paid. He spent the rest of his life in retirement, though there was
some talk of his being made a cardinal. He certainly survived John.
The works of Giraldus are partly polemical and partly historical. His
value as a historian is marred by his violent party spirit; some of his
historical tracts, such as the _Liber de instructione principum_ and the
_Vita Galfridi Archiepiscopi Eborecensis_, seem to have been designed as
political pamphlets. Henry II., Hubert Walter and William Longchamp, the
chancellor of Richard I., are the objects of his worst invectives. His
own pretensions to the see of St David are the motive of many of his
misrepresentations. But he is one of the most vivid and witty of our
medieval historians.
See the Rolls edition of his works, ed. J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock and
G. F. Warner in 8 vols. (London, 1861-1891), some of which have
valuable introductions.
GIRANDOLE (from the Ital. _girandola_), an ornamental branched
candlestick of several lights. It came into use about the second half of
the 17th century, and was commonly made and used in pairs. It has always
been, comparatively speaking, a luxurious appliance for lighting, and in
the great 18th-century period of French house decoration the famous
_ciseleurs_ designed some exceedingly beautiful examples. A great
variety of metals has been used for the purpose--sometimes, as in the
case of the candlestick, girandoles have been made in hard woods. Gilded
bronze has been a very frequent medium, but for table purposes silver is
still the favourite material.
GIRARD, JEAN BAPTISTE [known as "Le Père Girard" or "Le Père Gregoire"]
(1765-1850), French-Swiss educationalist, was born at Fribourg and
educated for the priesthood at Lucerne. He was the fifth child in a
family of fourteen, and his gift for teaching was early shown at home in
helping his mother with the younger children; and after passing through
his noviciate he spent some time as an instructor in convents, notably
at Würzburg (1785-1788). Then for ten years he was busy with religious
duty. In 1798, full of Kantian ideas, he published an essay outlining a
scheme of national Swiss education; and in 1804 he began his career as a
public teacher, first in the elementary school at Fribourg (1805-1823),
then (being driven away by Jesuit hostility) in the gymnasium at Lucerne
till 1834, when he retired to Fribourg and devoted himself with the
production of his books on education, _De l'enseignement régulier de la
langue maternelle_ (1834, 9th ed. 1894; Eng. trans. by Lord Ebrington,
_The Mother Tongue_, 1847), and _Cours éducatif_ (1844-1846). Father
Girard's reputation and influence as an enthusiast in the cause of
education became potent not only in Switzerland, where he was hailed as
a second Pestalozzi, but in other countries. He had a genius for
teaching, his method of stimulating the intelligence of the children at
Fribourg and interesting them actively in learning, and not merely
cramming them with rules and facts, being warmly praised by the Swiss
educationalist François Naville (1784-1846) in his treatise on public
education (1832). His undogmatic method and his Liberal Christianity
brought him into conflict with the Jesuits, but his aim was, in all his
teaching, to introduce the moral idea into the minds of his pupils by
familiarizing them with the right or wrong working of the facts he
brought to their attention, and thus to elevate character all through
the educational curriculum.
GIRARD, PHILIPPE HENRI DE (1775-1845), French mechanician, was born at
Lourmarin, Vaucluse, on the 1st of February 1775. He is chiefly known in
connexion with flax-spinning machinery. Napoleon having in 1810 decreed
a reward of one million francs to the inventor of the best machine for
spinning flax, Girard succeeded in producing what was required. But he
never received the promised reward, although in 1853, after his death, a
comparatively small pension was voted to his heirs, and having relied on
the money to pay the expenses of his invention he got into serious
financial difficulties. He was obliged, in 1815, to abandon the flax
mills he had established in France, and at the invitation of the emperor
of Austria founded a flax mill and a factory for his machines at
Hirtenberg. In 1825, at the invitation of the emperor Alexander I. of
Russia, he went to Poland, and erected near Warsaw a flax manufactory,
round which grew up a village which received the name of Girardow. In
1818 he built a steamer to run on the Danube. He did not return to Paris
till 1844, where he still found some of his old creditors ready to press
their claims, and he died in that city on the 26th of August 1845. He
was also the author of numerous minor inventions.
GIRARD, STEPHEN (1750-1831), American financier and philanthropist,
founder of Girard College in Philadelphia, was born in a suburb of
Bordeaux, France, on the 20th of May 1750. He lost the sight of his
right eye at the age of eight and had little education. His father was a
sea captain, and the son cruised to the West Indies and back during
1764-1773, was licensed captain in 1773, visited New York in 1774, and
thence with the assistance of a New York merchant began to trade to and
from New Orleans and Port au Prince. In May 1776 he was driven into the
port of Philadelphia by a British fleet and settled there as a merchant;
in June of the next year he married Mary (Polly) Lum, daughter of a
shipbuilder, who, two years later, after Girard's becoming a citizen of
Pennsylvania (1778), built for him the "Water Witch," the first of a
fleet trading with New Orleans and the West Indies--most of Girard's
ships being named after his favourite French authors, such as
"Rousseau," "Voltaire," "Helvétius" and "Montesquieu." His beautiful
young wife became insane and spent the years from 1790 to her death in
1815 in the Pennsylvania Hospital. In 1810 Girard used about a million
dollars deposited by him with the Barings of London for the purchase of
shares of the much depreciated stock of the Bank of the United States--a
purchase of great assistance to the United States government in
bolstering European confidence in its securities. When the Bank was not
rechartered the building and the cashier's house in Philadelphia were
purchased at a third of the original cost by Girard, who in May 1812
established the Bank of Stephen Girard. He subscribed in 1814 for about
95% of the government's war loan of $5,000,000, of which only $20,000
besides had been taken, and he generously offered at par shares which
upon his purchase had gone to a premium. He pursued his business
vigorously in person until the 12th of February 1830, when he was
injured in the street by a truck; he died on the 26th of December 1831.
His public spirit had been shown during his life not only financially
but personally; in 1793, during the plague of yellow fever in
Philadelphia, he volunteered to act as manager of the wretched hospital
at Bush Hill, and with the assistance of Peter Helm had the hospital
cleansed and its work systematized; again during the yellow fever
epidemic of 1797-1798 he took the lead in relieving the poor and caring
for the sick. Even more was his philanthropy shown in his disposition by
will of his estate, which was valued at about $7,500,000, and doubtless
the greatest fortune accumulated by any individual in America up to that
time. Of his fortune he bequeathed $116,000 to various Philadelphia
charities, $500,000 to the same city for the improvement of the Delaware
water front, $300,000 to Pennsylvania for internal improvements, and the
bulk of his estate to Philadelphia, to be used in founding a school or
college, in providing a better police system, and in making municipal
improvements and lessening taxation. Most of his bequest to the city was
to be used for building and maintaining a school "to provide for such a
number of poor male white orphan children ... a better education as well
as a more comfortable maintenance than they usually receive from the
application of the public funds." His will planned most minutely for the
erection of this school, giving details as to the windows, doors, walls,
&c.; and it contained the following phrase: "I enjoin and require that
no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall
ever hold or exercise any duty whatsoever in the said college; nor shall
any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor,
within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college....
I desire to keep the tender minds of orphans ... free from the
excitements which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so
apt to produce." Girard's heirs-at-law contested the will in 1836, and
they were greatly helped by a public prejudice aroused by the clause
cited; in the Supreme Court of the United States in 1844 Daniel Webster,
appearing for the heirs, made a famous plea for the Christian religion,
but Justice Joseph Story handed down an opinion adverse to the heirs
(_Vidals_ v. _Girard's Executors_). Webster was opposed in this suit by
John Sergeant and Horace Binney. Girard specified that those admitted to
the college must be white male orphans, of legitimate birth and good
character, between the ages of six and ten; that no boy was to be
permitted to stay after his eighteenth year; and that as regards
admissions preference was to be shown, first to orphans born in
Philadelphia, second to orphans born in any other part of Pennsylvania,
third to orphans born in New York City, and fourth to orphans born in
New Orleans. Work upon the buildings was begun in 1833, and the college
was opened on the 1st of January 1848, a technical point of law making
instruction conditioned upon the completion of the five buildings, of
which the principal one, planned by Thomas Ustick Walter (1804-1887),
has been called "the most perfect Greek temple in existence." To a
sarcophagus in this main building the remains of Stephen Girard were
removed in 1851. In the 40 acres of the college grounds there were in
1909 18 buildings (valued at $3,350,000), 1513 pupils, and a total
"population," including students, teachers and all employes, of 1907.
The value of the Girard estate in the year 1907 was $35,000,000, of
which $550,000 was devoted to other charities than Girard College. The
control of the college was under a board chosen by the city councils
until 1869, when by act of the legislature it was transferred to
trustees appointed by the Common Pleas judges of the city of
Philadelphia. The course of training is partly industrial--for a long
time graduates were indentured till they came of age--but it is also
preparatory to college entrance.
See H. A. Ingram, _The Life and Character of Stephen Girard_
(Philadelphia, 1884), and George P. Rupp, "Stephen Girard--Merchant
and Mariner," in _1848-1898: Semi-Centennial of Girard College_
(Philadelphia, 1898).
GIRARDIN, DELPHINE DE (1804-1855), French author, was born at
Aix-la-Chapelle on the 26th of January 1804. Her mother, the well-known
Madame Sophie Gay, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary
society. She published two volumes of miscellaneous pieces, _Essais
poétiques_ (1824) and _Nouveaux Essais poétiques_ (1825). A visit to
Italy in 1827, during which she was enthusiastically welcomed by the
literati of Rome and even crowned in the capitol, was productive of
various poems, of which the most ambitious was _Napoline_ (1833). Her
marriage in 1831 to Émile de Girardin (see below) opened up a new
literary career. The contemporary sketches which she contributed from
1836 to 1839 to the feuilleton of _La Presse_, under the _nom de plume_
of Charles de Launay, were collected under the title of _Lettres
parisiennes_ (1843), and obtained a brilliant success. _Contes d'une
vieille fille à ses neveux_ (1832), _La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac_
(1836) and _Il ne faut pas jouer avec la douleur_ (1853) are among the
best-known of her romances; and her dramatic pieces in prose and verse
include _L'École des journalistes_ (1840), _Judith_ (1843), _Cléopâtre_
(1847), _Lady Tartufe_ (1853), and the one-act comedies, _C'est la faute
du mari_ (1851), _La Joie fait peur_ (1854), _Le Chapeau d'un horloger_
(1854) and _Une Femme qui déteste son mari_, which did not appear till
after the author's death. In the literary society of her time Madame
Girardin exercised no small personal influence, and among the
frequenters of her drawing-room were Théophile Gautier and Balzac,
Alfred de Musset and Victor Hugo. She died on the 29th of June 1855. Her
collected works were published in six volumes (1860-1861).
See Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, t. iii.; G. de Molènes, "Les
Femmes poètes," in _Revue des deux mondes_ (July 1842); Taxile Delord,
_Les Matinées littéraires_ (1860); _L'Esprit de Madame Girardin, avec
une préface par M. Lamartine_ (1862); G. d'Heilly, _Madame de
Girardin, sa vie et ses oeuvres_ (1868); Imbert de Saint Amand, _Mme
de Girardin_ (1875).
GIRARDIN, ÉMILE DE (1802-1881), French publicist, was born, not in
Switzerland in 1806 of unknown parents, but (as was recognized in 1837)
in Paris in 1802, the son of General Alexandre de Girardin and of Madame
Dupuy, wife of a Parisian advocate. His first publication was a novel,
_Émile_, dealing with his birth and early life, and appeared under the
name of Girardin in 1827. He became inspector of fine arts under the
Martignac ministry just before the revolution of 1830, and was an
energetic and passionate journalist. Besides his work on the daily press
he issued miscellaneous publications which attained an enormous
circulation. His _Journal des connaissances utiles_ had 120,000
subscribers, and the initial edition of his _Almanach de France_ (1834)
ran to a million copies. In 1836 he inaugurated cheap journalism in a
popular Conservative organ, _La Presse_, the subscription to which was
only forty francs a year. This undertaking involved him in a duel with
Armand Carrel, the fatal result of which made him refuse satisfaction to
later opponents. In 1839 he was excluded from the Chamber of Deputies,
to which he had been four times elected, on the plea of his foreign
birth, but was admitted in 1842. He resigned early in February 1847, and
on the 24th of February 1848 sent a note to Louis Philippe demanding his
resignation and the regency of the duchess of Orleans. In the
Legislative Assembly he voted with the Mountain. He pressed eagerly in
his paper for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, of whom he
afterwards became one of the most violent opponents. In 1856 he sold _La
Presse_, only to resume it in 1862, but its vogue was over, and Girardin
started a new journal, _La Liberté_, the sale of which was forbidden in
the public streets. He supported Émile Ollivier and the Liberal Empire,
but plunged into vehement journalism again to advocate war against
Prussia. Of his many subsequent enterprises the most successful was the
purchase of _Le Petit Journal_, which served to advocate the policy of
Thiers, though he himself did not contribute. The crisis of the 16th of
May 1877, when Jules Simon fell from power, made him resume his pen to
attack MacMahon and the party of reaction in _La France_ and in _Le
Petit Journal_. Émile de Girardin married in 1831 Delphine Gay (see
above), and after her death in 1855 Guillemette Joséphine Brunold,
countess von Tieffenbach, widow of Prince Frederick of Nassau. He was
divorced from his second wife in 1872.
The long list of his social and political writings includes: _De la
presse périodique au XIX^e, siècle_ (1837); _De l'instruction
publique_ (1838); _Études politiques_ (1838); _De la liberté de la
presse et du journalisme_ (1842); _Le Droit au travail au Luxembourg
et à l'Assemblée Nationale_ (2 vols., 1848); _Les Cinquante-deux_
(1849, &c.), a series of articles on current parliamentary questions;
_La Politique universelle, décrets de l'avenir_ (Brussels, 1852); _Le
Condamné du 6 mars_ (1867), an account of his own differences with the
government in 1867 when he was fined 5000 fr. for an article in _La
Liberté; Le Dossier de la guerre_ (1877), a collection of official
documents; _Questions de mon temps, 1836 à 1856_, articles extracted
from the daily and weekly press (12 vols., 1858).
GIRARDON, FRANÇOIS (1628-1715), French sculptor, was born at Troyes on
the 17th of March 1628. As a boy he had for master a joiner and
wood-carver of his native town, named Baudesson, under whom he is said
to have worked at the château of Liébault, where he attracted the notice
of Chancellor Séguier. By the chancellor's influence Girardon was first
removed to Paris and placed in the studio of François Anguier, and
afterwards sent to Rome. In 1652 he was back in France, and seems at
once to have addressed himself with something like ignoble subserviency
to the task of conciliating the court painter Charles Le Brun. Girardon
is reported to have declared himself incapable of composing a group,
whether with truth or from motives of policy it is impossible to say.
This much is certain, that a very large proportion of his work was
carried out from designs by Le Brun, and shows the merits and defects of
Le Brun's manner--a great command of ceremonial pomp in presenting his
subject, coupled with a large treatment of forms which if it were more
expressive might be imposing. The court which Girardon paid to the
"premier peintre du roi" was rewarded. An immense quantity of work at
Versailles was entrusted to him, and in recognition of the successful
execution of four figures for the Bains d'Apollon, Le Brun induced the
king to present his protégé personally with a purse of 300 louis, as a
distinguishing mark of royal favour. In 1650 Girardon was made member of
the Academy, in 1659 professor, in 1674 "adjoint au recteur," and
finally in 1695 chancellor. Five years before (1690), on the death of Le
Brun, he had also been appointed "inspecteur général des ouvrages de
sculpture"--a place of power and profit. In 1699 he completed the bronze
equestrian statue of Louis XIV., erected by the town of Paris on the
Place Louis le Grand. This statue was melted down during the Revolution,
and is known to us only by a small bronze model (Louvre) finished by
Girardon himself. His Tomb of Richelieu (church of the Sorbonne) was
saved from destruction by Alexandre Lenoir, who received a bayonet
thrust in protecting the head of the cardinal from mutilation. It is a
capital example of Girardon's work, and the theatrical pomp of its style
is typical of the funeral sculpture of the reigns of Louis XIV. and
Louis XV.; but amongst other important specimens yet remaining may also
be cited the Tomb of Louvois (St Eustache), that of Bignon, the king's
librarian, executed in 1656 (St Nicolas du Chardonneret), and decorative
sculptures in the Galerie d'Apollon and Chambre du roi in the Louvre.
Mention should not be omitted of the group, signed and dated 1699, "The
Rape of Proserpine" at Versailles, which also contains the "Bull of
Apollo." Although chiefly occupied at Paris Girardon never forgot his
native Troyes, the museum of which town contains some of his best works,
including the marble busts of Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa. In the hôtel
de ville is still shown a medallion of Louis XIV., and in the church of
St Rémy a bronze crucifix of some importance--both works by his hand. He
died in Paris in 1715.
See Corrard de Breban, _Notice sur la vie et les oeuvres de Girardon_
(1850).
GIRART DE ROUSSILLON, an epic figure of the Carolingian cycle of
romance. In the genealogy of romance he is a son of Doon de Mayence, and
he appears in different and irreconcilable circumstances in many of the
_chansons de geste_. The legend of Girart de Roussillon is contained in
a _Vita Girardi de Roussillon_ (ed. P. Meyer, in _Romania_, 1878),
dating from the beginning of the 12th century and written probably by a
monk of the abbey of Pothières or of Vezelai, both of which were founded
in 860 by Girart; in _Girart de Roussillon, a chanson de geste_ written
early in the 12th century in a dialect midway between French and
Provençal, and apparently based on an earlier Burgundian poem; in a 14th
century romance in alexandrines (ed. T. J. A. P. Mignard, Paris and
Dijon, 1878); and in a prose romance by Jehan Wauquelin in 1447 (ed. L.
de Montille, Paris, 1880). The historical Girard, son of Leuthard and
Grimildis, was a Burgundian chief who was count of Paris in 837, and
embraced the cause of Lothair against Charles the Bald. He fought at
Fontenay in 841, and doubtless followed Lothair to Aix. In 855 he became
governor of Provence for Lothair's son Charles, king of Provence (d.
863). His wife Bertha defended Vienne unsuccessfully against Charles the
Bald in 870, and Girard, who had perhaps aspired to be the titular ruler
of the northern part of Provence, which he had continued to administer
under Lothair II. until that prince's death in 869, retired with his
wife to Avignon, where he died probably in 877, certainly before 879.
The tradition of his piety, of the heroism of his wife Bertha, and of
his wars with Charles passed into romance; but the historical facts are
so distorted that in _Girart de Roussillon_ the _trouvère_ makes him the
opponent of Charles Martel, to whom he stands in the relation of
brother-in-law. He is nowhere described in authentic historic sources as
of Roussillon. The title is derived from his castle built on Mount
Lassois, near Châtillon-sur-Seine. Southern traditions concerning Count
Girart, in which he is made the son of Garin de Monglane, are embodied
in _Girart de Viane_ (13th century) by Bertrand de Bar-sur-l'Aube, and
in the _Aspramonte_ of Andrea da Barberino, based on the French _chanson
of Aspremont_, where he figures as Girart de Frete or de Fratte.[1]
_Girart de Viane_ is the recital of a siege of Vienne by Charlemagne,
and in _Aspramonte_ Girart de Fratte leads an army of infidels against
Charlemagne. _Girart de Roussillon_ was long held to be of Provençal
origin, and to be a proof of the existence of an independent Provençal
epic, but its Burgundian origin may be taken as proved.
See F. Michel, _Gerard de Rossillon ... publié en français et en
provençal d'après les MSS. de Paris et de Londres_ (Paris, 1856); P.
Meyer, _Girart de Roussillon_ (1884), a translation in modern French
with a comprehensive introduction. For _Girart de Viane_ (ed. P.
Tarbé, Reims, 1850) see L. Gautier, _Épopées françaises_, vol. iv.; F.
A. Wulff, _Notice sur les sagas de Magus et de Geirard_ (Lund, 1874).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] It is of interest to note that Freta was the old name for the
town of Saint Remy, and that it is close to the site of the ancient
town of Glanum, the name of which is possibly preserved in Garin de
Monglane, the ancestor of the heroes of the cycle of Guillaume
d'Orange.
GIRAUD, GIOVANNI, Count (1776-1834), Italian dramatist, of French
origin, was born at Rome, and showed a precocious passion for the
theatre. His first play, _L'Onestà non si vince_, was successfully
produced in 1798. He took part in politics as an active supporter of
Pius VI., but was mainly occupied with the production of his plays, and
in 1809 became director-general of the Italian theatres. He died at
Naples in 1834. Count Giraud's comedies, the best of which are _Gelosie
per equivoco_ (1807) and _L'Ajonell' imbarazzo_ (1824), were bright and
amusing on the stage, but of no particular literary quality.
His collected comedies were published in 1823 and his _Teatro
domestico_ in 1825.
GIRDLE (O. Eng. _gyrdel_, from _gyrdan_, to gird; cf. Ger. _Gürtel_,
Dutch _gordel_, from _gürten_ and _gorden_; "gird" and its doublet
"girth" together with the other Teutonic cognates have been referred by
some to the root _ghar_--to seize, enclose, seen in Gr. [Greek: cheir],
hand, Lat. _hortus_, garden, and also English yard, garden, garth, &c.),
a band of leather or other material worn round the waist, either to
confine the loose and flowing outer robes so as to allow freedom of
movement, or to fasten and support the garments of the wearer. Among the
Romans it was used to confine the _tunica_, and it formed part of the
dress of the soldier; when a man quitted military service he was said,
_cingulum deponere_, to lay aside the girdle. Money being carried in
the girdle, _zonam perdere_ signified to lose one's purse, and, among
the Greeks, to cut the girdle was to rob a man of his money.
Girdles and girdle-buckles are not often found in Gallo-Roman graves,
but in the graves of Franks and Burgundians they are constantly present,
often ornamented with bosses of silver or bronze, chased or inlaid.
Sidonius Apollinaris speaks of the Franks as belted round the waist, and
Gregory of Tours in the 6th century says that a dagger was carried in
the Frankish girdle.
In the Anglo-Saxon dress the girdle makes an unimportant figure, and the
Norman knights, as a rule, wore their belts under their hauberks. After
the Conquest, however, the artificers gave more attention to a piece
whose buckle and tongue invited the work of the goldsmith. Girdles of
varying richness are seen on most of the western medieval effigies. That
of Queen Berengaria lets the long pendant hang below the knee, following
a fashion which frequently reappears.
In the latter part of the 13th century the knight's surcoat is girdled
with a narrow cord at the waist, while the great belt, which had become
the pride of the well-equipped cavalier, loops across the hips carrying
the heavy sword aslant over the thighs or somewhat to the left of the
wearer.
But it is in the second half of the following century that the knightly
belt takes its most splendid form. Under the year 1356 the continuator
of the chronicle of Nangis notes that the increase of jewelled belts had
mightily enhanced the price of pearls. The belt is then worn, as a rule,
girdling the hips at some distance below the waist, being probably
supported by hooks as is the belt of a modern infantry soldier. The end
of the belt, after being drawn through the buckle, is knotted or caught
up after the fashion of the tang of the Garter. The waist girdle either
disappears from sight or as a narrow and ornamented strap is worn
diagonally to help in the support of the belt. A mass of beautiful
ornament covers the whole belt, commonly seen as an unbroken line of
bosses enriched with curiously worked roundels or lozenges which, when
the loose strap-end is abandoned, meet in a splendid morse or clasp on
which the enameller and jeweller had wrought their best. About 1420 this
fashion tends to disappear, the loose tabards worn over armour in the
jousting-yard hindering its display. The belt never regains its
importance as an ornament, and, at the beginning of the 16th century,
sword and dagger are sometimes seen hanging at the knight's sides
without visible support.
In civil dress the magnificent belt of the 14th century is worn by men
of rank over the hips of the tight short-skirted coat, and in that
century and in the 15th and 16th there are sumptuary laws to cheek the
extravagance of rich girdles worn by men and women whose humble station
made them unseemly. Even priests must be rebuked for their silver
girdles with baselards hanging from them. Purses, daggers, keys, penners
and inkhorns, beads and even books, dangled from girdles in the 15th and
early 16th centuries. Afterwards the girdle goes on as a mere strap for
holding up the clothing or as a sword-belt. At the Restoration men
contrasted the fashion of the court, a light rapier hung from a broad
shoulder-belt, with the fashion of the countryside, where a heavy weapon
was supported by a narrow waistbelt. Soon afterwards both fashions
disappeared. Sword-hangers were concealed by the skirt, and the belt,
save in certain military and sporting costumes, has no more been in
sight in England. Even as a support for breeches or trousers, the use of
braces has gradually supplanted the girdle during the past century.
In most of those parts of the Continent--Brittany, for example--where
the peasantry maintains old fashions in clothing, the belt or girdle is
still an important part of the clothing. Italian non-commissioned
officers find that the Sicilian recruit's main objection to the first
bath of his life-time lies in the fact that he must lay down the
cherished belt which carries his few valuables. With the Circassian the
belt still buckles on an arsenal of pistols and knives.
Folklore and ancient custom are much concerned with the girdle.
Bankrupts at one time put it off in open court; French law refused
courtesans the right to wear it; Saint Guthlac casts out devils by
buckling his girdle round a possessed man; an earl is "a belted earl"
since the days when the putting on of a girdle was part of the ceremony
of his creation; and fairy tales of half the nations deal with girdles
which give invisibility to the wearer. (O. Ba.)
GIRGA, or GIRGEH, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank of the Nile, 313
m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail and about 10 m. N.N.E. of the ruins of
Abydos. Pop. (1907) 19,893, of whom about one-third are Copts. The town
presents a picturesque appearance from the Nile, which at this point
makes a sharp bend. A ruined mosque with a tall minaret stands by the
river-brink. Many of the houses are of brick decorated with glazed
tiles. The town is noted for the excellence of its pottery. Girga is the
seat of a Coptic bishop. It also possesses a Roman Catholic monastery,
considered the most ancient in the country. As lately as the middle of
the 18th century the town stood a quarter of a mile from the river, but
is now on the bank, the intervening space having been washed away,
together with a large part of the town, by the stream continually
encroaching on its left bank.
GIRGENTI (anc. _Agrigentum_, q.v.), a town of Sicily, capital of the
province which bears its name, and an episcopal see, on the south coast,
58 m. S. by E. of Palermo direct and 84½ m. by rail. Population (1901)
25,024. The town is built on the western summit of the ridge which
formed the northern portion of the ancient site; the main street runs
from E. to W. on the level, but the side streets are steep and narrow.
The cathedral occupies the highest point in the town; it was not founded
till the 13th century, taking the place of the so-called temple of
Concord. The campanile still preserves portions of its original
architecture, but the interior has been modernized. In the chapter-house
a famous sarcophagus, with scenes illustrating the myth of Hippolytus,
is preserved. There are other scattered remains of 13th-century
architecture in the town, while, in the centre of the ancient city,
close to the so-called oratory of Phalaris, is the Norman church of S.
Nicolo. A small museum in the town contains vases, terra-cottas, a few
sculptures, &c. The port of Girgenti, 5½ m. S.W. by rail, now known as
Porto Empedocle (population in 1901, 11,529), as the principal place of
shipment for sulphur, the mining district beginning immediately north of
Girgenti. (T. As.)
GIRISHK, a village and fort of Afghanistan. It stands on the right bank
of the Helmund 78 m. W. of Kandahar on the road to Herat; 3641 ft. above
the sea. The fort, which is garrisoned from Kandahar and is the
residence of the governor of the district (Pusht-i-Rud), has little
military value. It commands the fords of the Helmund and the road to
Seistan, from which it is about 190 m. distant; and it is the centre of
a rich agricultural district. Girishk was occupied by the British during
the first Afghan War; and a small garrison of sepoys, under a native
officer, successfully withstood a siege of nine months by an
overwhelming Afghan force. The Dasht-i-Bakwa stretches beyond Girishk
towards Farah, a level plain of considerable width, which tradition
assigns as the field of the final contest for supremacy between Russia
and England.
GIRNAR, a sacred hill in Western India, in the peninsula of Kathiawar,
10 m. E. of Junagarh town. It consists of five peaks, rising about 3500
ft. above the sea, on which are numerous old Jain temples, much
frequented by pilgrims. At the foot of the hill is a rock, with an
inscription of Asoka (2nd century B.C.), and also two other inscriptions
(dated 150 and 455 A.D.) of great historical importance.
GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS (1767-1824), French painter, better known
as Girodet-Trioson, was born at Montargis on the 5th of January 1767. He
lost his parents in early youth, and the care of his fortune and
education fell to the lot of his guardian, M. Trioson, "médecin de
mesdames," by whom he was in later life adopted. After some preliminary
studies under a painter named Luquin, Girodet entered the school of
David, and at the age of twenty-two he successfully competed for the
Prix de Rome. At Rome he executed his "Hippocrate refusant les présents
d'Artaxerxès" and "Endymion dormant" (Louvre), a work which was hailed
with acclamation at the Salon of 1792. The peculiarities which mark
Girodet's position as the herald of the romantic movement are already
evident in his "Endymion." The firm-set forms, the grey cold colour, the
hardness of the execution are proper to one trained in the school of
David, but these characteristics harmonize ill with the literary,
sentimental and picturesque suggestions which the painter has sought to
render. The same incongruity marks Girodet's "Danaë" and his "Quatre
Saisons," executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiègne), and
shows itself to a ludicrous extent in his "Fingal" (St Petersburg,
Leuchtenberg collection), executed for Napoleon I. in 1802. This work
unites the defects of the classic and romantic schools, for Girodet's
imagination ardently and exclusively pursued the ideas excited by varied
reading both of classic and of modern literature, and the impressions
which he received from the external world afforded him little stimulus
or check; he consequently retained the mannerisms of his master's
practice whilst rejecting all restraint on choice of subject. The credit
lost by "Fingal" Girodet regained in 1806, when he exhibited "Scène de
Déluge" (Louvre), to which (in competition with the "Sabines" of David)
was awarded the decennial prize. This success was followed up in 1808 by
the production of the "Reddition de Vienne" and "Atala au Tombeau"--a
work which went far to deserve its immense popularity, by a happy choice
of subject, and remarkable freedom from the theatricality of Girodet's
usual manner, which, however, soon came to the front again in his
"Révolte de Caire" (1810). His powers now began to fail, and his habit
of working at night and other excesses told upon his constitution; in
the Salon of 1812 he exhibited only a "Tête de Vierge"; in 1819
"Pygmalion et Galatée" showed a still further decline of strength; and
in 1824--the year in which he produced his portraits of Cathelineau and
Bonchamps--Girodet died on the 9th of December.
He executed a vast quantity of illustrations, amongst which may be
cited those to the Didot _Virgil_ (1798) and to the Louvre _Racine_
(1801-1805). Fifty-four of his designs for _Anacreon_ were engraved by
M. Chatillon. Girodet wasted much time on literary composition, his
poem _Le Peintre_ (a string of commonplaces), together with poor
imitations of classical poets, and essays on _Le Génie_ and _La
Grâce_, were published after his death (1829), with a biographical
notice by his friend M. Coupin de la Couperie; and M. Delécluze, in
his _Louis David et son temps_, has also a brief life of Girodet.
GIRONDE, a maritime department of south-western France, formed from four
divisions of the old province of Guyenne, viz. Bordelais, Bazadais, and
parts of Périgord and Agenais. Area, 4140 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 823,925. It
is bounded N. by the department of Charente-Inférieure, E. by those of
Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne, S. by that of Landes, and W. by the Bay of
Biscay. It takes its name from the river or estuary of the Gironde
formed by the union of the Garonne and Dordogne. The department divides
itself naturally into a western and an eastern portion. The former,
which is termed the _Landes_ (q.v.), occupies more than a third of the
department, and consists chiefly of morass or sandy plain, thickly
planted with pines and divided from the sea by a long line of dunes.
These dunes are planted with pines, which, by binding the sand together
with their roots, prevent it from drifting inland and afford a barrier
against the sea. On the east the dunes are fringed for some distance by
two extensive lakes, Carcans and Lacanau, communicating with each other
and with the Bay of Arcachon, near the southern extremity of the
department. The Bay of Arcachon contains numerous islands, and on the
land side forms a vast shallow lagoon, a considerable portion of which,
however, has been drained and converted into arable land. The eastern
portion of the department consists chiefly of a succession of hill and
dale, and, especially in the valley of the Gironde, is very fertile. The
estuary of the Gironde is about 45 m. in length, and varies in breadth
from 2 to 6 m. It presents a succession of islands and mud banks which
divide it into two channels and render navigation somewhat difficult. It
is, however, well buoyed and lighted, and has a mean depth of 21 ft.
There are extensive marshes on the right bank to the north of Blaye, and
the shores on the left are characterized, especially towards the mouth,
by low-lying polders protected by dikes and composed of fertile salt
marshes. At the mouth of the Gironde stands the famous tower of
Cordouan, one of the finest lighthouses of the French coast. It was
built between the years 1585 and 1611 by the architect and engineer
Louis de Foix, and added to towards the end of the 18th century. The
principal affluent of the Dordogne in this department is the Isle. The
feeders of the Garonne are, with the exception of the Dropt, all small.
West of the Garonne the only river of importance is the Leyre, which
flows into the Bay of Arcachon. The climate is humid and mild and very
hot in summer. Wheat, rye, maize, oats and tobacco are grown to a
considerable extent. The corn produced, however, does not meet the wants
of the inhabitants. The culture of the vine is by far the most important
branch of industry carried on (see Wine), the vineyards occupying about
one-seventh of the surface of the department. The wine-growing districts
are the Médoc, Graves, Côtes, Palus, Entre-deux-Mers and Sauternes. The
Médoc is a region of 50 m. in length by about 6 m. in breadth, bordering
the left banks of the Garonne and the Gironde between Bordeaux and the
sea. The Graves country forms a zone 30 m. in extent, stretching along
the left bank of the Garonne from the neighbourhood of Bordeaux to
Barsac. The Sauternes country lies to the S.E. of the Graves. The Côtes
lie on the right bank of the Dordogne and Gironde, between it and the
Garonne, and on the left bank of the Garonne. The produce of the Palus,
the alluvial land of the valleys, and of the Entre-deux-Mers, situated
on the left bank of the Dordogne, is inferior. Fruits and vegetables are
extensively cultivated, the peaches and pears being especially fine.
Cattle are extensively raised, the Bazadais breed of oxen and the
Bordelais breed of milch-cows being well known. Oyster-breeding is
carried on on a large scale in the Bay of Arcachon. Large supplies of
resin, pitch and turpentine are obtained from the pine woods, which also
supply vine-props, and there are well-known quarries of limestone. The
manufactures are various, and, with the general trade, are chiefly
carried on at Bordeaux (q.v.), the chief town and third port in France.
Pauillac, Blaye, Libourne and Arcachon are minor ports. Gironde is
divided into the arrondissements of Bordeaux, Blaye, Lesparre, Libourne,
Bazas and La Réole, with 49 cantons and 554 communes. The department is
served by five railways, the chief of which are those of the Orleans and
Southern companies. It forms part of the circumscription of the
archbishopric, the appeal-court and the _académie_ (educational
division) of Bordeaux, and of the region of the XVIII. army corps, the
headquarters of which are at that city. Besides Bordeaux, Libourne, La
Réole, Bazas, Blaye, Arcachon, St Emilion and St Macaire are the most
noteworthy towns and receive separate treatment. Among the other places
of interest the chief are Cadillac, on the right bank of the Garonne,
where there is a castle of the 16th century, surrounded by
fortifications of the 14th century; Labrède, with a feudal château in
which Montesquieu was born and lived; Villandraut, where there is a
ruined castle of the 13th century; Uzeste, which has a church begun in
1310 by Pope Clement V.; Mazères with an imposing castle of the 14th
century; La Sauve, which has a church (11th and 12th centuries) and
other remains of a Benedictine abbey; and Ste Foy-la-Grande, a bastide
created in 1255 and afterwards a centre of Protestantism, which is still
strong there. La Teste (pop. in 1906, 5699) was the capital in the
middle ages of the famous lords of Buch.
GIRONDISTS (Fr. _Girondins_), the name given to a political party in the
Legislative Assembly and National Convention during the French
Revolution (1791-1793). The Girondists were, indeed, rather a group of
individuals holding certain opinions and principles in common than an
organized political party, and the name was at first somewhat loosely
applied to them owing to the fact that the most brilliant exponents of
their point of view were deputies from the Gironde. These deputies were
twelve in number, six of whom--the lawyers Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné,
Grangeneuve and Jay, and the tradesman Jean François Ducos--sat both in
the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. In the Legislative
Assembly these represented a compact body of opinion which, though not
as yet definitely republican, was considerably more advanced than the
moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies. Associated
with these views was a group of deputies from other parts of France, of
whom the most notable were Condorcet, Fauchet, Lasource, Isnard,
Kersaint, Henri Larivière, and, above all, Jacques Pierre Brissot,
Roland and Pétion, elected mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly on the
16th of November 1791. On the spirit and policy of the Girondists Madame
Roland, whose _salon_ became their gathering-place, exercised a powerful
influence (see ROLAND); but such party cohesion as they possessed they
owed to the energy of Brissot (q.v.), who came to be regarded as their
mouthpiece in the Assembly and the Jacobin Club. Hence the name
_Brissotins_, coined by Camille Desmoulins, which was sometimes
substituted for that of _Girondins_, sometimes closely coupled with it.
As strictly party designations these first came into use after the
assembling of the National Convention (September 20th, 1792), to which a
large proportion of the deputies from the Gironde who had sat in the
Legislative Assembly were returned. Both were used as terms of
opprobrium by the orators of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced "the
Royalists, the Federalists, the Brissotins, the Girondins and all the
enemies of the democracy" (F. Aulard, _Soc. des Jacobins_, vi. 531).
In the Legislative Assembly the Girondists represented the principle of
democratic revolution within and of patriotic defiance to the European
powers without. They were all-powerful in the Jacobin Club (see
JACOBINS), where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted by
Robespierre, and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up
popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of
the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry
composed of their partisans--among them Roland, Dumouriez, Clavière and
Servan; and it was they who forced the declaration of war against
Austria. In all this there was no apparent line of cleavage between "La
Gironde" and the Mountain. _Montagnards_ and Girondists alike were
fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as
republicans; both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realize
their ideals; in spite of the accusation of "federalism" freely brought
against them, the Girondists desired as little as the Montagnards to
break up the unity of France. Yet from the first the leaders of the two
parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the
Assembly. It was largely a question of temperament. The Girondists were
idealists, doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action; they
encouraged, it is true, the "armed petitions" which resulted, to their
dismay, in the _émeute_ of the 20th of June; but Roland, turning the
ministry of the interior into a publishing office for tracts on the
civic virtues, while in the provinces riotous mobs were burning the
châteaux unchecked, is more typical of their spirit. With the ferocious
fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future organizers of the
Terror they had nothing in common. As the Revolution developed they
trembled at the anarchic forces they had helped to unchain, and tried in
vain to curb them. The overthrow of the monarchy on the 10th of August
and the massacres of September were not their work, though they claimed
credit for the results achieved.
The crisis of their fate was not slow in coming. It was they who
proposed the suspension of the king and the summoning of the National
Convention; but they had only consented to overthrow the kingship when
they found that Louis XVI. was impervious to their counsels, and, the
republic once established, they were anxious to arrest the revolutionary
movement which they had helped to set in motion. As Daunou shrewdly
observes in his _Mémoires_, they were too cultivated and too polished to
retain their popularity long in times of disturbance, and were therefore
the more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would
mean the guarantee of their own power.[1] Thus the Girondists, who had
been the Radicals of the Legislative Assembly, became the Conservatives
of the Convention. But they were soon to have practical experience of
the fate that overtakes those who attempt to arrest in mid-career a
revolution they themselves have set in motion. The ignorant populace,
for whom the promised social millennium had by no means dawned, saw in
an attitude seemingly so inconsistent obvious proof of corrupt motives,
and there were plenty of prophets of misrule to encourage the
delusion--orators of the clubs and the street corners, for whom the
restoration of order would have meant well-deserved obscurity. Moreover,
the _Septembriseurs_--Robespierre, Danton, Marat and their lesser
satellites--realized that not only their influence but their safety
depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the
Girondists, whose lustre had so long obscured his own, had proposed to
include them in the proscription lists of September; the Mountain to a
man desired their overthrow.
The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondists, who had a majority in the
Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministry,
believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in
the hostile camp; their system was established in the purest reason. But
the Montagnards made up by their fanatical, or desperate, energy and
boldness for what they lacked in talent or in numbers. They had behind
them the revolutionary Commune, the Sections and the National Guard of
Paris, and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot,
absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. And
as the motive power of this formidable mechanism of force they could
rely on the native suspiciousness of the Parisian populace, exaggerated
now into madness by famine and the menace of foreign invasion. The
Girondists played into their hands. At the trial of Louis XVI. the bulk
of them had voted for the "appeal to the people," and so laid themselves
open to the charge of "royalism"; they denounced the domination of Paris
and summoned provincial levies to their aid, and so fell under suspicion
of "federalism," though they rejected Buzot's proposal to transfer the
Convention to Versailles. They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by
decreeing its abolition, and then withdrawing the decree at the first
sign of popular opposition; they increased the prestige of Marat by
prosecuting him before the Revolutionary Tribunal, where his acquittal
was a foregone conclusion. In the suspicious temper of the times this
vacillating policy was doubly fatal. Marat never ceased his
denunciations of the "_faction des hommes d'État_," by which France was
being betrayed to her ruin, and his parrot cry of "_Nous sommes
trahis!_" was re-echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris. The
Girondists, for all their fine phrases, were sold to the enemy, as
Lafayette, Dumouriez and a hundred others--once popular favourites--had
been sold.
The hostility of Paris to the Girondists received a fateful
advertisement by the election, on the 15th of February 1793, of the
ex-Girondist Jean Nicolas Pache (1746-1823) to the mayoralty. Pache had
twice been minister of war in the Girondist government; but his
incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism, and on the 4th of
February he had been superseded by a vote of the Convention. This was
enough to secure him the suffrages of the Paris electors ten days later,
and the Mountain was strengthened by the accession of an ally whose one
idea was to use his new power to revenge himself on his former
colleagues. Pache, with Chaumette, _procureur_ of the Commune, and
Hébert, deputy _procureur_, controlled the armed organization of the
Paris Sections, and prepared to turn this against the Convention. The
abortive _émeute_ of the 10th of March warned the Girondists of their
danger, but the Commission of Twelve appointed on the 18th of May, the
arrest of Marat and Hébert, and other precautionary measures, were
defeated by the popular risings of the 27th and 31st of May, and,
finally, on the 2nd of June, Hanriot with the National Guards purged
the Convention of the Girondists. Isnard's threat, uttered on the 25th
of May, to march France upon Paris had been met by Paris marching upon
the Convention.
The list drawn up by Hanriot, and endorsed by a decree of the
intimidated Convention, included twenty-two Girondist deputies and ten
members of the Commission of Twelve, who were ordered to be detained at
their lodgings "under the safeguard of the people." Some submitted,
among them Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion, Birotteau and
Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource,
Grangeneuve, Larivière and Bergoing, escaped from Paris and, joined
later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organize a
movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up
civil war determined the wavering and frightened Convention. On the 13th
of June it voted that the city of Paris had deserved well of the
country, and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the
filling up of their places in the Assembly by their _suppléants_, and
the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the
provinces. The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent
peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of the
Coalition, on the west by the Royalist insurrection of La Vendée, and
the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war.
The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday (q.v.) only served to
increase the unpopularity of the Girondists and to seal their fate. On
the 28th of July a decree of the Convention proscribed, as traitors and
enemies of their country, twenty-one deputies, the final list of those
sent for trial comprising the names of Antiboul, Boilleau the younger,
Boyer-Fonfrède, Brissot, Carra, Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche
de Valazé, Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource,
Lauze-Deperret, Lehardi, Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle,
Sillery, Vergniaud and Viger, of whom five were deputies from the
Gironde. The names of thirty-nine others were included in the final
_acte d'accusation_, accepted by the Convention on the 24th of October,
which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their
perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their "federalism" and,
above all, their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped
colleagues to provoke civil war.
The trial of the twenty-one, which began before the Revolutionary
Tribunal on the 24th of October, was a mere farce, the verdict a
foregone conclusion. On the 31st they were borne to the guillotine in
five tumbrils, the corpse of Dufriche de Valazé--who had killed
himself--being carried with them. They met death with great courage,
singing the refrain "_Plutôt la mort que l'esclavage!_" Of those who
escaped to the provinces the greater number, after wandering about
singly or in groups, were either captured and executed or committed
suicide, among them Barbaroux, Buzot, Condorcet, Grangeneuve, Guadet,
Kersaint, Pétion, Rabaut de Saint-Étienne and Rebecqui. Roland had
killed himself at Rouen on the 15th of November, a week after the
execution of his wife. Among the very few who finally escaped was Jean
Baptiste Louvet, whose _Mémoires_ give a thrilling picture of the
sufferings of the fugitives. Incidentally they prove, too, that the
sentiment of France was for the time against the Girondists, who were
proscribed even in their chief centre, the city of Bordeaux. The
survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after
the fall of Robespierre, but it was not until the 5th of March 1795 that
they were formally reinstated. On the 3rd of October of the same year
(11 Vendémiaire, year III.) a solemn fête in honour of the Girondist
"martyrs of liberty" was celebrated in the Convention. See also the
article FRENCH REVOLUTION and separate biographies.
Of the special works on the Girondists Lamartine's _Histoire des
Girondins_ (2 vols., Paris, 1847, new ed. 1902, in 6 vols.) is
rhetoric rather than history and is untrustworthy; the _Histoire des
Girondins_, by A. Gramier de Cassagnac (Paris, 1860) led to the
publication of a _Protestation_ by J. Guadet, a nephew of the
Girondist orator, which was followed by his _Les Girondins, leur vie
privée, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort_ (2 vols.,
Paris, 1861, new ed. 1890); with which cf. Alary, _Les Girondins par
Guadet_ (Bordeaux, 1863); also Charles Vatel, _Charlotte de Corday et
les Girondins: pièces classées et annotées_ (3 vols., Paris,
1864-1872); _Recherches historiques sur les Girondins_ (2 vols.,
ib. 1873); Ducos, _Les Trois Girondines_ (Madame Roland, Charlotte
Corday, Madame Bouquey) _et les Girondins_ (ib. 1896); Edmond Biré,
_La Légende des Girondins_ (Paris, 1881, new ed. 1896); also Helen
Maria Williams, _State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic
towards the close of the 18th Century_ (2 vols., London, 1801).
Memoirs or fragments of memoirs also exist by particular Girondists,
e.g. Barbaroux, Pétion, Louvet, Madame Roland. See, further, the
bibliography to the article FRENCH REVOLUTION. (W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Daunou, "Mémoires pour servir à l'hist. de la Convention
Nationale," p. 409, vol. xii. of M. Fr. Barrière, _Bibl. des mém. rel
à l'hist. de la France_, &c. (Paris, 1863).
GIRTIN, THOMAS (1775-1802), English painter and etcher, was the son of a
well-to-do cordage maker in Southwark, London. His father died while
Thomas was a child, and his widow married Mr Vaughan, a
pattern-draughtsman. Girtin learnt drawing as a boy, and was apprenticed
to Edward Doyes (1763-1804), the mezzotint engraver, and he soon made J.
M. W. Turner's acquaintance. His architectural and topographical
sketches and drawings soon established his reputation, his use of
water-colour for landscapes being such as to give him the credit of
having created modern water-colour painting, as opposed to mere
"tinting." His etchings also were characteristic of his artistic genius.
His early death from consumption (9th of November 1802) led indeed to
Turner saying that "had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved." From
1794 to his death he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy; and some
fine examples of his work have been bequeathed by private owners to the
British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
GIRVAN, a police burgh, market and fishing town of Ayrshire, Scotland,
at the mouth of the Girvan, 21 m. S.W. of Ayr, and 63 m. S.W. of Glasgow
by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 4024. The principal
industry was weaving, but the substitution of the power-loom for the
hand-loom nearly put an end to it. The herring fishery has developed to
considerable proportions, the harbour having been enlarged and protected
by piers and a breakwater. Moreover, the town has grown in repute as a
health and holiday resort, its situation being one of the finest in the
west of Scotland. There is excellent sea-bathing, and a good
golf-course. The vale of Girvan, one of the most fertile tracts in the
shire, is made so by the Water of Girvan, which rises in the loch of
Girvan Eye, pursues a very tortuous course of 36 m. and empties into the
sea. Girvan is the point of communication with Ailsa Craig. About 13 m.
S.W. at the mouth of the Stinchar is the fishing village of Ballantrae
(pop. 511).
GIRY (JEAN MARIE JOSEPH), ARTHUR (1848-1899), French historian, was born
at Trévoux (Ain) on the 29th of February 1848. After rapidly completing
his classical studies at the _lycée_ at Chartres, he spent some time in
the administrative service and in journalism. He then entered the École
des Chartes, where, under the influence of J. Quicherat, he developed a
strong inclination to the study of the middle ages. The lectures at the
École des Hautes Études, which he attended from its foundation in 1868,
revealed his true bent; and henceforth he devoted himself almost
entirely to scholarship. He began modestly by the study of the municipal
charters of St Omer. Having been appointed assistant lecturer and
afterwards full lecturer at the École des Hautes Études, it was to the
town of St Omer that he devoted his first lectures and his first
important work, _Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer et de ses
institutions jusqu'au XIV^e siècle_ (1877). He, however, soon realized
that the charters of one town can only be understood by comparing them
with those of other towns, and he was gradually led to continue the work
which Augustin Thierry had broadly outlined in his studies on the _Tiers
État_. A minute knowledge of printed books and a methodical examination
of departmental and communal archives furnished him with material for a
long course of successful lectures, which gave rise to some important
works on municipal history and led to a great revival of interest in the
origins and significance of the urban communities in France. Giry
himself published _Les Établissements de Rouen_ (1883-1885), a study,
based on very minute researches, of the charter granted to the capital
of Normandy by Henry II., king of England, and of the diffusion of
similar charters throughout the French dominions of the Plantagenets; a
collection of _Documents sur les relations de la royauté avec les
villes de France de 1180 à 1314_ (1885); and _Étude sur les origines de
la commune de Saint-Quentin_ (1887).
About this time personal considerations induced Giry to devote the
greater part of his activity to the study of diplomatic, which had been
much neglected at the École des Chartes, but had made great strides in
Germany. As assistant (1883) and successor (1885) to Louis de Mas
Latrie, Giry restored the study of diplomatic, which had been founded in
France by Dom Jean Mabillon, to its legitimate importance. In 1894 he
published his _Manuel de diplomatique_, a monument of lucid and
well-arranged erudition, which contained the fruits of his long
experience of archives, original documents and textual criticism; and
his pupils, especially those at the École des Hautes Études, soon caught
his enthusiasm. With their collaboration he undertook the preparation of
an inventory and, subsequently, of a critical edition of the Carolingian
diplomas. By arrangement with E. Mühlbacher and the editors of the
_Monumenta Germaniae historica_, this part of the joint work was
reserved for Giry. Simultaneously with this work he carried on the
publication of the annals of the Carolingian epoch on the model of the
German _Jahrbücher_, reserving for himself the reign of Charles the
Bald. Of this series his pupils produced in his lifetime _Les Derniers
Carolingiens_ (by F. Lot, 1891), _Eudes, comte de Paris et roi de
France_ (by E. Favre, 1893), and _Charles le Simple_ (by Eckel, 1899).
The biographies of Louis IV. and Hugh Capet and the history of the
kingdom of Provence were not published until after his death, and his
own unfinished history of Charles the Bald was left to be completed by
his pupils. The preliminary work on the Carolingian diplomas involved
such lengthy and costly researches that the Académie des Inscriptions et
Belles-Lettres took over the expenses after Giry's death.
In the midst of these multifarious labours Giry found time for extensive
archaeological researches, and made a special study of the medieval
treatises dealing with the technical processes employed in the arts and
industries. He prepared a new edition of the monk Theophilus's
celebrated treatise, _Diversarum artium schedula_, and for several years
devoted his Saturday mornings to laboratory research with the chemist
Aimé Girard at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the results of
which were utilized by Marcellin Berthelot in the first volume (1894) of
his _Chimie au moyen âge_. Giry took an energetic part in the
_Collection de textes relatifs à l'histoire du moyen âge_, which was due
in great measure to his initiative. He was appointed director of the
section of French history in _La Grande Encyclopédie_, and contributed
more than a hundred articles, many of which, e.g. "Archives" and
"Diplomatique," were original works. In collaboration with his pupil
André Réville, he wrote the chapters on "L'Émancipation des villes, les
communes et les bourgeoisies" and "Le Commerce et l'industrie au moyen
âge" for the _Histoire générale_ of Lavisse and Rambaud. Giry took a
keen interest in politics, joining the republican party and writing
numerous articles in the republican newspapers, mainly on historical
subjects. He was intensely interested in the Dreyfus case, but his
robust constitution was undermined by the anxieties and disappointments
occasioned by the Zola trial and the Rennes court-martial, and he died
in Paris on the 13th of November 1899.
For details of Giry's life and works see the funeral orations
published in the _Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes_, and afterwards
in a pamphlet (1899). See also the biography by Ferdinand Lot in the
_Annuaire de l'École des Hautes Études_ for 1901; and the bibliography
of his works by Henry Maistre in the _Correspondance historique et
archéologique_ (1899 and 1900).
GISBORNE, a seaport of New Zealand, in Cook county, provincial district
of Auckland, on Poverty Bay of the east coast of North Island. Pop.
(1901) 2733; (1906) 5664. Wool, frozen mutton and agricultural produce
are exported from the rich district surrounding. Petroleum has been
discovered in the neighbourhood, and about 40 m. from the town there are
warm medicinal springs. Near the site of Gisborne Captain Cook landed in
1769, and gave Poverty Bay its name from his inability to obtain
supplies owing to the hostility of the natives. Young Nick's Head, the
southern horn of the bay, was named from Nicholas Young, his ship's boy,
who first observed it.
GISLEBERT (or GILBERT) OF MONS (c. 1150-1225), Flemish chronicler,
became a clerk, and obtained the positions of provost of the churches of
St Germanus at Mons and St Alban at Namur, in addition to several other
ecclesiastical appointments. In official documents he is described as
chaplain, chancellor or notary, of Baldwin V., count of Hainaut (d.
1195), who employed him on important business. After 1200 Gislebert
wrote the _Chronicon Hanoniense_, a history of Hainaut and the
neighbouring lands from about 1050 to 1195, which is specially valuable
for the latter part of the 12th century, and for the life and times of
Baldwin V.
The chronicle is published in Band xxi. of the _Monumenta Germaniae
historica_ (Hanover, 1826 fol.); and separately with introduction by
W. Arndt (Hanover, 1869). Another edition has been published by L.
Vanderkindere in the _Recueil de textes pour servir à l'étude de
l'histoire de Belgique_ (Brussels, 1904); and there is a French
translation by G. Menilglaise (Tournai, 1874).
See W. Meyer, _Das Werk des Kanzlers Gislebert von Mons als
verfassungsgeschichtliche Quelle_ (Königsberg, 1888); K. Huygens, _Sur
la valeur historique de la chronique Gislebert de Mons_ (Ghent, 1889);
and W. Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, Band ii. (Berlin,
1894).
GISORS, a town of France, in the department of Eure, situated in the
pleasant valley of the Epte, 44. m. N.W. of Paris on the railway to
Dieppe. Pop. (1906) 4345. Gisors is dominated by a feudal stronghold
built chiefly by the kings of England in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The outer enceinte, to which is attached a cylindrical donjon erected by
Philip Augustus, king of France, embraces an area of over 7 acres. On a
mound in the centre of this space rises an older donjon, octagonal in
shape, protected by another enceinte. The outer ramparts and the ground
they enclose have been converted into promenades. The church of St
Gervais dates in its oldest parts--the central tower, the choir and
parts of the aisles--from the middle of the 13th century, when it was
founded by Blanche of Castile. The rest of the church belongs to the
Renaissance period. The Gothic and Renaissance styles mingle in the west
façade, which, like the interior of the building, is adorned with a
profusion of sculptures; the fine carving on the wooden doors of the
north and west portals is particularly noticeable. The less interesting
buildings of the town include a wooden house of the Renaissance era, an
old convent now used as an hôtel de ville, and a handsome modern
hospital. There is a statue of General de Blanmont, born at Gisors in
1770. Among the industries of Gisors are felt manufacture, bleaching,
dyeing and leather-dressing.
In the middle ages Gisors was capital of the Vexin. Its position on the
frontier of Normandy caused its possession to be hotly contested by the
kings of England and France during the 12th century, at the end of which
it and the dependent fortresses of Neaufles and Dangu were ceded by
Richard Coeur de Lion to Philip Augustus. During the wars of religion of
the 16th century it was occupied by the duke of Mayenne on behalf of the
League, and in the 17th century, during the Fronde, by the duke of
Longueville. Gisors was given to Charles Auguste Fouquet in 1718 in
exchange for Belle-Ile-en-Mer and made a duchy in 1742. It afterwards
came into the possession of the count of Eu and the duke of Penthièvre.
GISSING, GEORGE ROBERT (1857-1903), English novelist, was born at
Wakefield on the 22nd of November 1857. He was educated at the Quaker
boarding-school of Alderley Edge and at Owens College, Manchester. His
life, especially its earlier period, was spent in great poverty, mainly
in London, though he was for a time also in the United States,
supporting himself chiefly by private teaching. He published his first
novel, _Workers in the Dawn_, in 1880. _The Unclassed_ (1884) and
_Isabel Clarendon_ (1886) followed. _Demos_ (1886), a novel dealing with
socialistic ideas, was, however, the first to attract attention. It was
followed by a series of novels remarkable for their pictures of lower
middle class life. Gissing's own experiences had preoccupied him with
poverty and its brutalizing effects on character. He made no attempt at
popular writing, and for a long time the sincerity of his work was
appreciated only by a limited public. Among his more characteristic
novels were: _Thyrza_ (1887), _A Life's Morning_ (1888), _The Nether
World_ (1889), _New Grub Street_ (1891), _Born in Exile_ (1892), _The
Odd Women_ (1893), _In the Year of Jubilee_ (1894), _The Whirlpool_
(1897). Others, e.g. _The Town Traveller_ (1901), indicate a humorous
faculty, but the prevailing note of his novels is that of the struggling
life of the shabby-genteel and lower classes and the conflict between
education and circumstances. The quasi-autobiographical _Private Papers
of Henry Ryecroft_ (1903) reflects throughout Gissing's studious and
retiring tastes. He was a good classical scholar and had a minute
acquaintance with the late Latin historians, and with Italian
antiquities; and his posthumous _Veranilda_ (1904), a historical romance
of Italy in the time of Theodoric the Goth, was the outcome of his
favourite studies. Gissing's powers as a literary critic are shown in
his admirable study on Charles Dickens (1898). A book of travel, _By the
Ionian Sea_, appeared in 1901. He died at St Jean de Luz in the Pyrenees
on the 28th of December 1903.
See also the introductory essay by T. Seccombe to _The House of
Cobwebs_ (1906), a posthumous volume of Gissing's short stories.
GITSCHIN (Czech _Jicin_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 65 m. N.E. of
Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9790, mostly Czech. The parish church was
begun by Wallenstein after the model of the pilgrims' church of Santiago
de Compostela in Spain, but not completed till 1655. The castle, which
stands next to the church, was built by Wallenstein and finished in
1630. It was here that the emperor Francis I. of Austria signed the
treaty of 1813 by which he threw in his lot with the Allies against
Napoleon. Wallenstein was interred at the neighbouring Carthusian
monastery, but in 1639 the head and right hand were taken by General
Banér to Sweden, and in 1702 the other remains were removed by Count
Vincent of Waldstein to his hereditary burying ground at Münchengrätz.
Gitschin was originally the village of Zidineves and received its
present name when it was raised to the dignity of a town by Wenceslaus
II. in 1302. The place belonged to various noble Bohemian families, and
in the 17th century came into the hands of Wallenstein, who made it the
capital of the duchy of Friedland and did much to improve and extend it.
His murder, and the miseries of the Thirty Years' War, brought it very
low; and it passed through several hands before it was bought by Prince
Trauttmannsdorf, to whose family it still belongs. On the 29th of June
1866 the Prussians gained here a great victory over the Austrians. This
victory made possible the junction of the first and second Prussian army
corps, and had as an ultimate result the Austrian defeat at Königgrätz.
GIUDICI, PAOLO EMILIANO (1812-1872), Italian writer, was born in Sicily.
His _History of Italian Literature_ (1844) brought him to the front, and
in 1848 he became professor of Italian literature at Pisa, but after a
few months was deprived of the chair on account of his liberal views in
politics. On the re-establishment of the Italian kingdom he became
professor of aesthetics (resigning 1862) and secretary of the Academy of
Fine Arts at Florence, and in 1867 was elected to the chamber of
deputies. He held a prominent place as an historian, his works including
a _Storia del teatro_ (1860), and _Storia dei comuni italiani_ (1861),
besides a translation of Macaulay's _History of England_ (1856). He died
at Tonbridge in England, on the 8th of September 1872.
A _Life_ appeared at Florence in 1874.
GIULIO ROMANO, or GIULIO PIPPI (c. 1492-1546), the head of the Roman
school of painting in succession to Raphael. This prolific painter,
modeller, architect and engineer receives his common appellation from
the place of his birth--Rome, in the Macello de' Corbi. His name in full
was Giulio di Pietro de Filippo de' Giannuzzi--Giannuzzi being the true
family name, and Pippi (which has practically superseded Giannuzzi)
being an abbreviation from the name of his grandfather Filippo. The date
of Giulio's birth is a little uncertain. Vasari (who knew him
personally) speaks of him as fifty-four years old at the date of his
death, 1st November 1546; thus he would have been born in 1492. Other
accounts assign 1498 as the date of birth. This would make Giulio young
indeed in the early and in such case most precocious stages of his
artistic career, and would show him as dying, after an infinity of hard
work, at the comparatively early age of forty-eight.
Giulio must at all events have been quite youthful when he first became
the pupil of Raphael, and at Raphael's death in 1520 he was at the
utmost twenty-eight years of age. Raphael had loved him as a son, and
had employed him in some leading works, especially in the Loggie of the
Vatican; the series there popularly termed "Raphael's Bible" is done in
large measure by Giulio,--as for instance the subjects of the "Creation
of Adam and Eve," "Noah's Ark," and "Moses in the Bulrushes." In the
saloon of the "Incendio del Borgo," also, the figures of "Benefactors of
the Church" (Charlemagne, &c.) are Giulio's handiwork. It would appear
that in subjects of this kind Raphael simply furnished the design, and
committed the execution of it to some assistant, such as Giulio,--taking
heed, however, to bring it up, by final retouching, to his own standard
of style and type. Giulio at a later date followed out exactly the same
plan; so that in both instances inferiorities of method, in the general
blocking-out and even in the details of the work, are not to be
precisely charged upon the _caposcuola_. Amid the multitude of Raphael's
pupils, Giulio was eminent in pursuing his style, and showed universal
aptitude; he did, among other things, a large amount of architectural
planning for his chief. Raphael bequeathed to Giulio, and to his
fellow-pupil Gianfrancesco Penni ("Il Fattore"), his implements and
works of art; and upon them it devolved to bring to completion the vast
fresco-work of the "Hall of Constantine" in the Vatican--consisting,
along with much minor matter, of the four large subjects, the "Battle of
Constantine," the "Apparition of the Cross," the "Baptism of
Constantine" and the "Donation of Rome to the Pope." The two former
compositions were executed by Pippi, the two latter by Penni. The whole
of this onerous undertaking was completed within a period of only three
years,--which is the more remarkable as, during some part of the
interval since Raphael's decease, the Fleming, Adrian VI., had been
pope, and his anti-aesthetic pontificate had left art and artists almost
in a state of inanition. Clement VII. had now, however, succeeded to the
popedom. By this time Giulio was regarded as the first painter in Rome;
but his Roman career was fated to have no further sequel.
Towards the end of 1524 his friend the celebrated writer Baldassar
Castiglione seconded with success the urgent request of the duke of
Mantua, Federigo Gonzaga, that Giulio should migrate to that city, and
enter the duke's service for the purpose of carrying out his projects in
architecture and pictorial decoration. These projects were already
considerable, and under Giulio's management they became far more
extensive still. The duke treated his painter munificently as to house,
table, horses and whatever was in request; and soon a very cordial
attachment sprang up between them. In Pippi's multifarious work in
Mantua three principal undertakings should be noted. (1) In the Castello
he painted the "History of Troy," along with other subjects. (2) In the
suburban ducal residence named the Palazzo del Te (this designation
being apparently derived from the form of the roads which led towards
the edifice) he rapidly carried out a rebuilding on a vastly enlarged
scale,--the materials being brick and terra-cotta, as there is no local
stone,--and decorated the rooms with his most celebrated works in oil
and fresco painting--the story of Psyche, Icarus, the fall of the
Titans, and the portraits of the ducal horses and hounds. The foreground
figures of Titans are from 12 to 14 ft. high; the room, even in its
structural details, is made to subserve the general artistic purpose,
and many of its architectural features are distorted accordingly.
Greatly admired though these pre-eminent works have always been, and at
most times even more than can now be fully ratified, they have suffered
severely at the hands of restorers, and modern eyes see them only
through a dull and deadening fog of renovation. The whole of the work on
the Palazzo del Te, which is of the Doric order of architecture,
occupied about five years. (3) Pippi recast and almost rebuilt the
cathedral of Mantua; erected his own mansion, replete with numerous
antiques and other articles of vertu; reconstructed the street
architecture to a very large extent, and made the city, sapped as it is
by the shallows of the Mincio, comparatively healthy; and at Marmiruolo,
some 5 m. distant from Mantua, he worked out other important buildings
and paintings. He was in fact, for nearly a quarter of a century, a sort
of Demiurgus of the arts of design in the Mantuan territory.
Giulio's activity was interrupted but not terminated by the death of
Duke Federigo. The duke's brother, a cardinal who became regent,
retained him in full employment. For a while he went to Bologna, and
constructed the façade of the church of S. Petronio in that city. He was
afterwards invited to succeed Antonio Sangallo as architect of St
Peter's in Rome,--a splendid appointment, which, notwithstanding the
strenuous opposition of his wife and of the cardinal regent, he had
almost resolved to accept, when a fever overtook him, and, acting upon a
constitution somewhat enfeebled by worry and labour, caused his death on
the 1st of November 1546. He was buried in the church of S. Barnaba in
Mantua. At the time of his death Giulio enjoyed an annual income of more
than 1000 ducats, accruing from the liberalities of his patrons. He left
a widow, and a son and daughter. The son, named Raffaello, studied
painting, but died before he could produce any work of importance; the
daughter, Virginia, married Ercole Malatesta.
Wide and solid knowledge of design, combined with a promptitude of
composition that was never at fault, formed the chief motive power and
merit of Giulio Romano's art. Whatever was wanted, he produced it at
once, throwing off, as Vasari says, a large design in an hour; and he
may in that sense, though not equally so when an imaginative or ideal
test is applied, be called a great inventor. It would be difficult to
name any other artist who, working as an architect, and as the plastic
and pictorial embellisher of his architecture, produced a total of work
so fully and homogeneously his own; hence he has been named "the prince
of decorators." He had great knowledge of the human frame, and
represented it with force and truth, though sometimes with an excess of
movement; he was also learned in other matters, especially in medals,
and in the plans of ancient buildings. In design he was more strong and
emphatic than graceful, and worked a great deal from his accumulated
stores of knowledge, without consulting nature direct. As a general
rule, his designs are finer and freer than his paintings, whether in
fresco or in oil--his easel pictures being comparatively few, and some
of them the reverse of decent; his colouring is marked by an excess of
blackish and heavy tints.
Giulio Romano introduced the style of Raphael into Mantua, and
established there a considerable school of art, which surpassed in
development that of his predecessor Mantegna, and almost rivalled that
of Rome. Very many engravings--more than three hundred are
mentioned--were made contemporaneously from his works; and this not only
in Italy, but in France and Flanders as well. His plan of entrusting
principally to assistants the pictorial execution of his cartoons has
already been referred to; Primaticcio was one of the leading coadjutors.
Rinaldo Mantovano, a man of great ability who died young, was the chief
executant of the "Fall of the Giants"; he also co-operated with
Benedetto Pagni da Pescia in painting the remarkable series of horses
and hounds, and the story of Psyche. Another pupil was Fermo Guisoni,
who remained settled in Mantua. The oil pictures of Giulio Romano are
not generally of high importance; two leading ones are the "Martyrdom of
Stephen," in the church of that saint in Genoa, and a "Holy Family" in
the Dresden Gallery. Among his architectural works not already mentioned
is the Villa Madama in Rome, with a fresco of Polyphemus, and boys and
satyrs; the Ionic façade of this building may have been sketched out by
Raphael.
Vasari gives a pleasing impression of the character of Giulio. He was
very loving to his friends, genial, affable, well-bred, temperate in the
pleasures of the table, but liking fine apparel and a handsome scale of
living. He was good-looking, of middle height, with black curly hair and
dark eyes, and an ample beard; his portrait, painted by himself, is in
the Louvre.
Besides Vasari, Lanzi and other historians of art, the following works
may be mentioned: C. D. Arco, _Vita di G. Pippi_ (1828); G. C. von
Murr, _Notice sur les estampes gravées après dessins de Jules Romain_
(1865); R. Sanzio, two works on _Etchings and Paintings_ (1800, 1836).
(W. M. R.)
GIUNTA PISANO, the earliest Italian painter whose name is found
inscribed on an extant work. He is said to have exercised his art from
1202 to 1236. He may perhaps have been born towards 1180 in Pisa, and
died in or soon after 1236; but other accounts give 1202 as the date of
his birth, and 1258 or thereabouts for his death. There is some ground
for thinking that his family name was Capiteno. The inscribed work above
referred to, one of his earliest, is a "Crucifix," long in the kitchen
of the convent of St Anne in Pisa. Other Pisan works of like date are
very barbarous, and some of them may be also from the hand of Giunta. It
is said that he painted in the upper church of Assisi,--in especial a
"Crucifixion" dated 1236, with a figure of Father Elias, the general of
the Franciscans, embracing the foot of the cross. In the sacristy is a
portrait of St Francis, also ascribed to Giunta; but it more probably
belongs to the close of the 13th century. He was in the practice of
painting upon cloth stretched on wood, and prepared with plaster.
GIURGEVO (_Giurgiu_), the capital of the department of Vlashca, Rumania;
situated amid mud-flats and marshes on the left bank of the Danube. Pop.
(1900) 13,977. Three small islands face the town, and a larger one
shelters its port, Smarda, 2½ m. E. The rich corn-lands on the north are
traversed by a railway to Bucharest, the first line opened in Rumania,
which was built in 1869 and afterwards extended to Smarda. Steamers ply
to Rustchuk, 2½ m. S.W. on the Bulgarian shore, linking the Rumanian
railway system to the chief Bulgarian line north of the Balkans
(Rustchuk-Varna). Thus Giurgevo, besides having a considerable trade
with the home ports lower down the Danube, is the headquarters of
commerce between Bulgaria and Rumania. It exports timber, grain, salt
and petroleum; importing coal, iron and textiles. There are also large
saw-mills.
Giurgevo occupies the site of Theodorapolis, a city built by the Roman
emperor Justinian (A.D. 483-565). It was founded in the 14th century by
Genoese merchant adventurers, who established a bank, and a trade in
silks and velvets. They called the town, after the patron saint of
Genoa, San Giorgio (St George); and hence comes its present name. As a
fortified town, Giurgevo figured often in the wars for the conquest of
the lower Danube; especially in the struggle of Michael the Brave
(1593-1601) against the Turks, and in the later Russo-Turkish Wars. It
was burned in 1659. In 1829, its fortifications were finally razed, the
only defence left being a castle on the island of Slobosia, united to
the shore by a bridge.
GIUSTI, GIUSEPPE (1809-1850), Tuscan satirical poet, was born at
Monsummano, a small village of the Valdinievole, on the 12th of May
1809. His father, a cultivated and rich man, accustomed his son from
childhood to study, and himself taught him, among other subjects, the
first rudiments of music. Afterwards, in order to curb his too vivacious
disposition, he placed the boy under the charge of a priest near the
village, whose severity did perhaps more evil than good. At twelve
Giusti was sent to school at Florence, and afterwards to Pistoia and to
Lucca; and during those years he wrote his first verses. In 1826 he went
to study law at Pisa; but, disliking the study, he spent eight years in
the course, instead of the customary four. He lived gaily, however,
though his father kept him short of money, and learned to know the
world, seeing the vices of society, and the folly of certain laws and
customs from which his country was suffering. The experience thus gained
he turned to good account in the use he made of it in his satire.
His father had in the meantime changed his place of abode to Pescia; but
Giuseppe did worse there, and in November 1832, his father having paid
his debts, he returned to study at Pisa, seriously enamoured of a woman
whom he could not marry, but now commencing to write in real earnest in
behalf of his country. With the poem called _La Ghigliottina_ (the
guillotine), Giusti began to strike out a path for himself, and thus
revealed his great genius. From this time he showed himself the Italian
Béranger, and even surpassed the Frenchman in richness of language,
refinement of humour and depth of satirical conception. In Béranger
there is more feeling for what is needed for popular poetry. His poetry
is less studied, its vivacity perhaps more boisterous, more spontaneous;
but Giusti, in both manner and conception, is perhaps more elegant, more
refined, more penetrating. In 1834 Giusti, having at last entered the
legal profession, left Pisa to go to Florence, nominally to practise
with the advocate Capoquadri, but really to enjoy life in the capital of
Tuscany. He fell seriously in love a second time, and as before was
abandoned by his love. It was then he wrote his finest verses, by means
of which, although his poetry was not yet collected in a volume, but for
some years passed from hand to hand, his name gradually became famous.
The greater part of his poems were published clandestinely at Lugano, at
no little risk, as the work was destined to undermine the Austrian rule
in Italy. After the publication of a volume of verses at Bastia, Giusti
thoroughly established his fame by his _Gingillino_, the best in moral
tone as well as the most vigorous and effective of his poems. The poet
sets himself to represent the vileness of the treasury officials, and
the base means they used to conceal the necessities of the state. The
_Gingillino_ has all the character of a classic satire. When first
issued in Tuscany, it struck all as too impassioned and personal. Giusti
entered heart and soul into the political movements of 1847 and 1848,
served in the national guard, sat in the parliament for Tuscany; but
finding that there was more talk than action, that to the tyranny of
princes had succeeded the tyranny of demagogues, he began to fear, and
to express the fear, that for Italy evil rather than good had resulted.
He fell, in consequence, from the high position he had held in public
estimation, and in 1848 was regarded as a reactionary. His friendship
for the marquis Gino Capponi, who had taken him into his house during
the last years of his life, and who published after Giusti's death a
volume of illustrated proverbs, was enough to compromise him in the eyes
of such men as Guerrazzi, Montanelli and Niccolini. On the 31st of May
1850 he died at Florence in the palace of his friend.
The poetry of Giusti, under a light trivial aspect, has a lofty
civilizing significance. The type of his satire is entirely original,
and it had also the great merit of appearing at the right moment, of
wounding judiciously, of sustaining the part of the comedy that
"castigat ridendo mores." Hence his verse, apparently jovial, was
received by the scholars and politicians of Italy in all seriousness.
Alexander Manzoni in some of his letters showed a hearty admiration of
the genius of Giusti; and the weak Austrian and Bourbon governments
regarded them as of the gravest importance.
His poems have often been reprinted, the best editions being those of
Le Monnier, Carducci (1859; 3rd ed., 1879), Fioretti (1876) and Bragi
(1890). Besides the poems and the proverbs already mentioned, we have
a volume of select letters, full of vigour and written in the best
Tuscan language, and a fine critical discourse on Giuseppe Parini, the
satirical poet. In some of his compositions the elegiac rather than
the satirical poet is seen. Many of his verses have been excellently
translated into German by Paul Heyse. Good English translations were
published in the _Athenaeum_ by Mrs T. A. Trollope, and some by W. D.
Howells are in his _Modern Italian Poets_ (1887).
GIUSTINIANI, the name of a prominent Italian family which originally
belonged to Venice, but established itself subsequently in Genoa also,
and at various times had representatives in Naples, Corsica and several
of the islands of the Archipelago.
In the Venetian line the following are most worthy of mention:--
1. LORENZO (1380-1465), the Laurentius Justinianus of the Roman
calendar, at an early age entered the congregation of the canons of St
George in Alga, and in 1433 became general of that order. About the same
time he was made by Eugenius IV. bishop of Venice; and his episcopate
was marked by considerable activity in church extension and reform. On
the removal of the patriarchate from Grado to Venice by Nicholas V. in
1451, Giustiniani was promoted to that dignity, which he held for
fourteen years. He died on January 8, 1465, was canonized by Pope
Alexander VIII., his festival (semi-duplex) being fixed by Innocent
XII. for September 5th, the anniversary of his elevation to the
bishopric. His works, consisting of sermons, letters and ascetic
treatises, have been frequently reprinted,--the best edition being that
of the Benedictine P. N. A. Giustiniani, published at Venice in 2 vols.
folio, 1751. They are wholly devoid of literary merit. His life has been
written by Bernard Giustiniani, by Maffei and also by the Bollandists.
2. LEONARDO (1388-1446), brother of the preceding, was for some years a
senator of Venice, and in 1443 was chosen procurator of St Mark. He
translated into Italian Plutarch's _Lives of Cinna and Lucullus_, and was
the author of some poetical pieces, amatory and religious--_strambotti_
and _canzonetti_--as well as of rhetorical prose compositions. Some of
the popular songs set to music by him became known as _Giustiniani_.
3. BERNARDO (1408-1489), son of Leonardo, was a pupil of Guarino and of
George of Trebizond, and entered the Venetian senate at an early age. He
served on several important diplomatic missions both to France and Rome,
and about 1485 became one of the council of ten. His orations and
letters were published in 1492; but his title to any measure of fame he
possesses rests upon his history of Venice, _De origine urbis Venetiarum
rebusque ab ipsa gestis historia_ (1492), which was translated into
Italian by Domenichi in 1545, and which at the time of its appearance
was undoubtedly the best work upon the subject of which it treated. It
is to be found in vol. i. of the _Thesaurus_ of Graevius.
4. PIETRO, also a senator, lived in the 16th century, and wrote on
_Historia rerum Venetarum_ in continuation of that of Bernardo. He was
also the author of chronicles _De gestis Petri Mocenigi_ and _De bello
Venetorum cum Carolo VIII._ The latter has been reprinted in the
_Script. rer. Ital._ vol. xxi.
Of the Genoese branch of the family the most prominent members were the
following:--
5. PAOLO, DI MONIGLIA (1444-1502), a member of the order of Dominicans,
was, from a comparatively early age, prior of their convent at Genoa. As
a preacher he was very successful, and his talents were fully recognized
by successive popes, by whom he was made master of the sacred palace,
inquisitor-general for all the Genoese dominions, and ultimately bishop
of Scio and Hungarian legate. He was the author of a number of Biblical
commentaries (no longer extant), which are said to have been
characterized by great erudition.
6. AGOSTINO (1470-1536) was born at Genoa, and spent some wild years in
Valencia, Spain. Having in 1487 joined the Dominican order, he gave
himself with great energy to the study of Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee and
Arabic, and in 1514 began the preparation of a polyglot edition of the
Bible. As bishop of Nebbio in Corsica, he took part in some of the
earlier sittings of the Lateran council (1516-1517), but, in consequence
of party complications, withdrew to his diocese, and ultimately to
France, where he became a pensioner of Francis I., and was the first to
occupy a chair of Hebrew and Arabic in the university of Paris. After an
absence from Corsica for a period of five years, during which he visited
England and the Low Countries, and became acquainted with Erasmus and
More, he returned to Nebbio, about 1522, and there remained, with
comparatively little intermission, till in 1536, when, while returning
from a visit to Genoa, he perished in a storm at sea. He was the
possessor of a very fine library, which he bequeathed to the republic of
Genoa. Of his projected polyglot only the Psalter was published
(_Psalterium Hebraeum, Graecum, Arabicum, et Chaldaicum_, Genoa, 1616).
Besides the Hebrew text, the LXX. translation, the Chaldee paraphrase,
and an Arabic version, it contains the Vulgate translation, a new Latin
translation by the editor, a Latin translation of the Chaldee, and a
collection of scholia. Giustiniani printed 2000 copies at his own
expense, including fifty in vellum for presentation to the sovereigns of
Europe and Asia; but the sale of the work did not encourage him to
proceed with the New Testament, which he had also prepared for the
press. Besides an edition of the book of Job, containing the original
text, the Vulgate, and a new translation, he published a Latin version
of the _Moreh Nevochim_ of Maimonides (_Director dubitantium aut
perplexorum_, 1520), and also edited in Latin the _Aureus libellus_ of
Aeneas Platonicus, and the _Timaeus_ of Chalcidius. His annals of Genoa
(_Castigatissimi annali di Genova_) were published posthumously in 1537.
The following are also noteworthy:--
7. POMPEIO (1569-1616), a native of Corsica, who served under Alessandro
Farnese and the marquis of Spinola in the Low Countries, where he lost
an arm, and, from the artificial substitute which he wore, came to be
known by the sobriquet Bras de Fer. He also defended Crete against the
Turks; and subsequently was killed in a reconnaissance at Friuli. He
left in Italian a personal narrative of the war in Flanders, which has
been repeatedly published in a Latin translation (_Bellum Belgicum_,
Antwerp, 1609).
8. GIOVANNI (1513-1556), born in Candia, translator of Terence's
_Andria_ and _Eunuchus_, of Cicero's _In Verrem_, and of Virgil's
_Aeneid_, viii.
9. ORSATTO (1538-1603), Venetian senator, translator of the _Oedipus
Tyrannus_ of Sophocles and author of a collection of _Rime_, in
imitation of Petrarch. He is regarded as one of the latest
representatives of the classic Italian school.
10. GERONIMO, a Genoese, flourished during the latter half of the 16th
century. He translated the _Alcestis_ of Euripides and three of the
plays of Sophocles; and wrote two original tragedies, _Jephte_ and
_Christo in Passione_.
11. VINCENZO, who in the beginning of the 17th century built the Roman
palace and made the art collection which are still associated with his
name (see _Galleria Giustiniana_, Rome, 1631). The collection was
removed in 1807 to Paris, where it was to some extent broken up. In 1815
all that remained of it, about 170 pictures, was purchased by the king
of Prussia and removed to Berlin, where it forms a portion of the royal
museum.
GIUSTO DA GUANTO [JODOCUS, or JUSTUS, OF GHENT] (fl. 1465-1475), Flemish
painter. The public records of the city of Ghent have been diligently
searched, but in vain, for a clue to the history of Justus or Jodocus,
whom Vasari and Guicciardini called Giusto da Guanto. Flemish annalists
of the 16th century have enlarged upon the scanty statements of Vasari,
and described Jodocus as a pupil of Hubert Van Eyck. But there is no
source to which this fable can be traced. The registers of St Luke's
gild at Ghent comprise six masters of the name of Joos or Jodocus who
practised at Ghent in the 15th century. But none of the works of these
masters has been preserved, and it is impossible to compare their style
with that of Giusto. It was between 1465 and 1474 that this artist
executed the "Communion of the Apostles" which Vasari has described, and
modern critics now see to the best advantage in the museum of Urbino. It
was painted for the brotherhood of Corpus Christi at the bidding of
Frederick of Montefeltro, who was introduced into the picture as the
companion of Caterino Zeno, a Persian envoy at that time on a mission to
the court of Urbino. From this curious production it may be seen that
Giusto, far from being a pupil of Hubert Van Eyck, was merely a disciple
of a later and less gifted master, who took to Italy some of the
peculiarities of his native schools, and forthwith commingled them with
those of his adopted country. As a composer and draughtsman Giusto
compares unfavourably with the better-known painters of Flanders; though
his portraits are good, his ideal figures are not remarkable for
elevation of type or for subtlety of character and expression. His work
is technically on a level with that of Gerard of St John, whose pictures
are preserved in the Belvedere at Vienna. Vespasian, a Florentine
bookseller who contributed much to form the antiquarian taste of
Frederick of Montefeltro, states that this duke sent to the Netherlands
for a capable artist to paint a series of "ancient worthies" for a
library recently erected in the palace of Urbino. It has been
conjectured that the author of these "worthies," which are still in
existence at the Louvre and in the Barberini palace at Rome, was Giusto.
Yet there are notable divergences between these pictures and the
"Communion of the Apostles." Still, it is not beyond the range of
probability that Giusto should have been able, after a certain time, to
temper his Flemish style by studying the masterpieces of Santi and
_Melozzo_, and so to acquire the mixed manner of the Flemings and
Italians which these portraits of worthies display. Such an
assimilation, if it really took place, might justify the Flemings in the
indulgence of a certain pride, considering that Raphael not only admired
these worthies, but copied them in the sketch-book which is now the
ornament of the Venetian Academy. There is no ground for presuming that
Giusto ad Guanto is identical with Justus d'Allamagna who painted the
"Annunciation" (1451) in the cloisters of Santa Maria di Castello at
Genoa. The drawing and colouring of this wall painting shows that Justus
d'Allamagna was as surely a native of south Germany as his homonym at
Urbino was a born Netherlander.
GIVET, a town of northern France, in the department of Ardennes, 40 m.
N. by E. of Mézières on the Eastern railway between the town and Namur.
Pop. (1906) town, 5110; commune, 7468. Givet lies on the Meuse about 1
m. from the Belgian frontier, and was formerly a fortress of
considerable importance. It is divided into three portions--the citadel
called Charlemont and Grand Givet on the left bank of the river, and on
the opposite bank Petit Givet, connected with Grand Givet by a stone
bridge of five arches. The fortress of Charlemont, situated at the top
of a precipitous rock 705 ft. high, was founded by the emperor Charles
V. in the 16th century, and further fortified by Vauban at the end of
the 17th century; it is the only survival of the fortifications of the
town, the rest of which were destroyed in 1892. In Grand Givet there are
a church and a town-hall built by Vauban, and a statue of the composer
Étienne Méhul stands in the fine square named after him. Petit Givet,
the industrial quarter, is traversed by a small tributary of the Meuse,
the Houille, which is bordered by tanneries and glue factories. Pencils
and tobacco-pipes are also manufactured. The town has considerable river
traffic, consisting chiefly of coal, copper and stone. There is a
chamber of arts and manufactures.
GIVORS, a manufacturing town of south-eastern France, in the department
of Rhône, on the railway between Lyons and St Étienne, 14 m. S. of Lyon.
Pop. (1906) 11,444. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhone, here
crossed by a suspension bridge, at its confluence with the Gier and the
canal of Givors, which starts at Grand Croix on the Gier, some 13 m.
distant. The chief industries are metal-working, engineering-construction
and glass-working. There are coal mines in the vicinity. On the hill
overlooking the town are the ruins of the château of St Gerald and of the
convent of St Ferréol, remains of the old town destroyed in 1594.
GJALLAR, in Scandinavian mythology, the horn of Heimdall, the guardian
of the rainbow bridge by which the gods pass and repass between earth
and heaven. This horn had to be blown whenever a stranger approached the
bridge.
GLABRIO. 1. MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO, Roman statesman and general, member
of a plebeian family. When consul in 191 B.C. he defeated Antiochus the
Great of Syria at Thermopylae, and compelled him to leave Greece. He
then turned his attention to the Aetolians, who had persuaded Antiochus
to declare war against Rome, and was only prevented from crushing them
by the intercession of T. Quinctius Flamininus. In 189 Glabrio was a
candidate for the censorship, but was bitterly opposed by the nobles. He
was accused by the tribunes of having concealed a portion of the Syrian
spoils in his own house; his legate gave evidence against him, and he
withdrew his candidature. It is probable that he was the author of the
law which left it to the discretion of the pontiffs to insert or omit
the intercalary month of the year.
Censorinus, _De die natali_, xx.; Macrobius, _Saturnalia_, i. 13;
index to Livy; Appian, _Syr._ 17-21.
2. MANIUS ACILIUS GLABRIO, Roman statesman and general, grandson of the
famous jurist P. Mucius Scaevola. When praetor urbanus (70 B.C.) he
presided at the trial of Verres. According to Dio Cassius (xxxvi. 38),
in conjunction with L. Calpurnius Piso, his colleague in the consulship
(67), he brought forward a severe law (Lex Acilia Calpurnia) against
illegal canvassing at elections. In the same year he was appointed to
supersede L. Lucullus in the government of Cilicia and the command of
the war against Mithradates, but as he did absolutely nothing and was
unable to control the soldiery, he was in turn superseded by Pompey
according to the provisions of the Manilian law. Little else is known of
him except that he declared in favour of the death punishment for the
Catilinarian conspirators.
Dio Cassius xxxvi. 14, 16. 24; Cicero, _Pro lege Manilia_, 2. 9;
Appian, _Mithrid_. 90.
GLACE BAY, a city and port of entry of Cape Breton county, Nova Scotia,
Canada, on the Atlantic Ocean, 14 m. E. of Sydney, with which it is
connected both by steam and electric railway. It is the centre of the
properties of the Dominion Coal Company (founded 1893), which produce
most of the coal of Nova Scotia. Though it has a fair harbour, most of
the shipping is done from Sydney in summer and from Louisburg in winter.
Pop. (1892) 2000; (1901) 6945; (1906) 13,000.
GLACIAL PERIOD, in geology, the name usually given, by English and
American writers, to that comparatively recent time when all parts of
the world suffered a marked lowering of temperature, accompanied in
northern Europe and North America by glacial conditions, not unlike
those which now characterize the Polar regions. This period, which is
also known as the "Great Ice Age" (German _Die Eiszeit_), is synchronous
with the Pleistocene period, the earlier of the Post-Tertiary or
Quaternary divisions of geological time. Although "Glacial period" and
"Pleistocene" (q.v.) are often used synonymously it is convenient to
consider them separately, inasmuch as not a few Pleistocene formations
have no causal relationship with conditions of glaciation. Not until the
beginning of the 19th century did the deposits now generally recognized
as the result of ice action receive serious attention; the tendency was
to regard such superficial and irregular material as mere rubbish. Early
ideas upon the subject usually assigned floods as the formative agency,
and this view is still not without its supporters (see Sir H. H.
Howorth, _The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood_). Doubtless this attitude
was in part due to the comparative rarity of glaciers and ice-fields
where the work of ice could be directly observed. It was natural
therefore that the first scientific references to glacial action should
have been stimulated by the Alpine regions of Switzerland, which called
forth the writings of J. J. Scheuchzer, B. F. Kuhn, H. B. de Saussure,
F. G. Hugi, and particularly those of J. Venetz, J. G. von Charpentier
and L. Aggasiz. Canon Rendu, J. Forbes and others had studied the cause
of motion of glaciers, while keen observers, notably Sir James Hall, A.
Brongniart and J. Playfair, had noted the occurrence of travelled and
scratched stones.
The result of these efforts was the conception of great ice-sheets
flowing over the land, grinding the rock surfaces and transporting rock
débris in the manner to be observed in the existing glaciers. However,
before this view had become established Sir C. Lyell evolved the "drift
theory" to explain the widely spread phenomenon of transported blocks,
boulder clay and the allied deposits; in this he was supported by Sir H.
de la Beche, Charles Darwin, Sir R. I. Murchison and many others.
According to the drift theory, the transport and distribution of
"erratic blocks," &c., had been effected by floating icebergs; this view
naturally involved a considerable and widespread submergence of the
land, an assumption which appeared to receive support from the
occasional presence of marine shells at high levels in the "drift"
deposits. So great was the influence of those who favoured the drift
theory that even to-day it cannot be said to have lost complete hold; we
still speak of "drift" deposits in England and America, and the belief
in one or more great submergences during the Glacial period is still
held more firmly by certain geologists than the evidence would seem to
warrant. The case against the drift theory was most clearly expressed by
Sir A. C. Ramsay for England and Scotland, and by the Swedish scientist
Otto Torell. Since then the labours of Professor James Geikie, Sir
Archibald Geikie, Professor P. Kendall and others in England; von
Verendt, H. Credner, de Geer, E. Geinitz, A. Helland, Jentzsch, K.
Keilhack, A. Penck, H. Schröder, F. Wahnschaffe in Scandinavia and
Germany; T. C. Chamberlin, W. Upham, G. F. Wright in North America, have
all tended to confirm the view that it is to the movement of glaciers
and ice-sheets that we must look as the predominant agent of transport
and abrasion in this period. The three stages through which our
knowledge of glacial work has advanced may thus be summarized: (1) the
diluvial hypothesis, deposits formed by floods; (2) the drift
hypothesis, deposits formed mainly by icebergs and floating ice; (3) the
ice-sheet hypothesis, deposits formed directly or indirectly through the
agency of flowing ice.
_Evidences._--The evidence relied upon by geologists for the former
existence of the great ice-sheets which traversed the northern regions
of Europe and America is mainly of two kinds: (1) the peculiar erosion
of the older rocks by ice and ice-borne stones, and (2) the nature and
disposition of ice-borne rock débris. After having established the
criteria by which the work of moving ice is to be recognized in regions
of active glaciation, the task of identifying the results of earlier
glaciation elsewhere has been carried on with unabated energy.
[Illustration: Glacial period.]
1. _Ice Erosion._--Although there are certain points of difference
between the work of glaciers and broad ice-sheets, the former being more
or less restricted laterally by the valleys in which they flow, the
general results of their passage over the rocky floor are essentially
similar. Smooth rounded outlines are imparted to the rocks, markedly
contrasting with the pinnacled and irregular surfaces produced by
ordinary weathering; where these rounded surfaces have been formed on a
minor scale the well-known features of _roches moutonnées_ (German
_Rundhöcker_) are created; on a larger scale we have the erosion-form
known as "crag and tail," when the ice-sheet has overridden ground with
more pronounced contours, the side of the hill facing the advancing ice
being rounded and gently curved (German _Stossseite_), and the opposite
side (_Leeseite_) steep, abrupt and much less smooth. Such features are
never associated with the erosion of water. The rounding of rock
surfaces is regularly accompanied by grooving and striation (German
_Schrammen, Schliffe_) caused by the grinding action of stones and
boulders embedded in the moving ice. These "glacial striae" are of great
value in determining the latest path of the vanished ice-sheets (see
map). Several other erosion-features are generally associated with ice
action; such are the circular-headed valleys, "cirques" or "corries"
(German _Zirkus_) of mountain districts; the pot-holes, giants' kettles
(_Strudellöcher_, _Riesentöpfe_), familiarly exemplified in the
Gletschergarten near Lucerne; the "rock-basins" (_Felsseebecken_) of
mountainous regions are also believed to be assignable to this cause on
account of their frequent association with other glacial phenomena, but
it is more than probable that the action of running water (waterfalls,
&c.)--influenced no doubt by the disposition of the ice--has had much
to do with these forms of erosion. As regards rock-basins, geologists
are still divided in opinion: Sir A. C. Ramsay, J. Geikie, Tyndall,
Helland, H. Hess, A. Penck, and others have expressed themselves in
favour of a glacial origin; while A. Heim, F. Stapff, T. Kjerulf, L.
Rütimeyer and many others have strongly opposed this view.
2. Glacial deposits may be roughly classified in two groups: those that
have been formed directly by the action of the ice, and those formed
through the agency of water flowing under, upon, and from the
ice-sheets, or in streams and lakes modified by the presence of the ice.
To differentiate in practice between the results of these two agencies
is a matter of some difficulty in the case of unstratified deposits; but
the boulder clay may be taken as the typical formation of the glacier or
ice-sheet, whether it has been left as a _terminal moraine_ at the limit
of glaciation or as a _ground moraine_ beneath the ice. A stratified
form of boulder clay, which not infrequently rests upon, and is
therefore younger than, the more typical variety, is usually regarded as
a deposit formed by water from the material (_englacial_, _innenmorän_)
held in suspension within the ice, and set free during the process of
melting. Besides the innumerable boulders, large and small, embedded in
the boulder clay, isolated masses of rock, often of enormous size, have
been borne by ice-sheets far from their original home and stranded when
the ice melted. These "erratic blocks," "perched blocks" (German
_Findlinge_) are familiar objects in the Alpine glacier districts, where
they have frequently received individual names, but they are just as
easily recognized in regions from which the glaciers that brought them
there have long since been banished. Not only did the ice transport
blocks of hard rock, granite and the like, but huge masses of stratified
rock were torn from their bed by the same agency; the masses of chalk in
the cliffs near Cromer are well known; near Berlin, at Firkenwald, there
is a transported mass of chalk estimated to be at least 2,000,000 cubic
metres in bulk, which has travelled probably 15 kilometres from its
original site; a block of Lincolnshire oolite is recorded by C.
Fox-Strangways near Melton in Leicestershire, which is 300 yds. long and
100 yds. broad if no more; and instances of a similar kind might be
multiplied.
When we turn to the "fluvio-glacial" deposits we find a bewildering
variety of stratified and partially bedded deposits of gravel, sand and
clay, occurring separately or in every conceivable condition of
association. Some of these deposits have received distinctive names;
such are the "Kames" of Scotland, which are represented in Ireland by
"Eskers," and in Scandinavia by "Åsar." Another type of hillocky deposit
is exemplified by the "drums" or "drumlins." Everywhere beyond the
margin of the advancing or retreating ice-sheets these deposits were
being formed; streams bore away coarse and fine materials and spread
them out upon alluvial plains or upon the floors of innumerable lakes,
many of which were directly caused by the damming of the ordinary
water-courses by the ice. As the level of such lakes was changed new
beach-lines were produced, such as are still evident in the great lake
region of North America, in the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and the
"Strandlinien" of many parts of northern Europe.
Viewed in relation to man's position on the earth, no geological changes
have had a more profound importance than those of the Glacial period.
The whole of the glaciated region bears evidence of remarkable
modification of topographic features; in parts of Scotland or Norway or
Canada the old rocks are bared of soil, rounded and smoothed as far as
the eye can see. The old soil and subsoil, the product of ages of
ordinary weathering, were removed from vast areas to be deposited and
concentrated in others. Old valleys were filled--often to a great depth,
300-400 ft.; rivers were diverted from their old courses, never to
return; lakes of vast size were caused by the damming of old outlets
(Lake Lahontan, Lake Agassiz, &c., in North America), while an infinite
number of shifting lakelets--with their deposits--played an important
part along the ice-front at all stages of its career. The influence of
this period upon the present distribution of plant and animal life in
northern latitudes can hardly be overestimated.
Much stress has been laid upon supposed great changes in the level of
the land in northern regions during the Glacial period. The occurrence
of marine shells at an elevation of 1350 ft. at Moel Tryfaen in north
Wales, and at 1200 ft. near Macclesfield in Cheshire, has been cited as
evidence of profound submergence by some geologists, though others see
in these and similar occurrences only the transporting action of
ice-sheets that have traversed the floor of the adjoining seas. Marine
shells in stratified materials have been found on the coast of Scotland
at 100 ft. and over, in S. Scandinavia at 600 to 800 ft., and in the
"Champlain" deposits of North America at various heights. The dead
shells of the "Yoldia clay" cover wide areas at the bottom of the North
Atlantic at depths from 500 to 1300 fathoms, though the same mollusc is
now found living in Arctic seas at the depth of 5 to 15 fathoms. This
has been looked upon as a proof that in the N.W. European region the
lithosphere stood about 2600 ft. higher than it does now (Brögger,
Nansen, &c.), and it has been suggested that a union of the mainland of
Europe with that of North America--forming a northern continental mass,
"Prosarctis"--may have been achieved by way of Iceland, Jan Mayen Land
and Greenland. The pre-glacial valleys and fjords of Norway and
Scotland, with their deeply submerged seaward ends, are regarded as
proofs of former elevation. The great depth of alluvium in some places
(236 metres at Bremen) points in the same direction. Evidences of
changes of level occur in early, middle and late Pleistocene formations,
and the nature of the evidence is such that it is on the whole safer to
assume the existence only of the more moderate degree of change.
_The Cause of the Glacial Period._--Many attempts have been made to
formulate a satisfactory hypothesis that shall conform with the known
facts and explain the great change in climatic conditions which set in
towards the close of the Tertiary era, and culminated during the Glacial
period. Some of the more prominent hypotheses may be mentioned, but
space will not permit of a detailed analysis of theories, most of which
rest upon somewhat unsubstantial ground. The principal facts to be taken
into consideration are (1) the great lowering of temperature over the
whole earth; (2) the localization of extreme glaciation in north-west
Europe and north-east America; and (3) the local retrogression of the
ice-sheets, once or more times repeated.
Some have suggested the simple solution of a change in the earth's axis,
and have indicated that the pole may have travelled through some 15° to
20° of latitude; thus, the polar glaciation, as it now exists, might have
been in this way transferred to include north-west Europe and North
America; but modern views on the rigidity of the earth's body, together
with the lack of any evidence of the correlative movement of climatic
zones in other parts of the world, render this hypothesis quite
untenable. On similar grounds a change in the earth's centre of gravity
is unthinkable. Theories based upon the variations in the obliquity of
the ecliptic or eccentricity of the earth's orbit, or on the passage of
the solar system through cold regions of space, or upon the known
variations in the heat emitted by the sun, are all insecure and
unsatisfactory. The hypothesis elaborated by James Croll (_Phil. Mag._,
1864, 28, p. 121; _Climate and Time_, 1875; and _Discussion on Climate
and Cosmology_, 1889) was founded upon the assumption that with the
earth's eccentricity at its maximum and winter in the north at aphelion,
there would be a tendency in northern latitudes for the accumulation of
snow and ice, which would be accentuated indirectly by the formation of
fogs and a modification of the trade winds. The shifting of the thermal
equator, and with it the direction of the trade winds, would divert some
of the warm ocean currents from the cold regions, and this effect was
greatly enhanced, he considered, by the configuration of the Atlantic
Ocean. Croll's hypothesis was supported by Sir R. Ball (_The Cause of the
Great Ice Age_, 1893), and it met with very general acceptance; but it
has been destructively criticized by Professor S. Newcomb (_Phil. Mag._,
1876, 1883, 1884) and by E. P. Culverwell (_Phil. Mag._, 1894, p. 541,
and _Geol. Mag._, 1895, pp. 3 and 55). The difficulties in the way of
Croll's theory are: (1) the fundamental assumption, that midwinter and
midsummer temperatures are directly proportional to the sun's heat at
those periods, is not in accordance with observed facts; (2) the glacial
periods would be limited in duration to an appropriate fraction of the
precessional period (21,000 years), which appears to be too short a time
for the work that was actually done by ice agency; and (3) Croll's
glacial periods would alternate between the northern and southern
hemispheres, affecting first one then the other. Sir C. Lyell and others
have advocated the view that great elevation of the land in polar regions
would be conducive to glacial conditions; this is doubtless true, but the
evidence that the Glacial period was primarily due to this cause is not
well established. Other writers have endeavoured to support the elevation
theory by combining with it various astronomical and meteorological
agencies. More recently several hypotheses have been advanced to explain
the glacial period as the result of changes in the atmosphere; F. W.
Harmer ("The Influence of Winds upon the Climate during the Pleistocene
Epoch," _Q.J.G.S._, 1901, 57, p. 405) has shown the importance of the
influence of winds in certain circumstances; Marsden Manson ("The
Evolution of Climate," _American Geologist_, 1899, 24, p. 93) has laid
stress upon the influence of clouds; but neither of these theories
grapples successfully with the fundamental difficulties. Others again
have requisitioned the variability in the amount of the carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere--hypotheses which depend upon the efficiency of this gas
as a thermal absorbent. The supply of carbon dioxide may be increased
from time to time, as by the emanations from volcanoes (S. Arrhenius and
A. G. Hogböm), or it may be decreased by absorption into sea-water, and
by the carbonation of rocks. Professor T. C. Chamberlin based a theory of
glaciation on the depletion of the carbon dioxide of the air ("An Attempt
to frame a Working Hypothesis of the cause of Glacial Periods on an
Atmospheric Basis," _Jl. Geol._, 1899, vii. 752-771; see also Chamberlin
and Salisbury, _Geology_, 1906, ii. 674 and iii. 432). The outline of
this hypothesis is as follows: The general conditions for glaciation were
(1) that the oceanic circulation was interrupted by the existence of
land; (2) that vertical circulation of the atmosphere was accelerated by
continental and other influences; (3) that the thermal blanketing of the
earth was reduced by a depletion of the moisture and carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere, and that hence the average temperature of the surface of
the earth and of the body of the ocean was reduced, and diversity in the
distribution of heat and moisture introduced. The localization of
glaciation is assignable to the two great areas of permanent atmospheric
depression that have their present centres near Greenland and the
Aleutian Islands respectively. The periodicity of glacial advances and
retreats, demanded by those who believe in the validity of so-called
"interglacial" epochs, is explained by a series of complicated processes
involving the alternate depletion and completion of the normal charge of
carbon dioxide in the air.
Whatever may be the ultimate verdict upon this difficult subject, it is
tolerably clear that no simple cause of glacial conditions is likely to
be discovered, but rather it will appear that these conditions resulted
from the interaction of a complicated series of factors; and further,
until a greater degree of unanimity can be approached in the
interpretation of observed facts, particularly as regards the
substantiality of interglacial epochs, the very foundations of a sound
working hypothesis are wanting.
_Classification of Glacial Deposits--Interglacial Epochs._--Had the
deposits of glaciated regions consisted solely of boulder clay little
difficulty might have been experienced in dealing with their
classification. But there are intercalated in the boulder clays those
irregular stratified and partially stratified masses of sand, gravel and
loam, frequently containing marine or freshwater shells and layers of
peat with plant remains, which have given rise to the conception of
"interglacial epochs"--pauses in the rigorous conditions of glaciation,
when the ice-sheets dwindled almost entirely away, while plants and
animals re-established themselves on the newly exposed soil. Glacialists
may be ranged in two schools: those who believe that one or more phases
of milder climatic conditions broke up the whole Glacial period into
alternating epochs of glaciation and "deglaciation"; and those who
believe that the intercalated deposits represent rather the _localized_
recessional movements of the ice-sheets within one single period of
glaciation. In addition to the stratified deposits and their contents,
important evidence in favour of interglacial epochs occurs in the
presence of weathered surfaces on the top of older boulder clays, which
are themselves covered by younger glacial deposits.
The cause of the interglacial hypothesis has been most ardently
championed in England by Professor James Geikie; who has endeavoured
to show that there were in Europe six distinct glacial epochs within
the Glacial period, separated by five epochs of more moderate
temperature. These are enumerated below:
6th Glacial epoch, Upper Turbarian, indicated by the deposits of peat
which underlie the lower raised beaches.
5th _Interglacial epoch, Upper Forestian_.
5th Glacial epoch, Lower Turbarian, indicated by peat deposits
overlying the lower forest-bed, by the raised beaches and carse-clays
of Scotland, and in part by the _Littorina_-clays of Scandinavia.
4th _Interglacial epoch, Lower Forestian_, the lower forests under
peat beds, the _Ancylus_-beds of the great freshwater Baltic lake and
the _Littorina_-clays of Scandinavia.
4th Glacial epoch, Mecklenburgian, represented by the moraines of the
last great Baltic glacier, which reach their southern limit in
Mecklenburg; the 100-ft. terrace of Scotland and the _Yoldia_-beds of
Scandinavia.
3rd _Interglacial epoch, Neudeckian_, intercalations of marine and
freshwater deposits in the boulder clays of the southern Baltic
coasts.
3rd Glacial epoch, Polandian, glacial and fluvio-glacial formations of
the minor Scandinavian ice-sheet; and the "upper boulder clay" of
northern and western Europe.
2nd _Interglacial epoch, Helvetian_, interglacial beds of Britain and
lignites of Switzerland.
2nd Glacial epoch, Saxonian, deposits of the period of maximum
glaciation when the northern ice-sheet reached the low ground of
Saxony, and the Alpine glaciers formed the outermost moraines.
1st _Interglacial epoch, Norfolkian_, the forest-bed series of
Norfolk.
1st Glacial epoch, Scanian, represented only in the south of Sweden,
which was overridden by a large Baltic glacier. The Chillesford clay
and Weybourne crag of Norfolk and the oldest moraines and
fluvio-glacial gravels of the Arctic lands may belong to this epoch.
In a similar manner Professor Chamberlin and other American geologists
have recognized the following stages in the glaciation of North
America:
The Champlain, marine substage.
The Glacio-lacustrine substage.
The later Wisconsin (6th glacial).
_The fifth interglacial._
The earlier Wisconsin (5th glacial)
_The Peorian (4th interglacial)._
The Iowan (4th glacial).
_The Sangamon (3rd interglacial)._
The Illinoian (3rd glacial).
_The Yarmouth or Buchanan (2nd interglacial)._
The Kansan (2nd glacial).
_The Aftonian (1st interglacial)._
The sub-Aftonian or Jerseyan (1st glacial).
Although it is admitted that no strict correlation of the European and
North American stages is possible, it has been suggested that the
Aftonian may be the equivalent of the Helvetian; the Kansan may
represent the Saxonian; the Iowan, the Polandian; the Jerseyan, the
Scanian; the early Wisconsin, the Mecklenburgian. But considering how
fragmentary is much of the evidence in favour of these stages both in
Europe and America, the value of such attempts at correlation must be
infinitesimal. This is the more evident when it is observed that there
are other geologists of equal eminence who are unable to accept so
large a number of epochs after a close study of the local
circumstances; thus, in the subjoined scheme for north Germany, after
H. W. Munthe, there are three glacial and two interglacial epochs.
/ The _Mya_ time = beech-time.
Post-Glacial epoch < The _Littorina_ time = oak-time.
\ The _Ancylus_ time = pine- and birch-time.
/ Including the upper boulder clay,
| "younger Baltic moraine" with the
3rd Glacial " < _Yoldia_ or _Dryas_ phase in the
\ retrogressive stage.
2nd _Interglacial_ epoch including the _Cyprina_-clay.
2nd Glacial epoch, the maximum glaciation.
1st _Interglacial epoch_.
1st Glacial epoch, "older boulder clay."
Again, in the Alps four interglacial epochs have been recognized;
while in England there are many who are willing to concede one such
epoch, though even for this the evidence is not enough to satisfy all
glacialists (G. W. Lamplugh, Address, Section C, _Brit. Assoc._, York,
1906).
This great diversity of opinion is eloquent of the difficulties of the
subject; it is impossible not to see that the discovery of
interglacial epochs bears a close relationship to the origin of
certain hypotheses of the cause of glaciation; while it is significant
that those who have had to do the actual mapping of glacial deposits
have usually greater difficulty in finding good evidence of such
definite ameliorations of climate, than those who have founded their
views upon the examination of numerous but isolated areas.
_Extent of Glacial Deposits._--From evidence of the kind cited above,
it appears that during the glacial period a series of great ice-sheets
covered enormous areas in North America and north-west Europe. The
area covered during the maximum extension of the ice has been reckoned
at 20 million square kilometres (nearly 8 million sq. m.) in North
America and 6½ million square kilometres (about 2½ million sq. m.) in
Europe.
In Europe three great centres existed from which the ice-streams
radiated; foremost in importance was the region of Fennoscandia (the
name for Scandinavia with Finland as a single geological region); from
this centre the ice spread out far into Germany and Russia and
westward, across the North Sea, to the shores of Britain. The southern
boundary of the ice extended from the estuary of the Rhine in an
irregular series of lobes along the Schiefergebirge, Harz,
Thüringerwald, Erzgebirge and Riesengebirge, and the northern flanks
of the Carpathians towards Cracow. Down the valley of the Dnieper a
lobe of the ice-sheet projected as far as 40° 50' N.; another lobe
extended down the Don valley as far as 48° N.; thence the boundary
runs north-easterly towards the Urals and the Kara Sea. The British
Islands constituted the centre second in importance; Scotland, Ireland
and all but the southern part of England were covered by a moving
ice-cap. On the west the ice-sheets reached out to sea; on the east
they were conterminous with those from Scandinavia. The third European
centre was the Alpine region; it is abundantly clear from the masses
of morainic detritus and perched blocks that here, in the time of
maximum glaciation, the ice-covered area was enormously in excess of
the shrivelled remnants, which still remain in the existing glaciers.
All the valleys were filled with moving ice; thus the Rhone glacier at
its maximum filled Lake Geneva and the plain between the Bernese
Oberland and the Jura; it even overrode the latter and advanced
towards Besançon. Extensive glaciation was not limited to the
aforesaid regions, for all the areas of high ground had their
independent glaciers strongly developed; the Pyrenees, the central
highlands of France, the Vosges, Black Forest, Apennines and Caucasus
were centres of minor but still important glaciation.
The greatest expansion of ice-sheets was located on the North American
continent; here, too, there were three principal centres of outflow:
the "Cordilleran" ice-sheet in the N.W., the "Keewatin" sheet,
radiating from the central Canadian plains, and the eastern "Labrador"
or "Laurentide" sheet. From each of these centres the ice poured
outwards in every direction, but the principal flow in each case was
towards the south-west. The southern boundary of the glaciated area
runs as an irregular line along the 49° parallel in the western part
of the continent, thence it follows the Mississippi valley down to its
junction with the Ohio (southern limit 37° 30' N.), eastward it
follows the direction of that river and turns north-eastward in the
direction of New Jersey. As in Europe, the mountainous regions of
North America produced their own local glaciers; in the Rockies, the
Olympics and Sierras, the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, the Uinta
Mountains of Utah, &c. Although it was in the northern hemisphere that
the most extensive glaciation took place, the effects of a general
lowering of temperature seem to have been felt in the mountainous
regions of all parts; thus in South America, New Zealand, Australia
and Tasmania glaciers reached down the valleys far below the existing
limits, and even where none are now to be found. In Asia the evidences
of a former extension of glaciation are traceable in the Himalayas,
and northward in the high ranges of China and Eastern Siberia. The
same is true of parts of Turkestan and Lebanon. In Africa also, in
British East Africa moraines are discovered 5400 ft. below their
modern limit. In Iceland and Greenland, and even in the Antarctic,
there appears to be evidence of a former greater extension of the ice.
It is of interest to note that Alaska seems to be free from excessive
glaciation, and that a remarkable "driftless" area lies in Wisconsin.
The maximum glaciation of the Glacial period was clearly centred
around the North Atlantic.
_Glacial Epochs in the Older Geological Periods._--Since Ramsay drew
attention to the subject in 1855 ("On the occurrence of angular,
subangular, polished and striated fragments and boulders in the
Permian Breccia of Shropshire, Worcestershire, &c., and on the
probable existence of glaciers and icebergs in the Permian epoch,"
_Q.J.G.S._, 1855, pp. 185-205), a good deal of attention has been paid
to such formations. It is now generally acknowledged that the
Permo-carboniferous conglomerates with striated boulders and polished
rock surfaces, such as are found in the Karoo formation of South
Africa, the Talkir conglomerate of the Salt Range in India, and the
corresponding formations in Australia, represent undeniable glacial
conditions at that period on the great Indo-Australian continent. A
glacial origin has been suggested for numerous other conglomeratic
formations, such as the Pre-Cambrian Torridonian of Scotland, and
"Geisaschichten" of Norway; the basal Carboniferous conglomerate of
parts of England; the Permian breccias of England and parts of Europe;
the Trias of Devonshire; the coarse conglomerates in the Tertiary
Flysch in central Europe; and the Miocene conglomerates of the
Ligurian Apennines. In regard to the glacial nature of all these
formations there is, however, great divergence of opinion (see A.
Heim, "Zur Frage der exotischen Blöcke in Flysch," _Eclogae geologicae
Helvetiae_, vol. ix. No. 3, 1907, pp. 413-424).
AUTHORITIES.--The literature dealing directly with the Glacial period
has reached enormous dimensions; in addition to the works already
mentioned the following may be taken as a guide to the general outline
of the subject: J. Geikie, _The Great Ice Age_ (3rd ed., London,
1904), also _Earth Sculpture_ (1898); G. F. Wright, _The Ice Age in
North America_ (4th ed., New York, 1905) and _Man and the Glacial
Period_ (1892); F. E. Geinitz, _Die Eiszeit_ (Braunschweig, 1906); A.
Penck and E. Brückner, _Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter_ (Leipzig,
1901-1906, uncompleted). Many references to the literature will be
found in Sir A. Geikie's _Textbook of Geology_, vol. ii. (4th ed.,
1903); Chamberlin and Salisbury, _Geology_, vol. iii. (1906). As an
example of glacial theories carried beyond the usual limits, see M.
Gugenhan, _Die Ergletscherung der Erde von Pol zu Pol_ (Berlin, 1906).
See also _Zeitschrift für Gletscherkunde_ (Berlin, 1906 and onwards
quarterly); Sir H. H. Howorth (opposing accepted glacial theories),
_The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood_, i., ii. (London, 1893), _Ice
and Water_, i., ii. (London, 1905), _The Mammoth and the Flood_
(London, 1887). (J. A. H.)
GLACIER (adopted from the French; from _glace_, ice, Lat. _glacies_), a
mass of compacted ice originating in a snow-field. Glaciers are formed
on any portion of the earth's surface that is permanently above the
snow-line. This line varies locally in the same latitudes, being in some
places higher than in others, but in the main it may be described as an
elliptical shell surrounding the earth with its longest diameter in the
tropics and its shortest in the polar regions, where it touches
sea-level. From the extreme regions of the Arctic and Antarctic circles
this cold shell swells upwards into a broad dome, from 15,000 to 18,000
ft. high over the tropics, truncating, as it rises, a number of peaks
and mountain ranges whose upper portions like all regions above this
thermal shell receive all their moisture in the form of snow. Since the
temperature above the snow-line is below freezing point evaporation is
very slight, and as the snow is solid it tends to accumulate in
snow-fields, where the snow of one year is covered by that of the next,
and these are wrapped over many deeper layers that have fallen in
previous years. If these piles of snow were rigid and immovable they
would increase in height until the whole field rose above the zone of
ordinary atmospheric precipitation, and the polar ice-caps would add a
load to these regions that would produce far-reaching results. The
mountain regions also would rise some miles in height, and all their
features would be buried in domes of snow some miles in thickness. When,
however, there is sufficient weight the mass yields to pressure and
flows outwards and downwards. Thus a balance of weight and height is
established, and the ice-field is disintegrated principally at the
edges, the surplus in polar regions being carried off in the form of
icebergs, and in mountain regions by streams that flow from the melting
ends of the glaciers.
_Formation._--The formation of glaciers is in all cases due to similar
causes, namely, to periodical and intermittent falls of snow. After a
snow-fall there is a period of rest during which the snow becomes
compacted by pressure and assumes the well-known granular character seen
in banks and patches of ordinary snow that lie longest upon the ground
when the snow is melting. This is the _firn_ or _névé_. The next fall of
snow covers and conceals the névé, but the light fresh crystals of this
new snow in turn become compacted to the coarsely crystalline granular
form of the underlying layer and become névé in turn. The process goes
on continually; the lower layers become subject to greater and greater
pressure, and in consequence become gradually compacted into dense clear
ice, which, however, retains its granular crystalline texture
throughout. The upper layers of névé are usually stratified, owing to
some individual peculiarity in the fall, or to the accumulation of dust
or débris upon the surface before it is covered by fresh snow. This
stratification is often visible on the emerging glacier, though it is
to be distinguished from the foliation planes caused by shearing
movement in the body of the glacier ice.
_Types._--The snow-field upon which a glacier depends is always formed
when snow-fall is greater than snow-waste. This occurs under varying
conditions with a differently resulting type of glacier. There are
limited fields of snow in many mountain regions giving rise to long
tongues of ice moving slowly down the valleys and therefore called
"valley glaciers." The greater part of Greenland is covered by an
ice-cap extending over nearly 400,000 sq. m., forming a kind of enormous
continuous glacier on its lower slopes. The Antarctic ice region is
believed to extend over more than 3,000,000 sq. m. Each of these
continental fields, besides producing block as distinguished from tongue
glaciers, sends into the sea a great number of icebergs during the
summer season. These ice-caps covering great regions are by far the most
important types. Between these "polar" or "continental glaciers" and the
"alpine" type there are many grades. Smaller detached ice-caps may rest
upon high plateaus as in Iceland, or several tongues of ice coming down
neighbouring valleys may splay out into convergent lobes on lower ground
and form a "piedmont glacier" such as the Malaspina Glacier in Alaska.
When the snow-field lies in a small depression the glacier may remain
suspended in the hollow and advance no farther than the edge of the
snow-field. This is called a "cliff-glacier," and is not uncommon in
mountain regions. The end of a larger glacier, or the edge of an
ice-sheet, may reach a precipitous cliff, where the ice will break from
the edge of the advancing mass and fall in blocks to the lower ground,
where a "reconstructed glacier" will be formed from the fragments and
advance farther down the slope.
When a glacier originates upon a dome-shaped or a level surface the ice
will deploy radially in all directions. When a snow-field is formed
above steep valleys separated by high ridges the ice will flow downwards
in long streams. If the valleys under the snow-fields are wide and
shallow the resultant glaciers will broaden out and partially fill them,
and in all cases, since the conditions of glacier formation are similar,
the resultant form and the direction of motion will depend upon the
amount of ice and the form of the surface over which the glacier flows.
A glacier flowing down a narrow gorge to an open valley, or on to a
plain, will spread at its foot into a fan-shaped lobe as the ice spreads
outwards while moving downwards. An ice-cap is in the main thickest at
the centre, and thins out at the edges. A valley glacier is thickest at
some point between its source and its end, but nearer to its source than
to its termination, but its thickness at various portions will depend
upon the contour of the valley floor over which the glacier rides, and
may reach many hundreds of feet. At its centre the Greenland ice-cap is
estimated to be over 5000 ft. thick. In all cases the glacier ends where
the waste of ice is greater than the supply, and since the relationship
varies in different years, or cycles of years, the end of a glacier may
advance or retreat in harmony with greater or less snow-fall or with
cooler or hotter summers. There seems to be a cycle of inclusive
contraction and expansion of from 35 to 40 or 50 years. At present the
ends of the Swiss glaciers are cradled in a mass of moraine-stuff due to
former extension of the glaciers, and investigations in India show that
in some parts of the Himalayas the glaciers are retreating as they are
in North America and even in the southern hemisphere (_Nature_, January
2, 1908, p. 201).
_Movement._--The fact that a glacier moves is easily demonstrated; the
cause of the movement is pressure upon a yielding mass; the nature of
the movement is still under discussion. Rows of stakes or stones placed
in line across a glacier are found to change their position with respect
to objects on the bank and also with regard to each other. The posts in
the centre of the ice-stream gradually move away from those at the side,
proving that the centre moves faster than the sides. It has also been
proved that the surface portions move more rapidly than the deeper
layers and that the motion is slowest at the sides and bottom where
friction is greatest.
The rate of motion past the same spot is not uniform. Heat accelerates
it, cold arrests it, and the pressure of a large amount of water
stimulates the flow. The rate of flow under the same conditions varies
at different parts of the glacier directly as the thickness of ice, the
steepness of slope and the smoothness of rocky floor. Generally
speaking, the rate of motion depends upon the amount of ice that forms
the "head" pressure, the slope of the under surface and of the upper
surface, the nature of the floor, the temperature and the amount of
water present in the ice. The ordinary rate of motion is very slow. In
Switzerland it is from 1 or 2 in. to 4 ft. per day, in Alaska 7 ft., in
Greenland 50 to 60 ft., and occasionally 100 ft. per day in the height
of summer under exceptional conditions of quantity of ice and of water
and slope. Measurements of Swiss glaciers show that near the ice foot
where wastage is great there is very little movement, and observations
upon the inland border of Greenland ice show that it is almost
stationary over long distances. In many aspects the motion of a body of
ice resembles that of a body of water, and an alpine glacier is often
called an ice-river, since like a river it moves faster in the centre
than at the sides and at the top faster than at the bottom. A glacier
follows a curve in the same way as a river, and there appear to be ice
swirls and eddies as well as an upward creep on shelving curves
recalling many features of stream action. The rate of motion of both
ice-stream and river is accelerated by quantity and steepness of slope
and retarded by roughness of bed, but here the comparison ends, for
temperature does not affect the rate of water motion, nor will a liquid
crack into crevasses as a glacier does, or move upwards over an adverse
slope as a glacier always does when there is sufficient "head" of ice
above it. So that although in many respects ice behaves as a viscous
fluid the comparison with such a fluid is not perfect. The cause of
glacier motion must be based upon some more or less complex
considerations. The flakes of snow are gradually transformed into
granules because the points and angles of the original flakes melt and
evaporate more readily than the more solid central portions, which
become aggregated round some master flake that continues to grow in the
névé at the expense of its smaller neighbours, and increases in size
until finally the glacier ice is composed of a mass of interlocked
crystalline granules, some as large as a walnut, closely compacted under
pressure with the principal crystalline axes in various directions. In
the upper portions of the glacier movement due to pressure probably
takes place by the gliding of one granule over another. In this
connexion it must be noted that pressure lowers the melting point of ice
while tension raises it, and at all points of pressure there is
therefore a tendency to momentary melting, and also to some evaporation
due to the heat caused by pressure, and at the intermediate tension
spaces between the points of pressure this resultant liquid and vapour
will be at once re-frozen and become solid. The granular movement is
thus greatly facilitated, while the body of ice remains in a crystalline
solid condition. In this connexion it is well to remember that the
pressure of the glacier upon its floor will have the same result, but
the effect here is a mass-effect and facilitates the gliding of the ice
over obstacles, since the friction produces heat and the pressure lowers
the melting point, so that the two causes tend to liquefy the portion
where pressure is greatest and so to "lubricate" the prominences and
enable the glacier to slide more easily over them, while the liquid thus
produced is re-frozen when the pressure is removed.
In polar regions of very low temperature a very considerable amount of
pressure must be necessary before the ice granules yield to momentary
liquefaction at the points of pressure, and this probably accounts for
the extreme thickness of the Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps where the
slopes are moderate, for although equally low temperatures are found in
high Alpine snow-fields the slopes there are exceedingly steep and
motion is therefore more easily produced.
Observations made upon the Greenland glaciers indicate a considerable
amount of "shearing" movement in the lower portions of a glacier. Where
obstacles in the bed of the glacier arrest the movement of the ice
immediately above it, or where the lower portion of the glacier is
choked by débris, the upper ice glides over the lower in shearing planes
that are sometimes strongly marked by débris caught and pushed forwards
along these planes of foliation. It must be remembered that there is a
solid push from behind upon the lower portion of a glacier, quite
different from the pressure of a body of water upon any point, for the
pressure of a fluid is equal in all directions, and also that this push
will tend to set the crystalline granules in positions in which their
crystalline axes are parallel along the gliding planes. The production
of gliding planes is in some cases facilitated by the descent into the
glacier of water melted during summer, where it expands in freezing and
pushes the adjacent ice away from it, forming a surface along which
movement is readily established.
If under all circumstances the glacier melted under pressure at the
bottom, glacial abrasion would be nearly impossible, since every small
stone and fragment of rock would rotate in a liquid shell as the ice
moved forward, but since the pressure is not always sufficient to
produce melting, the glacier sometimes remains dry at its base; rock
fragments are held firmly; and a dry glacier may thus become a graving
tool of enormous power. Whatever views may be adopted as to the causes
of glacier motion, the peculiar character of glacier ice as distinct
from homogeneous river or pond ice must be kept in view, as well as the
characteristic tendency of water to expand in freezing, the lowering of
the melting point of ice under pressure, the raising of the melting
point under tension, the production of gliding or shearing planes under
pressure from above, the presence in summer of a considerable quantity
of water in the lower portions of the glacier which are thus loosened,
the cracking of ice (as into crevasses), under sudden strain, and the
regelation of ice in contact. A result of this last process is that
fissures are not permanent, but having been produced by the passage of
ice over an obstruction, they subsequently become healed when the ice
proceeds over a flatter bed. Finally it must be remembered that although
glacier ice behaves in some sense like a viscous fluid its condition is
totally different, since "a glacier is a crystalline rock of the purest
and simplest type, and it never has other than the crystalline state."
_Characteristics._--The general appearance of a glacier varies according
to its environment of position and temperature. The upper portion is
hidden by névé and often by freshly fallen snow, and is smooth and
unbroken. During the summer, when little snow falls, the body of the
glacier moves away from the snow-field and a gaping crevasse of great
depth is usually established called the _bergschrund_, which is
sometimes taken as the upper limit of the glacier. The glacier as it
moves down the valley may become "loaded" in various ways. Rock-falls
send periodical showers of stones upon it from the heights, and these
are spread out into long lines at the glacier sides as the ice moves
downwards carrying the rock fragments with it. These are the "lateral
moraines." When two or more glaciers descending adjacent valleys
converge into one glacier one or more sides of the higher valleys
disappear, and the ice that was contained in several valleys is now
carried by one. In the simplest case where two valleys converge into one
the two inner lateral moraines meet and continue to stream down the
larger valley as one "median moraine." Where several valleys meet there
are several such parallel median moraines, and so long as the ice
remains unbroken these will be carried upon the surface of the glacier
and finally tipped over the end. There is, however, differential heating
of rock and ice, and if the stones carried are thin they tend to sink
into the ice because they absorb heat readily and melt the ice under
them. Dust has the same effect and produces "dust wells" that honeycomb
the upper surface of the ice with holes into which the dust sinks. If
the moraine rocks are thick they prevent the ice under them from melting
in sunlight, and isolated blocks often remain supported upon ice-pillars
in the form of ice tables, which finally collapse, so that such rocks
may be scattered out of the line of the moraine. As the glacier descends
into the lower valleys it is more strongly heated, and surface streams
are established in consequence that flow into channels caused by unequal
melting of the ice and finally plunge into crevasses. These crevasses
are formed by strains established as the central parts drag away from
the sides of the glacier and the upper surface from the lower, and more
markedly by the tension due to a sudden bend in the glacier caused by an
inequality in its bed which must be over-ridden. These crevasses are
developed at right angles to the strain and often produce intersecting
fissures in several directions. The morainic material is gradually
dispersed by the inequalities produced, and is further distributed by
the action of superficial streams until the whole surface is strewn with
stones and débris, and presents, as in the lower portions of the Mer de
Glace, an exceedingly dirty appearance. Many blocks of stone fall into
the gaping crevasses and much loose rock is carried down as "englacial
material" in the body of the glacier. Some of it reaches the bottom and
becomes part of the "ground moraine" which underlies the glacier, at
least from the _bergschrund_ to the "snout," where much of it is carried
away by the issuing stream and spread finally on to the plains below. It
appears that a very considerable amount of degradation is caused under
the _bergschrund_ by the mass of ice "plucking" and dragging great
blocks of rock from the side of the mountain valley where the great head
of ice rests in winter and whence it begins to move in summer. These
blocks and many smaller fragments are carried downwards wedged in the
ice and cause powerful abrasion upon the rocky floor, rasping and
scoring the channel, producing conspicuous striae, polishing and
rounding the rock surfaces, and grinding the contained fragments as well
as the surface over which it passes into small fragments and fine
powder, from which "boulder clay" or "till" is finally produced.
Emerging, then, from the snow-field as pure granular ice the glacier
gradually becomes strewn and filled with foreign material, not only from
above but also, as is very evident in some Greenland glaciers,
occasionally from below by masses of fragments that move upwards along
gliding planes, or are forced upwards by slow swirls in the ice itself.
As a glacier is a very brittle body any abrupt change in gradient will
produce a number of crevasses, and these, together with those produced
by dragging strains, will frequently wedge the glacier into a mass of
pinnacles or _séracs_ that may be partially healed but are usually
evident when the melting end of the glacier emerges suddenly from a
steep valley. Here the streams widen the weaker portions and the moraine
rocks fall from the end to produce the "terminal" moraine, which usually
lies in a crescentic heap encircling the glacier snout, whence it can
only be moved by a further advance of the glacier or by the ordinary
slow process of atmospheric denudation.
In cases where no rock falls upon the surface there is a considerable
amount of englacial material due to upturning either over accumulated
ground débris or over structural inequalities in the rock floor. This is
well seen at the steep sides and ends of Greenland glaciers, where
material frequently comes to the surface of the melting ice and produces
median and lateral moraines, besides appearing in enormous "eyes"
surrounded in the glacial body by contorted and foliated ice and
sometimes producing heaps and embankments as it is pushed out at the end
of the melting ice.
The environment of temperature requires consideration. At the upper or
dorsal portion of the glacier there is a zone of variable (winter and
summer) temperature, beneath which, if the ice is thick enough, there is
a zone of constant temperature which will be about the mean annual
temperature of the region of the snow-field. Underlying this there is a
more or less constant ventral or ground temperature, depending mainly
upon the internal heat of the earth, which is conducted to the under
surface of the glacier where it slowly melts the ice, the more readily
because the pressure lowers the melting point considerably, so that
streams of water run constantly from beneath many glaciers, adding their
volume to the springs which issue from the rock. The middle zone of
constant temperature is wedge-shaped in "alpine" glaciers, the apex
pointing downwards to the zone of waste. The upper zone of variable
temperature is thinnest in the snow-field where the mean temperature is
lowest, and entirely dominant in the snout end of the glacier where the
zone of constant temperature disappears. Two temperature wedges are thus
superposed base to point, the one being thickest where the other is
thinnest, and both these lie upon the basal film of temperature where
the escaping earth-heat is strengthened by that due to friction and
pressure. The cold wave of winter may pass right through a thin glacier,
or the constant temperature may be too low to permit of the ice melting
at the base, in which cases the glacier is "dry" and has great eroding
power. But in the lower warmer portions water running through crevasses
will raise the temperature, and increase the strength of the downward
heat wave, while the mean annual temperature being there higher, the
combined result will be that the glacier will gradually become "wet" at
the base and have little eroding power, and it will become more and more
wet as it moves down the lower valley zone of ice-waste, until at last
the balance is reached between waste and supply and the glacier finally
disappears.
If the mean annual temperature be 20° F., and the mean winter
temperature be -12° F., as in parts of Greenland, all the ice must be
considerably below the melting point, since the pressure of ice a mile
in depth lowers the melting point only to 30° F., and the earth-heat is
only sufficient to melt ¼ in. of ice in a year. Therefore in these
regions, and in snow-fields and high glaciers with an equal or lower
mean temperature than 20° F., the glacier will be "dry" throughout,
which may account for the great eroding power stated to exist near the
_bergschrund_ in glaciers of an alpine type, which usually have their
origin on precipitous slopes.
A considerable amount of ice-waste takes place by water-drainage, though
much is the result of constant evaporation from the ice surface. The
lower end of a glacier is in summer flooded by streams of water that
pour along cracks and plunge into crevasses, often forming "pot-holes"
or _moulins_ where stones are swirled round in a glacial "mill" and wear
holes in the solid rock below. Some of these streams issue in a spout
half way up the glacier's end wall, but the majority find their way
through it and join the water running along the glacier floor and
emerging where the glacier ends in a large glacial stream.
_Results of Glacial Action._--A glacier is a degrading and an aggrading
agent. Much difference of opinion exists as to the potency of a glacier
to alter surface features, some maintaining that it is extraordinarily
effective, and considering that a valley glacier forms a pronounced
_cirque_ at the region of its origin and that the cirque is gradually
cut backward until a long and deep valley is formed (which becomes
evident, as in the Rocky Mountains, in an upper valley with "reversed
grade" when the glacier disappears), and also that the end of a glacier
plunging into a valley or a fjord will gouge a deep basin at its region
of impact. The Alaskan and Norwegian fjords and the rock basins of the
Scottish lochs are adduced as examples. Other writers maintain that a
glacier is only a modifying and not a dominant agent in its effects upon
the land-surface, considering, for example, that a glacier coming down a
lateral valley will preserve the valley from the atmospheric denudation
which has produced the main valley over which the lateral valley
"hangs," a result which the believers in strong glacial action hold to
be due to the more powerful action of the main glacier as contrasted
with the weaker action of that in the lateral valley. Both the advocates
and the opponents of strenuous ice action agree that a V-shaped valley
of stream erosion is converted to a U-shaped valley of glacial
modification, and that rock surfaces are rounded into _roches
moutonnées_, and are grooved and striated by the passage of ice shod
with fragments of rock, while the subglacial material is ground into
finer and finer fragments until it becomes mud and "rock-flour" as the
glacier proceeds. In any case striking results are manifest in any
formerly glaciated region. The high peaks rise into pinnacles, and
ridges with "house-roof" structure, above the former glacier, while
below it the contours are all rounded and typically subdued. A landscape
that was formerly completely covered by a moving ice-cap has none but
these rounded features of dome-shaped hills and U-shaped valleys that at
least bear evidence to the great modifying power that a glacier has upon
a landscape.
There is no conflict of opinion with regard to glacial aggradation and
the distribution of superglacial, englacial and subglacial material,
which during the active existence of a glacier is finally distributed by
glacial streams that produce very considerable alluviation. In many
regions which were covered by the Pleistocene ice-sheet the work of the
glacier was arrested by melting before it was half done. Great deposits
of till and boulder clay that lay beneath the glaciers were abandoned
_in situ_, and remain as an unsorted mixture of large boulders, pebbles
and mingled fragments, embedded in clay or sand. The lateral, median and
terminal moraines were stranded where they sank as the ice disappeared,
and together with perched blocks (_roches perchées_) remain as a
permanent record of former conditions which are now found to have
existed temporarily in much earlier geological times. In glaciated North
America lateral moraines are found that are 500 to 1000 ft. high and in
northern Italy 1500 to 2000 ft. high. The surface of the ground in all
these places is modified into the characteristic glaciated landscape,
and many formerly deep valleys are choked with glacial débris either
completely changing the local drainage systems, or compelling the
reappearing streams to cut new channels in a superposed drainage system.
Kames also and eskers (q.v.) are left under certain conditions, with
many puzzling deposits that are clearly due to some features of ice-work
not thoroughly understood.
See L. Agassiz, _Études sur les glaciers_ (Neuchâtel, 1840) and
_Nouvelles Études ..._ (Paris, 1847); N. S. Shaler and W. M. Davis,
_Glaciers_ (Boston, 1881); A. Penck, _Die Begletscherung der deutschen
Alpen_ (Leipzig, 1882); J. Tyndall, _The Glaciers of the Alps_
(London, 1896); T. G. Bonney, _Ice-Work, Past and Present_ (London,
1896); I. C. Russell, _Glaciers of North America_ (Boston, 1897); E.
Richter, _Neue Ergebnisse und Probleme der Gletscherforschung_
(Vienna, 1899); F. Forel, _Essai sur les variations périodiques des
glaciers_ (Geneva, 1881 and 1900); H. Hess, _Die Gletscher_
(Brunswick, 1904). (E. C. Sp.)
GLACIS, in military engineering (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT), an
artificial slope of earth in the front of works, so constructed as to
keep an assailant under the fire of the defenders to the last possible
moment. On the natural ground-level, troops attacking any high work
would be sheltered from its fire when close up to it; the ground
therefore is raised to form a glacis, which is swept by the fire of the
parapet. More generally, the term is used to denote any slope, natural
or artificial, which fulfils the above requirements.
GLADBACH, the name of two towns in Germany distinguished as
Bergisch-Gladbach and München-Gladbach.
1. BERGISCH-GLADBACH is in Rhenish Prussia, 8 m. N.E. of Cologne by
rail. Pop. (1905) 13,410. It possesses four large paper mills and among
its other industries are paste-board, powder, percussion caps, nets and
machinery. Ironstone, peat and lime are found in the vicinity. The town
has four Roman Catholic churches and one Protestant. The
Stundenthalshöhe, a popular resort, is in the neighbourhood, and near
Gladbach is Altenberg, with a remarkably fine church, built for the
Cistercian abbey at this place.
2. MÜNCHEN-GLADBACH, also in Rhenish Prussia, 16 m. W.S.W. of Düsseldorf
on the main line of railway to Aix-la-Chapelle. Pop. (1885) 44,230;
(1905) 60,714. It is one of the chief manufacturing places in Rhenish
Prussia, its principal industries being the spinning and weaving of
cotton, the manufacture of silks, velvet, ribbon and damasks, and dyeing
and bleaching. There are also tanneries, tobacco manufactories, machine
works and foundries. The town possesses a fine park and has statues of
the emperor William I. and of Prince Bismarck. There are ten Roman
Catholic churches here, among them being the beautiful minster, with a
Gothic choir dating from 1250, a nave dating from the beginning of the
13th century and a crypt of the 8th century. The town has two hospitals,
several schools, and is the headquarters of important insurance
societies. Gladbach existed before the time of Charlemagne, and a
Benedictine monastery was founded near it in 793. It was thus called
München-Gladbach or Monks' Gladbach, to distinguish it from another town
of the same name. The monastery was suppressed in 1802. It became a town
in 1336; weaving was introduced here towards the end of the 18th
century, and having belonged for a long time to the duchy of Juliers it
came into the possession of Prussia in 1815.
See Strauss, _Geschichte der Stadt München-Gladbach_ (1895); and G.
Eckertz, _Das Verbrüderungs und Todtenbuch der Abtei Gladbach_ (1881).
GLADDEN, WASHINGTON (1836- ), American Congregational divine, was born
in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, on the 11th of February 1836. He graduated
at Williams College in 1859, preached in churches in Brooklyn,
Morrisania (New York City), North Adams, Massachusetts, and Springfield,
Massachusetts, and in 1882 became pastor of the First Congregational
Church of Columbus, Ohio. He was an editor of the _Independent_ in
1871-1875, and a frequent contributor to it and other periodicals. He
consistently and earnestly urged in pulpit and press the need of
personal, civil and, particularly, social righteousness, and in
1900-1902 was a member of the city council of Columbus. Among his many
publications, which include sermons, occasional addresses, &c., are:
_Plain Thoughts on the Art of Living_ (1868); _Workingmen and their
Employers_ (1876); _The Christian Way_ (1877); _Things New and Old_
(1884); _Applied Christianity_ (1887); _Tools and the Man--Property and
Industry under the Christian Law_ (1893); _The Church and the Kingdom_
(1894), arguing against a confusion and misuse of these two terms;
_Seven Puzzling Bible Books_ (1897); _How much is Left of the Old
Doctrines_ (1899); _Social Salvation_ (1901); _Witnesses of the Light_
(1903); the William Belden Noble Lectures (Harvard), being addresses on
Dante, Michelangelo, Fichte, Hugo, Wagner and Ruskin; _The New Idolatry_
(1905); _Christianity and Socialism_ (1906), and _The Church and Modern
Life_ (1908). In 1909 he published his _Recollections_.
GLADIATORS (from Lat. _gladius_, sword), professional combatants who
fought to the death in Roman public shows. That this form of spectacle,
which is almost peculiar to Rome and the Roman provinces, was originally
borrowed from Etruria is shown by various indications. On an Etruscan
tomb discovered at Tarquinii there is a representation of gladiatorial
games; the slaves employed to carry off the dead bodies from the arena
wore masks representing the Etruscan Charon; and we learn from Isidore
of Seville (_Origines_, x.) that the name for a trainer of gladiators
(_lanista_) is an Etruscan word meaning butcher or executioner. These
gladiatorial games are evidently a survival of the practice of
immolating slaves and prisoners on the tombs of illustrious chieftains,
a practice recorded in Greek, Roman and Scandinavian legends, and
traceable even as late as the 19th century as the Indian _suttee_. Even
at Rome they were for a long time confined to funerals, and hence the
older name for gladiators was _bustuarii_; but in the later days of the
republic their original significance was forgotten, and they formed as
indispensable a part of the public amusements as the theatre and the
circus.
The first gladiators are said, on the authority of Valerius Maximus (ii.
4. 7), to have been exhibited at Rome in the Forum Boarium in 264 B.C.
by Marcus and Decimus Brutus at the funeral of their father. On this
occasion only three pairs fought, but the taste for these games spread
rapidly, and the number of combatants grew apace. In 174 Titus
Flamininus celebrated his father's obsequies by a three-days' fight, in
which 74 gladiators took part. Julius Caesar engaged such extravagant
numbers for his aedileship that his political opponents took fright and
carried a decree of the senate imposing a certain limit of numbers, but
notwithstanding this restriction he was able to exhibit no less than 300
pairs. During the later days of the republic the gladiators were a
constant element of danger to the public peace. The more turbulent
spirits among the nobility had each his band of gladiators to act as a
bodyguard, and the armed troops of Clodius, Milo and Catiline played the
same part in Roman history as the armed retainers of the feudal barons
or the condottieri of the Italian republics. Under the empire,
notwithstanding sumptuary enactments, the passion for the arena steadily
increased. Augustus, indeed, limited the shows to two a year, and
forbade a praetor to exhibit more than 120 gladiators, yet allusions in
Horace (_Sat._ ii. 3. 85) and Persius (vi. 48) show that 100 pairs was
the fashionable number for private entertainments; and in the Marmor
Ancyranum the emperor states that more than 10,000 men had fought during
his reign. The imbecile Claudius was devoted to this pastime, and would
sit from morning till night in his chair of state, descending now and
then to the arena to coax or force the reluctant gladiators to resume
their bloody work. Under Nero senators and even well-born women appeared
as combatants; and Juvenal (viii. 199) has handed down to eternal infamy
the descendant of the Gracchi who appeared without disguise as a
_retiarius_, and begged his life from the _secutor_, who blushed to
conquer one so noble and so vile.[1] Titus, whom his countrymen surnamed
the Clement, ordered a show which lasted 100 days; and Trajan, in
celebration of his triumph over Decebalus, exhibited 5000 pairs of
gladiators. Domitian at the Saturnalia of A.D. 90 arranged a battle
between dwarfs and women. Even women of high birth fought in the arena,
and it was not till A.D. 200 that the practice was forbidden by edict.
How widely the taste for these sanguinary spectacles extended throughout
the Roman provinces is attested by monuments, inscriptions and the
remains of vast amphitheatres. From Britain to Syria there was not a
town of any size that could not boast its arena and annual games. After
Italy, Gaul, North Africa and Spain were most famous for their
amphitheatres; and Greece was the only Roman province where the
institution never thoroughly took root.
Gladiators were commonly drawn either from prisoners of war, or slaves
or criminals condemned to death. Thus in the first class we read of
tattooed Britons in their war chariots, Thracians with their peculiar
bucklers and scimitars, Moors from the villages round Atlas and negroes
from central Africa, exhibited in the Colosseum. Down to the time of the
empire only greater malefactors, such as brigands and incendiaries, were
condemned to the arena; but by Caligula, Claudius and Nero this
punishment was extended to minor offences, such as fraud and peculation,
in order to supply the growing demand for victims. For the first century
of the empire it was lawful for masters to sell their slaves as
gladiators, but this was forbidden by Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.
Besides these three regular classes, the ranks were recruited by a
considerable number of freedmen and Roman citizens who had squandered
their estates and voluntarily took the _auctoramentum gladiatorium_, by
which for a stated time they bound themselves to the _lanista_. Even men
of birth and fortune not seldom entered the lists, either for the pure
love of fighting or to gratify the whim of some dissolute emperor; and
one emperor, Commodus, actually appeared in person in the arena.
Gladiators were trained in schools (_ludi_) owned either by the state or
by private citizens, and though the trade of a _lanista_ was considered
disgraceful, to own gladiators and let them out for hire was reckoned a
legitimate branch of commerce. Thus Cicero, in his letters to Atticus,
congratulates his friend on the good bargain he had made in purchasing a
band, and urges that he might easily recoup himself by consenting to let
them out twice. Men recruited mainly from slaves and criminals, whose
lives hung on a thread, must have been more dangerous characters than
modern galley slaves or convicts; and, though highly fed and carefully
tended, they were of necessity subject to an iron discipline. In the
school of gladiators discovered at Pompeii, of the sixty-three skeletons
buried in the cells many were in irons. But hard as was the gladiators'
lot,--so hard that special precautions had to be taken to prevent
suicide,--it had its consolations. A successful gladiator enjoyed far
greater fame than any modern prize-fighter or athlete. He was presented
with broad pieces, chains and jewelled helmets, such as may be seen in
the museum at Naples; poets like Martial sang his prowess; his portrait
was multiplied on vases, lamps and gems; and high-born ladies contended
for his favours. Mixed, too, with the lowest dregs of the city, there
must have been many noble barbarians condemned to the vile trade by the
hard fate of war. There are few finer characters in Roman history than
the Thracian Spartacus, who, escaping with seventy of his comrades from
the school of Lentulus at Capua, for three years defied the legions of
Rome; and after Antony's defeat at Actium, the only part of his army
that remained faithful to his cause were the gladiators whom he had
enrolled at Cyzicus to grace his anticipated victory.
There were various classes of gladiators, distinguished by their arms or
modes of fighting. The Samnites fought with the national weapons--a
large oblong shield, a vizor, a plumed helmet and a short sword. The
Thraces had a small round buckler and a dagger curved like a scythe;
they were generally pitted against the Mirmillones, who were armed in
Gallic fashion with helmet, sword and shield, and were so called from
the fish ([Greek: mormulos] or [Greek: mormuros]) which served as the
crest of their helmet. In like manner the Retiarius was matched with the
Secutor: the former had nothing on but a short tunic or apron, and
sought to entangle his pursuer, who was fully armed, with the cast-net
(_jaculum_) that he carried in his right hand; and if successful, he
despatched him with the trident (_tridens_, _fuscina_) that he carried
in his left. We may also mention the Andabatae who are generally
believed to have fought on horseback and wore helmets with closed
vizors; the Dimachaeri of the later empire, who carried a short sword in
each hand; the Essedarii, who fought from chariots like the ancient
Britons; the Hoplomachi, who wore a complete suit of armour; and the
Laquearii, who tried to lasso their antagonists.
Gladiators also received special names according to the time or
circumstances in which they exercised their calling. The Bustuarii have
already been mentioned; the Catervarii fought, not in pairs, but in
bands; the Meridiani came forward in the middle of the day for the
entertainment of those spectators who had not left their seats; the
Ordinarii fought only in pairs, in the regular way; the Fiscales were
trained and supported at the expense of the imperial treasury; the
Paegniarii used harmless weapons, and their exhibition was a sham one;
the Postulaticii were those whose appearance was asked as a favour from
the giver of the show, in addition to those already exhibited.
The shows were announced some days before they took place by bills
affixed to the walls of houses and public buildings, copies of which
were also sold in the streets. These bills gave the names of the chief
pairs of competitors, the date of the show, the name of the giver and
the different kinds of combats. The spectacle began with a procession of
the gladiators through the arena, after which their swords were examined
by the giver of the show. The proceedings opened with a sham fight
(_praelusio_, _prolusio_) with wooden swords and javelins. The signal
for real fighting was given by the sound of the trumpet, those who
showed fear being driven on to the arena with whips and red-hot irons.
When a gladiator was wounded, the spectators shouted _Habet_ (he is
wounded); if he was at the mercy of his adversary, he lifted up his
forefinger to implore the clemency of the people, with whom (in the
later times of the republic) the giver left the decision as to his life
or death. If the spectators were in favour of mercy, they waved their
handkerchiefs; if they desired the death of the conquered gladiator,
they turned their thumbs downwards.[2] The reward of victory consisted
of branches of palm, sometimes of money. Gladiators who had exercised
their calling for a long time, or such as displayed special skill and
bravery, were presented with a wooden sword (_rudis_), and discharged
from further service.
Both the estimation in which gladiatorial games were held by Roman
moralists, and the influence that they exercised upon the morals and
genius of the nation, deserve notice. The Roman was essentially cruel,
not so much from spite or vindictiveness as from callousness and
defective sympathies. This element of inhumanity and brutality must
have been deeply ingrained in the national character to have allowed
the games to become popular, but there can be no doubt that it was fed
and fostered by the savage form which their amusements took. That the
sight of bloodshed provokes a love of bloodshed and cruelty is a
commonplace of morals. To the horrors of the arena we may attribute in
part, not only the brutal treatment of their slaves and prisoners, but
the frequency of suicide among the Romans. On the other hand, we
should be careful not to exaggerate the effects or draw too sweeping
inferences from the prevalence of this degrading amusement. Human
nature is happily illogical; and we know that many of the Roman
statesmen who gave these games, and themselves enjoyed these sights of
blood, were in every other department of life
irreproachable--indulgent fathers, humane generals and mild rulers of
provinces. In the present state of society it is difficult to conceive
how a man of taste can have endured to gaze upon a scene of human
butchery. Yet we should remember that it is not so long since
bear-baiting was prohibited in England, and we are only now attaining
that stage of morality in respect of cruelty to animals that was
reached in the 5th century, by the help of Christianity, in respect of
cruelty to men. We shall not then be greatly surprised if hardly one
of the Roman moralists is found to raise his voice against this
amusement, except on the score of extravagance. Cicero in a well-known
passage commends the gladiatorial games as the best discipline against
the fear of death and suffering that can be presented to the eye. The
younger Pliny, who perhaps of all Romans approaches nearest to our
ideal of a cultured gentleman, speaks approvingly of them. Marcus
Aurelius, though he did much to mitigate their horrors, yet in his
writings condemns the monotony rather than the cruelty. Seneca is
indeed a splendid exception, and his letter to Lentulus is an eloquent
protest against this inhuman sport. But it is without a parallel till
we come to the writings of the Christian fathers, Tertullian,
Lactantius, Cyprian and Augustine. In the _Confessions_ of the last
there occurs a narrative which is worth quoting as a proof of the
strange fascination which the games exercised even on a religious man
and a Christian. He tells us how his friend Alipius was dragged
against his will to the amphitheatre, how he strove to quiet his
conscience by closing his eyes, how at some exciting crisis the shouts
of the whole assembly aroused his curiosity, how he looked and was
lost, grew drunk with the sight of blood, and returned again and
again, knowing his guilt yet unable to abstain. The first Christian
emperor was persuaded to issue an edict abolishing gladiatorial games
(325), yet in 404 we read of an exhibition of gladiators to celebrate
the triumph of Honorius over the Goths, and it is said that they were
not totally extinct in the West till the time of Theodoric.
Gladiators formed admirable models for the sculptor. One of the finest
pieces of ancient sculpture that has come down to us is the "Wounded
Gladiator" of the National Museum at Naples. The so-called "Fighting
Gladiator" of the Borghese collection, now in the Museum of the
Louvre, and the "Dying Gladiator" of the Capitoline Museum, which
inspired the famous stanza of _Childe Harold_, have been pronounced by
modern antiquaries to represent, not gladiators, but warriors. In this
connexion we may mention the admirable picture of Gérome which bears
the title, "Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant."
The attention of archaeologists has been recently directed to the
tesserae of gladiators. These tesserae, of which about sixty exist in
various museums, are small oblong tablets of ivory or bone, with an
inscription on each of the four sides. The first line contains a name
in the nominative case, presumably that of the gladiator; the second
line a name in the genitive, that of the _patronus_ or _dominus_; the
third line begins with the letters SP (for _spectatus_ = approved),
which shows that the gladiator had passed his preliminary trials; this
is followed by a day of a Roman month; and in the fourth line are the
names of the consuls of a particular year.
AUTHORITIES.--All needful information on the subject will be found in
L. Friedländer's _Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms_, (part
ii, 6th ed., 1889), and in the section by him on "The Games" in
Marquardt's _Römische Staatsverwaltung_, iii. (1885) p. 554; see also
article by G. Lafaye in Daremberg and Saglio, _Dictionnaire des
antiquités_. See also F. W. Ritschl, _Tesserae gladiatoriae_ (1864)
and P. J. Meier, _De gladiatura Romana quaestiones selectae_ (1881).
The articles by Lipsius on the _Saturnalia_ and _amphitheatrum_ in
Graevius, _Thesaurus antiquitatum Romanarum_, ix., may still be
consulted with advantage.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See A. E. Housman on the passage in _Classical Review_ (November
1904).
[2] A different account is given by Mayor on Juvenal iii. 36, who
says: "Those who wished the death of the conquered gladiator turned
their thumbs towards their breasts, as a signal to his opponents to
stab him; those who wished him to be spared, turned their thumbs
downwards, as a signal for dropping the sword."
GLADIOLUS, a genus of monocotyledonous plants, belonging to the natural
order Iridaceae. They are herbaceous plants growing from a solid
fibrous-coated bulb (or corm), with long narrow plaited leaves and a
terminal one-sided spike of generally bright-coloured irregular flowers.
The segments of the limb of the perianth are very unequal, the perianth
tube is curved, funnel-shaped and widening upwards, the segments
equalling or exceeding the tube in length. There are about 150 known
species, a large number of which are South African, but the genus
extends into tropical Africa, forming a characteristic feature of the
mountain vegetation, and as far north as central Europe and western
Asia. One species _G. illyricus_ (sometimes regarded as a variety of _G.
communis_) is found wild in England, in the New Forest and the Isle of
Wight. Some of the species have been cultivated for a long period in
English flower-gardens, where both the introduced species and the modern
varieties bred from them are very ornamental and popular. _G. segetum_
has been cultivated since 1596, and _G. byzantinus_ since 1629, while
many additional species were introduced during the latter half of the
18th century. One of the earlier of the hybrids originated in gardens
was the beautiful _G. Colvillei_, raised in the nursery of Mr Colville
of Chelsea in 1823 from _G. tristis_ fertilized by _G. cardinalis_. In
the first decade of the 19th century, however, the Hon. and Rev. W.
Herbert had successfully crossed the showy _G. cardinalis_ with the
smaller but more free-flowering _G. blandus_, and the result was the
production of a race of great beauty and fertility. Other crosses were
made with _G. tristis_, _G. oppositiflorus_, _G. hirsutus_, _G. alatus_
and _G. psittacinus_; but it was not till after the production of _G.
gandavensis_ that the gladiolus really became a general favourite in
gardens. This fine hybrid was raised in 1837 by M. Bedinghaus, gardener
to the duc d'Aremberg, at Enghien, crossing _G. psittacinus_ and _G.
cardinalis_. There can, however, be little doubt that before the
_gandavensis_ type had become fairly fixed the services of other species
were brought into force, and the most likely of these were _G.
oppositiflorus_ (which shows in the white forms), _G. blandus_ and _G.
ramosus_. Other species may also have been used, but in any case the
_gandavensis_ gladiolus, as we now know it, is the result of much
crossing and inter-crossing between the best forms as they developed (J.
Weathers, _Practical Guide to Garden Plants_). Since that time
innumerable varieties have appeared only to sink into oblivion upon
being replaced by still finer productions.
The modern varieties of gladioli have almost completely driven the
natural species out of gardens, except in botanical collections. The
most gorgeous groups--in addition to the _gandavensis_ type--are those
known under the names of _Lemoinei_, _Childsi_, _nanceianus_ and
_brenchleyensis_. The last-named was raised by a Mr Hooker at Brenchley
in 1848, and although quite distinct in appearance from _gandavensis_,
it undoubtedly had that variety as one of its parents. Owing to the
brilliant scarlet colour of the flowers, this is always a great
favourite for planting in beds. The _Lemoinei_ forms originated at
Nancy, in France, by fertilizing _G. purpureo-auratus_ with pollen from
_G. gandavensis_, the first flower appearing in 1877, and the plants
being put into commerce in 1880. The _Childsi_ gladioli first appeared
in 1882, having been raised at Baden-Baden by Herr Max Leichtlin from
the best forms of _G. gandavensis_ and _G. Saundersi_. The flowers of
the best varieties are of great size and substance, often measuring 7 to
9 in. across, while the range of colour is marvellous, with shades of
grey, purple, scarlet, salmon, crimson, rose, white, pink, yellow, &c.,
often beautifully mottled and blotched in the throat. The plants are
vigorous in growth, often reaching a height of 4 to 5 ft. _G.
nanceianus_ was raised at Nancy by MM. Lemoine and were first put into
commerce in 1889. Next to the _Childsi_ group they are the most
beautiful, and have the blood of the best forms of _G. Saundersi_ and
_G. Lemoinei_ in their veins. The plants are quite as hardy as the
_gandavensis_ hybrids, and the colours of the flowers are almost as
brilliant and varied in hue as those of the _Childsi_ section.
A deep and rather stiff sandy loam is the best soil for the gladiolus,
and this should be trenched up in October and enriched with
well-decomposed manure, consisting partly of cow dung, the manure
being disposed altogether below the corms, a layer at the bottom of
the upper trench, say 9 in. from the surface, and another layer at
double that depth. The corms should be planted in succession at
intervals of two or three weeks through the months of March, April and
May; about 3 to 5 in. deep and at least 1 ft. apart, a little pure
soil or sand being laid over each before the earth is closed in about
them, an arrangement which may be advantageously followed with
bulbous plants generally. In hot summer weather they should have a
good mulching of well-decayed manure, and, as soon as the flower
spikes are produced, liquid manure may occasionally be given them with
advantage.
The gladiolus is easily raised from seeds, which should be sown in
March or April in pots of rich soil placed in slight heat, the pots
being kept near the glass after they begin to grow, and the plants
being gradually hardened to permit their being placed out-of-doors in
a sheltered spot for the summer. Modern growers often grow the seeds
in the open in April on a nicely prepared bed in drills about 6 in.
apart and ½ in. deep, covering them with finely sifted gritty mould.
The seed bed is then pressed down evenly and firmly, watered
occasionally and kept free from weeds during the summer. In October
they will have ripened off, and must be taken out of the soil, and
stored in paper bags in a dry room secure from frost. They will have
made little bulbs from the size of a hazel nut downwards, according to
their vigour. In the spring they should be planted like the old bulbs,
and the larger ones will flower during the season, while the smaller
ones must be again harvested and planted out as before. The time
occupied from the sowing of the seed until the plant attains its full
strength is from three to four years. The approved sorts, which are
identified by name, are multiplied by means of bulblets or offsets or
"spawn," which form around the principal bulb or corm; but in this
they vary greatly, some kinds furnishing abundant increase and soon
becoming plentiful, while others persistently refuse to yield offsets.
The stately habit and rich glowing colours of the modern gladioli
render them exceedingly valuable as decorative plants during the late
summer months. They are, moreover, very desirable and useful flowers
for cutting for the purpose of room decoration, for while the blossoms
themselves last fresh for some days if cut either early in the morning
or late in the evening, the undeveloped buds open in succession, if
the stalks are kept in water, so that a cut spike will go on blooming
for some time.
GLADSHEIM (Old Norse _Gladsheimr_), in Scandinavian mythology, the
region of joy and home of Odin. Valhalla, the paradise whither the
heroes who fell in battle were escorted, was situated there.
GLADSTONE, JOHN HALL (1827-1902), English chemist, was born at Hackney,
London, on the 7th of March 1827. From childhood he showed great
aptitude for science; geology was his favourite subject, but since this
in his father's opinion did not afford a career of promise, he devoted
himself to chemistry, which he studied under Thomas Graham at University
College, London, and Liebig at Giessen, where he graduated as Ph.D. in
1847. In 1850 he became chemical lecturer at St Thomas's hospital, and
three years later was elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the
unusually early age of twenty-six. From 1858 to 1861 he served on the
royal commission on lighthouses, and from 1864 to 1868 was a member of
the war office committee on gun-cotton. From 1874 to 1877 he was
Fullerian professor of chemistry at the Royal Institution, in 1874 he
was chosen first president of the Physical Society, and in 1877-1879 he
was president of the Chemical Society. In 1897 the Royal Society
recognized his fifty years of scientific work by awarding him the Davy
medal. Dr Gladstone's researches were large in number and wide in range,
dealing to a great extent with problems that lie on the border-line
between physics and chemistry. Thus a number of his inquiries, and those
not the least important, were partly chemical, partly optical. He
determined the optical constants of hundreds of substances, with the
object of discovering whether any of the elements possesses more than
one atomic refraction. Again, he investigated the connexion between the
optical behaviour, density and chemical composition of ethereal oils,
and the relation between molecular magnetic rotation and the refraction
and dispersion of nitrogenous compounds. So early as 1856 he showed the
importance of the spectroscope in chemical research, and he was one of
the first to notice that the Fraunhofer spectrum at sunrise and sunset
differs from that at midday, his conclusion being that the earth's
atmosphere must be responsible for many of its absorption lines, which
indeed were subsequently traced to the oxygen and water-vapour in the
air. Another portion of his work was of an electro-chemical character.
His studies, with Alfred Tribe (1840-1885) and W. Hibbert, in the
chemistry of the storage battery, have added largely to our knowledge,
while the "copper-zinc couple," with which his name is associated
together with that of Tribe, among other things, afforded a simple means
of preparing certain organo-metallic compounds, and thus promoted
research in branches of organic chemistry where those bodies are
especially useful. Mention may also be made of his work on phosphorus,
on explosive substances, such as iodide of nitrogen, gun-cotton and the
fulminates, on the influence of mass in the process of chemical
reactions, and on the effect of carbonic acid on the germination of
plants. Dr Gladstone always took a great interest in educational
questions, and from 1873 to 1894 he was a member of the London School
Board. He was also a member of the Christian Evidence Society, and an
early supporter of the Young Men's Christian Association. His death
occurred suddenly in London on the 6th of October 1902.
GLADSTONE, WILLIAM EWART (1809-1898), British statesman, was born on the
29th of December 1809 at No. 62 Rodney Street, Liverpool. His
forefathers were Gledstanes of Gledstanes, in the upper ward of
Lanarkshire; or in Scottish phrase, Gledstanes of that Ilk. As years
went on their estates dwindled, and by the beginning of the 17th century
Gledstanes was sold. The adjacent property of Arthurshiel remained in
the hands of the family for nearly a hundred years longer. Then the son
of the last Gledstanes of Arthurshiel removed to Biggar, where he opened
the business of a maltster. His grandson, Thomas Gladstone (for so the
name was modified), became a corn-merchant at Leith. He happened to send
his eldest son, John, to Liverpool to sell a cargo of grain there, and
the energy and aptitude of the young man attracted the favourable notice
of a leading corn-merchant of Liverpool, who recommended him to settle
in that city. Beginning his commercial career as a clerk in his patron's
house, John Gladstone lived to become one of the merchant-princes of
Liverpool, a baronet and a member of parliament. He died in 1851 at the
age of eighty-seven. Sir John Gladstone was a pure Scotsman, a Lowlander
by birth and descent. He married Anne, daughter of Andrew Robertson of
Stornoway, sometime provost of Dingwall. Provost Robertson belonged to
the Clan Donachie, and by this marriage the robust and business-like
qualities of the Lowlander were blended with the poetic imagination, the
sensibility and fire of the Gael.
Childhood and education.
John and Anne Gladstone had six children. The fourth son, William Ewart,
was named after a merchant of Liverpool who was his father's friend. He
seems to have been a remarkably good child, and much beloved at home. In
1818 or 1819 Mrs Gladstone, who belonged to the Evangelical school, said
in a letter to a friend, that she believed her son William had been
"truly converted to God." After some tuition at the vicarage of
Seaforth, a watering-place near Liverpool, the boy went to Eton in 1821.
His tutor was the Rev. Henry Hartopp Knapp. His brothers, Thomas and
Robertson Gladstone, were already at Eton. Thomas was in the fifth form,
and William, who was placed in the middle remove of the fourth form,
became his eldest brother's fag. He worked hard at his classical
lessons, and supplemented the ordinary business of the school by
studying mathematics in the holidays. Mr Hawtrey, afterwards headmaster,
commended a copy of his Latin verses, and "sent him up for good"; and
this experience first led the young student to associate intellectual
work with the ideas of ambition and success. He was not a fine scholar,
in that restricted sense of the term which implies a special aptitude
for turning English into Greek and Latin, or for original versification
in the classical languages. "His composition," we read, "was stiff," but
he was imbued with the substance of his authors; and a contemporary who
was in the sixth form with him recorded that "when there were thrilling
passages of Virgil or Homer, or difficult passages in the _Scriptores
Graeci_, to translate, he or Lord Arthur Hervey was generally called up
to edify the class with quotation or translation." By common consent he
was pre-eminently God-fearing, orderly and conscientious. "At Eton,"
said Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury, "I was a thoroughly idle boy, but I
was saved from some worse things by getting to know Gladstone." His most
intimate friend was Arthur Hallam, by universal acknowledgment the most
remarkable Etonian of his day; but he was not generally popular or even
widely known. He was seen to the greatest advantage, and was most
thoroughly at home, in the debates of the Eton Society, learnedly called
"The Literati," and vulgarly "Pop," and in the editorship of the _Eton
Miscellany_. He left Eton at Christmas 1827. He read for six months with
private tutors, and in October 1828 went up to Christ Church, where, in
the following year, he was nominated to a studentship.
At Oxford Gladstone read steadily, but not laboriously, till he neared
his final schools. During the latter part of his undergraduate career he
took a brief but brilliant share in the proceedings of the Union, of
which he was successively secretary and president. He made his first
speech on the 11th of February 1830. Brought up in the nurture and
admonition of Canning, he defended Roman Catholic emancipation, and
thought the duke of Wellington's government unworthy of national
confidence. He opposed the removal of Jewish disabilities, arguing, we
are told by a contemporary, "on the part of the Evangelicals," and
pleaded for the gradual extinction, in preference to the immediate
abolition, of slavery. But his great achievement was a speech against
the Whig Reform Bill. One who heard this famous discourse says: "Most of
the speakers rose, more or less, above their usual level, but when Mr
Gladstone sat down we all of us felt that an epoch in our lives had
occurred. It certainly was the finest speech of his that I ever heard."
Bishop Charles Wordsworth said that his experience of Gladstone at this
time "made me (and I doubt not others also) feel no less sure than of my
own existence that Gladstone, our then Christ Church undergraduate,
would one day rise to be prime minister of England." In December 1831
Gladstone crowned his career by taking a double first-class. Lord
Halifax (1800-1885) used to say, with reference to the increase in the
amount of reading requisite for the highest honours: "My double-first
must have been a better thing than Peel's; Gladstone's must have been
better than mine."
Entry into parliament.
Now came the choice of a profession. Deeply anxious to make the best use
of his life, Gladstone turned his thoughts to holy orders. But his
father had determined to make him a politician. Quitting Oxford in the
spring of 1832, Gladstone spent six months in Italy, learning the
language and studying art. In the following September he was suddenly
recalled to England, to undertake his first parliamentary campaign. The
fifth duke of Newcastle was one of the chief potentates of the High Tory
party. His frank claim to "do what he liked with his own" in the
representation of Newark has given him a place in political history. But
that claim had been rudely disputed by the return of a Radical lawyer at
the election of 1831. The Duke was anxious to obtain a capable candidate
to aid him in regaining his ascendancy over the rebellious borough. His
son, Lord Lincoln, had heard Gladstone's speech against the Reform Bill
delivered in the Oxford Union, and had written home that "a man had
uprisen in Israel." At his suggestion the duke invited Gladstone to
stand for Newark in the Tory interest against Mr Serjeant Wilde,
afterwards Lord Chancellor Truro. The last of the Unreformed parliaments
was dissolved on the 3rd of December 1832. Gladstone, addressing the
electors of Newark, said that he was bound by the opinions of no man and
no party, but felt it a duty to watch and resist that growing desire for
change which threatened to produce "along with partial good a melancholy
preponderance of mischief." The first principle to which he looked for
national salvation was, that the "duties of governors are strictly and
peculiarly religious, and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound
to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have
acknowledged." The condition of the poor demanded special attention;
labour should receive adequate remuneration; and he thought favourably
of the "allotment of cottage grounds." He regarded slavery as sanctioned
by Holy Scripture, but the slaves ought to be educated and gradually
emancipated. The contest resulted in his return at the head of the poll.
The question of slavery.
The first Reformed parliament met on the 29th of January 1833, and the
young member for Newark took his seat for the first time in an assembly
which he was destined to adorn, delight and astonish for more than half
a century. His maiden speech was delivered on the 3rd of June in reply
to what was almost a personal challenge. The colonial secretary, Mr
Stanley, afterwards Lord Derby, brought forward a series of resolutions
in favour of the extinction of slavery in the British colonies. On the
first night of the debate Lord Howick, afterwards Lord Grey, who had
been under-secretary for the Colonies, and who opposed the resolutions
as proceeding too gradually towards abolition, cited certain occurrences
on Sir John Gladstone's plantation in Demerara to illustrate his
contention that the system of slave-labour in the West Indies was
attended by great mortality among the slaves. Gladstone in his
reply--his first speech in the House--avowed that he had a pecuniary
interest in the question, "and, if he might say so much without exciting
suspicion, a still deeper interest in it as a question of justice, of
humanity and of religion." If there had recently been a high mortality
on his father's plantation, it was due to the age of the slaves rather
than to any peculiar hardship in their lot. It was true that the
particular system of cultivation practised in Demerara was more trying
than some others; but then it might be said that no two trades were
equally conducive to health. Steel-grinding was notoriously unhealthy,
and manufacturing processes generally were less favourable to life than
agricultural. While strongly condemning cruelty, he declared himself an
advocate of emancipation, but held that it should be effected gradually,
and after due preparation. The slaves must be religiously educated, and
stimulated to profitable industry. The owners of emancipated slaves were
entitled to receive compensation from parliament, because it was
parliament that had established this description of property. "I do
not," said Gladstone, "view property as an abstract thing; it is the
creature of civil society. By the legislature it is granted, and by the
legislature it is destroyed." On the following day King William IV.
wrote to Lord Althorp: "The king rejoices that a young member has come
forward in so promising a manner as Viscount Althorp states Mr W. E.
Gladstone to have done." In the same session Gladstone spoke on the
question of bribery and corruption at Liverpool, and on the
temporalities of the Irish Church. In the session of 1834 his most
important performance was a speech in opposition to Hume's proposal to
throw the universities open to Dissenters.
On the 10th of November 1834 Lord Althorp succeeded to his father's
peerage, and thereby vacated the leadership of the House of Commons. The
prime minister, Lord Melbourne, submitted to the king a choice of names
for the chancellorship of the exchequer and leadership of the House of
Commons; but his majesty announced that, having lost the services of
Lord Althorp as leader of the House of Commons, he could feel no
confidence in the stability of Lord Melbourne's government, and that it
was his intention to send for the duke of Wellington. The duke took
temporary charge of affairs, but Peel was felt to be indispensable. He
had gone abroad after the session, and was now in Rome. As soon as he
could be brought back he formed an administration, and appointed
Gladstone to a junior lordship of the treasury. Parliament was dissolved
on the 29th of December. Gladstone was returned unopposed, this time in
conjunction with the Liberal lawyer whom he had beaten at the last
election. The new parliament met on the 19th of February 1835. The
elections had given the Liberals a considerable majority. Immediately
after the meeting of parliament Gladstone was promoted to the
under-secretaryship for the colonies, where his official chief was Lord
Aberdeen. The administration was not long-lived. On the 30th of March
Lord John Russell moved a resolution in favour of an inquiry into the
temporalities of the Irish Church, with the intention of applying the
surplus to general education without distinction of religious creed.
This was carried against ministers by a majority of thirty-three. On the
8th of April Sir Robert Peel resigned, and the under-secretary for the
colonies of course followed his chief into private life.
Literary work.
Released from the labours of office, Gladstone, living in chambers in
the Albany, practically divided his time between his parliamentary
duties and study. Then, as always, his constant companions were Homer
and Dante, and it is recorded that he read the whole of St Augustine, in
twenty-two octavo volumes. He used to frequent the services at St
James's, Piccadilly, and Margaret chapel, since better known as All
Saints', Margaret Street. On the 20th of June 1837 King William IV.
died, and Parliament, having been prorogued by the young queen in
person, was dissolved on the 17th of the following month. Simply on the
strength of his parliamentary reputation Gladstone was nominated,
without his consent, for Manchester, and was placed at the bottom of the
poll; but, having been at the same time nominated at Newark, was again
returned. The year 1838 claims special note in a record of Gladstone's
life, because it witnessed the appearance of his famous work on _The
State in its Relations with the Church_. He had left Oxford just before
the beginning of that Catholic revival which has transfigured both the
inner spirit and the outward aspect of the Church of England. But the
revival was now in full strength. The _Tracts for the Times_ were
saturating England with new influences. The movement counted no more
enthusiastic or more valuable disciple than Gladstone. Its influence had
reached him through his friendships, notably with two Fellows of
Merton--Mr James Hope, who became Mr Hope-Scott of Abbotsford, and the
Rev. H. E. Manning, afterwards cardinal archbishop. _The State in its
Relations with the Church_ was his practical contribution to a
controversy in which his deepest convictions were involved. He contended
that the Church, as established by law, was to be "maintained for its
truth," and that this principle, if good for England, was good also for
Ireland.
On the 25th of July 1839 Gladstone was married at Hawarden to Miss
Catherine Glynne, sister, and in her issue heir, of Sir Stephen Glynne,
ninth and last baronet of that name. In 1840 he published _Church
Principles considered in their Results_.
Enters the cabinet.
Parliament was dissolved in June 1841. Gladstone was again returned for
Newark. The general election resulted in a Tory majority of eighty. Sir
Robert Peel became prime minister, and made the member for Newark
vice-president of the Board of Trade. An inevitable change is from this
time to be traced in the topics of Gladstone's parliamentary speaking.
Instead of discoursing on the corporate conscience of the state and the
endowments of the Church, the importance of Christian education, and the
theological unfitness of the Jews to sit in parliament, he is solving
business-like problems about foreign tariffs and the exportation of
machinery; waxing eloquent over the regulation of railways, and a
graduated tax on corn; subtle on the monetary merits of half-farthings,
and great in the mysterious lore of _quassia_ and _cocculus indicus_. In
1842 he had a principal hand in the preparation of the revised tariff,
by which duties were abolished or sensibly diminished in the case of
1200 duty-paying articles. In defending the new scheme he spoke
incessantly, and amazed the House by his mastery of detail, his intimate
acquaintance with the commercial needs of the country, and his
inexhaustible power of exposition. In 1843 Gladstone, succeeding Lord
Ripon as president of the Board of Trade, became a member of the cabinet
at the age of thirty-three. He has recorded the fact that "the very
first opinion which he ever was called upon to give in cabinet" was an
opinion in favour of withdrawing the bill providing education for
children in factories, to which vehement opposition was offered by the
Dissenters, on the ground that it was too favourable to the Established
Church.
Maynooth grant: resignation.
At the opening of the session of 1845 the government, in pursuance of a
promise made to Irish members that they would deal with the question of
academical education in Ireland, proposed to establish non-sectarian
colleges in that country and to make a large addition to the grant to
the Roman Catholic College of Maynooth. Gladstone resigned office, in
order, as he announced in the debate on the address, to form "not only
an honest, but likewise an independent and an unsuspected judgment," on
the plan to be submitted by the government with respect to Maynooth. His
subsequent defence of the proposed grant, on the ground that it would be
improper and unjust to exclude the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland from
a "more indiscriminating support" which the state might give to various
religious beliefs, was regarded by men of less sensitive conscience as
only proving that there had been no adequate cause for his resignation.
Before he resigned he completed a second revised tariff, carrying
considerably further the principles on which he had acted in the earlier
revision of 1842.
Free trade.
In the autumn of 1845 the failure of the potato crop in Ireland
threatened a famine, and convinced Sir Robert Peel that all restrictions
on the importation of food must be at once suspended. He was supported
by only three members of the cabinet, and resigned on the 5th of
December. Lord John Russell, who had just announced his conversion to
total and immediate repeal of the Corn Laws, declined the task of
forming an administration, and on the 20th of December Sir Robert Peel
resumed office. Lord Stanley refused to re-enter the government, and his
place as secretary of state for the colonies was offered to and accepted
by Gladstone. He did not offer himself for re-election at Newark, and
remained outside the House of Commons during the great struggle of the
coming year. It was a curious irony of fate which excluded him from
parliament at this crisis, for it seems unquestionable that he was the
most advanced Free Trader in Sir Robert Peel's Cabinet. The Corn Bill
passed the House of Lords on the 28th of June 1846, and on the same day
the government were beaten in the House of Commons on an Irish Coercion
Bill. Lord John Russell became prime minister, and Gladstone retired for
a season into private life. Early in 1847 it was announced that one of
the two members for the university of Oxford intended to retire at the
general election, and Gladstone was proposed for the vacant seat. The
representation of the university had been pronounced by Canning to be
the most coveted prize of public life, and Gladstone himself confessed
that he "desired it with an almost passionate fondness." Parliament was
dissolved on the 23rd of July 1847. The nomination at Oxford took place
on the 29th of July, and at the close of the poll Sir Robert Inglis
stood at the head, with Gladstone as his colleague.
Naple prisons.
The three years 1847, 1848, 1849 were for Gladstone a period of mental
growth, of transition, of development. A change was silently proceeding,
which was not completed for twenty years. "There have been," he wrote in
later days to Bishop Wilberforce, "two great deaths, or transmigrations
of spirit, in my political existence--one, very slow, the breaking of
ties with my original party." This was now in progress. In the winter of
1850-1851 Gladstone spent between three and four months at Naples, where
he learned that more than half the chamber of deputies, who had followed
the party of Opposition, had been banished or imprisoned; that a large
number, probably not less than 20,000, of the citizens had been
imprisoned on charges of political disaffection, and that in prison they
were subjected to the grossest cruelties. Having made careful
investigations, Gladstone, on the 7th of April 1851, addressed an open
letter to Lord Aberdeen, bringing an elaborate, detailed and horrible
indictment against the rulers of Naples, especially as regards the
arrangements of their prisons and the treatment of persons confined in
them for political offences. The publication of this letter caused a
wide sensation in England and abroad, and profoundly agitated the court
of Naples. In reply to a question in the House of Commons, Lord
Palmerston accepted and adopted Gladstone's statement, expressed keen
sympathy with the cause which he had espoused, and sent a copy of his
letter to the queen's representative at every court of Europe. A second
letter and a third followed, and their effect, though for a while
retarded, was unmistakably felt in the subsequent revolution which
created a free and united Italy.
Gladstone and Disraeli.
In February 1852 the Whig government was defeated on a Militia Bill, and
Lord John Russell was succeeded by Lord Derby, formerly Lord Stanley,
with Mr Disraeli, who now entered office for the first time, as
chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Mr
Disraeli introduced and carried a makeshift budget, and the government
tided over the session, and dissolved parliament on the 1st of July
1852. There was some talk of inducing Gladstone to join the Tory
government, and on the 29th of November Lord Malmesbury dubiously
remarked, "I cannot make out Gladstone, who seems to me a dark horse."
In the following month the chancellor of the exchequer produced his
second budget. The government redeemed their pledge to do something for
the relief of the agricultural interest by reducing the duty on malt.
This created a deficit, which they repaired by doubling the duty on
inhabited houses. The voices of criticism were heard simultaneously on
every side. The debate waxed fast and furious. In defending his
proposals Mr Disraeli gave full scope to his most characteristic gifts;
he pelted his opponents right and left with sarcasms, taunts and
epigrams. Gladstone delivered an unpremeditated reply, which has ever
since been celebrated. Tradition says that he "foamed at the mouth." The
speech of the chancellor of the exchequer, he said, must be answered "on
the moment." It must be "tried by the laws of decency and propriety." He
indignantly rebuked his rival's language and demeanour. He tore his
financial scheme to ribbons. It was the beginning of a duel which lasted
till death removed one of the combatants from the political arena.
"Those who had thought it impossible that any impression could be made
upon the House after the speech of Mr Disraeli had to acknowledge that a
yet greater impression was produced by the unprepared reply of Mr
Gladstone." The House divided, and the government were left in a
minority of nineteen. Lord Derby resigned.
Chancellor of the exchequer.
The new government was a coalition of Whigs and Peelites. Lord Aberdeen
became prime minister, and Gladstone chancellor of the exchequer. Having
been returned again for the university of Oxford, he entered on the
active duties of a great office for which he was pre-eminently fitted by
an unique combination of financial, administrative and rhetorical gifts.
His first budget was introduced on the 18th of April 1853. It tended to
make life easier and cheaper for large and numerous classes; it promised
wholesale remissions of taxation; it lessened the charges on common
processes of business, on locomotion, on postal communication, and on
several articles of general consumption. The deficiency thus created was
to be met by a "succession-duty," or application of the legacy-duty to
real property; by an increase of the duty on spirits; and by the
extension of the income-tax, at 5d. in the pound, to all incomes between
£100 and £150. The speech in which these proposals were introduced held
the House spellbound. Here was an orator who could apply all the
resources of a burnished rhetoric to the elucidation of figures; who
could sweep the widest horizon of the financial future, and yet stoop to
bestow the minutest attention on the microcosm of penny stamps and
post-horses. Above all, the chancellor's mode of handling the income-tax
attracted interest and admiration. It was a searching analysis of the
financial and moral grounds on which the impost rested, and a historical
justification and eulogy of it. Yet, great as had been the services of
the tax at a time of national danger, Gladstone could not consent to
retain it as a part of the permanent and ordinary finances of the
country. It was objectionable on account of its unequal incidence, of
the harassing investigation into private affairs which it entailed, and
of the frauds to which it inevitably led. Therefore, having served its
turn, it was to be extinguished in 1860. The scheme astonished,
interested and attracted the country. The queen and Prince Albert wrote
to congratulate the chancellor of the exchequer. Public authorities and
private friends joined in the chorus of eulogy. The budget demonstrated
at once its author's absolute mastery over figures and the persuasive
force of his expository gift. It established the chancellor of the
exchequer as the paramount financier of his day, and it was only the
first of a long series of similar performances, different, of course, in
detail, but alike in their bold outlines and brilliant handling.
Looking back on a long life of strenuous exertion, Gladstone declared
that the work of preparing his proposals about the succession-duty and
carrying them through Parliament was by far the most laborious task
which he ever performed.
War between Great Britain and Russia was declared on the 27th of March
1854, and it thus fell to the lot of the most pacific of ministers, the
devotee of retrenchment, and the anxious cultivator of all industrial
arts, to prepare a war budget, and to meet as well as he might the
exigencies of a conflict which had so cruelly dislocated all the
ingenious devices of financial optimism. No amount of skill in the
manipulation of figures, no ingenuity in shifting fiscal burdens, could
prevent the addition of forty-one millions to the national debt, or
could countervail the appalling mismanagement at the seat of war.
Gladstone declared that the state of the army in the Crimea was a
"matter for weeping all day and praying all night." As soon as
parliament met in January 1855 J. A. Roebuck, the Radical member for
Sheffield, gave notice that he would move for a select committee "to
inquire into the condition of our army before Sevastopol, and into the
conduct of those departments of the government whose duty it has been to
minister to the wants of that army." On the same day Lord John Russell,
without announcing his intention to his colleagues, resigned his office
as president of the council sooner than attempt the defence of the
government. Gladstone, in defending the government against Roebuck,
rebuked in dignified and significant terms the conduct of men who,
"hoping to escape from punishment, ran away from duty." On the division
on Mr Roebuck's motion the government was beaten by the unexpected
majority of 157.
Lord Palmerston became prime minister. The Peelites joined him, and
Gladstone resumed office as chancellor of the exchequer. A shrewd
observer at the time pronounced him indispensable. "Any other chancellor
of the exchequer would be torn in bits by him." The government was
formed on the understanding that Mr Roebuck's proposed committee was to
be resisted. Lord Palmerston soon saw that further resistance was
useless; his Peelite colleagues stuck to their text, and, within three
weeks after resuming office, Gladstone, Sir James Graham and Mr Sidney
Herbert resigned. Gladstone once said of himself and his Peelite
colleagues, during the period of political isolation, that they were
like roving icebergs on which men could not land with safety, but with
which ships might come into perilous collision. He now applied himself
specially to financial criticism, and was perpetually in conflict with
the chancellor of the exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
In 1858 Lord Palmerston was succeeded by Lord Derby at the head of a
Conservative administration, and Gladstone accepted the temporary office
of high commissioner extraordinary to the Ionian Islands. Returning to
England for the session of 1859, he found himself involved in the
controversy which arose over a mild Reform Bill introduced by the
government. They were defeated on the second reading of the bill,
Gladstone voting with them. A dissolution immediately followed, and
Gladstone was again returned unopposed for the university of Oxford. As
soon as the new parliament met a vote of want of confidence in the
ministry was moved in the House of Commons. In the critical division
which ensued Gladstone voted with the government, who were left in a
minority. Lord Derby resigned. Lord Palmerston became prime minister,
and asked Gladstone to join him as chancellor of the exchequer. To vote
confidence in an imperilled ministry, and on its defeat to take office
with the rivals who have defeated it, is a manoeuvre which invites the
reproach of tergiversation. But Gladstone risked the reproach, accepted
the office and had a sharp tussle for his seat. He emerged from the
struggle victorious, and entered on his duties with characteristic zeal.
The prince consort wrote: "Gladstone is now the real leader in the House
of Commons, and works with an energy and vigour altogether incredible."
Budget of 1860.
The budget of 1860 was marked by two distinctive features. It asked the
sanction of parliament for the commercial treaty which Cobden had
privately arranged with the emperor Napoleon, and it proposed to abolish
the duty on paper. The French treaty was carried, but the abolition of
the paper-duty was defeated in the House of Lords. Gladstone justly
regarded the refusal to remit a duty as being in effect an act of
taxation, and therefore as an infringement of the rights of the House of
Commons. The proposal to abolish the paper-duty was revived in the
budget of 1861, the chief proposals of which, instead of being divided,
as in previous years, into several bills, were included in one. By this
device the Lords were obliged to acquiesce in the repeal of the
paper-duty.
During Lord Palmerston's last administration, which lasted from 1859 to
1865, Gladstone was by far the most brilliant and most conspicuous
figure in the cabinet. Except in finance, he was not able to accomplish
much, for he was met and thwarted at every turn by his chief's
invincible hostility to change; but the more advanced section of the
Liberal party began to look upon him as their predestined leader. In
1864, in a debate on a private member's bill for extending the suffrage,
he declared that the burden of proof lay on those "who would exclude
forty-nine fiftieths of the working-classes from the franchise." In
1865, in a debate on the condition of the Irish Church Establishment, he
declared that the Irish Church, as it then stood, was in a false
position, inasmuch as it ministered only to one-eighth or one-ninth of
the whole community. But just in proportion as Gladstone advanced in
favour with the Radical party he lost the confidence of his own
constituents. Parliament was dissolved in July 1865, and the university
elected Mr Gathorne Hardy in his place.
Leader of House of Commons.
Gladstone at once turned his steps towards South Lancashire, where he
was returned with two Tories above him. The result of the general
election was to retain Lord Palmerston's government in power, but on the
18th of October the old prime minister died. He was succeeded by Lord
Russell, and Gladstone, retaining the chancellorship of the exchequer,
became for the first time leader of the House of Commons. Lord Russell,
backed by Gladstone, persuaded his colleagues to consent to a moderate
Reform Bill, and the task of piloting this measure through the House of
Commons fell to Gladstone. The speech in which he wound up the debate on
the second reading was one of the finest, if not indeed the very finest,
which he ever delivered. But it was of no practical avail. The
government were defeated on an amendment in committee, and thereupon
resigned. Lord Derby became prime minister, with Disraeli as chancellor
of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. On the 18th of
March 1867 the Tory Reform Bill, which ended in establishing Household
Suffrage in the boroughs, was introduced, and was read a second time
without a division. After undergoing extensive alterations in committee
at the hands of the Liberals and Radicals, the bill became law in
August.
Leader of Liberal party.
At Christmas 1867 Lord Russell announced his final retirement from
active politics, and Gladstone was recognized by acclamation as leader
of the Liberal party. Nominally he was in Opposition; but his party
formed the majority of the House of Commons, and could beat the
government whenever they chose to mass their forces. Gladstone seized
the opportunity to give effect to convictions which had long been
forming in his mind. Early in the session he brought in a bill
abolishing compulsory church-rates, and this passed into law. On the
16th of March, in a debate raised by an Irish member, he declared that
in his judgment the Irish Church, as a State Church, must cease to
exist. Immediately afterwards he embodied this opinion in a series of
resolutions concerning the Irish Church Establishment, and carried them
against the government. Encouraged by this triumph, he brought in a Bill
to prevent any fresh appointments in the Irish Church, and this also
passed the Commons, though it was defeated in the Lords. Parliament was
dissolved on the 11th of November. A single issue was placed before the
country--Was the Irish Church to be, or not to be, disestablished? The
response was an overwhelming affirmative. Gladstone, who had been doubly
nominated, was defeated in Lancashire, but was returned for Greenwich.
He chose this moment for publishing a _Chapter of Autobiography_, in
which he explained and justified his change of opinion with regard to
the Irish Church.
Prime Minister: Irish Church disestablishment.
On the 2nd of December Disraeli, who had succeeded Lord Derby as premier
in the preceding February, announced that he and his colleagues,
recognizing their defeat, had resigned without waiting for a formal vote
of the new parliament. On the following day Gladstone was summoned to
Windsor, and commanded by the queen to form an administration. The great
task to which the new prime minister immediately addressed himself was
the disestablishment of the Irish Church. The queen wrote to Archbishop
Tait that the subject of the Irish Church "made her very anxious," but
that Mr Gladstone "showed the most conciliatory disposition." "The
government can do nothing that would tend to raise a suspicion of their
sincerity in proposing to disestablish the Irish Church, and to withdraw
all state endowments from all religious communions in Ireland; but, were
these conditions accepted, all other matters connected with the question
might, the queen thinks, become the subject of discussion and
negotiation." The bill was drawn and piloted on the lines thus
indicated, and became law on the 26th of July. In the session of 1870
Gladstone's principal work was the Irish Land Act, of which the object
was to protect the tenant against eviction as long as he paid his rent,
and to secure to him the value of any improvements which his own
industry had made. In the following session Religious Tests in the
universities were abolished, and a bill to establish secret voting was
carried through the House of Commons. This was thrown out by the Lords,
but became law a year later. The House of Lords threw out a bill to
abolish the purchase of commissions in the army. Gladstone found that
purchase existed only by royal sanction, and advised the queen to issue
a royal warrant cancelling, on and after the 1st of November following,
all regulations authorizing the purchase of commissions.
A Dissolution of 1874.
In 1873 Gladstone set his hand to the third of three great Irish reforms
to which he had pledged himself. His scheme for the establishment of a
university which should satisfy both Roman Catholics and Protestants met
with general disapproval. The bill was thrown out by three votes, and
Gladstone resigned. The queen sent for Disraeli, who declined to take
office in a minority of the House of Commons, so Gladstone was compelled
to resume. But he and his colleagues were now, in Disraelitish phrase,
"exhausted volcanoes." Election after election went wrong. The
government had lost favour with the public, and was divided against
itself. There were resignations and rumours of resignations. When the
session of 1873 had come to an end Gladstone took the chancellorship of
the exchequer, and, as high authorities contended, vacated his seat by
doing so. The point was obviously one of vital importance; and we learn
from Lord Selborne, who was lord chancellor at the time, that Gladstone
"was sensible of the difficulty of either taking his seat in the usual
manner at the opening of the session, or letting ... the necessary
arrangements for business in the House of Commons be made in the prime
minister's absence. A dissolution was the only escape." On the 23rd of
January 1874 Gladstone announced the dissolution in an address to his
constituents, declaring that the authority of the government had now
"sunk below the point necessary for the due defence and prosecution of
the public interest." He promised that, if he were returned to power, he
would repeal the income-tax. This bid for popularity failed, the general
election resulting in a Tory majority of forty-six. Gladstone kept his
seat for Greenwich, but was only second on the poll. Following the
example of Disraeli in 1868, he resigned without meeting parliament.
Temporary retirement.
Midlothian campaign.
For some years he had alluded to his impending retirement from public
life, saying that he was "strong against going on in politics to the
end." He was now sixty-four, and his life had been a continuous
experience of exhausting labour. On the 12th of March 1874 he informed
Lord Granville that he could give only occasional attendance in the
House of Commons during the current session, and that he must "reserve
his entire freedom to divest himself of all the responsibilities of
leadership at no distant date." His most important intervention in the
debates of 1874 was when he opposed Archbishop Tait's Public Worship
Bill. This was read a second time without a division, but in committee
Gladstone enjoyed some signal triumphs over his late solicitor-general,
Sir William Harcourt, who had warmly espoused the cause of the
government and the bill. At the beginning of 1875 Gladstone carried into
effect the resolution which he had announced a year before, and formally
resigned the leadership of the Liberal party. He was succeeded by Lord
Hartington, afterwards duke of Devonshire. The learned leisure which
Gladstone had promised himself when released from official
responsibility was not of long duration. In the autumn of 1875 an
insurrection broke out in Bulgaria, and the suppression of it by the
Turks was marked by massacres and outrages. Public indignation was
aroused by what were known as the "Bulgarian atrocities," and Gladstone
flung himself into the agitation against Turkey with characteristic
zeal. At public meetings, in the press, and in parliament he denounced
the Turkish government and its champion, Disraeli, who had now become
Lord Beaconsfield. Lord Hartington soon found himself pushed aside from
his position of titular leadership. For four years, from 1876 to 1880,
Gladstone maintained the strife with a courage, a persistence and a
versatility which raised the enthusiasm of his followers to the highest
pitch. The county of Edinburgh, or Midlothian, which he contested
against the dominant influence of the duke of Buccleuch, was the scene
of the most astonishing exertions. As the general election approached
the only question submitted to the electors was--Do you approve or
condemn Lord Beaconsfield's foreign policy? The answer was given at
Easter 1880, when the Liberals were returned by an overwhelming majority
over Tories and Home Rulers combined. Gladstone was now member for
Midlothian, having retired from Greenwich at the dissolution.
When Lord Beaconsfield resigned, the queen sent for Lord Hartington, the
titular leader of the Liberals, but he and Lord Granville assured her
that no other chief than Gladstone would satisfy the party. Accordingly,
on the 23rd of April he became prime minister for the second time. His
second administration, of which the main achievement was the extension
of the suffrage to the agricultural labourers, was harassed by two
controversies, relating to Ireland and Egypt, which proved disastrous to
the Liberal party. Gladstone alienated considerable masses of English
opinion by his efforts to reform the tenure of Irish land, and provoked
the Irish people by his attempts to establish social order and to
repress crime. A bill to provide compensation for tenants who had been
evicted by Irish landlords passed the Commons, but was shipwrecked in
the Lords, and a ghastly record of outrage and murder stained the
following winter. A Coercion Bill and a Land Bill passed in 1881 proved
unsuccessful. On the 6th of May 1882 the newly appointed chief secretary
for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and his under-secretary, Mr
Burke, were stabbed to death in the Phoenix Park at Dublin. A new Crimes
Act, courageously administered by Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan,
abolished exceptional crime in Ireland, but completed the breach between
the British government and the Irish party in parliament.
The bombardment of the forts at Alexandria and the occupation of Egypt
in 1882 were viewed with great disfavour by the bulk of the Liberal
party, and were but little congenial to Gladstone himself. The
circumstances of General Gordon's untimely death awoke an outburst of
indignation against those who were, or seemed to be, responsible for it.
Frequent votes of censure were proposed by the Opposition, and on the
8th of June 1885 the government were beaten on the budget. Gladstone
resigned. The queen offered him the dignity of an earldom, which he
declined. He was succeeded by Lord Salisbury.
First Home Rule Bill.
The general election took place in the following November. When it was
over the Liberal party was just short of the numerical strength which
was requisite to defeat the combination of Tories and Parnellites. A
startling surprise was at hand. Gladstone had for some time been
convinced of the expediency of conceding Home Rule to Ireland in the
event of the Irish constituencies giving unequivocal proof that they
desired it. His intentions were made known only to a privileged few, and
these, curiously, were not his colleagues. The general election of 1885
showed that Ireland, outside Ulster, was practically unanimous for Home
Rule. On the 17th of December an anonymous paragraph was published,
stating that if Mr Gladstone returned to office he was prepared to "deal
in a liberal spirit with the demand for Home Rule." It was clear that if
Gladstone meant what he appeared to mean, the Parnellites would support
him, and the Tories must leave office. The government seemed to accept
the situation. When parliament met they executed, for form's sake, some
confused manoeuvres, and then they were beaten on an amendment to the
address in favour of Municipal Allotments. On the 1st of February 1886
Gladstone became, for the third time, prime minister. Several of his
former colleagues declined to join him, on the ground of their absolute
hostility to the policy of Home Rule; others joined on the express
understanding that they were only pledged to consider the policy, and
did not fetter their further liberty of action. On the 8th of April
Gladstone brought in his bill for establishing Home Rule, and eight days
later the bill for buying out the Irish landlords. Meanwhile two members
of his cabinet, feeling themselves unable to support these measures,
resigned. Hostility to the bills grew apace. Gladstone was implored to
withdraw them, or substitute a resolution in favour of Irish autonomy;
but he resolved to press at least the Home Rule Bill to a second
reading. In the early morning of the 8th of June the bill was thrown out
by thirty. Gladstone immediately advised the queen to dissolve
parliament. Her Majesty strongly demurred to a second general election
within seven months; but Gladstone persisted, and she yielded.
Parliament was dissolved on the 26th of June. In spite of Gladstone's
skilful appeal to the constituencies to sanction the principle of Home
Rule, as distinct from the practical provisions of his late bill, the
general election resulted in a majority of considerably over 100 against
his policy, and Lord Salisbury resumed office. Throughout the existence
of the new parliament Gladstone never relaxed his extraordinary efforts,
though now nearer eighty than seventy, on behalf of the cause of
self-government for Ireland. The fertility of argumentative resource,
the copiousness of rhetoric, and the physical energy which he threw into
the enterprise, would have been remarkable at any stage of his public
life; continued into his eighty-fifth year they were little less than
miraculous. Two incidents of domestic interest, one happy and the other
sad, belong to that period of political storm and stress. On the 25th of
July 1889 Gladstone celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his marriage,
and on the 4th of July 1891 his eldest son, William Henry, a man of fine
character and accomplishments, died, after a lingering illness, in his
fifty-second year.
Second Home Rule Bill.
The crowning struggle of Gladstone's political career was now
approaching its climax. Parliament was dissolved on the 28th of June
1892. The general election resulted in a majority of forty for Home
Rule, heterogeneously composed of Liberals, Labour members and Irish. As
soon as the new parliament met a vote of want of confidence in Lord
Salisbury's government was moved and carried. Lord Salisbury resigned,
and on the 15th of August 1892 Gladstone kissed hands as first lord of
the treasury. He was the first English statesman that had been four
times prime minister. Parliament reassembled in January 1893. Gladstone
brought in his new Home Rule Bill on the 13th of February. It passed the
House of Commons, but was thrown out by the House of Lords on the second
reading on the 8th of September 1893. Gladstone's political work was
now, in his own judgment, ended. He made his last speech in the House of
Commons on the 1st of March 1894, acquiescing in some amendments
introduced by the Lords into the Parish Councils Bill; and on the 3rd of
March he placed his resignation in the queen's hands. He never set foot
again in the House of Commons, though he remained a member of it till
the dissolution of 1895. He paid occasional visits to friends in
London, Scotland and the south of France; but the remainder of his life
was spent for the most part at Hawarden. He occupied his leisure by
writing a rhymed translation of the Odes of Horace, and preparing an
elaborately annotated edition of Butler's _Analogy_ and _Sermons_. He
had also contemplated some addition to the Homeric studies which he had
always loved, but this design was never carried into effect, for he was
summoned once again from his quiet life of study and devotion to the
field of public controversy. The Armenian massacres in 1894 and 1895
revived all his ancient hostility to "the governing Turk." He denounced
the massacres and their perpetrators at public meetings held at Chester
on the 6th of August 1895, and at Liverpool on the 24th of September
1896. In March 1897 he recapitulated the hideous history in an open
letter to the duke of Westminster.
Death.
But the end, though not yet apprehended, was at hand. Since his
retirement from office Gladstone's physical vigour, up to that time
unequalled, had shown signs of impairment. Towards the end of the summer
of 1897 he began to suffer from an acute pain, which was attributed to
facial neuralgia, and in November he went to Cannes. In February 1898 he
returned to England and went to Bournemouth. There he was informed that
the pain had its origin in a disease which must soon prove fatal. He
received the information with simple thankfulness, and only asked that
he might die at home. On the 22nd of March he returned to Hawarden, and
there he died on the 19th of May 1898. During the night of the 25th of
May his body was conveyed from Hawarden to London and the coffin was
placed on a bier in Westminster Hall. Throughout the 26th and 27th a
vast train of people, officially estimated at 250,000, and drawn from
every rank and class, moved in unbroken procession past the bier. On the
28th of May the coffin, preceded by the two Houses of Parliament and
escorted by the chief magnates of the realm, was carried from
Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey. The heir-apparent and his son,
the prime minister and the leader of the House of Commons, were among
those who bore the pall. The body was buried in the north transept of
the abbey, where, on the 19th of June 1900, Mrs Gladstone's body was
laid beside it.
Family.
Mr and Mrs Gladstone had four sons and four daughters, of whom one died
in infancy. The eldest son, W. H. Gladstone (1840-1891), was a member of
parliament for many years, and married the daughter of Lord Blantyre,
his son William (b. 1885) inheriting the family estates. The fourth son,
Herbert John (b. 1854), sat in parliament for Leeds from 1880 to 1910,
and filled various offices, being home secretary 1905-1910; in 1910 he
was created Viscount Gladstone, on being appointed governor-general of
united South Africa. The eldest daughter, Agnes, married the Rev. E. C.
Wickham, headmaster of Wellington, 1873-1893, and later Dean of Lincoln.
Another daughter married the Rev. Harry Drew, rector of Hawarden. The
youngest, Helen, was for some years vice-principal of Newnham College,
Cambridge.
Character.
After a careful survey of Mr Gladstone's life, enlightened by personal
observation, it is inevitable to attempt some analysis of his character.
First among his moral attributes must be placed his religiousness. From
those early days when a fond mother wrote of him as having been "truly
converted to God," down to the verge of ninety years, he lived in the
habitual contemplation of the unseen world, and regulated his private
and public action by reference to a code higher than that of mere
prudence or worldly wisdom. A second characteristic, scarcely less
prominent than the first, was his love of power. His ambition had
nothing in common with the vulgar eagerness for place and pay and social
standing. Rather it was a resolute determination to possess that control
over the machine of state which should enable him to fulfil without let
or hindrance the political mission with which he believed that
Providence had charged him. The love of power was supported by a
splendid fearlessness. No dangers were too threatening for him to face,
no obstacles too formidable, no tasks too laborious, no heights too
steep. The love of power and the supporting courage were allied with a
marked imperiousness. Of this quality there was no trace in his manner,
which was courteous, conciliatory and even deferential; nor in his
speech, which breathed an almost exaggerated humility. But the
imperiousness showed itself in the more effectual form of action; in his
sudden resolves, his invincible insistence, his recklessness of
consequences to himself and his friends, his habitual assumption that
the civilized world and all its units must agree with him, his indignant
astonishment at the bare thought of dissent or resistance, his
incapacity to believe that an overruling Providence would permit him to
be frustrated or defeated. He had by nature what he himself called a
"vulnerable temper and impetuous moods." But so absolute was his
lifelong self-mastery that he was hardly ever betrayed into saying that
which, on cooler reflection, needed to be recalled. It was easy enough
to see the "vulnerable temper" as it worked within, but it was never
suffered to find audible expression. It may seem paradoxical, but it is
true, to say that Mr Gladstone was by nature conservative. His natural
bias was to respect things as they were. In his eyes, institutions,
customs, systems, so long as they had not become actively mischievous,
were good because they were old. It is true that he was sometimes forced
by conviction or fate or political necessity to be a revolutionist on a
large scale; to destroy an established Church; to add two millions of
voters to the electorate; to attack the parliamentary union of the
kingdoms. But these changes were, in their inception, distasteful to
their author. His whole life was spent in unlearning the prejudices in
which he was educated. His love of freedom steadily developed, and he
applied its principles more and more courageously to the problems of
government. But it makes some difference to the future of a democratic
state whether its leading men are eagerly on the look-out for something
to revolutionize, or approach a constitutional change by the gradual
processes of conviction and conversion.
Great as were his eloquence, his knowledge and his financial skill,
Gladstone was accustomed to say of himself that the only quality in
which, so far as he knew, he was distinguished from his fellow-men was
his faculty of concentration. Whatever were the matter in hand, he so
concentrated himself on it, and absorbed himself in it, that nothing
else seemed to exist for him.
A word must be said about physical characteristics. In his prime
Gladstone was just six feet high, but his inches diminished as his years
increased, and in old age the unusual size of his head and breadth of
his shoulders gave him a slightly top-heavy appearance. His features
were strongly marked; the nose trenchant and hawk-like, and the mouth
severely lined. His flashing eyes were deep-set, and in colour resembled
the onyx with its double band of brown and grey. His complexion was of
an extreme pallor, and, combined with his jet-black hair, gave in
earlier life something of an Italian aspect to his face. His dark
eyebrows were singularly flexible, and they perpetually expanded and
contracted in harmony with what he was saying. He held himself
remarkably upright, and even from his school-days at Eton had been
remarked for the rapid pace at which he habitually walked. His voice was
a baritone, singularly clear and far-reaching. In the Waverley Market at
Edinburgh, which is said to hold 20,000 people, he could be heard
without difficulty; and as late as 1895 he said to the present writer:
"What difference does it make to me whether I speak to 400 or 4000
people?" His physical vigour in old age earned him the popular nickname
of the Grand Old Man.
Lord Morley of Blackburn's _Life of Gladstone_ was published in 1903.
(G. W. E. R.)
GLADSTONE, a seaport of Clinton county, Queensland, Australia, 328 m. by
rail N.E. of Brisbane. Pop. (1901) 1566. It possesses a fine,
well-sheltered harbour reputed one of the best in Queensland, at the
mouth of the river Boyne. Gold, manganese, copper and coal are found in
the neighbourhood. Gladstone, founded in 1847, became a municipality in
1863.
See J. F. Hogan, _The Gladstone Colony_ (London, 1898).
GLAGOLITIC, an early Slavonic alphabet: also the liturgy written
therein, and the people (Dalmatians and Roman Catholic Montenegrins)
among whom it has survived by special licence of the Pope (see SLAVS for
table of letters).
GLAIR (from Fr. _glaire_, probably from Lat. _clarus_, clear, bright),
the white of an egg, and hence a term used for a preparation made of
this and used, in bookbinding and in gilding, to retain the gold and as
a varnish. The adjective "glairy" is used of substances having the
viscous and transparent consistency of the white of an egg.
GLAISHER, JAMES (1809-1903); English meteorologist and aeronaut, was
born in London on the 7th of April 1809. After serving for a few years
on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, he acted as an assistant at the
Cambridge and Greenwich observatories successively, and when the
department of meteorology and magnetism was formed at the latter, he was
entrusted with its superintendence, which he continued to exercise for
thirty-four years, until his retirement from the public service. In 1845
he published his well-known dew-point tables, which have gone through
many editions. In 1850 he established the Meteorological Society, acting
as its secretary for many years, and in 1866 he assisted in the
foundation of the Aeronautical Society of Great Britain. He was
appointed a member of the royal commission on the warming and
ventilation of dwellings in 1875, and for twelve years from 1880 acted
as chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Exploration
Fund. But his name is best known in connexion with the series of balloon
ascents which he made between 1862 and 1866, mostly in company with
Henry Tracey Coxwell. Many of these ascents were arranged by a committee
of the British Association, of which he was a member, and were strictly
scientific in character, the object being to carry out observations on
the temperature, humidity, &c., of the atmosphere at high elevations. In
one of them, that which took place at Wolverhampton on the 5th of
September 1862, Glaisher and his companion attained the greatest height
that had been reached by a balloon carrying passengers. As no
automatically recording instruments were available, and Glaisher was
unable to read the barometer at the highest point owing to loss of
consciousness, the precise altitude can never be known, but it is
estimated at about 7 m. from the earth. He died on the 7th of February
1903 at Croydon.
GLAMIS, a village and parish of Forfarshire, Scotland, 5¾ m. W. by S. of
Forfar by the Caledonian railway. Pop. of parish (1901) 1351. The name
is sometimes spelled Glammis and the _i_ is mute: it is derived from the
Gaelic, _glamhus_, "a wide gap," "a vale." The chief object in the
village is the sculptured stone, traditionally supposed to be a memorial
of Malcolm II., although Fordun's statement that the king was slain in
the castle is now rejected. About a mile from the station stands Glamis
Castle, the seat of the earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a fine example
of the Scottish Baronial style, enriched with certain features of the
French château. In its present form it dates mostly from the 17th
century, but the original structure was as old as the 11th century, for
Macbeth was Thane of Glamis. Several of the early Scots kings,
especially Alexander III., used it occasionally as a residence. Robert
II. bestowed the thanedom on John Lyon, who had married the king's
second daughter by Elizabeth Mure and was thus the founder of the
existing family. Patrick Lyon became hostage to England for James I. in
1424. When, in 1537, Janet Douglas, widow of the 6th Lord Glamis, was
burned at Edinburgh as a witch, for conspiring to procure James V.'s
death, Glamis was forfeited to the crown, but it was restored to her son
six years later when her innocence had been established. The 3rd earl of
Strathmore entertained the Old Chevalier and eighty of his immediate
followers in 1715. After discharging the duties of hospitality the earl
joined the Jacobites at Sheriffmuir and fell on the battlefield. Sir
Walter Scott spent a night in the "hoary old pile" when he was about
twenty years old, and gives a striking relation of his experiences in
his _Demonology and Witchcraft_. The hall has an arched ceiling and
several historical portraits, including those of Claverhouse, Charles
II. and James II. of England. At Cossans, in the parish of Glamis, there
is a remarkable sculptured monolith, and other examples occur at the
Hunters' Hill and in the old kirkyard of Eassie.
GLAMORGANSHIRE (Welsh _Morganwg_), a maritime county occupying the
south-east corner of Wales, and bounded N.W. by Carmarthenshire, N. by
Carmarthenshire and Breconshire, E. by Monmouthshire and S. and S.W. by
the Bristol Channel and Carmarthen Bay. The contour of the county is
largely determined by the fact that it lies between the mountains of
Breconshire and the Bristol Channel. Its extreme breadth from the sea
inland is 29 m., while its greatest length from east to west is 53 m.
Its chief rivers, the Rhymney, Taff, Neath (or Nêdd) and Tawe or Tawy,
have their sources in the Breconshire mountains, the two first trending
towards the south-east, while the two last trend to the south-west, so
that the main body of the county forms a sort of quarter-circle between
the Taff and the Neath. Near the apex of the angle formed by these two
rivers is the loftiest peak in the county, the great Pennant scarp of
Craig y Llyn or Carn Moesyn, 1970 ft. high, which in the Glacial period
diverted the ice-flow from the Beacons into the valley on either side of
it. To the south and south-east of this peak extend the great
coal-fields of mid-Glamorgan, their surface forming an irregular plateau
with an average elevation of 600 to 1200 ft. above sea-level, but with
numerous peaks about 1500 ft. high, or more; Mynydd y Caerau, the second
highest being 1823 ft. Out of this plateau have been carved, to the
depth of 500 to 800 ft. below its general level, three distinct series
of narrow valleys, those in each series being more or less parallel. The
rivers which give their names to these valleys include the Cynon, the
Great and Lesser Rhondda (tributaries of the Taff) and the Ely flowing
to the S.E., the Ogwr or Ogmore (with its tributaries the Garw and
Llynfi) flowing south through Bridgend, and the Avan bringing the waters
of the Corwg and Gwynfi to the south-west into Swansea Bay at Aberavon.
To the south of this central hill country, which is wet, cold and
sterile, and whose steep slopes form the southern edge of the
coal-field, there stretches out to the sea a gently undulating plain,
compendiously known as the "Vale of Glamorgan," but in fact consisting
of a succession of small vales of such fertile land and with such a mild
climate that it has been styled, not inaptly, the "Garden of Wales." To
the east of the central area referred to and divided from it by a spur
of the Brecknock mountains culminating in Carn Bugail, 1570 ft. high, is
the Rhymney, which forms the county's eastern boundary. On the west
other spurs of the Beacons divide the Neath from the Tawe (which enters
the sea at Swansea), and the Tawe from the Loughor, which, with its
tributary the Amman, separates the county on the N.W. from
Carmarthenshire, in which it rises, and falling into Carmarthen Bay
forms what is known as the Burry estuary, so called from a small stream
of that name in the Gower peninsula. The rivers are all comparatively
short, the Taff, in every respect the chief river, being only 33 m.
long.
Down to the middle of the 19th century most of the Glamorgan valleys
were famous for their beautiful scenery, but industrial operations have
since destroyed most of this beauty, except in the so-called "Vale of
Glamorgan," the Vale of Neath, the "combes" and limestone gorges of
Gower and the upper reaches of the Taff and the Tawe. The Vale of Neath
is _par excellence_ the waterfall district of South Wales, the finest
falls being the Cilhepste fall, the Sychnant and the three Clungwyns on
the Mellte and its tributaries near the Vale of Neath railway from Neath
to Hirwaun, Scwd Einon Gam and Scwd Gladys on the Pyrddin on the west
side of the valley close by, with Melin Court and Abergarwed still
nearer Neath. There are also several cascades on the Dulais, and in the
same district, though in Breconshire, is Scwd Henrhyd on the Llech near
Colbren Junction. Almost the only part of the county which is now well
timbered is the Vale of Neath. There are three small lakes, Llyn Fawr
and Llyn Fach near Craig y Llyn and Kenfig Pool amid the sand-dunes of
Margam. The rainfall of the county varies from an average of about 25
in. at Porthcawl and other parts of the Vale of Glamorgan to about 37
in. at Cardiff, 40 in. at Swansea and to upwards of 70 in. in the
northern part of the county, the fall being still higher in the
adjoining parts of Breconshire whence Cardiff, Swansea, Merthyr and a
large area near Neath draw their main supplies of water.
The county has a coast-line of about 83 m. Its two chief bays are the
Burry estuary and Swansea, one on either side of the Gower Peninsula,
which has also a number of smaller inlets with magnificent cliff
scenery. The rest of the coast is fairly regular, the chief openings
being at the mouths of the Ogmore and the Taff respectively. The most
conspicuous headlands are Whiteford Point, Worms Head and Mumbles Head
in Gower, Nash Point and Lavernock Point on the eastern half of the
coast.
_Geology._--The Silurian rocks, the oldest in the county, form a small
inlier about 2 sq. m. in area at Rumney and Pen-y-lan, north of
Cardiff, and consist of mudstones and sandstones of Wenlock and Ludlow
age; a feeble representative of the Wenlock Limestone also is present.
They are conformably succeeded by the Old Red Sandstone which extends
westwards as far as Cowbridge as a deeply eroded anticline largely
concealed by Trias and Lias. The Old Red Sandstone consists in the
lower parts of red marls and sandstones, while the upper beds are
quartzitic and pebbly, and form bold scarps which dominate the low
ground formed by the softer beds below. Cefn-y-bryn, another anticline
of Old Red Sandstone (including small exposures of Silurian rocks),
forms the prominent backbone of the Gower peninsula. The next
formation is the Carboniferous Limestone which encircles and underlies
the great South Wales coal-field, on the south of which, west of
Cardiff, it forms a bold escarpment of steeply-dipping beds
surrounding the Old Red Sandstone anticline. It shows up through the
Trias and Lias in extensive inliers near Bridgend, while in Gower it
dips away from the Old Red Sandstone of Cefn-y-bryn. On the north of
the coal-field it is just reached near Merthyr Tydfil. The Millstone
Grit, which consists of grits, sandstones and shales, crops out above
the limestone and serves to introduce the Coal Measures, which lie in
the form of a great trough extending east and west across the county
and occupying most of its surface. The coal seams are most numerous in
the lower part of the series; the Pennant Sandstone succeeds and
occupies the inner parts of the basin, forming an elevated moorland
region deeply trenched by the teeming valleys (e.g. the Rhondda) which
cross the coal-field from north to south. Above the Pennant Sandstone
still higher coals come in. Taken generally, the coals are bituminous
in the south-east and anthracitic in the north-west.
After the Coal Measures had been deposited, the southern part of the
region was subjected to powerful folding; the resulting anticlines
were worn down during a long period of detrition, and then submerged
slowly beneath a Triassic lake in which accumulated the Keuper
conglomerates and marls which spread over the district west of Cardiff
and are traceable on the coast of Gower. The succeeding Rhaetic and
Lias which form most of the coastal plain (the fertile Vale of
Glamorgan) from Penarth to near Bridgend were laid down by the
Jurassic sea. A well-marked raised beach is traceable in Gower.
Sand-dunes are present locally around Swansea Bay. Moraines, chiefly
formed of gravel and clay, occupy many of the Glamorgan valleys; and
these, together with the striated surfaces which may be observed at
higher levels, are clearly glacial in origin. In the Coal Measures and
the newer Limestones and Triassic, Rhaetic and Liassic conglomerates,
marls and shales, many interesting fossils have been disinterred:
these include the remains of an air-breathing reptile
(_Anthracespeton_). Bones of the cave-bear, lion, mammoth, reindeer,
rhinoceros, along with flint weapons and tools, have been discovered
in some caves of the Gower peninsula.
_Agriculture._--The low-lying land on the south from Caerphilly to
Margam is very fertile, the soil being a deep rich loam; and here the
standard of agriculture is fairly high, and there prevails a
well-defined tenant-right custom, supposed to be of ancient origin but
probably dating only from the beginning of the 19th century.
Everywhere on the Coal Measures the soil is poor, while vegetation is
also injured by the smoke from the works, especially copper smoke.
Leland (c. 1535) describes the lowlands as growing good corn and grass
but little wood, while the mountains had "redde dere, kiddes plenty,
oxen and sheep." The land even in the "Vale" seems to have been open
and unenclosed till the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th
century, while enclosure spread to the uplands still later. About
one-fifth of the total area is still common land, more than half of
which is unsuitable for cultivation. The total area under cultivation
in 1905 was 269,271 acres or about one-half of the total area of the
county. The chief crops raised (giving them in the order of their
respective acreages) are oats, barley, turnips and swedes, wheat,
potatoes and mangolds. A steady decrease of the acreage under
grain-crops, green-crops and clover has been accompanied by an
increase in the area of pasture. Dairying has been largely abandoned
for stock-raising, and very little "Caerphilly cheese" is now made in
that district. In 1905 Glamorgan had the largest number of horses in
agriculture of any Welsh county except those of Carmarthen and
Cardigan. Good sheep and ponies are reared in the hill-country.
Pig-keeping is much neglected, and despite the mild climate very
little fruit is grown. The average size of holdings in 1905 was 47.3
acres, there being only 46 holdings above 300 acres, and 1719 between
50 and 500 acres.
_Mining and Manufactures._--Down to the middle of the 18th century the
county had no industry of any importance except agriculture. The coal
which underlies practically the whole surface of the county except the
Vale of Glamorgan and West Gower was little worked till about 1755,
when it began to be used instead of charcoal for the smelting of iron.
By 1811, when there were 25 blast furnaces in the county, the demand
for coal for this purpose had much increased, but it was in the most
active period of railway construction that it reached its maximum.
Down to about 1850, if not later, the chief collieries were owned by
the ironmasters and were worked for their own requirements, but when
the suitability of the lower seams in the district north of Cardiff
for steam purposes was realized, an export trade sprang up and soon
assumed enormous proportions, so that "the port of Cardiff" (including
Barry and Penarth), from which the bulk of the steam coal was shipped,
became the first port in the world for the shipment of coal. The
development of the anthracite coal-field lying to the north and west
of Swansea (from which port it is mostly shipped) dates mainly from
the closing years of the 19th century, when the demand for this coal
grew rapidly. There are still large areas in the Rhymney Valley on the
east, and in the districts of Neath and Swansea on the west, whose
development has only recently been undertaken. In connexion with the
coal industry, patent fuel (made from small coal and tar) is largely
manufactured at Cardiff, Port Talbot and Swansea, the shipments from
Swansea being the largest in the kingdom. Next in importance to coal
are the iron, steel and tin-plate industries, and in the Swansea
district the smelting of copper and a variety of other ores.
The manufacture of iron and steel is carried on at Dowlais, Merthyr
Tydfil, Cardiff, Port Talbot, Briton Ferry, Pontardawe, Swansea,
Gorseinon and Gowerton. During the last quarter of the 19th century
the use of the native ironstone was almost wholly given up, and the
necessary ore is now imported, mainly from Spain. As a result several
of the older inland works, such as those of Aberdare, Ystalyfera and
Brynaman have been abandoned, and new works have been established on
or near the sea-board; e.g. the Dowlais company in 1891 opened large
works at Cardiff. The tin-plate industry is mainly confined to the
west of the county, Swansea being the chief port for the shipment of
tin-plates, though there are works near Llantrisant and at Melin
Griffith near Cardiff, the latter being the oldest in the county.
Copper-smelting is carried on on a large scale in the west of the
county, at Port Talbot, Cwmavon, Neath and Swansea, and on a small
scale at Cardiff, the earliest works having been established at Neath
in 1584 and at Swansea in 1717. There are nickel works at Clydach near
Swansea, the nickel being imported in the form of "matte" from Canada.
Swansea has almost a monopoly of the manufacture of spelter or zinc.
Lead, silver and a number of other metals or their by-products are
treated in or near Swansea, which is often styled the "metallurgical
capital of Wales." Limestone and silica quarries are worked, while
sandstone and clay are also raised. Swansea and Nantgarw were formerly
famous for their china, coarse ware is still made chiefly at Ewenny
and terra-cotta at Pencoed. Large numbers of people are employed in
engineering works and in the manufacture of machines, chains,
conveyances, tools, paper and chemicals. The textile factories are few
and unimportant.
_Fisheries._--Fisheries exist all along the coast; by lines,
draught-nets, dredging, trawling, fixed nets and by hand. There is a
fleet of trawlers at Swansea. The principal fish caught are cod,
herring, pollock, whiting, flukes, brill, plaice, soles, turbot,
oysters, mussels, limpets, cockles, shrimps, crabs and lobsters. There
are good fish-markets at Swansea and Cardiff.
_Communications._--The county has ample dock accommodation. The
various docks of Cardiff amount to 210 acres, including timber ponds;
Penarth has a dock and basin of 26 acres and a tidal harbour of 55
acres. Barry docks cover 114 acres; Swansea has 147 acres, including
its new King's Dock; and Port Talbot 90 acres. There are also docks at
Briton Ferry and Porthcawl, but they are not capable of admitting
deep-draft vessels.
Besides its ports, Glamorgan has abundant means of transit in many
railways, of which the Great Western is the chief. Its trunk line
traversing the country between the mountains and the sea passes
through Cardiff, Bridgend and Landore (on the outskirts of Swansea),
and throws off numerous branches to the north. The Taff Vale railway
serves all the valley of the Taff and its tributaries, and has also
extensions to Barry and (through Llantrisant and Cowbridge) to
Aberthaw. The Rhymney railway likewise serves the Rhymney Valley, and
has a joint service with the Great Western between Cardiff and Merthyr
Tydfil--the latter town being also the terminus of the Brecon and
Merthyr and a branch of the North-Western from Abergavenny. The Barry
railway visits Cardiff and then travels in a north-westerly direction
to Pontypridd and Porth, while it sends another branch along the coast
through Llantwit Major to Bridgend. Swansea is connected with Merthyr
by the Great Western, with Brecon by the Midland, with Craven Arms and
Mid-Wales generally by the London & North-Western, with the Rhondda
Valley by the Rhondda and Swansea Bay (now worked by the Great
Western) and with Mumbles by the Mumbles railway. The Port Talbot
railway runs to Blaengarw, and the Neath and Brecon railway (starting
from Neath) joins the Midland at Colbren Junction. The canals of the
county are the Glamorgan canal from Cardiff to Merthyr Tydfil (25½
m.), with a branch (7 m.) to Aberdare, the Neath canal (13 m.) from
Briton Ferry to Abernant, Glyn Neath (whence a tramway formerly
connected it with Aberdare), the Tennant canal connecting the rivers
Neath and Tawe, and the Swansea canal (16½ m.), running up the Swansea
Valley from Swansea to Abercrave in Breconshire. Comparatively little
use is now made of these canals, excepting the lower portions of the
Glamorgan canal.
_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county with
which the administrative county is conterminous is 518,863 acres, with
a population in 1901 of 859,931 persons. In the three decades between
1831 and 1861 it increased 35.2, 35.4 and 37.1% respectively, and in
1881-1891, 34.4, its average increase in the other decennial periods
subsequent to 1861 being about 25%. The county is divided into five
parliamentary divisions (viz. Glamorganshire East, South and Middle,
Gower and Rhondda); it also includes the Cardiff district of boroughs
(consisting of Cardiff, Cowbridge and Llantrisant), which has one
member; the greater part of the parliamentary borough of Merthyr
Tydfil (which mainly consists of the county borough of Merthyr, the
urban district of Aberdare and part of Mountain Ash), and returns two
members; and the two divisions of Swansea District returning one
member each, one division consisting of the major part of Swansea
town, the other comprising the remainder of Swansea and the boroughs
of Aberavon, Kenfig, Llwchwr and Neath. There are six municipal
boroughs: Aberavon (pop. in 1901, 7553), Cardiff (164,333), Cowbridge
(1202), Merthyr Tydfil (69,228), Neath (13,720) and Swansea (94,537).
Cardiff (which in 1905 was created a city), Merthyr Tydfil and Swansea
are county boroughs. The following are urban districts: Aberdare
(43,365), Barry (27,030), Bridgend (6062), Briton Ferry (6973),
Caerphilly (15,835), Glyncorrwg (6452), Maesteg (15,012), Margam
(9014), Mountain Ash (31,093); Ogmore and Garw (19,907), Oystermouth
(4461), Penarth (14,228), Pontypridd (32,316); Porthcawl (1872) and
Rhondda, previously known as Ystradyfodwg (113,735). Glamorgan is in
the S. Wales circuit, and both assizes and quarter-sessions are held
at Cardiff and Swansea alternately. All the municipal boroughs have
separate commissions of the peace, and Cardiff and Swansea have also
separate courts of quarter-sessions. The county has thirteen other
petty sessional divisions, Cardiff, the Rhondda (with Pontypridd) and
the Merthyr and Aberdare district have stipendiary magistrates. There
are 165 civil parishes. Excepting the districts of Gower and Kilvey,
which are in the diocese of St David's, the whole county is in the
diocese of Llandaff. There are 159 ecclesiastical parishes or
districts situated wholly or partly within the county.
_History._--The earliest known traces of man within the area of the
present county are the human remains found in the famous bone-caves of
Gower, though they are scanty as compared with the huge deposits of
still earlier animal remains. To a later stage, perhaps in the Neolithic
period, belongs a number of complete skeletons discovered in 1903 in
sand-blown tumuli at the mouth of the Ogmore, where many flint
implements were also found. Considerably later, and probably belonging
to the Bronze Age (though finds of bronze implements have been scanty),
are the many cairns and tumuli, mainly on the hills, such as on Garth
Mountain near Cardiff, Crug-yr-avan and a number east of the Tawe; the
stone circles often found in association with the tumuli, that of Carn
Llecharth near Pontardawe being one of the most complete in Wales; and
the fine cromlechs of Cefn Bryn in Gower (known as Arthur's Stone), of
St Nicholas and of St Lythan's near Cardiff.
In Roman times the country from the Neath to the Wye was occupied by the
Silures, a pre-Celtic race, probably governed at that time by Brythonic
Celts. West of the Neath and along the fringe of the Brecknock Mountains
were probably remnants of the earlier Goidelic Celts, who have left
traces in the place-names of the Swansea valley (e.g. _llwch_, "a lake")
and in the illegible Ogham inscription at Loughor, the only other Ogham
stone in the county being at Kenfig, a few miles to the east of the
Neath estuary. The conquest of the Silures by the Romans was begun about
A.D. 50 by Ostorius Scapula and completed some 25 years later by Julius
Frontinus, who probably constructed the great military road, called Via
Julia Maritima, from Gloucester to St David's, with stations at Cardiff,
Bovium (variously identified with Boverton, Cowbridge and Ewenny), Nidum
(identified with Neath) and Leucarum or Loughor. The important station
of Gaer on the Usk near Brecon was connected by two branch roads, one
running from Cardiff through Gelligaer (where there was a strong hill
fort) and Merthyr Tydfil, and another from Neath through Capel Colbren.
Welsh tradition credits Glamorgan with being the first home of
Christianity, and Llandaff the earliest bishopric in Britain, the name
of three reputed missionaries of the 2nd century being preserved in the
names of parishes in south Glamorgan. What is certain, however, is that
the first two bishops of Llandaff, St Dubricius and St Teilo, lived
during the first half of the 6th century, to which period also belongs
the establishment of the great monastic settlements of Llancarvan by
Cadoc, of Llandough by Oudoceus and of Llantwit Major by Illtutus, the
last of which flourished as a seat of learning down to the 12th century.
A few moated mounds such as at Cardiff indicate that, after the
withdrawal of the Romans, the coasts were visited by sporadic bands of
Saxons, but the Scandinavians who came in the 9th and succeeding
centuries left more abundant traces both in the place-names of the coast
and in such camps as that on Sully Island, the Bulwarks at Porthkerry
and Hardings Down in Gower. Meanwhile the native tribes of the district
had regained their independence under a line of Welsh chieftains, whose
domain was consolidated into a principality known as Glywyssing, till
about the end of the 10th century when it acquired the name of Morganwg,
that is the territory of Morgan, a prince who died in A.D. 980; it then
comprised the whole country from the Neath to the Wye, practically
corresponding to the present diocese of Llandaff. Gwlad Morgan, later
softened into Glamorgan, never had much vogue and meant precisely the
same as Morganwg, though the two terms became differentiated a few
centuries later.
The Norman conquest of Morganwg was effected in the closing years of the
11th century by Robert Fitzhamon, lord of Gloucester. His followers
settled in the low-lying lands of the "Vale," which became known as the
"body" of the shire, while in the hill country, which consisted of ten
"members," corresponding to its ancient territorial divisions, the Welsh
retained their customary laws and much of their independence. Glamorgan,
whose bounds were now contracted between the Neath and the Rhymney, then
became a lordship marcher, its status and organization being that of a
county palatine; its lord possessed _jura regalia_, and his chief
official was from the first a _vice-comes_, or sheriff, who presided
over a county court composed of his lord's principal tenants. The
inhabitants of Cardiff in which, as the _caput baroniae_, this court was
held (though sometimes ambulatory), were soon granted municipal
privileges, and in time Cowbridge, Kenfig, Llantrisant, Aberavon and
Neath also became chartered market-towns. The manorial system was
introduced throughout the "Vale," the manor in many cases becoming the
parish, and the owner building for its protection first a castle and
then a church. The church itself became Normanized, and monasteries were
established--the Cistercian abbey of Neath and Margam in 1129 and 1147
respectively, the Benedictine priory of Ewenny in 1141 and that of
Cardiff in 1147. Dominican and Franciscan houses were also founded at
Cardiff in the following century.
Gower (with Kilvey) or the country west of the morass between Neath and
Swansea had a separate history. It was conquered about 1100 by Henry de
Newburgh, 1st earl of Warwick, by whose descendants and the powerful
family of De Breos it was successively held as a marcher lordship,
organized to some extent on county lines, till 1469. Swansea (which was
the _caput baroniae_ of Gower) and Loughor received their earlier
charters from the lords of Gower (see GOWER).
For the first two centuries after Fitzhamon's time the lordship of
Glamorgan was held by the earls of Gloucester, a title conferred by
Henry I. on his natural son Robert, who acquired Glamorgan by marrying
Fitzhamon's daughter. To the 1st earl's patronage of Geoffrey of
Monmouth and other men of letters, at Cardiff Castle of which he was the
builder, is probably due the large place which Celtic romance,
especially the Arthurian cycle, won for itself in medieval literature.
The lordship passed by descent through the families of Clare (who held
it from 1217 to 1317), Despenser, Beauchamp and Neville to Richard III.,
on whose fall it escheated to the crown. From time to time, the Welsh of
the hills, often joined by their countrymen from other parts, raided
the Vale, and even Cardiff Castle was seized about 1153 by Ivor Bach,
lord of Senghenydd, who for a time held its lord a prisoner. At last
Caerphilly Castle was built to keep them in check, but this provoked an
invasion in 1270 by Prince Llewelyn ap Griffith, who besieged the castle
and refused to retire except on conditions. In 1316 Llewelyn Bren headed
a revolt in the same district, but being defeated was put to death by
Despenser, whose great unpopularity with the Welsh made Glamorgan less
safe as a retreat for Edward II. a few years later. In 1404 Glendower
swept through the county, burning castles and laying waste the
possessions of the king's supporters. By the Act of Union of 1535 the
county of Glamorgan was incorporated as it now exists, by the addition
to the old county of the lordship of Gower and Kilvey, west of the
Neath. By another act of 1542 the court of great sessions was
established, and Glamorgan, with the counties of Brecon and Radnor,
formed one of its four Welsh circuits from thence till 1830, when the
English assize system was introduced into Wales. In the same year the
county was given one parliamentary representative, increased to two in
1832 and to five in 1885. The boroughs were also given a member. In 1832
Cardiff (with Llantrisant and Cowbridge), the Swansea group of boroughs
and the parliamentary borough of Merthyr Tydfil were given one member
each, increased to two, in the case of Merthyr Tydfil in 1867. In 1885
the Swansea group was divided into two constituencies with a member
each.
The lordship of Glamorgan, shorn of its quasi-regal status, was granted
by Edward VI. to William Herbert, afterwards 1st earl of Pembroke, from
whom it has descended to the present marquess of Bute.
The rule of the Tudors promoted the rapid assimilation of the
inhabitants of the county, and by the reign of Elizabeth even the
descendants of the Norman knights had largely become Welsh both in
speech and sentiment. Welsh continued to be the prevalent speech almost
throughout the county, except in the peninsular part of Gower and
perhaps Cardiff, till the last quarter of the 19th century. Since then
it has lost ground in the maritime towns and the south-east corner of
the county generally, while fairly holding its own, despite much English
migration, in the industrial districts to the north. In 1901 about 56%
of the total population above three years of age was returned as
speaking English only, 37% as speaking both English and Welsh, and about
6½% as speaking Welsh only.
In common with the rest of Wales the county was mainly Royalist in the
Civil War, and indeed stood foremost in its readiness to pay ship-money,
but when Charles I. visited Cardiff in July 1645 he failed to recruit
his army there, owing to the dissatisfaction of the county, which a few
months later declared for the parliament. There was, however, a
subsequent Royalist revolt in Glamorgan in 1648, but it was signally
crushed by Colonel Horton at the battle of St Fagan's (8th of May).
The educational gap caused by final disappearance of the great
university of Llantwit Major, founded in the 6th century, and by the
dissolution of the monasteries was to some extent filled by the
foundation, by the Stradling family, of a grammar school at Cowbridge
which, refounded in 1685 by Sir Leoline Jenkins, is still carried on as
an endowed school. The only other ancient grammar school is that of
Swansea, founded by Bishop Gore in 1682, and now under the control of
the borough council. Besides the University College of South Wales and
Monmouthshire established at Cardiff in 1883, and a technical college at
Swansea, there is a Church of England theological college (St Michael's)
at Llandaff (previously at Aberdare), a training college for
school-mistresses at Swansea, schools for the blind at Cardiff and
Swansea and for the deaf at Cardiff, Swansea and Pontypridd.
_Antiquities._--The antiquities of the county not already mentioned
include an unusually large number of castles, all of which, except the
castles of Morlais (near Merthyr Tydfil), Castell Coch and Llantrisant,
are between the hill country and the sea. The finest specimen is that of
Caerphilly, but there are also more or less imposing ruins at
Oystermouth, Coity, Newcastle (at Bridgend), Llanblethian, Pennard and
Swansea. Among the restored castles, resided in by their present
owners, are St Donat's, "the latest and most complete of the structures
built for defence," Cardiff, the residence of the marquess of Bute, St
Fagan's, Dunraven, Fonmon and Penrice. Of the monastic buildings, that
of Ewenny is best preserved, Neath and Margam are mere ruins, while all
the others have disappeared. Almost all the older churches possess
towers of a somewhat military character, and most of them, except in
Gower, retain some Norman masonry. Coity, Coychurch and Ewenny (all near
Bridgend) are fine examples of cross churches with embattled towers
characteristic of the county. There are interesting monumental effigies
at St Mary's, Swansea, Oxwich, Ewenny, Llantwit Major, Llantrisant,
Coity and other churches in the Vale. There are from twenty-five to
thirty sculptured stones, of which some sixteen are both ornamented and
inscribed, five of the latter being at Margam and three at Llantwit
Major, and dating from the 9th century if not earlier.
AUTHORITIES.--The records of the _Curia comitatus_ or County Court of
Glamorgan are supposed to have perished, so also have the records of
Neath. With these exceptions, the records of the county have been well
preserved. A collection edited by G. T. Clark under the title _Cartae
et alia munimenta quae ad dominium de Glamorgan pertinent_ was
privately printed by him in four volumes (1885-1893). _A Descriptive
Catalogue of the Penrice and Margam Abbey MSS. in the Possession of
Miss Talbot of Margam_ (6 vols.) was privately issued (1893-1905)
under the editorship of Dr de Gray Birch, who has also published
histories of the Abbeys of Neath and Margam. The _Book of Llan Dâf_
(edited by Dr Gwenogvryn Evans, 1903) contains documents illustrative
of the early history of the diocese of Llandaff. Cardiff has published
its _Records_ in 5 vols., and there is a volume of Swansea charters.
There is no complete history of the county, except a modest but useful
one in Welsh--_Hanes Morganwg_, by D. W. Jones (Dafydd Morganwg)
(1874); the chief contributions are Rice Merrick's _Booke of
Glamorganshire's Antiquities_, written in 1578; _The Land of Morgan_
(1883) (a history of the lordship of Glamorgan), by G. T. Clark, whose
_Genealogies of Glamorgan_ (1886) and _Medieval Military Architecture_
(1884) are also indispensable; see also T. Nicholas, _Annals and
Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales_ (2 vols.,
1872). For Gower, see GOWER. (D. Ll. T.)
GLANDERS, or FARCY (_Equinia_), a specific infective and contagious
disease, caused by a tissue parasite (_Bacillus mallei_), to which
certain animals, chiefly the horse, ass and mule, are liable, and which
is communicable from them to man. Glanders in the domesticated animals
is dealt with under VETERINARY SCIENCE; it is happily a rare form of
disease in man, there being evidently less affinity for its development
in the human subject than in the equine species. For the pathology see
the article PARASITIC DISEASES. It occurs chiefly among those who from
their occupation are frequently in contact with horses, such as grooms,
coachmen, cavalry soldiers, veterinary surgeons, &c.; the bacillus is
communicated from a glandered animal either through a wound or scratch
or through application to the mucous membrane of the nose or mouth. A
period of incubation, lasting from three to five days, generally follows
the introduction of the virus into the human system. This period,
however, appears sometimes to be of much longer duration, especially
where there has been no direct inoculation of the poison. The first
symptoms are a general feeling of illness, accompanied with pains in the
limbs and joints resembling those of acute rheumatism. If the disease
has been introduced by means of an abraded surface, pain is felt at that
point, and inflammatory swelling takes place there, and extends along
the neighbouring lymphatics. An ulcer is formed at the point of
inoculation which discharges an offensive ichor, and blebs appear in the
inflamed skin, along with diffuse abscesses, as in phlegmonous
erysipelas. Sometimes the disease stops short with these local
manifestations, but more commonly goes on rapidly accompanied with
symptoms of grave constitutional disturbance. Over the whole surface of
the body there appear numerous red spots or pustules, which break and
discharge a thick mucous or sanguineous fluid. Besides these there are
larger swellings lying deeper in the subcutaneous tissue, which at first
are extremely hard and painful, and to which the term farcy "buds" or
"buttons" is applied. These ultimately open and become extensive
sloughing ulcers.
The mucous membranes participate in the same lesions as are present in
the skin, and this is particularly the case with the interior of the
nose, where indeed, in many instances, the disease first of all shows
itself. This organ becomes greatly swollen and inflamed, while from one
or both nostrils there exudes a copious discharge of highly offensive
purulent or sanguineous matter. The lining membrane of the nostrils is
covered with papules similar in character to those on the skin, which
form ulcers, and may lead to the destruction of the cartilaginous and
bony textures of the nose. The diseased action extends into the throat,
mouth and eyes, while the whole face becomes swollen and erysipelatous,
and the lymphatic glands under the jaws inflame and suppurate. Not
unfrequently the bronchial tubes become affected, and cough attended
with expectoration of matter similar to that discharged from the nose is
the consequence. The general constitutional symptoms are exceedingly
severe, and advance with great rapidity, the patient passing into a
state of extreme prostration. In the acute form of the disease recovery
rarely if ever occurs, and the case generally terminates fatally in a
period varying from two or three days to as many weeks.
A chronic form of glanders and farcy is occasionally met with, in which
the symptoms, although essentially the same as those above described,
advance much more slowly, and are attended with relatively less urgent
constitutional disturbance. Cases of recovery from this form are on
record; but in general the disease ultimately proves fatal by exhaustion
of the patient, or by a sudden supervention, which is apt to occur, of
the acute form. On the other hand, acute glanders is never observed to
become chronic.
In the treatment of this malady in human beings reliance is mainly
placed on the maintenance of the patient's strength by strong
nourishment and tonic remedies. Cauterization should be resorted to if
the point of infection is early known. Abscesses may be opened and
antiseptic lotions used. In all cases of the outbreak of glanders it is
of the utmost consequence to prevent the spread of the disease by the
destruction of affected animals and the cleansing and disinfection of
infected localities.
GLANVILL (or GLANVIL), JOSEPH (1636-1680); English philosopher, was born
at Plymouth in 1636, and was educated at Exeter and Lincoln colleges,
Oxford, where he graduated as M.A. in 1658. After the Restoration he was
successively rector of Wimbush, Essex, vicar of Frome Selwood,
Somersetshire, rector of Streat and Walton. In 1666 he was appointed to
the abbey church, Bath; in 1678 he became prebendary of Worcester
Cathedral, and acted as chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. from 1672.
He died at Bath in November 1680. Glanvill's first work (a passage in
which suggested the theme of Matthew Arnold's _Scholar Gipsy_), _The
Vanity of Dogmatizing, or Confidence in Opinions, manifested in a
Discourse of the shortness and uncertainty of our Knowledge, and its
Causes, with Reflexions on Peripateticism, and an Apology for
Philosophy_ (1661), is interesting as showing one special direction in
which the new method of the Cartesian philosophy might be developed.
Pascal had already shown how philosophical scepticism might be employed
as a bulwark for faith, and Glanvill follows in the same track. The
philosophic endeavour to cognize the whole system of things by referring
all events to their causes appears to him to be from the outset doomed
to failure. For if we inquire into this causal relation we find that
though we know isolated facts, we cannot perceive any such connexion
between them as that the one should give rise to the other. In the words
of Hume, "they seem conjoined but never connected." All causes then are
but secondary, i.e. merely the occasions on which the one first cause
operates. It is singular enough that Glanvill who had not only shown,
but even exaggerated, the infirmity of human reason, himself provided an
example of its weakness; for, after having combated scientific
dogmatism, he not only yielded to vulgar superstitions, but actually
endeavoured to accredit them both in his revised edition of the _Vanity
of Dogmatizing_, published as _Scepsis scientifica_ (1665, ed. Rev. John
Owen, 1885), and in his _Philosophical Considerations concerning the
existence of Sorcerers and Sorcery_ (1666). The latter work appears to
have been based on the story of the drum which was alleged to have been
heard every night in a house in Wiltshire (Tedworth, belonging to a Mr
Mompesson), a story which made much noise in the year 1663, and which is
supposed to have furnished Addison with the idea of his comedy the
_Drummer_. At his death Glanvill left a piece entitled _Sadducismus
Triumphatus_ (printed in 1681, reprinted with some additions in 1682,
German trans. 1701). He had there collected twenty-six relations or
stories of the same description as that of the drum, in order to
establish, by a series of facts, the opinion which he had expressed in
his _Philosophical Considerations_. Glanvill supported a much more
honourable cause when he undertook the defence of the Royal Society of
London, under the title of _Plus Ultra, or the Progress and Advancement
of Science since the time of Aristotle_ (1668), a work which shows how
thoroughly he was imbued with the ideas of the empirical method.
Besides the works already noticed, Glanvill wrote _Lux orientalis_
(1662); _Philosophia pia_ (1671); _Essays on Several Important
Subjects in Philosophy and Religion_ (1676); _An Essay concerning
Preaching; and Sermons_. See C. Rémusat, _Hist. de la phil. en
Angleterre_, bk. iii. ch. xi.; W. E. H. Lecky, _Rationalism in Europe_
(1865), i. 120-128; Hallam's _Literature of Europe_, iii. 358-362;
Tulloch's _Rational Theology_, ii. 443-455.
GLANVILL, RANULF DE (sometimes written GLANVIL, GLANVILLE) (d. 1190),
chief justiciar of England and reputed author of a book on English law,
was born at Stratford in Suffolk, but in what year is unknown. There is
but little information regarding his early life. He first comes to the
front as sheriff of Yorkshire from 1163 to 1170. In 1173 he became
sheriff of Lancashire and custodian of the honour of Richmond. In 1174
he was one of the English leaders at the battle of Alnwick, and it was
to him that the king of the Scots, William the Lion, surrendered. In
1175 he was reappointed sheriff of Yorkshire, in 1176 he became justice
of the king's court and a justice itinerant in the northern circuit, and
in 1180 chief justiciar of England. It was with his assistance that
Henry II. completed his judicial reforms, though the principal of them
had been carried out before he came into office. He became the king's
right-hand man, and during Henry's frequent absences was in effect
viceroy of England. After the death of Henry in 1189, Glanvill was
removed from his office by Richard I., and imprisoned till he had paid a
ransom, according to one authority, of £15,000. Shortly after obtaining
his freedom he took the cross, and he died at the siege of Acre in 1190.
At the instance, it may be, of Henry II., Glanvill wrote or
superintended the writing of the _Tractatus de legibus et
consuetudinibus regni Angliae_, which is a practical treatise on the
forms of procedure in the king's court. As the source of our knowledge
regarding the earliest form of the _curia regis_, and for the
information it affords regarding ancient customs and laws, it is of
great value to the student of English history. It is now generally
agreed that the work of Glanvill is of earlier date than the Scottish
law book known from its first words as _Regiam Majestatem_, a work which
bears a close resemblance to his.
The treatise of Glanvill was first printed in 1554. An English
translation, with notes and introduction by John Beames, was published
at London in 1812. A French version is found in various MSS., but has
not yet been printed. (See also ENGLISH LAW: _History of_.)
GLAPTHORNE, HENRY (fl. 1635-1642), English poet and dramatist, wrote in
the reign of Charles I. All that is known of him is gathered from his
own work. He published _Poëms_ (1639), many of them in praise of an
unidentified "Lucinda"; a poem in honour of his friend Thomas Beedome,
whose _Poems Divine and Humane_ he edited in 1641; and _Whitehall_
(1642), dedicated to his "noble friend and gossip, Captain Richard
Lovelace." The first volume contains a poem in honour of the duke of
York, and _Whitehall_ is a review of the past glories of the English
court, containing abundant evidences of the writer's devotion to the
royal cause. _Argalus and Parthenia_ (1639) is a pastoral tragedy
founded on an episode in Sidney's _Arcadia; Albertus Wallenstein_
(1639), his only attempt at historical tragedy, represents Wallenstein
as a monster of pride and cruelty. His other plays are _The Hollander_
(written 1635; printed 1640), a romantic comedy of which the scene is
laid in Genoa; _Wit in a Constable_ (1640), which is probably a version
of an earlier play, and owes something to Shakespeare's _Much Ado about
Nothing_; and _The Ladies Priviledge_ (1640). _The Lady Mother_ (1635)
has been identified (Fleay, _Biog. Chron. of the Drama_) with _The Noble
Trial_, one of the plays destroyed by Warburton's cook, and Mr A. H.
Bullen prints it in vol. ii. of his _Old English Plays_ as most probably
Glapthorne's work. _The Paraside, or Revenge for Honour_ (1654), entered
at Stationers' Hall in 1653 as Glapthorne's, was printed in the next
year with George Chapman's name on the title-page. It should probably be
included among Glapthorne's plays, which, though they hardly rise above
the level of contemporary productions, contain many felicitous isolated
passages.
The _Plays and Poems of Henry Glapthorne_ (1874) contains an unsigned
memoir, which, however, gives no information about the dramatist's
life. There is no reason for supposing that the George Glapthorne of
whose trial details are given was a relative of the poet.
GLARUS (Fr. _Glaris_), one of the Swiss cantons, the name being taken
from that of its chief town. Its area is 266.8 sq. m., of which 173.1
sq. m. are classed as "productive" (forests covering 41 sq. m.), but it
also contains 13.9 sq. m. of glaciers, ranking as the fifth Swiss canton
in this respect. It is thus a mountain canton, the loftiest point in it
being the Tödi (11,887 ft.), the highest summit that rises to the north
of the upper Aar and Vorder Rhine valleys. It is composed of the upper
valley of the Linth, that is the portion which lies to the south of a
line drawn from the Lake of Zürich to the Walensee. This river rises in
the glaciers of the Tödi, and has carved out for itself a deep bed, so
that the floor of the valley is comparatively level, and therefore is
occupied by a number of considerable villages. Glacier passes only lead
from its head to the Grisons, save the rough footpath over the Kisten
Pass, while a fine new carriage road over the Klausen Pass gives access
to the canton of Uri. The upper Linth valley is sometimes called the
Grossthal (main valley) to distinguish it from its chief (or
south-eastern) tributary, the Sernf valley or Kleinthal, which joins it
at Schwanden, a little above Glarus itself. At the head of the Kleinthal
a mule track leads to the Grisons over the Panixer Pass, as also a
footpath over the Segnes Pass. Just below Glarus town, another glen
(coming from the south-west) joins the main valley, and is watered by
the Klön, while from its head the Pragel Pass (a mule path, converted
into a carriage road) leads over to the canton of Schwyz. The Klön glen
(uninhabited save in summer) is separated from the main glen by the fine
bold mass of the Glärnisch (9580 ft.), while the Sernf valley is
similarly cut off from the Grossthal by the high ridge running
northwards from the Hausstock (10,342 ft.) over the Kärpfstock (9177
ft.). The principal lakes, the Klönthalersee and the Muttensee, are of a
thoroughly Alpine character, while there are several fine waterfalls
near the head of the main valley, such as those formed by the Sandbach,
the Schreienbach and the Fätschbach. The Pantenbrücke, thrown over the
narrow cleft formed by the Linth, is one of the grandest sights of the
Alps below the snow-line. There is a sulphur spring at Stachelberg, near
Linthal village, and an iron spring at Elm, while in the Sernf valley
there are the Plattenberg slate quarries, and just south of Elm those of
the Tschingelberg, whence a terrific landslip descended to Elm (11th
September 1881), destroying many houses and killing 115 persons. A
railway runs through the whole canton from north to south past Glarus to
Linthal village (16¼ m.), while from Schwanden there is an electric line
(opened in 1905) up to Elm (8¾ m.).
In 1900 the population of the canton was 32,349 (a decrease on the
33,825 of 1888, this being the only Swiss canton which shows a
decrease), of whom 31,797 were German-speaking, while there were 24,403
Protestants, 7918 Romanists (many in Näfels) and 3 Jews. After the
capital, Glarus (q.v.), the largest villages are Näfels (2557
inhabitants), Ennenda (2494 inhabitants, opposite Glarus, of which it is
practically a suburb), Netstal (2003 inhabitants), Mollis (1912
inhabitants) and Linththal (1894 inhabitants). The slate industry is
now the most important as the cotton manufacture has lately very greatly
fallen off, this being the real reason of the diminution in the number
of the population. There is little agriculture, for it is a pastoral
region (owing to its height) and contains 87 mountain pastures (though
the finest of all within the limits of the canton, the Urnerboden, or
the Glarus side of the Klausen Pass, belongs to Uri), which can support
8054 cows, and are of an estimated capital value of about £246,000. One
of the most characteristic products (though inferior qualities are
manufactured elsewhere in Switzerland) is the cheese called
_Schabzieger_, _Kräuterkäse_, or green cheese, made of skim milk
(_Zieger_ or _sérac_), whether of goats or cows, mixed with buttermilk
and coloured with powdered _Steinklee_ (_Melilotus officinalis_) or
_blauer Honigklee_ (_Melilotus caerulea_). The curds are brought down
from the huts on the pastures, and, after being mixed with the dried
powder, are ground in a mill, then put into shapes and pressed. The
cheese thus produced is ripe in about a year, keeps a long time and is
largely exported, even to America. The ice formed on the surface of the
Klönthalersee in winter is stored up on its shore and exported. A
certain number of visitors come to the canton in the summer, either to
profit by one or other of the mineral springs mentioned above, or simply
to enjoy the beauties of nature, especially at Obstalden, above the
Walensee. The canton forms but a single administrative district and
contains 28 communes. It sends to the Federal _Ständerath_ 2
representatives (elected by the _Landsgemeinde_) and 2 also to the
Federal _Nationalrath_. The canton still keeps its primitive democratic
assembly or _Landsgemeinde_ (meeting annually in the open air at Glarus
on the first Sunday in May), composed of all male citizens of 20 years
of age. It acts as the sovereign body, so that no "referendum" is
required, while any citizen can submit a proposal. It names the
executive of 6 members, besides the Landammann or president, all holding
office for three years. The communes (forming 18 electoral circles)
elect for three years the _Landrath_, a sort of standing committee
composed of members in the proportion of 1 for every 500 inhabitants or
fraction over 250. The present constitution dates from 1887.
(W. A. B. C.)
GLARUS (Fr. _Glaris_), the capital of the Swiss canton of the same name.
It is a clean, modern little town, built on the left bank of the Linth
(opposite it is the industrial suburb of Ennenda on the right bank), at
the north-eastern foot of the imposing rock peak of the Vorder Glärnisch
(7648 ft.), while on the east rises the Schild (6400 ft.). It now
contains but few houses built before 1861, for on the 10/11 May 1861
practically the whole town was destroyed by fire that was fanned by a
violent _Föhn_ or south wind, rushing down from the high mountains
through the natural funnel formed by the Linth valley. The total loss is
estimated at about half a million sterling, of which about £100,000 were
made up by subscriptions that poured in from every side. It possesses
the broad streets and usual buildings of a modern town, the parish
church being by far the most stately and well-situated building; it is
used in common by the Protestants and Romans. Zwingli, the reformer, was
parish priest here from 1506 to 1516, before he became a Protestant. The
town is 1578 ft. above the sea-level, and in 1900 had a population of
4877, almost all German-speaking, while 1248 were Romanists. For the
Linth canals (1811 and 1816) see LINTH.
The DISTRICT OF GLARUS is said to have been converted to Christianity in
the 6th century by the Irish monk, Fridolin, whose special protector was
St Hilary of Poitiers; the former was the founder, and both were
patrons, of the Benedictine nunnery of Säckingen, on the Rhine between
Constance and Basel, that about the 9th century became the owner of the
district which was then named after St Hilary. The Habsburgs, protectors
of the nunnery, gradually drew to themselves the exercise of all the
rights of the nuns, so that in 1352 Glarus joined the Swiss
Confederation. But the men of Glarus did not gain their complete freedom
till after they had driven back the Habsburgs in the glorious battle of
Näfels (1388), the complement of Sempach, so that the Habsburgers gave
up their rights in 1398, while those of Säckingen were bought up in
1395, on condition of a small annual payment. Glarus early adopted
Protestantism, but there were many struggles later on between the two
parties, as the chief family, that of Tschudi, adhered to the old faith.
At last it was arranged that, besides the common _Landsgemeinde_, each
party should have its separate _Landsgemeinde_ (1623) and tribunals
(1683), while it was not till 1798 that the Protestants agreed to accept
the Gregorian calendar. The slate-quarrying industry appeared early in
the 17th century, while cotton-spinning was introduced about 1714, and
calico-printing by 1750. In 1798, in consequence of the resistance of
Glarus to the French invaders, the canton was united to other districts
under the name of canton of the Linth, though in 1803 it was reduced to
its former limits. In 1799 it was traversed by the Russian army, under
Suworoff, coming over the Pragel Pass, but blocked by the French at
Näfels, and so driven over the Panixer to the Grisons. The old system of
government was set up again in 1814. But in 1836 by the new Liberal
constitution one single _Landsgemeinde_ was restored, despite the
resistance (1837) of the Romanist population at Näfels.
AUTHORITIES.--J. Bäbler, _Die Alpwirtschaft im Kant. G._ (Soleure,
1898); J. J. Blumer, article on the early history of the canton in
vol. iii. (Zürich, 1844) of the _Archiv f. schweiz. Geschichte_; E.
Buss and A. Heim, _Der Bergsturz von Elm_ (1881) (Zürich, 1881); W. A.
B. Coolidge, _The Range of the Tödi_ (London, 1894); J. G. Ebel,
_Schilderung der Gebirgsvölker d. Schweiz_, vol. ii. (Leipzig, 1798);
Gottfried Heer, _Geschichte d. Landes Glarus_ (to 1830) (2 vols.,
Glarus, 1898-1899), _Glarnerische Reformationsgeschichte_ (Glarus,
1900), _Zur 500 jährigen Gedächtnisfeier der Schlacht bei Näfels_
(1388) (Glarus, 1888) and _Die Kirchen d. Kant. Glarus_ (Glarus,
1890); Oswald Heer and J. J. Blumer-Heer, _Der Kant. Glarus_ (St Gall,
1846); J. J. Hottinger, _Conrad Escher von der Linth_ (Zürich, 1852);
_Jahrbuch_, published annually since 1865 by the Cantonal Historical
Society; A. Jenny-Trümpy, "Handel u. Industrie d. Kant. G." (article
in vol. xxxiii., 1899, of the _Jahrbuch_); M. Schuler, _Geschichte d.
Landes Glarus_ (Zürich, 1836); E. Näf-Blumer, _Clubführer durch die
Glarner-Alpen_ (Schwanden, 1902); Aloys Schulte, article on the true
and legendary early history of the Canton, published in vol. xviii.,
1893, of the _Jahrbuch f. schweiz. Geschichte_ (Zürich); J. J. Blumer,
_Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte d. schweiz. Demokratien_ (3 vols., St
Gall, 1850-1859); H. Ryffel, _Die schweiz. Landsgemeinden_ (Zürich,
1903); R. von Reding-Biberegg, _Der Zug Suworoffs durch die Schweiz in
1799_ (Stans, 1895). (W. A. B. C.)
GLAS, GEORGE (1725-1765); Scottish seaman and merchant adventurer in
West Africa, son of John Glas the divine, was born at Dundee in 1725,
and is said to have been brought up as a surgeon. He obtained command of
a ship which traded between Brazil, the N.W. coasts of Africa and the
Canary Islands. During his voyages he discovered on the Saharan seaboard
a river navigable for some distance inland, and here he proposed to
found a trading station. The exact spot is not known with certainty, but
it is plausibly identified with Gueder, a place in about 29° 10' N.,
possibly the haven where the Spaniards had in the 15th and 16th
centuries a fort called Santa Cruz de Mar Pequeña. Glas made an
arrangement with the Lords of Trade whereby he was granted £15,000 if he
obtained free cession of the port he had discovered to the British
crown; the proposal was to be laid before parliament in the session of
1765. Having chartered a vessel, Glas, with his wife and daughter,
sailed for Africa in 1764, reached his destination and made a treaty
with the Moors of the district. He named his settlement Port
Hillsborough, after Wills Hill, earl of Hillsborough (afterwards marquis
of Downshire), president of the Board of Trade and Plantations,
1763-1765. In November 1764 Glas and some companions, leaving his ship
behind, went in the longboat to Lanzarote, intending to buy a small
barque suitable for the navigation of the river on which was his
settlement. From Lanzarote he forwarded to London the treaty he had
concluded for the acquisition of Port Hillsborough. A few days later he
was seized by the Spaniards, taken to Teneriffe and imprisoned at Santa
Cruz. In a letter to the Lords of Trade from Teneriffe, dated the 15th
of December 1764, Glas said he believed the reason for his detention was
the jealousy of the Spaniards at the settlement at Port Hillsborough
"because from thence in time of war the English might ruin their fishery
and effectually stop the whole commerce of the Canary Islands." The
Spaniards further looked upon the settlement as a step towards the
conquest of the islands. "They are therefore contriving how to make out
a claim to the port and will forge old manuscripts to prove their
assertion" (_Calendar of Home Office Papers_, 1760-1765). In March 1765
the ship's company at Port Hillsborough was attacked by the natives and
several members of it killed. The survivors, including Mrs and Miss
Glas, escaped to Teneriffe. In October following, through the
representations of the British government, Glas was released from
prison. With his wife and child he set sail for England on board the
barque "Earl of Sandwich." On the 30th of November Spanish and
Portuguese members of the crew, who had learned that the ship contained
much treasure, mutinied, killing the captain and passengers. Glas was
stabbed to death, and his wife and daughter thrown overboard. (The
murderers were afterwards captured and hanged at Dublin.) After the
death of Glas the British government appears to have taken no steps to
carry out his project.
In 1764 Glas published in London _The History of the Discovery and
Conquest of the Canary Islands_, which he had translated from the MS.
of an Andalusian monk named Juan Abreu de Galindo, then recently
discovered at Palma. To this Glas added a description of the islands,
a continuation of the history and an account of the manners, customs,
trade, &c., of the inhabitants, displaying considerable knowledge of
the archipelago.
GLAS, JOHN (1695-1773), Scottish divine, was born at Auchtermuchty,
Fife, where his father was parish minister, on the 5th of October 1695.
He was educated at Kinclaven and the grammar school, Perth, graduated
A.M. at the university of St Andrews in 1713, and completed his
education for the ministry at Edinburgh. He was licensed as a preacher
by the presbytery of Dunkeld, and soon afterwards ordained by that of
Dundee as minister of the parish of Tealing (1719), where his effective
preaching soon secured a large congregation. Early in his ministry he
was "brought to a stand" while lecturing on the "Shorter Catechism" by
the question "How doth Christ execute the office of a king?" This led to
an examination of the New Testament foundation of the Christian Church,
and in 1725, in a letter to Francis Archibald, minister of Guthrie,
Forfarshire, he repudiated the obligation of national covenants. In the
same year his views found expression in the formation of a society
"separate from the multitude" numbering nearly a hundred, and drawn from
his own and neighbouring parishes. The members of this _ecclesiola in
ecclesia_ pledged themselves "to join together in the Christian
profession, to follow Christ the Lord as the righteousness of his
people, to walk together in brotherly love, and in the duties of it, in
subjection to Mr Glas as their overseer in the Lord, to observe the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper once every month, to submit themselves to
the Lord's law for removing offences," &c. (Matt. xviii. 15-20). From
the scriptural doctrine of the essentially spiritual nature of the
kingdom of Christ, Glas in his public teaching drew the conclusions: (1)
that there is no warrant in the New Testament for a national church; (2)
that the magistrate as such has no function in the church; (3) that
national covenants are without scriptural grounds; (4) that the true
Reformation cannot be carried out by political and secular weapons but
by the word and spirit of Christ only.
This argument is most fully exhibited in a treatise entitled _The
Testimony of the King of Martyrs_ (1729). For the promulgation of these
views, which were confessedly at variance with the doctrines of the
standards of the national church of Scotland, he was summoned (1726)
before his presbytery, where in the course of the investigations which
followed he affirmed still more explicitly his belief that "every
national church established by the laws of earthly kingdoms is
antichristian in its constitution and persecuting in its spirit," and
further declared opinions upon the subject of church government which
amounted to a repudiation of Presbyterianism and an acceptance of the
puritan type of Independency. For these opinions he was in 1728
suspended from the discharge of ministerial functions, and finally
deposed in 1730. The members of the society already referred to,
however, for the most part continued to adhere to him, thus
constituting the first "Glassite" or "Glasite" church. The seat of this
congregation was shortly afterwards transferred to Dundee (whence Glas
subsequently removed to Edinburgh), where he officiated for some time as
an "elder." He next laboured in Perth for a few years, where he was
joined by Robert Sandeman (see GLASITES), who became his son-in-law, and
eventually was recognized as the leader and principal exponent of Glas's
views; these he developed in a direction which laid them open to the
charge of antinomianism. Ultimately in 1730 Glas returned to Dundee,
where the remainder of his life was spent. He introduced in his church
the primitive custom of the "osculum pacis" and the "agape" celebrated
as a common meal with broth. From this custom his congregation was known
as the "kail kirk." In 1739 the General Assembly, without any
application from him, removed the sentence of deposition which had been
passed against him, and restored him to the character and function of a
minister of the gospel of Christ, but not that of a minister of the
Established Church of Scotland, declaring that he was not eligible for a
charge until he should have renounced principles inconsistent with the
constitution of the church.
A collected edition of his works was published at Edinburgh in 1761 (4
vols., 8vo), and again at Perth in 1782 (5 vols., 8vo). He died in
1773.
Glas's published works bear witness to his vigorous mind and scholarly
attainments. His reconstruction of the _True Discourse of Celsus_
(1753), from Origen's reply to it, is a competent and learned piece of
work. The _Testimony of the King of Martyrs concerning His Kingdom_
(1729) is a classic repudiation of erastianism and defence of the
spiritual autonomy of the church under Jesus Christ. His common sense
appears in his rejection of Hutchinson's attempt to prove that the
Bible supplies a complete system of physical science, and his
shrewdness in his _Notes on Scripture Texts_ (1747). He published a
volume of Christian Songs (Perth, 1784). (D. Mn.)
GLASER, CHRISTOPHER, a pharmaceutical chemist of the 17th century, was a
native of Basel, became demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi
in Paris and apothecary to Louis XIV. and to the duke of Orleans. He is
best known by his _Traité de la chymie_ (Paris, 1663), which went
through some ten editions in about five-and-twenty years, and was
translated into both German and English. It has been alleged that he was
an accomplice in the notorious poisonings carried out by the marchioness
de Brinvilliers, but the extent of his complicity is doubtful. He
appears to have died some time before 1676. The _sal polychrestum
Glaseri_ is normal potassium sulphate which he prepared and used
medicinally.
GLASGOW, a city, county of a city, royal burgh and port of Lanarkshire,
Scotland, situated on both banks of the Clyde, 401½ m. N.W. of London by
the West Coast railway route, and 47 m. W.S.W. of Edinburgh by the North
British railway. The valley of the Clyde is closely confined by hills,
and the city extends far over these, the irregularity of its site making
for picturesqueness. The commercial centre of Glasgow, with the majority
of important public buildings, lies on the north bank of the river,
which traverses the city from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and is crossed by a
number of bridges. The uppermost is Dalmarnock Bridge, dating from 1891,
and next below it is Rutherglen Bridge, rebuilt in 1896, and superseding
a structure of 1775. St Andrew's suspension bridge gives access to the
Green to the inhabitants of Hutchesontown, a district which is
approached also by Albert Bridge, a handsome erection, leading from the
Saltmarket. Above this bridge is the tidal dam and weir. Victoria
Bridge, of granite, was opened in 1856, taking the place of the
venerable bridge erected by Bishop Rae in 1345, which was demolished in
1847. Then follows a suspension bridge (dating from 1853) by which
foot-passengers from the south side obtain access to St Enoch Square
and, finally, the most important bridge of all is reached, variously
known as Glasgow, Jamaica Street, or Broomielaw Bridge, built of granite
from Telford's designs and first used in 1835. Towards the close of the
century it was reconstructed, and reopened in 1899. At the busier
periods of the day it bears a very heavy traffic. The stream is spanned
between Victoria and Albert Bridges by a bridge belonging to the Glasgow
& South-Western railway and by two bridges carrying the lines of the
Caledonian railway, one below Dalmarnock Bridge and the other a massive
work immediately west of Glasgow Bridge.
_Buildings._--George Square, in the heart of the city, is an open space
of which every possible advantage has been taken. On its eastern side
stand the municipal buildings, a palatial pile in Venetian renaissance
style, from the designs of William Young, a native of Paisley. They were
opened in 1889 and cost nearly £600,000. They form a square block four
storeys high and carry a domed turret at each end of the western façade,
from the centre of which rises a massive tower. The entrance hall and
grand staircase, the council chamber, banqueting hall and reception
rooms are decorated in a grandiose style, not unbecoming to the
commercial and industrial metropolis of Scotland. Several additional
blocks have been built or rented for the accommodation of the municipal
staff. Admirably equipped sanitary chambers were opened in 1897,
including a bacteriological and chemical laboratory. Up till 1810 the
town council met in a hall adjoining the old tolbooth. It then moved to
the fine classical structure at the foot of the Saltmarket, which is now
used as court-houses. This was vacated in 1842 for the county buildings
in Wilson Street. Growth of business compelled another migration to
Ingram Street in 1875, and, fourteen years later, it occupied its
present quarters. On the southern side of George Square the chief
structure is the massive General Post Office. On the western side stand
two ornate Italian buildings, the Bank of Scotland and the Merchants'
House, the head of which (the dean of gild), along with the head of the
Trades' House (the deacon-convener of trades) has been de facto member
of the town council since 1711, an arrangement devised with a view to
adjusting the frequent disputes between the two gilds. The Royal
Exchange, a Corinthian building with a fine portico of columns in two
rows, is an admired example of the work of David Hamilton (1768-1843), a
native of Glasgow, who designed several of the public buildings and
churches, and gained the second prize for a design for the Houses of
Parliament. The news-room of the exchange is a vast apartment, 130 ft.
long, 60 ft. wide, 130 ft. high, with a richly-decorated roof supported
by Corinthian pillars. Buchanan Street, the most important and handsome
street in the city, contains the Stock Exchange, the Western Club House
(by David Hamilton) and the offices of the _Glasgow Herald_. In
Sauchiehall Street are the Fine Art Institute and the former Corporation
Art Gallery. Argyll Street, the busiest thoroughfare, mainly occupied
with shops, leads to Trongate, where a few remains of the old town are
now carefully preserved. On the south side of the street, spanning the
pavement, stands the Tron Steeple, a stunted spire dating from 1637. It
is all that is left of St Mary's church, which was burned down in 1793
during the revels of a notorious body known as the Hell Fire Club. On
the opposite side, at the corner of High Street, stood the ancient
tolbooth, or prison, a turreted building, five storeys high, with a fine
Jacobean crown tower. The only remnant of the structure is the tower
known as the Cross Steeple.
St Mungo's Cathedral.
Although almost all the old public buildings of Glasgow have been swept
away, the cathedral remains in excellent preservation. It stands in the
north-eastern quarter of the city at a height of 104 ft. above the level
of the Clyde. It is a beautiful example of Early English work,
impressive in its simplicity. Its form is that of a Latin cross, with
imperfect transepts. Its length from east to west is 319 ft., and its
width 63 ft.; the height of the choir is 93 ft., and of the nave 85 ft.
At the centre rises a fine tower, with a short octagonal spire, 225 ft.
high. The choir, locally known as the High Church, serves as one of the
city churches, and the extreme east end of it forms the Lady chapel. The
rich western doorway is French in design but English in details. The
chapter-house projects from the north-eastern corner and somewhat mars
the harmony of the effect. It was built in the 15th century and has a
groined roof supported by a pillar 20 ft. high. Many citizens have
contributed towards filling the windows with stained glass, executed at
Munich, the government providing the eastern window in recognition of
their enterprise. The crypt beneath the choir is not the least
remarkable part of the edifice, being without equal in Scotland. It is
borne on 65 pillars and lighted by 41 windows. The sculpture of the
capitals of the columns and bosses of the groined vaulting is exquisite
and the whole is in excellent preservation. Strictly speaking, it is not
a crypt, but a lower church adapted to the sloping ground of the right
bank of the Molendinar burn. The dripping aisle is so named from the
constant dropping of water from the roof. St Mungo's Well in the
south-eastern corner was considered to possess therapeutic virtues, and
in the crypt a recumbent effigy, headless and handless, is faithfully
accepted as the tomb of Kentigern. The cathedral contains few monuments
of exceptional merit, but the surrounding graveyard is almost completely
paved with tombstones. In 1115 an investigation was ordered by David,
prince of Cumbria, into the lands and churches belonging to the
bishopric, and from the deed then drawn up it is clear that at that date
a cathedral had already been endowed. When David ascended the throne in
1124 he gave to the see of Glasgow the lands of Partick, besides
restoring many possessions of which it had been deprived. Jocelin (d.
1199), made bishop in 1174, was the first great bishop, and is memorable
for his efforts to replace the cathedral built in 1136 by Bishop John
Achaius, which had been destroyed by fire. The crypt is his work, and he
began the choir, Lady chapel, and central tower. The new structure was
sufficiently advanced to be dedicated in 1197. Other famous bishops were
Robert Wishart (d. 1316), appointed in 1272, who was among the first to
join in the revolt of Wallace, and received Robert Bruce when he lay
under the ban of the church for the murder of Comyn; John Cameron (d.
1446), appointed in 1428, under whom the building as it stands was
completed; and William Turnbull (d. 1454), appointed in 1447, who
founded the university in 1450. James Beaton or Bethune (1517-1603) was
the last Roman Catholic archbishop. He fled to France at the reformation
in 1560, and took with him the treasures and records of the see,
including the Red Book of Glasgow dating from the reign of Robert III.
The documents were deposited in the Scots College in Paris, were sent at
the outbreak of the Revolution for safety to St Omer, and were never
recovered. This loss explains the paucity of the earlier annals of the
city. The zeal of the Reformers led them to threaten to mutilate the
cathedral, but the building was saved by the prompt action of the
craftsmen, who mustered in force and dispersed the fanatics.
[Illustration: Map of Glasgow and Environs.]
Churches.
Excepting the cathedral, none of the Glasgow churches possesses
historical interest; and, speaking generally, it is only the buildings
that have been erected since the beginning of the 19th century that have
pronounced architectural merit. This was due largely to the long
survival of the severe sentiment of the Covenanters, who discouraged, if
they did not actually forbid, the raising of temples of beautiful
design. Representative examples of later work are found in the United
Free churches in Vincent Street, in Caledonia Road and at Queen's Park,
designed by Alexander Thomson (1817-1875), an architect of distinct
originality; St George's church, in West George Street, a remarkable
work by William Stark, erected in the beginning of the 19th century; St
Andrew's church in St Andrew's Square off the Saltmarket, modelled after
St Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, with a fine Roman portico; some of
the older parish churches, such as St Enoch's, dating from 1780, with a
good spire (the saint's name is said to be a corruption of Tanew, mother
of Kentigern); the episcopal church of St Mary (1870), in Great Western
Road, by Sir G. G. Scott; the Roman Catholic cathedral of St Andrew, on
the river-bank between Victoria and Broomielaw bridges; the Barony
church, replacing the older kirk in which Norman Macleod ministered; and
several admirable structures, well situated, on the eastern confines of
Kelvingrove Park.
The principal burying-ground is the Necropolis, occupying Fir Park, a
hill about 300 ft. high in the northern part of the city. It provides a
not inappropriate background to the cathedral, from which it is
approached by a bridge, known as the "Bridge of Sighs," over the
Molendinar ravine. The ground, which once formed portion of the estate
of Wester Craigs, belongs to the Merchants' House, which purchased it in
1650 from Sir Ludovic Stewart of Minto. A Doric column to the memory of
Knox, surmounted by a colossal statue of the reformer, was erected by
public subscription on the crown of the height in 1824, and a few years
later the idea arose of utilizing the land as a cemetery. The Jews have
reserved for their own people a detached area in the north-western
corner of the cemetery.
Glasgow University.
_Education._--The university, founded in 1450 by Bishop Turnbull under a
bull of Pope Nicholas V., survived in its old quarters till far in the
19th century. The _paedagogium_, or college of arts, was at first housed
in Rottenrow, but was moved in 1460 to a site in High Street, where Sir
James Hamilton of Cadzow, first Lord Hamilton (d. 1479), gave it four
acres of land and some buildings. Queen Mary bestowed upon it thirteen
acres of contiguous ground, and her son granted it a new charter and
enlarged the endowments. Prior to the Revolution its fortunes
fluctuated, but in the 18th century it became very famous. By the middle
of the 19th century, however, its surroundings had deteriorated, and in
1860 it was decided to rebuild it elsewhere. The ground had enormously
increased in value and a railway company purchased it for £100,000. In
1864 the university bought the Gilmore Hill estate for £65,000, the
adjacent property of Dowan Hill for £16,000 and the property of
Clayslaps for £17,400. Sir G. G. Scott was appointed architect and
selected as the site of the university buildings the ridge of Gilmore
Hill--the finest situation in Glasgow. The design is Early English with
a suggestion in parts of the Scots-French style of a much later period.
The main structure is 540 ft. long and 300 ft. broad. The principal
front faces southwards and consists of a lofty central tower with spire
and corner blocks with turrets, between which are buildings of lower
height. Behind the tower lies the Bute hall, built on cloisters, binding
together the various departments and smaller halls, and dividing the
massive edifice into an eastern and western quadrangle, on two sides of
which are ranged the class-rooms in two storeys. The northern façade
comprises two corner blocks, besides the museum, the library and, in the
centre, the students' reading-room on one floor and the Hunterian museum
on the floor above. On the south the ground falls in terraces towards
Kelvingrove Park and the Kelvin. On the west, but apart from the main
structure, stand the houses of the principal and professors. The
foundation stone was laid in 1868 and the opening ceremony was held in
1870. The total cost of the university buildings amounted to £500,000,
towards which government contributed £120,000 and public subscription
£250,000. The third marquess of Bute (1847-1900) gave £40,000 to provide
the Bute or common hall, a room of fine proportions fitted in Gothic
style and divided by a beautiful Gothic screen from the Randolph hall,
named after another benefactor, Charles Randolph (1809-1878), a native
of Stirling, who had prospered as shipbuilder and marine engineer and
left £60,000 to the university. The graceful spire surmounting the tower
was provided from the bequest of £5000 by Mr A. Cunningham, deputy
town-clerk, and Dr John M'Intyre erected the Students' Union at a cost
of £5000, while other donors completed the equipment so generously that
the senate was enabled to carry on its work, for the first time in its
history, in almost ideal circumstances. The library includes the
collection of Sir William Hamilton, and the Hunterian museum, bequeathed
by William Hunter, the anatomist, is particularly rich in coins, medals,
black-letter books and anatomical preparations. The observatory on Dowan
Hill is attached to the chair of astronomy. An interesting link with the
past are the exhibitions founded by John Snell (1629-1679), a native of
Colmonell in Ayrshire, for the purpose of enabling students of
distinction to continue their career at Balliol College, Oxford. Amongst
distinguished exhibitioners have been Adam Smith, John Gibson Lockhart,
John Wilson ("Christopher North"), Archbishop Tait, Sir William Hamilton
and Professor Shairp. The curriculum of the university embraces the
faculties of arts, divinity, medicine, law and science. The governing
body includes the chancellor, elected for life by the general council,
the principal, also elected for life, and the lord rector elected
triennially by the students voting in "nations" according to their
birthplace (_Glottiana_, natives of Lanarkshire; _Transforthana_, of
Scotland north of the Forth; _Rothseiana_, of the shires of Bute,
Renfrew and Ayr; and _Loudonia_, all others). There are a large number
of well-endowed chairs and lectureships and the normal number of
students exceeds 2000. The universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen unite to
return one member to parliament. Queen Margaret College for women,
established in 1883, occupies a handsome building close to the botanic
gardens, has an endowment of upwards of £25,000, and was incorporated
with the university in 1893. Muirhead College is another institution for
women.
Schools and colleges.
Elementary instruction is supplied at numerous board schools. Higher,
secondary and technical education is provided at several well-known
institutions. There are two educational endowments boards which apply
a revenue of about £10,000 a year mainly to the foundation of
bursaries. Anderson College in George Street perpetuates the memory of
its founder, John Anderson (1726-1796), professor of natural
philosophy in the university, who opened a class in physics for
working men, which he conducted to the end of his life. By his will he
provided for an institution for the instruction of artisans and others
unable to attend the university. The college which bears his name
began in 1796 with lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry by
Thomas Garnett (1766-1802). Two years later mathematics and geography
were added. In 1799 Dr George Birkbeck (1776-1841) succeeded Garnett
and began those lectures on mechanics and applied science which,
continued elsewhere, ultimately led to the foundation of mechanics'
institutes in many towns. In later years the college was further
endowed and its curriculum enlarged by the inclusion of literature and
languages, but ultimately it was determined to limit the scope of its
work to medicine (comprising, however, physics, chemistry and botany
also). The lectures of its medical school, incorporated in 1887 and
situated near the Western Infirmary, are accepted by Glasgow and other
universities. The Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College,
formed in 1886 out of a combination of the arts side of Anderson
College, the College of Science and Arts, Allan Glen's Institution and
the Atkinson Institution, is subsidized by the corporation and the
endowments board, and is especially concerned with students desirous
of following an industrial career. St Mungo's College, which has
developed from an extra-mural school in connexion with the Royal
Infirmary, was incorporated in 1889, with faculties of medicine and
law. The United Free Church College, finely situated near Kelvingrove
Park, the School of Art and Design, and the normal schools for the
training of teachers, are institutions with distinctly specialized
objects.
The High school in Elmbank is the successor of the grammar school
(long housed in John Street) which was founded in the 14th century as
an appanage of the cathedral. It was placed under the jurisdiction of
the school board in 1873. Other secondary schools include Glasgow
Academy, Kelvinside Academy and the girls' and boys' schools endowed
by the Hutcheson trust. Several of the schools under the board are
furnished with secondary departments or equipped as science schools,
and the Roman Catholics maintain elementary schools and advanced
academies.
_Art Galleries, Libraries and Museums._--Glasgow merchants and
manufacturers alike have been constant patrons of art, and their
liberality may have had some influence on the younger painters who,
towards the close of the 19th century, broke away from tradition and,
stimulated by training in the studios of Paris, became known as the
"Glasgow school." The art gallery and museum in Kelvingrove Park,
which was built at a cost of £250,000 (partly derived from the profits
of the exhibitions held in the park in 1888 and 1901), is
exceptionally well appointed. The collection originated in 1854 in the
purchase of the works of art belonging to Archibald M'Lellan, and was
supplemented from time to time by numerous bequests of important
pictures. It was housed for many years in the Corporation galleries in
Sauchiehall Street. The Institute of Fine Arts, in Sauchiehall Street,
is mostly devoted to periodical exhibitions of modern art. There are
also pictures on exhibition in the People's Palace on Glasgow Green,
which was built by the corporation in 1898 and combines an art gallery
and museum with a conservatory and winter garden, and in the museum at
Camphill, situated within the bounds of Queen's Park. The library and
Hunterian museum in the university are mostly reserved for the use of
students. The faculty of procurators possess a valuable library which
is housed in their hall, an Italian Renaissance building, in West
George Street. In Bath Street there are the Mechanics' and the
Philosophical Society's libraries, and the Physicians' is in St
Vincent Street. Miller Street contains the headquarters of the public
libraries. The premises once occupied by the water commission have
been converted to house the Mitchell library, which grew out of a
bequest of £70,000 by Stephen Mitchell, largely reinforced by further
gifts of libraries and funds, and now contains upwards of 100,000
volumes. It is governed by the city council and has been in use since
1877. Another building in this street accommodates both the Stirling
and Baillie libraries. The Stirling, with some 50,000 volumes, is
particularly rich in tracts of the 16th and 17th centuries, and the
Baillie was endowed by George Baillie, a solicitor who, in 1863, gave
£18,000 for educational objects. The Athenaeum in St George's Place,
an institution largely concerned with evening classes in various
subjects, contains an excellent library and reading-room.
_Charities._--The old Royal Infirmary, designed by Robert Adam and
opened in 1794, adjoining the cathedral, occupies the site of the
archiepiscopal palace, the last portion of which was removed towards
the close of the 18th century. The chief architectural feature of the
infirmary is the central dome forming the roof of the operating
theatre. On the northern side are the buildings of the medical school
attached to the institution. The new infirmary commemorates the
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. A little farther north, in Castle
Street, is the blind asylum. The Western Infirmary is to some extent
used for the purposes of clinical instruction in connexion with the
university, to which it stands in immediate proximity. Near it is the
Royal hospital for sick children. To the south of Queen's Park is
Victoria Infirmary, and close to it the deaf and dumb institution. On
the bank of the river, not far from the south-eastern boundary of the
city, is the Belvedere hospital for infectious diseases, and at
Ruchill, in the north, is another hospital of the same character
opened in 1900. The Royal asylum at Gartnavel is situated near
Jordanhill station, and the District asylum at Gartloch (with a branch
at West Muckroft) lies in the parish of Cadder beyond the
north-eastern boundary. There are numerous hospitals exclusively
devoted to the treatment of special diseases, and several nursing
institutions and homes. Hutcheson's Hospital, designed by David
Hamilton and adorned with statues of the founders, is situated in
Ingram Street, and by the increase in the value of its lands has
become a very wealthy body. George Hutcheson (1580-1639), a lawyer in
the Trongate near the tolbooth, who afterwards lived in the Bishop's
castle, which stood close to the spot where the Kelvin enters the
Clyde, founded the hospital for poor old men. His brother Thomas
(1589-1641) established in connexion with it a school for the lodging
and education of orphan boys, the sons of burgesses. The trust,
through the growth of its funds, has been enabled to extend its
educational scope and to subsidize schools apart from the charity.
_Monuments._--Most of the statues have been erected in George Square.
They are grouped around a fluted pillar 80 ft. high, surmounted by a
colossal statue of Sir Walter Scott by John Ritchie (1809-1850),
erected in 1837, and include Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort
(both equestrian) by Baron Marochetti; James Watt by Chantrey; Sir
Robert Peel, Thomas Campbell the poet, who was born in Glasgow, and
David Livingstone, all by John Mossman; Sir John Moore, a native of
Glasgow, by Flaxman, erected in 1819; James Oswald, the first member
returned to parliament for the city after the Reform Act of 1832; Lord
Clyde (Sir Colin Campbell), also a native, by Foley, erected in 1868;
Dr Thomas Graham, master of the mint, another native, by Brodie;
Robert Burns by G. E. Ewing, erected in 1877, subscribed for in
shillings by the working men of Scotland; and William Ewart Gladstone
by Hamo Thornycroft, unveiled by Lord Rosebery in 1902. In front of
the Royal Exchange stands the equestrian monument of the duke of
Wellington. In Cathedral Square are the statues of Norman Macleod,
James White and James Arthur, and in front of the Royal infirmary is
that of Sir James Lumsden, lord provost and benefactor. Nelson is
commemorated by an obelisk 143 ft. high on the Green, which was
erected in 1806 and is said to be a copy of that in the Piazza del
Popolo at Rome. One of the most familiar statues is the equestrian
figure of William III. in the Trongate, which was presented to the
town in 1735 by James Macrae (1677-1744), a poor Ayrshire lad who had
amassed a fortune in India, where he was governor of Madras from 1725
to 1730.
_Recreations._--Of the theatres the chief are the King's in Bath
Street, the Royal and the Grand in Cowcaddens, the Royalty and Gaiety
in Sauchiehall Street, and the Princess's in Main Street. Variety
theatres, headed by the Empire in Sauchiehall Street, are found in
various parts of the town. There is a circus in Waterloo Street, a
hippodrome in Sauchiehall Street and a zoological garden in New City
Road. The principal concert halls are the great hall of the St
Andrew's Halls, a group of rooms belonging to the corporation; the
City Hall in Candleriggs, the People's Palace on the Green, and
Queen's Rooms close to Kelvingrove Park. Throughout winter enormous
crowds throng the football grounds of the Queen's Park, the leading
amateur club, and the Celtic, the Rangers, the Third Lanark and other
prominent professional clubs.
_Parks and Open Spaces._--The oldest open space is the Green (140
acres), on the right bank of the river, adjoining a densely-populated
district. It once extended farther west, but a portion was built over
at a time when public rights were not vigilantly guarded. It is a
favourite area for popular demonstrations, and sections have been
reserved for recreation or laid out in flower-beds. Kelvingrove Park,
in the west end, has exceptional advantages, for the Kelvin burn flows
through it and the ground is naturally terraced, while the situation
is beautified by the adjoining Gilmore Hill with the university on its
summit. The park was laid out under the direction of Sir Joseph
Paxton, and contains the Stewart fountain, erected to commemorate the
labours of Lord Provost Stewart and his colleagues in the promotion of
the Loch Katrine water scheme. The other parks on the right bank are,
in the north, Ruchill (53 acres), acquired in 1891, and Springburn
(53¼ acres), acquired in 1892, and, in the east, Alexandra Park (120
acres), in which is laid down a nine-hole golf-course, and Tollcross
(82¾ acres), beyond the municipal boundary, acquired in 1897. On the
left bank Queen's Park (130 acres), occupying a commanding site, was
laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton, and considerably enlarged in 1894 by
the enclosure of the grounds of Camphill. The other southern parks are
Richmond (44 acres), acquired in 1898, and named after Lord Provost
Sir David Richmond, who opened it in 1899; Maxwell, which was taken
over on the annexation of Pollokshields in 1891; Bellahouston (176
acres), acquired in 1895; and Cathkin Braes (50 acres), 3½m. beyond
the south-eastern boundary, presented to the city in 1886 by James
Dick, a manufacturer, containing "Queen Mary's stone," a point which
commands a view of the lower valley of the Clyde. In the north-western
district of the town 40 acres between Great Western Road and the
Kelvin are devoted to the Royal Botanic Gardens, which became public
property in 1891. They are beautifully laid out, and contain a great
range of hothouses. The gardens owed much to Sir William Hooker, who
was regius professor of botany in Glasgow University before his
appointment to the directorship of Kew Gardens.
_Communications._--The North British railway terminus is situated in
Queen Street, and consists of a high-level station (main line) and a
low-level station, used in connexion with the City & District line,
largely underground, serving the northern side of the town, opened in
1886. The Great Northern and North-Eastern railways use the high-level
line of the N.B.R., the three companies forming the East Coast Joint
Service. The Central terminus of the Caledonian railway in Gordon
Street, served by the West Coast system (in which the London &
North-Western railway shares), also comprises a high-level station for
the main line traffic and a low-level station for the Cathcart
District railway, completed in 1886 and made circular for the southern
side and suburbs in 1894, and also for the connexion between Maryhill
and Rutherglen, which is mostly underground. Both the underground
lines communicate with certain branches of the main line, either
directly or by change of carriage. The older terminus of the
Caledonian railway in Buchanan Street now takes the northern and
eastern traffic. The terminus of the Glasgow & South-Western railway
company in St Enoch Square serves the country indicated in its title,
and also gives the Midland railway of England access to the west coast
and Glasgow. The Glasgow Subway--an underground cable passenger line,
6½ m. long, worked in two tunnels and passing below the Clyde
twice--was opened in 1896. Since no more bridge-building will be
sanctioned west of the railway bridge at the Broomielaw, there are at
certain points steam ferry boats or floating bridges for conveying
vehicles across the harbour, and at Stobcross there is a subway for
foot and wheeled traffic. Steamers, carrying both goods and
passengers, constantly leave the Broomielaw quay for the piers and
ports on the river and firth, and the islands and sea lochs of
Argyllshire. The city is admirably served by tramways which penetrate
every populous district and cross the river by Glasgow and Albert
bridges.
_Trade._--Natural causes, such as proximity to the richest field of
coal and ironstone in Scotland and the vicinity of hill streams of
pure water, account for much of the great development of trade in
Glasgow. It was in textiles that the city showed its earliest
predominance, which, however, has not been maintained, owing, it is
alleged, to the shortage of female labour. Several cotton mills are
still worked, but the leading feature in the trade has always been the
manufacture of such light textures as plain, striped and figured
muslins, ginghams and fancy fabrics. Thread is made on a considerable
scale, but jute and silk are of comparatively little importance. The
principal varieties of carpets are woven. Some factories are
exclusively devoted to the making of lace curtains. The allied
industries of bleaching, printing and dyeing, on the other hand, have
never declined. The use of chlorine in bleaching was first introduced
in Great Britain at Glasgow in 1787, on the suggestion of James Watt,
whose father-in-law was a bleacher; and it was a Glasgow bleacher,
Charles Tennant, who first discovered and made bleaching powder
(chloride of lime). Turkey-red dyeing was begun at Glasgow by David
Dale and George M'Intosh, and the colour was long known locally as
Dale's red. A large quantity of grey cloth continues to be sent from
Lancashire and other mills to be bleached and printed in Scottish
works. These industries gave a powerful impetus to the manufacture of
chemicals, and the works at St Rollox developed rapidly. Among
prominent chemical industries are to be reckoned the alkali
trades--including soda, bleaching powder and soap-making--the
preparation of alum and prussiates of potash, bichromate of potash,
white lead and other pigments, dynamite and gunpowder. Glass-making
and paper-making are also carried on, and there are several breweries
and distilleries, besides factories for the making of aerated waters,
starch, dextrine and matches. Many miscellaneous trades flourish, such
as clothing, confectionery, cabinet-making, bread and biscuit making,
boot and shoe making, flour mills and saw mills, pottery and
india-rubber. Since the days of the brothers Robert Foulis (1705-1776)
and Andrew Foulis (1712-1775), printing, both letterpress and colour,
has been identified with Glasgow, though in a lesser degree than with
Edinburgh. The tobacco trade still flourishes, though much lessened.
But the great industry is iron-founding. The discovery of the value of
blackband ironstone, till then regarded as useless "wild coal," by
David Mushet (1772-1847), and Neilson's invention of the hot-air blast
threw the control of the Scottish iron trade into the hands of Glasgow
ironmasters, although the furnaces themselves were mostly erected in
Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. The expansion of the industry was such that,
in 1859, one-third of the total output in the United Kingdom was
Scottish. During the following years, however, the trade seemed to
have lost its elasticity, the annual production averaging about one
million tons of pig-iron. Mild steel is manufactured extensively, and
some crucible cast steel is made. In addition to brass foundries there
are works for the extraction of copper and the smelting of lead and
zinc. With such resources every branch of engineering is well
represented. Locomotive engines are built for every country where
railways are employed, and all kinds of builder's ironwork is forged
in enormous quantities, and the sewing-machine factories in the
neighbourhood are important. Boiler-making and marine engine works, in
many cases in direct connexion with the shipbuilding yards, are
numerous. Shipbuilding, indeed, is the greatest of the industries of
Glasgow, and in some years more than half of the total tonnage in the
United Kingdom has been launched on the Clyde, the yards of which
extend from the harbour to Dumbarton on one side and Greenock on the
other side of the river and firth. Excepting a trifling proportion of
wooden ships, the Clyde-built vessels are of iron and steel, the trade
having owed its immense expansion to the prompt adoption of this
material. Every variety of craft is turned out, from battleships and
great liners to dredging-plant and hopper barges.
_The Port._--The harbour extends from Glasgow Bridge to the point
where the Kelvin joins the Clyde, and occupies 206 acres. For the most
part it is lined by quays and wharves, which have a total length of 8¼
m., and from the harbour to the sea vessels drawing 26 ft. can go up
or down on one tide. It is curious to remember that in the middle of
the 18th century the river was fordable on foot at Dumbuck, 12 m.
below Glasgow and 1½ m. S.E. of Dumbarton. Even within the limits of
the present harbour Smeaton reported to the town council in 1740 that
at Pointhouse ford, just east of the mouth of the Kelvin, the depth at
low water was only 15 in. and at high water 39 in. The transformation
effected within a century and a half is due to the energy and
enterprise of the Clyde Navigation Trust. The earliest shipping-port
of Glasgow was Irvine in Ayrshire, but lighterage was tedious and land
carriage costly, and in 1658 the civic authorities endeavoured to
purchase a site for a spacious harbour at Dumbarton. Being thwarted by
the magistrates of that burgh, however, in 1662 they secured 13 acres
on the southern bank at a spot some 2 m. above Greenock, which became
known as Port Glasgow, where they built harbours and constructed the
first graving dock in Scotland. Sixteen years later the Broomielaw
quay was built, but it was not until the tobacco merchants appreciated
the necessity of bringing their wares into the heart of the city that
serious consideration was paid to schemes for deepening the waterway.
Smeaton's suggestion of a lock and dam 4 m. below the Broomielaw was
happily not accepted. In 1768 John Golborne advised the narrowing of
the river and the increasing of the scour by the construction of
rubble jetties and the dredging of sandbanks and shoals. After James
Watt's report in 1769 on the ford at Dumbuck, Golborne succeeded in
1775 in deepening the ford to 6 ft. at low water with a width of 300
ft. By Rennie's advice in 1799, following up Golborne's
recommendation, as many as 200 jetties were built between Glasgow and
Bowling, some old ones were shortened and low rubble walls carried
from point to point of the jetties, and thus the channel was made more
uniform and much land reclaimed. By 1836 there was a depth of 7 or 8
ft. at the Broomielaw at low water, and in 1840 the whole duty of
improving the navigation was devolved upon the Navigation Trust. Steam
dredgers were kept constantly at work, shoals were removed and rocks
blasted away. Two million cubic yards of matter are lifted every year
and dumped in Loch Long. By 1900 the channel had been deepened to a
minimum of 22 ft., and, as already indicated, the largest vessels make
the open sea in one tide, whereas in 1840 it took ships drawing only
15 ft. two and even three tides to reach the sea. The debt of the
Trust amounts to £6,000,000, and the annual revenue to £450,000. Long
before these great results had been achieved, however, the shipping
trade had been revolutionized by the application of steam to
navigation, and later by the use of iron for wood in shipbuilding, in
both respects enormously enhancing the industry and commerce of
Glasgow. From 1812 to 1820 Henry Bell's "Comet," 30 tons, driven by an
engine of 3 horse-power, plied between Glasgow and Greenock, until she
was wrecked, being the first steamer to run regularly on any river in
the Old World. Thus since the appearance of that primitive vessel
phenomenal changes had taken place on the Clyde. When the quays and
wharves ceased to be able to accommodate the growing traffic, the
construction of docks became imperative. In 1867 Kingston Dock on the
south side, of 5-1/3 acres, was opened, but soon proved inadequate,
and in 1880 Queen's Dock (two basins) at Stobcross, on the north side,
of 30 acres, was completed. Although this could accommodate one
million tons of shipping, more dock space was speedily called for, and
in 1897 Prince's Dock (three basins) on the opposite side, of 72
acres, was opened, fully equipped with hydraulic and steam cranes and
all the other latest appliances. There are, besides, three graving
docks, the longest of which (880 ft.) can be made at will into two
docks of 417 ft. and 457 ft. in length. The Caledonian and Glasgow &
South-Western railways have access to the harbour for goods and
minerals at Terminus Quay to the west of Kingston Dock, and a mineral
dock has been constructed by the Trust at Clydebank, about 3½ m. below
the harbour. The shipping attains to colossal proportions. The imports
consist chiefly of flour, fruit, timber, iron ore, live stock and
wheat; and the exports principally of cotton manufactures,
manufactured iron and steel, machinery, whisky, cotton yarn, linen
fabrics, coal, jute, jam and foods, and woollen manufactures.
_Government._--By the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 the city
was placed entirely in the county of Lanark, the districts then
transferred having previously belonged to the shires of Dumbarton and
Renfrew. In 1891 the boundaries were enlarged to include six suburban
burghs and a number of suburban districts, the area being increased
from 6111 acres to 11,861 acres. The total area of the city and the
conterminous burghs of Govan, Partick and Kinning Park--which, though
they successfully resisted annexation in 1891, are practically part of
the city--is 15,659 acres. The extreme length from north to south and
from east to west is about 5 m. each way, and the circumference
measures 27 m. In 1893 the municipal burgh was constituted a county of
a city. Glasgow is governed by a corporation consisting of 77 members,
including 14 bailies and the lord provost. In 1895 all the powers
which the town council exercised as police commissioners and trustees
for parks, markets, water and the like were consolidated and conferred
upon the corporation. Three years later the two parish councils of the
city and barony, which administered the poor law over the greater part
of the city north of the Clyde, were amalgamated as the parish council
of Glasgow, with 31 members. As a county of a city Glasgow has a
lieutenancy (successive lords provost holding the office) and a court
of quarter sessions, which is the appeal court from the magistrates
sitting as licensing authority. Under the corporation municipal
ownership has reached a remarkable development, the corporation owning
the supplies of water, gas and electric power, tramways and municipal
lodging-houses. The enterprise of the corporation has brought its work
prominently into notice, not only in the United Kingdom, but in the
United States of America and elsewhere. In 1859 water was conveyed by
aqueducts and tunnels from Loch Katrine (364 ft. above sea-level,
giving a pressure of 70 or 80 ft. above the highest point in the city)
to the reservoir at Mugdock (with a capacity of 500,000,000 gallons),
a distance of 27 m., whence after filtration it was distributed by
pipes to Glasgow, a further distance of 7 m., or 34 m. in all. During
the next quarter of a century it became evident that this supply would
require to be augmented, and powers were accordingly obtained in 1895
to raise Loch Katrine 5 ft. and to connect with it by tunnel Loch
Arklet (455 ft. above the sea), with storage for 2,050,000,000
gallons, the two lochs together possessing a capacity of twelve
thousand million gallons. The entire works between the loch and the
city were duplicated over a distance of 23½ m., and an additional
reservoir, holding 694,000,000 gallons, was constructed, increasing
the supply held in reserve from 12½ days' to 30½ days'. In 1909 the
building of a dam was undertaken 1¼ m. west of the lower end of Loch
Arklet, designed to create a sheet of water 2½ m. long and to increase
the water-supply of the city by ten million gallons a day. The water
committee supplies hydraulic power to manufacturers and merchants. In
1869 the corporation acquired the gasworks, the productive capacity
of which exceeds 70 million cub. ft. a day. In 1893 the supply of
electric light was also undertaken, and since that date the city has
been partly lighted by electricity. The corporation also laid down the
tramways, which were leased by a company for twenty-three years at a
rental of £150 a mile per annum. When the lease expired in 1894 the
town council took over the working of the cars, substituting overhead
electric traction for horse-power. One of the most difficult problems
that the corporation has had to deal with was the housing of the poor.
By the lapse of time and the congestion of population, certain
quarters of the city, in old Glasgow especially, had become slums and
rookeries of the worst description. The condition of the town was
rapidly growing into a byword, when the municipality obtained
parliamentary powers in 1866 enabling it to condemn for purchase
over-crowded districts, to borrow money and levy rates. The scheme of
reform contemplated the demolition of 10,000 insanitary dwellings
occupied by 50,000 persons, but the corporation was required to
provide accommodation for the dislodged whenever the numbers exceeded
500. In point of fact they never needed to build, as private
enterprise more than kept pace with the operations of the improvement.
The work was carried out promptly and effectually, and when the act
expired in 1881 whole localities had been recreated and nearly 40,000
persons properly housed. Under the amending act of 1881 the
corporation began in 1888 to build tenement houses in which the poor
could rent one or more rooms at the most moderate rentals;
lodging-houses for men and women followed, and in 1896 a home was
erected for the accommodation of families in certain circumstances.
The powers of the improvement trustees were practically exhausted in
1896, when it appeared that during twenty-nine years £1,955,550 had
been spent in buying and improving land and buildings, and £231,500 in
building tenements and lodging-houses; while, on the other side,
ground had been sold for £1,072,000, and the trustees owned heritable
property valued at £692,000, showing a deficiency of £423,050.
Assessment of ratepayers for the purposes of the trust had yielded
£593,000, and it was estimated that these operations, beneficial to
the city in a variety of ways, had cost the citizens £24,000 a year.
In 1897 an act was obtained for dealing in similar fashion with
insanitary and congested areas in the centre of the city, and on the
south side of the river, and for acquiring not more than 25 acres of
land, within or without the city, for dwellings for the poorest
classes. Along with these later improvements the drainage system was
entirely remodelled, the area being divided into three sections, each
distinct, with separate works for the disposal of its own sewage. One
section (authorized in 1891 and doubled in 1901) comprises 11 sq.
m.--one-half within the city north of the river, and the other in the
district in Lanarkshire--with works at Dalmarnock; another section
(authorized in 1896) includes the area on the north bank not provided
for in 1891, as well as the burghs of Partick and Clydebank and
intervening portions of the shires of Renfrew and Dumbarton, the total
area consisting of 14 sq. m., with works at Dalmuir, 7 m. below
Glasgow; and the third section (authorized in 1898) embraces the whole
municipal area on the south side of the river, the burghs of
Rutherglen, Pollokshaws, Kinning Park and Govan, and certain districts
in the counties of Renfrew and Lanark--14 sq. m. in all, which may be
extended by the inclusion of the burghs of Renfrew and Paisley--with
works at Braehead, 1 m. east of Renfrew. Among other works in which it
has interests there may be mentioned its representation on the board
of the Clyde Navigation Trust and the governing body of the West of
Scotland Technical College. In respect of parliamentary representation
the Reform Act of 1832 gave two members to Glasgow, a third was added
in 1868 (though each elector had only two votes), and in 1885 the city
was split up into seven divisions, each returning one member.
_Population._--Throughout the 19th century the population grew
prodigiously. Only 77,385 in 1801, it was nearly doubled in twenty
years, being 147,043 in 1821, already outstripping Edinburgh. It had
become 395,503 in 1861, and in 1881 it was 511,415. In 1891, prior to
extension of the boundary, it was 565,839, and, after extension,
658,198, and in 1901 it stood at 761,709. The birth-rate averages 33,
and the death-rate 21 per 1000, but the mortality before the city
improvement scheme was carried out was as high as 33 per 1000. Owing
to its being convenient of access from the Highlands, a very
considerable number of Gaelic-speaking persons live in Glasgow, while
the great industries attract an enormous number of persons from other
parts of Scotland. The valuation of the city, which in 1878-1879 was
£3,420,697, now exceeds £5,000,000.
_History._--There are several theories as to the origin of the name of
Glasgow. One holds that it comes from Gaelic words meaning "dark glen,"
descriptive of the narrow ravine through which the Molendinar flowed to
the Clyde. But the more generally accepted version is that the word is
the Celtic _Cleschu_, afterwards written Glesco or Glasghu, meaning
"dear green spot" (_glas_, green; _cu_ or _ghu_, dear), which is
supposed to have been the name of the settlement that Kentigern found
here when he came to convert the Britons of Strathclyde. Mungo became
the patron-saint of Glasgow, and the motto and arms of the city are
wholly identified with him--"Let Glasgow Flourish by the Preaching of
the Word," usually shortened to "Let Glasgow Flourish." It is not till
the 12th century, however, that the history of the city becomes clear.
About 1178 William the Lion made the town by charter a burgh of barony,
and gave it a market with freedom and customs. Amongst more or less
isolated episodes of which record has been preserved may be mentioned
the battle of the Bell o' the Brae, on the site of High Street, in which
Wallace routed the English under Percy in 1300; the betrayal of Wallace
to the English in 1305 in a barn situated, according to tradition, in
Robroyston, just beyond the north-eastern boundary of the city; the
ravages of the plague in 1350 and thirty years later; the regent Arran's
siege, in 1544, of the bishop's castle, garrisoned by the earl of
Glencairn, and the subsequent fight at the Butts (now the Gallowgate)
when the terms of surrender were dishonoured, in which the regent's men
gained the day. Most of the inhabitants were opposed to Queen Mary and
many actively supported Murray in the battle of Langside--the site of
which is now occupied by the Queen's Park--on the 13th of May 1568, in
which she lost crown and kingdom. A memorial of the conflict was erected
on the site in 1887. Under James VI. the town became a royal burgh in
1636, with freedom of the river from the Broomielaw to the Cloch. But
the efforts to establish episcopacy aroused the fervent anti-prelatical
sentiment of the people, who made common cause with the Covenanters to
the end of their long struggle. Montrose mulcted the citizens heavily
after the battle of Kilsyth in 1645, and three years later the provost
and bailies were deposed for contumacy to their sovereign lord. Plague
and famine devastated the town in 1649, and in 1652 a conflagration laid
a third of the burgh in ashes. Even after the restoration its sufferings
were acute. It was the headquarters of the Whiggamores of the west and
its prisons were constantly filled with rebels for conscience' sake. The
government scourged the townsfolk with an army of Highlanders, whose
brutality only served to strengthen the resistance at the battles of
Drumclog and Bothwell Brig. With the Union, hotly resented as it was at
the time, the dawn of almost unbroken prosperity arose. By the treaty of
Union Scottish ports were placed, in respect of trade, on the same
footing as English ports, and the situation of Glasgow enabled it to
acquire a full share of the ever-increasing Atlantic trade. Its commerce
was already considerable and in population it was now the second town in
Scotland. It enjoyed a practical monopoly of the sale of raw and refined
sugars, had the right to distil spirits from molasses free of duty,
dealt largely in cured herring and salmon, sent hides to English tanners
and manufactured soap and linen. It challenged the supremacy of Bristol
in the tobacco trade--fetching cargoes from Virginia, Maryland and
Carolina in its own fleet--so that by 1772 its importations of tobacco
amounted to more than half of the whole quantity brought into the United
Kingdom. The tobacco merchants built handsome mansions and the town
rapidly extended westwards. With the surplus profits new industries were
created, which helped the city through the period of the American War.
Most, though not all, of the manufactures in which Glasgow has always
held a foremost place date from this period. It was in 1764 that James
Watt succeeded in repairing a hitherto unworkable model of Newcomen's
fire (steam) engine in his small workshop within the college precincts.
Shipbuilding on a colossal scale and the enormous developments in the
iron industries and engineering were practically the growth of the 19th
century. The failure of the Western bank in 1857, the Civil War in the
United States, the collapse of the City of Glasgow bank in 1878, among
other disasters, involved heavy losses and distress, but recovery was
always rapid.
AUTHORITIES.--J. Cleland, _Annals of Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1816); Duncan,
_Literary History of Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1886); _Registrum Episcopatus
Glasgow_ (Maitland Club, 1843); Pagan, _Sketch of the History of
Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1847); Sir J. D. Marwick, _Extracts from the Burgh
Records of Glasgow_ (Burgh Records Society); _Charters relating to
Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1891); _River Clyde and Harbour of Glasgow_
(Glasgow, 1898); _Glasgow Past and Present_ (Glasgow, 1884);
_Munimenta Universitatis Glasgow_ (Maitland Club, 1854); J. Strang,
_Glasgow and its Clubs_ (Glasgow, 1864); Reid ("Senex"), _Old
Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1864); A. Macgeorge, _Old Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1888);
Deas, _The River Clyde_ (Glasgow, 1881); Gale, _Loch Katrine
Waterworks_ (Glasgow, 1883); Mason, _Public and Private Libraries of
Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1885); J. Nicol, _Vital, Social and Economic
Statistics of Glasgow_ (1881); J. B. Russell, _Life in One Room_
(Glasgow, 1888); _Ticketed Houses_ (Glasgow, 1889); T. Somerville,
_George Square_ (Glasgow, 1891); J. A. Kilpatrick, _Literary Landmarks
of Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1898); J. K. M'Dowall, _People's History of
Glasgow_ (Glasgow, 1899); Sir J. Bell and J. Paton, _Glasgow: Its
Municipal Organization and Administration_ (Glasgow, 1896); Sir D.
Richmond, _Notes on Municipal Work_ (Glasgow, 1899); J. M. Lang,
_Glasgow and the Barony_ (Glasgow, 1895); _Old Glasgow_ (Glasgow,
1896); J. H. Muir, _Glasgow in 1901_.
GLASITES, or SANDEMANIANS,[1] a Christian sect, founded in Scotland by
John Glas (q.v.). It spread into England and America, but is now
practically extinct. Glas dissented from the Westminster Confession only
in his views as to the spiritual nature of the church and the functions
of the civil magistrate. But his son-in-law Robert Sandeman added a
distinctive doctrine as to the nature of faith which is thus stated on
his tombstone: "That the bare death of Jesus Christ without a thought or
deed on the part of man, is sufficient to present the chief of sinners
spotless before God." In a series of letters to James Hervey, the author
of _Theron and Aspasia_, he maintained that justifying faith is a simple
assent to the divine testimony concerning Jesus Christ, differing in no
way in its character from belief in any ordinary testimony. In their
practice the Glasite churches aimed at a strict conformity with the
primitive type of Christianity as understood by them. Each congregation
had a plurality of elders, pastors or bishops, who were chosen according
to what were believed to be the instructions of Paul, without regard to
previous education or present occupation, and who enjoy a perfect
equality in office. To have been married a second time disqualified for
ordination, or for continued tenure of the office of bishop. In all the
action of the church unanimity was considered to be necessary; if any
member differed in opinion from the rest, he must either surrender his
judgment to that of the church, or be shut out from its communion. To
join in prayer with any one not a member of the denomination was
regarded as unlawful, and even to eat or drink with one who had been
excommunicated was held to be wrong. The Lord's Supper was observed
weekly; and between forenoon and afternoon service every Sunday a love
feast was held at which every member was required to be present. Mutual
exhortation was practised at all the meetings for divine service, when
any member who had the gift of speech ([Greek: charisma]) was allowed to
speak. The practice of washing one another's feet was at one time
observed; and it was for a long time customary for each brother and
sister to receive new members, on admission, with a holy kiss. "Things
strangled" and "blood" were rigorously abstained from; the lot was
regarded as sacred; the accumulation of wealth they held to be
unscriptural and improper, and each member considered his property as
liable to be called upon at any time to meet the wants of the poor and
the necessities of the church. Churches of this order were founded in
Paisley, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leith, Arbroath, Montrose, Aberdeen,
Dunkeld, Cupar, Galashiels, Liverpool and London, where Michael Faraday
was long an elder. Their exclusiveness in practice, neglect of education
for the ministry, and the antinomian tendency of their doctrine
contributed to their dissolution. Many Glasites joined the general body
of Scottish Congregationalists, and the sect may now be considered
extinct. The last of the Sandemanian churches in America ceased to exist
in 1890.
See James Ross, _History of Congregational Independency in Scotland_
(Glasgow, 1900). (D. Mn.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The name Glasites or Glassites was generally used in Scotland; in
England and America the name Sandemanians was more common.
GLASS (O. E. _glæs_, cf. Ger. _Glas_, perhaps derived from an old
Teutonic root _gla-_, a variant of _glo-_, having the general sense of
shining, cf. "glare," "glow"), a hard substance, usually transparent or
translucent, which from a fluid condition at a high temperature has
passed to a solid condition with sufficient rapidity to prevent the
formation of visible crystals. There are many varieties of glass
differing widely in chemical composition and in physical qualities. Most
varieties, however, have certain qualities in common. They pass through
a viscous stage in cooling from a state of fluidity; they develop
effects of colour when the glass mixtures are fused with certain
metallic oxides; they are, when cold, bad conductors both of electricity
and heat, they are easily fractured by a blow or shock and show a
conchoidal fracture; they are but slightly affected by ordinary
solvents, but are readily attacked by hydrofluoric acid.
The structure of glass has been the subject of repeated investigations.
The theory most widely accepted at present is that glass is a quickly
solidified solution, in which silica, silicates, borates, phosphates and
aluminates may be either solvents or solutes, and metallic oxides and
metals may be held either in solution or in suspension. Long experience
has fixed the mixtures, so far as ordinary furnace temperatures are
concerned, which produce the varieties of glass in common use. The
essential materials of which these mixtures are made are, for English
flint glass, sand, carbonate of potash and red lead; for plate and sheet
glass, sand, carbonate or sulphate of soda and carbonate of lime; and
for Bohemian glass, sand, carbonate of potash and carbonate of lime. It
is convenient to treat these glasses as "normal" glasses, but they are
in reality mixtures of silicates, and cannot rightly be regarded as
definite chemical compounds or represented by definite chemical
formulae.
The knowledge of the chemistry of glass-making has been considerably
widened by Dr F. O. Schott's experiments at the Jena glass-works. The
commercial success of these works has demonstrated the value of pure
science to manufactures.
The recent large increase in the number of varieties of glass has been
chiefly due to developments in the manufacture of optical glass. Glasses
possessing special qualities have been required, and have been supplied
by the introduction of new combinations of materials. The range of the
specific gravity of glasses from 2.5 to 5.0 illustrates the effect of
modified compositions. In the same way glass can be rendered more or
less fusible, and its stability can be increased both in relation to
extremes of temperature and to the chemical action of solvents.
The fluidity of glass at a high temperature renders possible the
processes of ladelling, pouring, casting and stirring. A mass of glass
in a viscous state can be rolled with an iron roller like dough; can be
rendered hollow by the pressure of the human breath or by compressed
air; can be forced by air pressure, or by a mechanically driven plunger,
to take the shape and impression of a mould; and can be almost
indefinitely extended as solid rod or as hollow tube. So extensible is
viscous glass that it can be drawn out into a filament sufficiently fine
and elastic to be woven into a fabric.
Glasses are generally transparent but may be translucent or opaque.
Semi-opacity due to crystallization may be induced in many glasses by
maintaining them for a long period at a temperature just insufficient to
cause fusion. In this way is produced the crystalline, devitrified
material, known as Réaumur's porcelain. Semi-opacity and opacity are
usually produced by the addition to the glass-mixtures of materials
which will remain in suspension in the glass, such as oxide of tin,
oxide of arsenic, phosphate of lime, cryolite or a mixture of felspar
and fluorspar.
Little is known about the actual cause of colour in glass beyond the
fact that certain materials added to and melted with certain
glass-mixtures will in favourable circumstances produce effects of
colour. The colouring agents are generally metallic oxides. The same
oxide may produce different colours with different glass-mixtures, and
different oxides of the same metal may produce different colours. The
purple-blue of cobalt, the chrome green or yellow of chromium, the
dichroic canary-colour of uranium and the violet of manganese, are
constant. Ferrous oxide produces an olive green or a pale blue according
to the glass with which it is mixed. Ferric oxide gives a yellow colour,
but requires the presence of an oxidizing agent to prevent reduction to
the ferrous state. Lead gives a pale yellow colour. Silver oxide, mixed
as a paint and spread on the surface of a piece of glass and heated,
gives a permanent yellow stain. Finely divided vegetable charcoal added
to a soda-lime glass gives a yellow colour. It has been suggested that
the colour is due to sulphur, but the effect can be produced with a
glass mixture containing no sulphur, free or combined, and by increasing
the proportion of charcoal the intensity of the colour can be increased
until it reaches black opacity. Selenites and selenates give a pale pink
or pinkish yellow. Tellurium appears to give a pale pink tint. Nickel
with a potash-lead glass gives a violet colour, and a brown colour with
a soda-lime glass. Copper gives a peacock-blue which becomes green if
the proportion of the copper oxide is increased. If oxide of copper is
added to a glass mixture containing a strong reducing agent, a glass is
produced which when first taken from the crucible is colourless but on
being reheated develops a deep crimson-ruby colour. A similar glass, if
its cooling is greatly retarded, produces throughout its substance
minute crystals of metallic copper, and closely resembles the mineral
called avanturine. There is also an intermediate stage in which the
glass has a rusty red colour by reflected light, and a purple-blue
colour by transmitted light. Glass containing gold behaves in almost
precisely the same way, but the ruby glass is less crimson than copper
ruby glass. J. E. C. Maxwell Garnett, who has studied the optical
properties of these glasses, has suggested that the changes in colour
correspond with changes effected in the structure of the metals as they
pass gradually from solution in the glass to a state of crystallization.
Owing to impurities contained in the materials from which glasses are
made, accidental coloration or discoloration is often produced. For this
reason chemical agents are added to glass mixtures to remove or
neutralize accidental colour. Ferrous oxide is the usual cause of
discoloration. By converting ferrous into ferric oxide the green tint is
changed to yellow, which is less noticeable. Oxidation may be effected
by the addition to the glass mixture of a substance which gives up
oxygen at a high temperature, such as manganese dioxide or arsenic
trioxide. With the same object, red lead and saltpetre are used in the
mixture for potash-lead glass. Manganese dioxide not only acts as a
source of oxygen, but develops a pink tint in the glass, which is
complementary to and neutralizes the green colour due to ferrous oxide.
Glass is a bad conductor of heat. When boiling water is poured into a
glass vessel, the vessel frequently breaks, on account of the unequal
expansion of the inner and outer layers. If in the process of glass
manufacture a glass vessel is suddenly cooled, the constituent particles
are unable to arrange themselves and the vessel remains in a state of
extreme tension. The surface of the vessel may be hard, but the vessel
is liable to fracture on receiving a trifling shock. M. de la Bastie's
process of "toughening" glass consisted in dipping glass, raised to a
temperature slightly below the melting-point, into molten tallow. The
surface of the glass was hardened, but the inner layers remained in
unstable equilibrium. Directly the crust was pierced the whole mass was
shattered into minute fragments. In all branches of glass manufacture
the process of "annealing," i.e. cooling the manufactured objects
sufficiently slowly to allow the constituent particles to settle into a
condition of equilibrium, is of vital importance. The desired result is
obtained either by moving the manufactured goods gradually away from a
constant source of heat, or by placing them in a heated kiln and
allowing the heat gradually to die out.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Siemens's Continuous Tank Furnace.]
The furnaces (fig. 15) employed for melting glass are usually heated
with gas on the "Siemens," or some similar system of regenerative
heating. In the United States natural gas is used wherever it is
available. In some English works coal is still employed for direct
heating with various forms of mechanical stokers. Crude petroleum and a
thin tar, resulting from the process of enriching water-gas with
petroleum, have been used both with compressed air and with steam with
considerable success. Electrical furnaces have not as yet been employed
for ordinary glass-making on a commercial scale, but the electrical
plants which have been erected for melting and moulding quartz suggest
the possibility of electric heating being employed for the manufacture
of glass. Many forms of apparatus have been tried for ascertaining the
temperature of glass furnaces. It is usually essential that some parts
of the apparatus shall be made to acquire a temperature identical with
the temperature to be measured. Owing to the physical changes produced
in the material exposed prolonged observations of temperature are
impossible. In the Féry radiation pyrometer this difficulty is obviated,
as the instrument may be placed at a considerable distance from the
furnace. The radiation passing out from an opening in the furnace falls
upon a concave mirror in a telescope and is focused upon a
thermoelectric couple. The hotter the furnace the greater is the rise of
temperature of the couple. The electromotive force thus generated is
measured by a galvanometer, the scale of which is divided and figured so
that the temperature may be directly read. (See THERMOMETRY.)
In dealing with the manufacture of glass it is convenient to group the
various branches in the following manner:
_Manufactured Glass._
I. Optical Glass
|
II. Blown Glass
|
+----------------+-------+--------+-------------+
| | | |
A. Table glass. B. Tube. C. Sheet D. Bottles.
Special glasses and crown
for thermometers, glass.
and other special
glasses.
III. Mechanically Pressed Glass
|
+----------------+-----------------+
| |
A. Plate and rolled plate glass. B. Pressed table glass.
I. OPTICAL GLASS.--As regards both mode of production and essential
properties optical glass differs widely from all other varieties. These
differences arise primarily from the fact that glass for optical uses is
required in comparatively large and thick pieces, while for most other
purposes glass is used in the form of comparatively thin sheets; when,
therefore, as a consequence of Dollond's invention of achromatic
telescope objectives in 1757, a demand first arose for optical glass,
the industry was unable to furnish suitable material. Flint glass
particularly, which appeared quite satisfactory when viewed in small
pieces, was found to be so far from homogeneous as to be useless for
lens construction. The first step towards overcoming this vital defect
in optical glass was taken by P. L. Guinand, towards the end of the 18th
century, by introducing the process of stirring the molten glass by
means of a cylinder of fireclay. Guinand was induced to migrate from his
home in Switzerland to Bavaria, where he worked at the production of
homogeneous flint glass, first with Joseph von Utzschneider and then
with J. Fraunhofer; the latter ultimately attained considerable success
and produced telescope disks up to 28 centimetres (11 in.) diameter.
Fraunhofer further initiated the specification of refraction and
dispersion in terms of certain lines of the spectrum, and even attempted
an investigation of the effect of chemical composition on the relative
dispersion produced by glasses in different parts of the spectrum.
Guinand's process was further developed in France by Guinand's sons and
subsequently by Bontemps and E. Feil. In 1848 Bontemps was obliged to
leave France for political reasons and came to England, where he
initiated the optical glass manufacture at Chance's glass works near
Birmingham, and this firm ultimately attained a considerable reputation
in the production of optical glass, especially of large disks for
telescope objectives. Efforts at improving optical glass had, however,
not been confined to the descendants and successors of Guinand and
Fraunhofer. In 1824 the Royal Astronomical Society of London appointed a
committee on the subject, the experimental work being carried out by
Faraday. Faraday independently recognized the necessity for mechanical
agitation of the molten glass in order to ensure homogeneity, and to
facilitate his manipulations he worked with dense lead borate glasses
which are very fusible, but have proved too unstable for ordinary
optical purposes. Later Máes of Clichy (France) exhibited some "zinc
crown" glass in small plates of optical quality at the London Exhibition
of 1851; and another French glass-maker, Lamy, produced a dense thallium
glass in 1867. In 1834 W. V. Harcourt began experiments in glass-making,
in which he was subsequently joined by G. G. Stokes. Their object was to
pursue the inquiry begun by Fraunhofer as to the effect of chemical
composition on the distribution of dispersion. The specific effect of
boric acid in this respect was correctly ascertained by Stokes and
Harcourt, but they mistook the effect of titanic acid. J. Hopkinson,
working at Chance's glass works, subsequently made an attempt to produce
a titanium silicate glass, but nothing further resulted.
The next and most important forward step in the progress of optical
glass manufacture was initiated by Ernst Abbe and carried out jointly by
him and O. Schott at Jena in Germany. Aided by grants from the Prussian
government, these workers systematically investigated the effect of
introducing a large number of different chemical substances (oxides)
into vitreous fluxes. As a result a whole series of glasses of novel
composition and optical properties were produced. A certain number of
the most promising of these, from the purely optical point of view, had
unfortunately to be abandoned for practical use owing to their chemical
instability, and the problem of Fraunhofer, viz. the production of pairs
of glasses of widely differing refraction and dispersion, but having a
similar distribution of dispersion in the various regions of the
spectrum, was not in the first instance solved. On the other hand, while
in the older crown and flint glasses the relation between refraction and
dispersion had been practically fixed, dispersion and refraction
increasing regularly with the density of the glass, in some of the new
glasses introduced by Abbe and Schott this relation is altered and a
relatively low refractive index is accompanied by a relatively high
dispersion, while in others a high refractive index is associated with
low dispersive power.
The initiative of Abbe and Schott, which was greatly aided by the
resources for scientific investigation available at the Physikalische
Reichsanstalt (Imperial Physical Laboratory), led to such important
developments that similar work was undertaken in France by the firm of
Mantois, the successors of Feil, and somewhat later by Chance in
England. The manufacture of the new varieties of glass, originally known
as "Jena" glasses, is now carried out extensively and with a
considerable degree of commercial success in France, and also to a less
extent in England, but none of the other makers of optical glass has as
yet contributed to the progress of the industry to anything like the
same extent as the Jena firm.
The older optical glasses, now generally known as the "ordinary" crown
and flint glasses, are all of the nature of pure silicates, the basic
constituents being, in the case of crown glasses, lime and soda or lime
and potash, or a mixture of both, and in the case of flint glasses, lead
and either (or both) soda and potash. With the exception of the heavier
flint (lead) glasses, these can be produced so as to be free both from
noticeable colour and from such defects as bubbles, opaque inclusions or
"striae," but extreme care in the choice of all the raw materials and in
all the manipulations is required to ensure this result. Further, these
glasses, when made from properly proportioned materials, possess a very
considerable degree of chemical stability, which is amply sufficient for
most optical purposes. The newer glasses, on the other hand, contain a
much wider variety of chemical constituents, the most important being
the oxides of barium, magnesium, aluminium and zinc, used either with or
without the addition of the bases already named in reference to the
older glasses, and--among acid bodies--boric anhydride (B2O3) which
replaces the silica of the older glasses to a varying extent. It must be
admitted that, by the aid of certain of these new constituents, glasses
can be produced which, as regards purity of colour, freedom from defects
and chemical stability are equal or even superior to the best of the
"ordinary" glasses, but it is a remarkable fact that when this is the
case the optical properties of the new glass do not fall very widely
outside the limits set by the older glasses. On the other hand, the more
extreme the optical properties of these new glasses, i.e. the further
they depart from the ratio of refractive index to dispersive power found
in the older glasses, the greater the difficulty found in obtaining them
of either sufficient purity or stability to be of practical use. It is,
in fact, admitted that some of the glasses, most useful optically, the
dense barium crown glasses, which are so widely used in modern
photographic lenses, cannot be produced entirely free either from
noticeable colour or from numerous small bubbles, while the chemical
nature of these glasses is so sensitive that considerable care is
required to protect the surfaces of lenses made from them if serious
tarnishing is to be avoided. In practice, however, it is not found that
the presence either of a decidedly greenish-yellow colour or of numerous
small bubbles interferes at all seriously with the successful use of the
lenses for the majority of purposes, so that it is preferable to
sacrifice the perfection of the glass in order to secure valuable
optical properties.
It is a further striking fact, not unconnected with those just
enumerated, that the extreme range of optical properties covered even by
the relatively large number of optical glasses now available is in
reality very small. The refractive indices of all glasses at present
available lie between 1.46 and 1.90, whereas transparent minerals are
known having refractive indices lying considerably outside these limits;
at least one of these, fluorite (calcium fluoride), is actually used by
opticians in the construction of certain lenses, so that probably
progress is to be looked for in a considerable widening of the limits of
available optical materials; possibly such progress may lie in the
direction of the artificial production of large mineral crystals.
The qualities required in optical glasses have already been partly
referred to, but may now be summarized:--
1. _Transparency and Freedom from Colour._--These qualities can be
readily judged by inspection of the glass in pieces of considerable
thickness, and they may be quantitatively measured by means of the
spectro-photometer.
2. _Homogeneity._--The optical desideratum is uniformity of refractive
index and dispersive power throughout the mass of the glass. This is
probably never completely attained, variations in the sixth
significant figure of the refractive index being observed in
different parts of single large blocks of the most perfect glass.
While such minute and gradual variations are harmless for most optical
purposes, sudden variations which generally take the form of striae or
veins are fatal defects in all optical glass. In their coarsest forms
such striae are readily visible to the unaided eye, but finer ones
escape detection unless special means are taken for rendering them
visible; such special means conveniently take the form of an apparatus
for examining the glass in a beam of parallel light, when the striae
scatter the light and appear as either dark or bright lines according
to the position of the eye. Plate glass of the usual quality, which
appears to be perfectly homogeneous when looked at in the ordinary
way, is seen to be a mass of fine striae, when a considerable
thickness is examined in parallel light. Plate glass is, nevertheless,
considerably used for the cheaper forms of lenses, where the
scattering of the light and loss of definition arising from these fine
striae is not readily recognized.
Bubbles and enclosures of opaque matter, although more readily
observed, do not constitute such serious defects; their presence in a
lens, to a moderate extent, does not interfere with its performance
(see above).
3. _Hardness and Chemical Stability._--These properties contribute to
the durability of lenses, and are specially desirable in the outer
members of lens combinations which are likely to be subjected to
frequent handling or are exposed to the weather. As a general rule, to
which, however, there are important exceptions, both these qualities
are found to a greater degree, the lower the refractive index of the
glass. The chemical stability, i.e. the power of resisting the
disintegrating effects of atmospheric moisture and carbonic acid,
depends largely upon the quantity of alkalis contained in the glass
and their proportion to the lead, lime or barium present, the
stability being generally less the higher the proportion of alkali. A
high silica-content tends towards both hardness and chemical
stability, and this can be further increased by the addition of small
proportions of boric acid; in larger quantities, however, the latter
constituent produces the opposite effect.
4. _Absence of Internal Strain._--Internal strain in glass arises from
the unequal contraction of the outer and inner portions of masses of
glass during cooling. Processes of annealing, or very gradual cooling,
are intended to relieve these strains, but such processes are only
completely effective when the cooling, particularly through those
ranges of temperature where the glass is just losing the last traces
of plasticity, is extremely gradual, a rate measured in hours per
degree Centigrade being required. The existence of internal strains in
glass can be readily recognized by examination in polarized light, any
signs of double refraction indicating the existence of strain. If the
glass is very badly annealed, the lenses made from it may fly to
pieces during or after manufacture, but apart from such extreme cases
the optical effects of internal strain are not readily observed except
in large optical apparatus. Very perfectly annealed optical glass is
now, however, readily obtainable.
5. _Refraction and Dispersion._--The purely optical properties of
refraction and dispersion, although of the greatest importance, cannot
be dealt with in any detail here; for an account of the optical
properties required in glasses for various forms of lenses see the
articles LENS and ABERRATION: II. _In Optical Systems_. As typical of
the range of modern optical glasses Table I. is given, which
constituted the list of optical glasses exhibited by Messrs Chance at
the Optical Convention in London in 1905. In this table n is the
refractive index of the glass for sodium light (the D line of the
solar spectrum), while the letters C, F and G' refer to lines in the
hydrogen spectrum by which dispersion is now generally specified. The
symbol [nu] represents the inverse of the dispersive power, its value
being (n_D - 1)/(C - F). The very much longer lists of German and
French firms contain only a few types not represented in this table.
Table I.--_Optical Properties._
+--------+---------------+--------+------+--------+-----------------------------------------+
| | | | | | Partial and Relative |
| | | | | Medium | Partial Dispersions. |
| Factory| | | | Disper-+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+
| Number.| Name. | n_D. | [nu].| sion. | | C-D | | D-F | | F-G'|
| | | | | C-F. | C-D. | --- | D-F. | --- | F-G'. | --- |
| | | | | | | C-F | | C-F | | C-F.|
+--------+---------------+--------+------+--------+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+
| C. 644 | Extra Hard | | | | | | | | | |
| | Crown | 1.4959 | 64.4 | .00770 |.00228 |.296 |.00542 |.704 |.00431 |.560 |
| B. 646 | Boro-silicate | | | | | | | | | |
| | Crown | 1.5096 | 63.3 | .00803 |.00236 |.294 |.00562 |.700 |.00446 |.555 |
| A. 605 | Hard Crown | 1.5175 | 60.5 | .00856 |.00252 |.294 |.00604 |.706 |.00484 |.554 |
| C. 577 | Medium Barium | | | | | | | | | |
| | Crown | 1.5738 | 57.9 | .00990 |.00293 |.296 |.00697 |.704 |.00552 |.557 |
| C. 579 | Densest Barium| | | | | | | | | |
| | Crown | 1.6065 | 57.9 | .01046 |.00308 |.294 |.00738 |.705 |.00589 |.563 |
| A. 569 | Soft Crown. | 1.5152 | 56.9 | .00906 |.00264 |.291 |.00642 |.708 |.00517 |.570 |
| B. 563 | Medium Barium | | | | | | | | | |
| | Crown | 1.5660 | 56.3 | .01006 |.00297 |.295 |.00709 |.704 |.00576 |.572 |
| B. 535 | Barium Light | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.5452 | 53.5 | .01020 |.00298 |.292 |.00722 |.701 |.00582 |.570 |
| A. 490 | Extra Light | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.5316 | 49.0 | .01085 |.00313 |.288 |.00772 |.711 |.00630 |.580 |
| A. 485 | Extra Light | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.5333 | 48.5 | .01099 |.00322 |.293 |.00777 |.707 |.00643 |.582 |
| C. 474 | Boro-silicate | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.5623 | 47.4 | .01187 |.00343 |.289 |.00844 |.711 |.00693 |.584 |
| B. 466 | Barium Light | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.5833 | 46.6 | .01251 |.00362 |.288 |.00889 |.711 |.00721 |.576 |
| B. 458 | Soda Flint | 1.5482 | 45.8 | .01195 |.00343 |.287 |.00852 |.713 |.00690 |.577 |
| A. 458 | Light Flint | 1.5472 | 45.8 | .01196 |.00348 |.291 |.00848 |.709 |.00707 |.591 |
| A. 432 | Light Flint | 1.5610 | 43.2 | .01299 |.00372 |.287 |.00927 |.713 |.00770 |.593 |
| A. 410 | Light Flint | 1.5760 | 41.0 | .01404 |.00402 |.286 |.01002 |.713 |.00840 |.598 |
| B. 407 | Light Flint | 1.5787 | 40.7 | .01420 |.00404 |.284 |.01016 |.715 |.00840 |.591 |
| A. 370 | Dense Flint. | 1.6118 | 36.9 | .01657 |.00470 |.284 |.01187 |.716 |.01004 |.606 |
| A. 361 | Dense Flint. | 1.6214 | 36.1 | .01722 |.00491 |.285 |.01231 |.715 |.01046 |.608 |
| A. 360 | Dense Flint. | 1.6225 | 36.0 | .01729 |.00493 |.286 |.01236 |.715 |.01054 |.609 |
| A. 337 | Extra Dense | | | | | | | | | |
| | Flint | 1.6469 | 33.7 | .01917 |.00541 |.285 |.01376 |.720 |.01170 |.655 |
| A. 299 | Densest Flint | 1.7129 | 29.9 | .02384 |.00670 |.281 |.01714 |.789 |.01661 |.678 |
+--------+---------------+--------+------+--------+-------+-----+-------+-----+-------+-----+
_Manufacture of Optical Glass._--In its earlier stages, the process for
the production of optical glass closely resembles that used in the
production of any other glass of the highest quality. The raw materials
are selected with great care to assure chemical purity, but whereas in
most glasses the only impurities to be dreaded are those that are either
infusible or produce a colouring effect upon the glass, for optical
purposes the admixture of other glass-forming bodies than those which
are intended to be present must be avoided on account of their effect in
modifying the optical constants of the glass. Constancy of composition
of the raw materials and their careful and thorough admixture in
constant proportions are therefore essential to the production of the
required glasses. The materials are generally used in the form either of
oxides (lead, zinc, silica, &c.) or of salts readily decomposed by heat,
such as the nitrates or carbonates. Fragments of glass of the same
composition as that aimed at are generally incorporated to a limited
extent with the mixed raw materials to facilitate their fusion. The
crucibles or pots used for the production of optical glass very closely
resemble those used in the manufacture of flint glass for other
purposes; they are "covered" and the molten materials are thus protected
from the action of the furnace gases by the interposition of a wall of
fireclay, but as crucibles for optical glass are used for only one
fusion and are then broken up, they are not made so thick and heavy as
those used in flint-glass making, since the latter remain in the furnace
for many weeks. On the other hand, the chemical and physical nature of
the fireclays used in the manufacture of such crucibles requires careful
attention in order to secure the best results. The furnace used for the
production of optical glass is generally constructed to take one
crucible only, so that the heat of the furnace may be accurately
adjusted to the requirements of the particular glass under treatment.
These small furnaces are frequently arranged for direct coal firing, but
regenerative gas-fired furnaces are also employed. The empty crucible,
having first been gradually dried and heated to a bright red heat in a
subsidiary furnace, is taken up by means of massive iron tongs and
introduced into the previously heated furnace, the temperature of which
is then gradually raised. When a suitable temperature for the fusion of
the particular glass in question has been attained, the mixture of raw
materials is introduced in comparatively small quantities at a time. In
this way the crucible is gradually filled with a mass of molten glass,
which is, however, full of bubbles of all sizes. These bubbles arise
partly from the air enclosed between the particles of raw materials and
partly from the gaseous decomposition products of the materials
themselves. In the next stage of the process, the glass is raised to a
high temperature in order to render it sufficiently fluid to allow of
the complete elimination of these bubbles; the actual temperature
required varies with the chemical composition of the glass, a bright red
heat sufficing for the most fusible glasses, while with others the
utmost capacity of the best furnaces is required to attain the necessary
temperature. With these latter glasses there is, of course, considerable
risk that the partial fusion and consequent contraction of the fireclay
of the crucible may result in its destruction and the entire loss of the
glass. The stages of the process so far described generally occupy from
36 to 60 hours, and during this time the constant care and watchfulness
of those attending the furnace is required. This is still more the case
in the next stage. The examination of small test-pieces of the glass
withdrawn from the crucible by means of an iron rod having shown that
the molten mass is free from bubbles, the stirring process may be begun,
the object of this manipulation being to render the glass as homogeneous
as possible and to secure the absence of veins or striae in the product.
For this purpose a cylinder of fireclay, provided with a square axial
hole at the upper end, is heated in a small subsidiary furnace and is
then introduced into the molten glass. Into the square axial hole fits
the square end of a hooked iron bar which projects several yards beyond
the mouth of the furnace; by means of this bar a workman moves the
fireclay cylinder about in the glass with a steady circular sweep.
Although the weight of the iron bar is carried by a support, such as an
overhead chain or a swivel roller, this operation is very laborious and
trying, more especially during the earlier stages when the heat radiated
from the open mouth of the crucible is intense. The men who manipulate
the stirring bars are therefore changed at short intervals, while the
bars themselves have also to be changed at somewhat longer intervals, as
they rapidly become oxidized, and accumulated scale would tend to fail
off them, thus contaminating the glass below. The stirring process is
begun when the glass is perfectly fluid at a temperature little short of
the highest attained in its fusion, but as the stirring proceeds the
glass is allowed to cool gradually and thus becomes more and more
viscous until finally the stirring cylinder can scarcely be moved. When
the glass has acquired this degree of consistency it is supposed that no
fresh movements can occur within its mass, so that if homogeneity has
been attained the glass will preserve it permanently. The stirring is
therefore discontinued and the clay cylinder is either left embedded in
the glass, or by the exercise of considerable force it may be gradually
withdrawn. The crucible with the semi-solid glass which it contains is
now allowed to cool considerably in the melting furnace, or it may be
removed to another slightly heated furnace. When the glass has cooled so
far as to become hard and solid, the furnace is hermetically sealed up
and allowed to cool very gradually to the ordinary temperature. If the
cooling is very gradual--occupying several weeks--it sometimes happens
that the entire contents of a large crucible, weighing perhaps 1000 lb.,
are found intact as a single mass of glass, but more frequently the mass
is found broken up into a number of fragments of various sizes. From the
large masses great lenses and mirrors may be produced, while the smaller
pieces are used for the production of the disks and slabs of moderate
size, in which the optical glass of commerce is usually supplied. In
order to allow of the removal of the glass, the cold crucible is broken
up and the glass carefully separated from the fragments of fireclay. The
pieces of glass are then examined for the detection of the grosser
defects, and obviously defective pieces are rejected. As the fractured
surfaces of the glass in this condition are unsuitable for delicate
examination a good deal of glass that passes this inspection has yet
ultimately to be rejected. The next stage in the preparation of the
glass is the process of moulding and annealing. Lumps of glass of
approximately the right weight are chosen, and are heated to a
temperature just sufficient to soften the glass, when the lumps are
caused to assume the shape of moulds made of iron or fireclay either by
the natural flow of the softened glass under gravity, or by pressure
from suitable tools or presses. The glass, now in its approximate form,
is placed in a heated chamber where it is allowed to cool very
gradually--the minimum time of cooling from a dull red heat being six
days, while for "fine annealing" a much longer period is required (see
above). At the end of the annealing process the glass issues in the
shape of disks or slabs slightly larger than required by the optician in
each case. The glass is, however, by no means ready for delivery, since
it has yet to be examined with scrupulous care, and all defective pieces
must be rejected entirely or at least the defective part must be cut out
and the slab remoulded or ground down to a smaller size. For the purpose
of rendering this minute examination possible, opposite plane surfaces
of the glass are ground approximately flat and polished, the faces to be
polished being so chosen as to allow of a view through the greatest
possible thickness of glass; thus in slabs the narrow edges are
polished.
It will be readily understood from the above account of the process of
production that optical glass, relatively to other kinds of glass, is
very expensive, the actual price varying from 3s. to 30s. per lb. in
small slabs or disks. The price, however, rapidly increases with the
total bulk of perfect glass required in one piece, so that large disks
of glass suitable for telescope objectives of wide aperture, or blocks
for large prisms, become exceedingly costly. The reason for this high
cost is to be found partly in the fact that the yield of optically
perfect glass even in large and successful meltings rarely exceeds 20%
of the total weight of glass melted. Further, all the subsequent
processes of cutting, moulding and annealing become increasingly
difficult, owing to the greatly increased risk of breakage arising from
either external injury or internal strain, as the dimensions of the
individual piece of glass increase. Nevertheless, disks of optical
glass, both crown and flint, have been produced up to 39 in. in
diameter.
II. BLOWN GLASS. (A) _Table-ware and Vases._--The varieties of glass
used for the manufacture of table-ware and vases are the potash-lead
glass, the soda-lime glass and the potash-lime glass. These glasses may
be colourless or coloured. Venetian glass is a soda-lime glass; Bohemian
glass is a potash-lime glass. The potash-lead glass, which was first
used on a commercial scale in England for the manufacture of table-ware,
and which is known as "flint" glass or "crystal," is also largely used
in France, Germany and the United States. Table II. shows the typical
composition of these glasses.
TABLE II.
+------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+--------+
| | | | | | | | Fe2O3 |
| | SiO2. | K2O. | PbO. | Na2O. | CaO. | MgO. | and |
| | | | | | | | Al2O3. |
+------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+--------+
| Potash-lead (flint) glass | 53.17 | 13.88 | 32.95 | .. | .. | .. | .. |
| Soda-lime (Venetian) glass | 73.40 | .. | .. | 18.58 | 5.06 | .. | 2.48 |
| Potash-lime (Bohemian) glass | 71.70 | 12.70 | .. | 2.50 | 10.30 | .. | 0.90 |
+------------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+------+--------+
For melting the leadless glasses, open, bowl-shaped crucibles are used,
ranging from 12 to 40 in. in diameter. Glass mixtures containing lead
are melted in covered, beehive-shaped crucibles holding from 12 to 18
cwt. of glass. They have a hooded opening on one side near the top. This
opening serves for the introduction of the glass-mixture, for the
removal of the melted glass and as a source of heat for the processes of
manipulation.
The Venetian furnaces in the island of Murano are small low structures
heated with wood. The heat passes from the melting furnace into the
annealing kiln. In Germany, Austria and the United States, gas furnaces
are generally used. In England directly-heated coal furnaces are still
in common use, which in many cases are stoked by mechanical feeders.
There are two systems of annealing. The manufactured goods are either
removed gradually from a constant source of heat by means of a train of
small iron trucks drawn along a tramway by an endless chain, or are
placed in a heated kiln in which the fire is allowed gradually to die
out. The second system is especially used for annealing large and heavy
objects. The manufacture of table-ware is carried on by small gangs of
men and boys. In England each "gang" or "chair" consists of three men
and one boy. In works, however, in which most of the goods are moulded,
and where less skilled labour is required, the proportion of boy labour
is increased. There are generally two shifts of workmen, each shift
working six hours, and the work is carried on continuously from Monday
morning until Friday morning. Directly work is suspended the glass
remaining in the crucibles is ladled into water, drained and dried. It
is then mixed with the glass mixture and broken glass ("cullet"), and
replaced in the crucibles. The furnaces are driven to a white heat in
order to fuse the mixture and expel bubbles of gas and air. Before work
begins the temperature is lowered sufficiently to render the glass
viscous. In the viscous state a mass of glass can be coiled upon the
heated end of an iron rod, and if the rod is hollow can be blown into a
hollow bulb. The tools used are extremely primitive--hollow iron
blowing-rods, solid rods for holding vessels during manipulation, spring
tools, resembling sugar-tongs in shape, with steel or wooden blades for
fashioning the viscous glass, callipers, measure-sticks, and a variety
of moulds of wood, carbon, cast iron, gun-metal and plaster of Paris
(figs. 16 and 17). The most important tool, however, is the bench or
"chair" on which the workman sits, which serves as his lathe. He sits
between two rigid parallel arms, projecting forwards and backwards and
sloping slightly from back to front. Across the arms he balances the
iron rod to which the glass bulb adheres, and rolling it backwards and
forwards with the fingers of his left hand fashions the glass between
the blades of his sugar-tongs tool, grasped in his right hand. The
hollow bulb is worked into the shape it is intended to assume, partly by
blowing, partly by gravitation, and partly by the workman's tool. If the
blowing iron is held vertically with the bulb uppermost the bulb becomes
flattened and shallow, if the bulb is allowed to hang downwards it
becomes elongated and reduced in diameter, and if the end of the bulb is
pierced and the iron is held horizontally and sharply trundled, as a mop
is trundled, the bulb opens out into a flattened disk.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Pontils and Blowing Iron. a, Puntee; b, spring
puntee; c, blowing iron.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Shaping and Measuring Tools.
d, "Sugar-tongs" tool with wooden ends.
e,e, "Sugar-tongs" tools with cutting edges.
f, Pincers.
g, Scissors.
h, Battledore.
i, Marking compass.]
During the process of manipulation, whether on the chair or whilst the
glass is being reheated, the rod must be constantly and gently trundled
to prevent the collapse of the bulb or vessel. Every natural development
of the spherical form can be obtained by blowing and fashioning by hand.
A non-spherical form can only be produced by blowing the hollow bulb
into a mould of the required shape. Moulds are used both for giving
shape to vessels and also for impressing patterns on their surface.
Although spherical forms can be obtained without the use of moulds,
moulds are now largely used for even the simplest kinds of table-ware in
order to economize time and skilled labour. In France, Germany and the
United States it is rare to find a piece of table-ware which has not
received its shape in a mould. The old and the new systems of making a
wine-glass illustrate almost all the ordinary processes of glass
working. Sufficient glass is first "gathered" on the end of a blowing
iron to form the bowl of the wine-glass. The mere act of coiling an
exact weight of molten glass round the end of a rod 4 ft. in length
requires considerable skill. The mass of glass is rolled on a polished
slab of iron, the "marvor," to solidify it, and it is then slightly
hollowed by blowing. Under the old system the form of the bowl is
gradually developed by blowing and by shaping the bulb with the
sugar-tongs tool. The leg is either pulled out from the substance of the
base of the bowl, or from a small lump of glass added to the base. The
foot starts as a small independent bulb on a separate blowing iron. One
extremity of this bulb is made to adhere to the end of the leg, and the
other extremity is broken away from its blowing iron. The fractured end
is heated, and by the combined action of heat and centrifugal force
opens out into a flat foot. The bowl is now severed from its blowing
iron and the unfinished wine-glass is supported by its foot, which is
attached to the end of a working rod by a metal clip or by a seal of
glass. The fractured edge of the bowl is heated, trimmed with scissors
and melted so as to be perfectly smooth and even, and the bowl itself
receives its final form from the sugar-tongs tool.
Under the new system the bowl is fashioned by blowing the slightly
hollowed mass of glass into a mould. The leg is formed and a small lump
of molten glass is attached to its extremity to form the foot. The
blowing iron is constantly trundled, and the small lump of glass is
squeezed and flattened into the shape of a foot, either between two
slabs of wood hinged together, or by pressure against an upright board.
The bowl is severed from the blowing iron, and the wine-glass is sent to
the annealing oven with a bowl, longer than that of the finished glass,
and with a rough fractured edge. When the glass is cold the surplus is
removed either by grinding, or by applying heat to a line scratched with
a diamond round the bowl. The fractured edge is smoothed by the impact
of a gas flame.
In the manufacture of a wine-glass the ductility of glass is illustrated
on a small scale by the process of pulling out the leg. It is more
strikingly illustrated in the manufacture of glass cane and tube. Cane
is produced from a solid mass of molten glass, tube from a mass hollowed
by blowing. One workman holds the blowing iron with the mass of glass
attached to it, and another fixes an iron rod by means of a seal of
glass to the extremity of the mass. The two workmen face each other and
walk backwards. The diameter of the cane or tube is regulated by the
weight of glass carried, and by the distance covered by the two workmen.
It is a curious property of viscous glass that whatever form is given to
the mass of glass before it is drawn out is retained by the finished
cane or tube, however small its section may be. Owing to this property,
tubes or canes can be produced with a square, oblong, oval or triangular
section. Exceedingly fine canes of milk-white glass play an important
part in the masterpieces produced by the Venetian glass-makers of the
16th century. Vases and drinking cups were produced of extreme
lightness, in the walls of which were embedded patterns rivalling
lace-work in fineness and intricacy. The canes from which the patterns
are formed are either simple or complex. The latter are made by dipping
a small mass of molten colourless glass into an iron cup around the
inner wall of which short lengths of white cane have been arranged at
regular intervals. The canes adhere to the molten glass, and the mass
is first twisted and then drawn out into fine cane, which contains white
threads arranged in endless spirals. The process can be almost
indefinitely repeated and canes formed of extreme complexity. A vase
decorated with these simple or complex canes is produced by embedding
short lengths of the cane on the surface of a mass of molten glass and
blowing and fashioning the mass into the required shape.
Table-ware and vases may be wholly coloured or merely decorated with
colour. Touches of colour may be added to vessels in course of
manufacture by means of seals of molten glass, applied like sealing-wax;
or by causing vessels to wrap themselves round with threads or coils of
coloured glass. By the application of a pointed iron hook, while the
glass is still ductile, the parallel coils can be distorted into bends,
loops or zigzags. The surface of vessels may be spangled with gold or
platinum by rolling the hot glass on metallic leaf, or iridescent, by
the deposition of metallic tin, or by the corrosion caused by the
chemical action of acid fumes. Gilding and enamel decoration are applied
to vessels when cold, and fixed by heat.
_Cutting_ and _engraving_ are mechanical processes for producing
decorative effects by abrading the surface of the glass when cold. The
abrasion is effected by pressing the glass against the edge of wheels,
or disks, of hard material revolving on horizontal spindles. The
spindles of cutting wheels are driven by steam or electric power. The
wheels for making deep cuts are made of iron, and are fed with sand and
water. The wheels range in diameter from 18 in. to 3 in. Wheels of
carborundum are also used. Wheels of fine sandstone fed with water are
used for making slighter cuts and for smoothing the rough surface left
by the iron wheels. Polishing is effected by wooden wheels fed with wet
pumice-powder and rottenstone and by brushes fed with moistened
putty-powder. Patterns are produced by combining straight and curved
cuts. Cutting brings out the brilliancy of glass, which is one of its
intrinsic qualities. At the end of the 18th century English cut glass
was unrivalled for design and beauty. Gradually, however, the process
was applied without restraint and the products lost all artistic
quality. At the present time cut glass is steadily regaining favour.
_Engraving_ is a process of drawing on glass by means of small copper
wheels. The wheels range from ½ in. to 2 in. in diameter, and are fed
with a mixture of fine emery and oil. The spindles to which the wheels
are attached revolve in a lathe worked by a foot treadle. The true use
of engraving is to add interest to vessels by means of coats of arms,
crests, monograms, inscriptions and graceful outlines. The improper use
of engraving is to hide defective material. There are two other
processes of marking patterns on glass, but they possess no artistic
value. In the "sandblast" process the surface of the glass is exposed to
a stream of sharp sand driven by compressed air. The parts of the
surface which are not to be blasted are covered by adhesive paper. In
the "etching" process the surface of the glass is etched by the chemical
action of hydrofluoric acid, the parts which are not to be attacked
being covered with a resinous paint. The glass is first dipped in this
protective liquid, and when the paint has set the pattern is scratched
through it with a sharp point. The glass is then exposed to the acid.
_Glass stoppers_ are fitted to bottles by grinding. The mouth of the
bottle is ground by a revolving iron cone, or mandrel, fed with sand and
water and driven by steam. The head of the stopper is fastened in a
chuck and the peg is ground to the size of the mouth of the bottle by
means of sand and water pressed against the glass by bent strips of thin
sheet iron. The mouth of the bottle is then pressed by hand on the peg
of the stopper, and the mouth and peg are ground together with a medium
of very fine emery and water until an air-tight joint is secured.
The revival in recent years of the craft of glass-blowing in England
must be attributed to William Morris and T.G. Jackson, R.A. (Pl. II.
figs. 11 and 12). They, at any rate, seem to have been the first to
grasp the idea that a wine-glass is not merely a bowl, a stem and a
foot, but that, whilst retaining simplicity of form, it may nevertheless
possess decorative effect. They, moreover, suggested the introduction
for the manufacture of table-glass of a material similar in texture to
that used by the Venetians, both colourless and tinted.
The colours previously available for English table-glass were ruby,
canary-yellow, emerald-green, dark peacock-green, light peacock-blue,
dark purple-blue and a dark purple. About 1870 the "Jackson" table-glass
was made in a light, dull green glass. The dull green was followed
successively by amber, white opal, blue opal, straw opal, sea-green,
horn colour and various pale tints of soda-lime glass, ranging from
yellow to blue. Experiments were also tried with a violet-coloured
glass, a violet opal, a transparent black and with glasses shading from
red to blue, red to amber and blue to green.
In the Paris Exhibition of 1900 surface decoration was the prominent
feature of all the exhibits of table-glass. The carved or "cameo" glass,
introduced by Thomas Webb of Stourbridge in 1878, had been copied with
varying success by glass-makers of all nations. In many specimens there
were three or more layers of differently coloured glass, and curious
effects of blended colour were obtained by cutting through, or partly
through, the different layers. The surface of the glass had usually been
treated with hydrofluoric acid so as to have a satin-like gloss. Some
vases of this character, shown by Émile Gallé and Daum Frères of Nancy,
possessed considerable beauty. The "Favrile" glass of Louis C. Tiffany
of New York (Pl. II. fig. 13) owes its effect entirely to surface colour
and lustre. The happiest specimens of this glass almost rival the wings
of butterflies in the brilliancy of their iridescent colours. The vases
of Karl Koepping of Berlin are so fantastic and so fragile that they
appear to be creations of the lamp rather than of the furnace. An
illustration is also given of some of Powell's "Whitefriars" glass,
shown at the St Louis Exhibition, 1904 (Pl. II. fig. 14). The specimens
of "pâte de verre" exhibited by A. L. Dammouse, of Sèvres, in the Musée
des Arts décoratifs in Paris, and at the London Franco-British
Exhibition in 1908, deserve attention. They have a semi-opaque body with
an "egg-shell" surface and are delicately tinted with colour. The shapes
are exceedingly simple, but some of the pieces possess great beauty. The
material and technique suggest a close relationship to porcelain.
(B) _Tube._--The process of making tube has already been described.
Although the bore of the thermometer-tube is exceedingly small, it is
made in the same way as ordinary tube. The white line of enamel, which
is seen in some thermometers behind the bore, is introduced before the
mass of glass is pulled out. A flattened cake of viscous glass-enamel is
welded on to one side of the mass of glass after it has been hollowed by
blowing. The mass, with the enamel attached, is dipped into the crucible
and covered with a layer of transparent glass; the whole mass is then
pulled out into tube. If the section of the finished tube is to be a
triangle, with the enamel and bore at the base, the molten mass is
pressed into a V-shaped mould before it is pulled out.
In modern thermometry instruments of extreme accuracy are required, and
researches have been made, especially in Germany and France, to
ascertain the causes of variability in mercurial thermometers, and how
such variability is to be removed or reduced. In all mercurial
thermometers there is a slight depression of the ice-point after
exposure to high temperatures; it is also not uncommon to find that the
readings of two thermometers between the ice- and boiling-points fail to
agree at any intermediate temperature, although the ice- and
boiling-points of both have been determined together with perfect
accuracy, and the intervening spaces have been equally divided. It has
been proved that these variations depend to a great extent on the
chemical nature of the glass of which the thermometer is made. Special
glasses have therefore been produced by Tonnelot in France and at the
Jena glass-works in Germany expressly for the manufacture of
thermometers for accurate physical measurements; the analyses of these
are shown in Table III.
TABLE III.
+-------------+-------+-------+------+------+-------+------+------+-----+------------+
| | | | | | | | | | Depression |
| | SiO2. | Na2O. | K2O. | CaO. | Al2O3.| MgO. | B2O3.| ZnO.| of |
| | | | | | | | | | Ice-point. |
+-------------+-------+-------+------+------+-------+------+------+-----+------------+
| Tonnelot's | | | | | | | | | |
| "Verre dur"| 70.96 | 12.02 | 0.56 |14.40 | 1.44 | 0.40 | .. | .. | 0.07 |
| Jena glass--| | | | | | | | | |
| XVI.-111 | 67.5 | 14.0 | .. | 7.0 | 2.5 | .. | 2.0 | 7.0 | 0.05 |
| 59-111 | 72.0 | 11.0 | .. | 5.0 | 5.0 | .. | 12.0 | .. | 0.02 |
+-------------+-------+-------+------+------+-------+------+------+-----+------------+
Since the discovery of the Röntgen rays, experiments have been made to
ascertain the effects of the different constituents of glass on the
transparency of glass to X-rays. The oxides of lead, barium, zinc and
antimony are found perceptibly to retard the rays. The glass tubes,
therefore, from which the X-ray bulbs are to be fashioned, must not
contain any of these oxides, whereas the glass used for making the
funnel-shaped shields, which direct the rays upon the patient and at the
same time protect the hands of the operator from the action of the rays,
must contain a large proportion of lead.
Among the many developments of the Jena Works, not the least important
are the glasses made in the form of a tube, from which gas-chimneys,
gauge-glasses and chemical apparatus are fashioned, specially adapted to
resist sudden changes of temperature. One method is to form the tube of
two layers of glass, one being considerably more expansible than the
other.
(C) _Sheet and Crown-glass._--Sheet-glass is almost wholly a
soda-lime-silicate glass, containing only small quantities of iron,
alumina and other impurities. The raw materials used in this manufacture
are chosen with considerable care, since the requirements as to the
colour of the product are somewhat stringent. The materials ordinarily
employed are the following: sand, of good quality, uniform in grain and
free from any notable quantity of iron oxide; carbonate of lime,
generally in the form of a pure variety of powdered limestone; and
sulphate of soda. A certain proportion of soda ash (carbonate of soda)
is also used in some works in sheet-glass mixtures, while "decolorizers"
(substances intended to remove or reduce the colour of the glass) are
also sometimes added, those most generally used being manganese dioxide
and arsenic. Another essential ingredient of all glass mixtures
containing sulphate of soda is some form of carbon, which is added
either as coke, charcoal or anthracite coal; the carbon so introduced
aids the reducing substances contained in the atmosphere of the furnace
in bringing about the reduction of the sulphate of soda to a condition
in which it combines more readily with the silicic acid of the sand. The
proportions in which these ingredients are mixed vary according to the
exact quality of glass required and with the form and temperature of the
melting furnace employed. A good quality of sheet-glass should show, on
analysis, a composition approximating to the following: silica (SiO2),
72%; lime (CaO), 13%; soda (Na2O), 14%; and iron and alumina (Fe2O3,
Al2O3), 1%. The actual composition, however, of a mixture that will give
a glass of this composition cannot be directly calculated from these
figures and the known composition of the raw materials, owing to the
fact that considerable losses, particularly of alkali, occur during
melting.
The fusion of sheet-glass is now generally carried out in gas-fired
regenerative tank furnaces. The glass in process of fusion is contained
in a basin or tank built up of large blocks of fire-clay and is heated
by one or more powerful gas flames which enter the upper part of the
furnace chamber through suitable apertures or "ports." In Europe the gas
burnt in these furnaces is derived from special gas-producers, while in
some parts of America natural gas is utilized. With producer gas it is
necessary to pre-heat both the gas and the air which is supplied for its
combustion by passing both through heated regenerators (for an account
of the principles of the regenerative furnace see article FURNACE). In
many respects the glass-melting tank resembles the open-hearth steel
furnace, but there are certain interesting differences. Thus the
dimensions of the largest glass tanks greatly exceed those of the
largest steel furnaces; glass furnaces containing up to 250 tons of
molten glass have been successfully operated, and owing to the
relatively low density of glass this involves very large dimensions. The
temperature required in the fusion of sheet-glass and of other glasses
produced in tank furnaces is much lower than that attained in steel
furnaces, and it is consequently possible to work glass-tanks
continuously for many months together; on the other hand, glass is not
readily freed from foreign bodies that may become admixed with it, so
that the absence of detachable particles is much more essential in glass
than in steel melting. Finally, fluid steel can be run or poured off,
since it is perfectly fluid, while glass cannot be thus treated, but is
withdrawn from the furnace by means of either a ladle or a gatherer's
pipe, and the temperature required for this purpose is much lower than
that at which the glass is melted. In a sheet-glass tank there is
therefore a gradient of temperature and a continuous passage of material
from the hotter end of the furnace where the raw materials are
introduced to the cooler end where the glass, free from bubbles and raw
material, is withdrawn by the gatherers. For the purpose of the removal
of the glass, the cooler end of the furnace is provided with a number of
suitable openings, provided with movable covers or shades. The
"gatherer" approaches one of these openings, removes the shade and
introduces his previously heated "pipe." This instrument is an iron
tube, some 5 ft. long, provided at one end with an enlarged butt and at
the other with a wooden covering acting as handle and mouthpiece. The
gatherer dips the butt of the pipe into the molten "metal" and withdraws
upon it a small ball of viscous glass, which he allows to cool in the
air while constantly rotating it so as to keep the mass as nearly
spherical in shape as he can. When the first ball or "gathering" has
cooled sufficiently, the whole is again dipped into the molten glass and
a further layer adheres to the pipe-end, thus forming a larger ball.
This process is repeated, with slight modifications, until the gathering
is of the proper size and weight to yield the sheet which is to be
blown. When this is the case the gathering is carried to a block or
half-open mould in which it is rolled and blown until it acquires,
roughly, the shape of a hemisphere, the flat side being towards the pipe
and the convexity away from it; the diameter of this hemisphere is so
regulated as to be approximately that of the cylinder which is next to
be formed of the viscous mass. From the hemispherical shape the mass of
glass is now gradually blown into the form of a short cylinder, and then
the pipe with the adherent mass of glass is handed over to the blower
proper. This workman stands upon a platform in front of special furnaces
which, from their shape and purpose, are called "blowing holes." The
blower repeatedly heats the lower part of the mass of glass and keeps it
distended by blowing while he swings it over a deep trench which is
provided next to his working platform. In this way the glass is extended
into the form of a long cylinder closed at the lower end. The size of
cylinder which can be produced in this way depends chiefly upon the
dimensions of the working platform and the weight which a man is able to
handle freely. The lower end of the cylinder is opened, in the case of
small and thin cylinders, by the blower holding his thumb over the
mouthpiece of the pipe and simultaneously warming the end of the
cylinder in the furnace, the expansion of the imprisoned air and the
softening of the glass causing the end of the cylinder to burst open.
The blower then heats the end of the cylinder again and rapidly spins
the pipe about its axis; the centrifugal effect is sufficient to spread
the soft glass at the end to a radius equal to that of the rest of the
cylinder. In the case of large and thick cylinders, however, another
process of opening the ends is generally employed: an assistant attaches
a small lump of hot glass to the domed end, and the heat of this added
glass softens the cylinder sufficiently to enable the assistant to cut
the end open with a pair of shears; subsequently the open end is spun
out to the diameter of the whole as described above. The finished
cylinder is next carried to a rack and the pipe detached from it by
applying a cold iron to the neck of thick hot glass which connects
pipe-butt and cylinder, the neck cracking at the touch. Next, the rest
of the connecting neck is detached from the cylinder by the application
of a heated iron to the chilled glass. This leaves a cylinder with
roughly parallel ends; these ends are cut by the use of a diamond
applied internally and then the cylinder is split longitudinally by the
same means. The split cylinder is passed to the flattening furnace,
where it is exposed to a red heat, sufficient to soften the glass; when
soft the cylinder is laid upon a smooth flat slab and flattened down
upon it by the careful application of pressure with some form of rubbing
implement, which frequently takes the form of a block of charred wood.
When flattened, the sheet is moved away from the working opening of the
furnace, and pushed to a system of movable grids, by means of which it
is slowly moved along a tunnel, away from a source of heat nearly equal
in temperature to that of the flattening chamber. The glass thus cools
gradually as it passes down the tunnel and is thereby adequately
annealed.
The process of sheet-glass manufacture described above is typical of
that in use in a large number of works, but many modifications are to be
found, particularly in the furnaces in which the glass is melted. In
some works, the older method of melting the glass in large pots or
crucibles is still adhered to, although the old-fashioned coal-fired
furnaces have nearly everywhere given place to the use of producer gas
and regenerators. For the production of coloured sheet-glass, however,
the employment of pot furnaces is still almost universal, probably
because the quantities of glass required of any one tint are
insufficient to employ even a small tank furnace continuously; the exact
control of the colour is also more readily attained with the smaller
bulk of glass which has to be dealt with in pots. The general nature of
the colouring ingredients employed, and the colour effects produced by
them, have already been mentioned. In coloured sheet-glass, two distinct
kinds are to be recognized; in one kind the colouring matter is
contained in the body of the glass itself, while in the other the
coloured sheet consists of ordinary white glass covered upon one side
with a thin coating of intensely coloured glass. The latter kind is
known as "flashed," and is universally employed in the case of colouring
matters whose effect is so intense that in any usual thickness of glass
they would cause almost entire opacity. Flashed glass is produced by
taking either the first or the last gathering in the production of a
cylinder out of a crucible containing the coloured "metal," the other
gatherings being taken out of ordinary white sheet-glass. It is
important that the thermal expansion of the two materials which are thus
incorporated should be nearly alike, as otherwise warping of the
finished sheet is liable to result.
_Mechanical Processes for the Production of Sheet-glass._--The
complicated and indirect process of sheet-glass manufacture has led to
numerous inventions aiming at a direct method of production by more or
less mechanical means. All the earlier attempts in this direction failed
on account of the difficulty of bringing the glass to the machines
without introducing air-bells, which are always formed in molten glass
when it is ladled or poured from one vessel into another. More modern
inventors have therefore adopted the plan of drawing the glass direct
from the furnace. In an American process the glass is drawn direct from
the molten mass in the tank in a cylindrical form by means of an iron
ring previously immersed in the glass, and is kept in shape by means of
special devices for cooling it rapidly as it leaves the molten bath. In
this process, however, the entire operations of splitting and flattening
are retained, and although the mechanical process is said to be in
successful commercial operation, it has not as yet made itself felt as a
formidable rival to hand-made sheet-glass. An effort at a more direct
mechanical process is embodied in the inventions of Foucault which are
at present being developed in Germany and Belgium; in this process the
glass is drawn from the molten bath in the shape of flat sheets, by the
aid of a bar of iron, previously immersed in the glass, the glass
receiving its form by being drawn through slots in large fire-bricks,
and being kept in shape by rapid chilling produced by the action of
air-blasts. The mechanical operation is quite successful for thick
sheets, but it is not as yet available for the thinner sheets required
for the ordinary purposes of sheet-glass, since with these excessive
breakage occurs, while the sheets generally show grooves or lines
derived from small irregularities of the drawing orifice. For the
production of thick sheets which are subsequently to be polished the
process may thus claim considerable success, but it is not as yet
possible to produce satisfactory sheet-glass by such means.
_Crown-glass_ has at the present day almost disappeared from the market,
and it has been superseded by sheet-glass, the more modern processes
described above being capable of producing much larger sheets of glass,
free from the knob or "bullion" which may still be seen in old
crown-glass windows. For a few isolated purposes, however, it is
desirable to use a glass which has not been touched upon either surface
and thus preserves the lustre of its "fire polish" undiminished; this
can be attained in crown-glass but not in sheet, since one side of the
latter is always more or less marked by the rubber used in the process
of flattening. One of the few uses of crown-glass of this kind is the
glass slides upon which microscopic specimens are mounted, as well as
the thin glass slips with which such preparations are covered. A full
account of the process of blowing crown-glass will be found in all older
books and articles on the subject, so that it need only be mentioned
here that the glass, instead of being blown into a cylinder, is blown
into a flattened sphere, which is caused to burst at the point opposite
the pipe and is then, by the rapid spinning of the glass in front of a
very hot furnace-opening, caused to expand into a flat disk of large
diameter. This only requires to be annealed and is then ready for
cutting up, but the lump of glass by which the original globe was
attached to the pipe remains as the bullion in the centre of the disk of
glass.
_Coloured Glass for Mosaic Windows._--The production of coloured glass
for "mosaic" windows has become a separate branch of glass-making.
Charles Winston, after prolonged study of the coloured windows of the
13th, 14th and 15th centuries, convinced himself that no approach to the
colour effect of these windows could be made with glass which is thin
and even in section, homogeneous in texture, and made and coloured with
highly refined materials. To obtain the effect it was necessary to
reproduce as far as possible the conditions under which the early
craftsmen worked, and to create scientifically glass which is impure in
colour, irregular in section, and non-homogeneous in texture. The glass
is made in cylinders and in "crowns" or circles. The cylinders measure
about 14 in. in length by 8 in. in diameter, and vary in thickness from
1/8 to 3/8 in. The crowns are about 15 in. in diameter, and vary in
thickness from 1/8 to ½ in., the centre being the thickest. These
cylinders and crowns may be either solid colour or flashed. Great
variety of colour may be obtained by flashing one colour upon another,
such as blue on green, and ruby on blue, green or yellow.
E. J. Prior has introduced an ingenious method of making small oblong
and square sheets of coloured glass, which are thick in the centre and
taper towards the edges, and which have one surface slightly roughened
and one brilliantly polished. Glass is blown into an oblong box-shaped
iron mould, about 12 in. in depth and 6 in. across. A hollow rectangular
bottle is formed, the base and sides of which are converted into sheets.
The outer surface of these sheets is slightly roughened by contact with
the iron mould.
(D) _Bottles and mechanically blown Glass._--The manufacture of bottles
has become an industry of vast proportions. The demand constantly
increases, and, owing to constant improvements in material in the moulds
and in the methods of working, the supply fully keeps pace with the
demand. Except for making bottles of special colours, gas-heated tank
furnaces are in general use. Melting and working are carried on
continuously. The essential qualities of a bottle are strength and power
to resist chemical corrosion. The materials are selected with a view to
secure these qualities. For the highest quality of bottles, which are
practically colourless, sand, limestone and sulphate and carbonate of
soda are used. The following is a typical analysis of high quality
bottle-glass: SiO2, 69.15%; Na2O, 13.00%; CaO, 15.00%; Al2O3, 2.20%; and
Fe2O3, 0.65%. For the commoner grades of dark-coloured bottles the glass
mixture is cheapened by substituting common salt for part of the
sulphate of soda, and by the addition of felspar, granite, granulite,
furnace slag and other substances fusible at a high temperature. Bottle
moulds are made of cast iron, either in two pieces, hinged together at
the base or at one side, or in three pieces, one forming the body and
two pieces forming the neck.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Tool for moulding the inside and outside of the
neck of a bottle.
C, Bottle.
A, Conical piece of iron to form the inside of the neck.
B, B, Shaped pieces of iron, which can be pressed upon the outside of
the neck by the spring-handle H.]
A bottle gang or "shop" consists of five persons. The "gatherer" gathers
the glass from the tank furnace on the end of the blowing-iron, rolls it
on a slab of iron or stone, slightly expands the glass by blowing, and
hands the blowing iron and glass to the "blower." The blower places the
glass in the mould, closes the mould by pressing a lever with his foot,
and either blows down the blowing iron or attaches it to a tube
connected with a supply of compressed air. When the air has forced the
glass to take the form of the mould, the mould is opened and the blower
gives the blowing iron with the bottle attached to it to the "wetter
off." The wetter off touches the top of the neck of the bottle with a
moistened piece of iron and by tapping the blowing iron detaches the
bottle and drops it into a wooden trough. He then grips the body of the
bottle with a four-pronged clip, attached to an iron rod, and passes it
to the "bottle maker." The bottle maker heats the fractured neck of the
bottle, binds a band of molten glass round the end of it and
simultaneously shapes the inside and the outside of the neck by using
the tool shown in fig. 18. The finished bottle is taken by the "taker
in" to the annealing furnace. The bottles are stacked in iron trucks,
which, when full, are moved slowly away from a constant source of heat.
The processes of manipulation which have been described, although in
practice they are very rapidly performed, are destined to be replaced by
the automatic working of a machine. Bottle-making machines, based on
Ashley's original patent, are already being largely used. They ensure
absolute regularity in form and save both time and labour. A
bottle-making machine combines the process of pressing with a plunger
with that of blowing by compressed air. The neck of the bottle is first
formed by the plunger, and the body is subsequently blown by compressed
air admitted through the plunger. A sufficient weight of molten glass to
form a bottle is gathered and placed in a funnel-shaped vessel which
serves as a measure, and gives access to the mould which shapes the
outside of the neck. A plunger is forced upwards into the glass in the
neck-mould and forms the neck. The funnel is removed, and the plunger,
neck-mould and the mass of molten glass attached to the neck are
inverted. A bottle mould rises and envelops the mass of molten glass.
Compressed air admitted through the plunger forces the molten glass to
take the form of the bottle mould and completes the bottle.
In the case of the machine patented by Michael Owens of Toledo, U.S.A.,
for making tumblers, lamp-chimneys, and other goods of similar
character, the manual operations required are (1) gathering the molten
glass at the end of a blowing iron; (2) placing the blowing iron with
the glass attached to it in the machine; (3) removing the blowing iron
with the blown vessel attached. Each machine (fig. 19) consists of a
revolving table carrying five or six moulds. The moulds are opened and
closed by cams actuated by compressed air. As soon as a blowing iron is
in connexion with an air jet, the sections of the mould close upon the
molten glass, and the compressed air forces the glass to take the form
of the mould. After removal from the machine, the tumbler is severed
from the blowing iron, and its fractured edge is trimmed.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Owens's Glass-blowing Machine. g,g,g,
Blowing-irons.]
Compressed air or steam is also used for fashioning very large vessels,
baths, dishes and reservoirs by the "Sievert" process. Molten glass is
spread upon a large iron plate of the required shape and dimensions. The
flattened mass of glass is held by a rim, connected to the edge of the
plate. The plate with the glass attached to it is inverted, and
compressed air or steam is introduced through openings in the plate. The
mass of glass, yielding to its own weight and the pressure of air or
steam, sinks downwards and adapts itself to any mould or receptacle
beneath it.
The processes employed in the manufacture of the glass bulbs for
incandescent electric lamps, are similar to the old-fashioned processes
of bottle making. The mould is in two pieces hinged together; it is
heated and the inner surface is rubbed over with finely powdered
plumbago. When the glass is being blown in the mould the blowing iron is
twisted round and round so that the finished bulb may not be marked by
the joint of the mould.
III. MECHANICALLY PRESSED GLASS. (A) _Plate-glass._--The glass popularly
known as "plate-glass" is made by casting and rolling. The following are
typical analyses:
+---------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+
| | SiO2. | CaO. | Na2O. | Al2O3. | Fe2O3. |
+---------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+
| French. | 71.80 | 15.70 | 11.10 | 1.26 | 0.14% |
| English.| 70.64 | 16.27 | 11.47 | 0.70 | 0.49% |
+---------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+
The raw materials for the production of plate-glass are chosen with
great care so as to secure a product as free from colour as possible,
since the relatively great thickness of the sheets would render even a
faint tint conspicuous. The substances employed are the same as those
used for the manufacture of sheet-glass, viz. pure sand, a pure form of
carbonate of lime, and sulphate of soda, with the addition of a suitable
proportion of carbon in the form of coke, charcoal or anthracite coal.
The glass to be used for the production of plate is universally melted
in pots or crucibles and not in open tank furnaces. When the glass is
completely melted and "fine," i.e. free from bubbles, it is allowed to
cool down to a certain extent so as to become viscous or pasty. The
whole pot, with its contents of viscous glass, is then removed bodily
from the furnace by means of huge tongs and is transported to a crane,
which grips the pot, raises it, and ultimately tips it over so as to
pour the glass upon the slab of the rolling-table. In most modern works
the greater part of these operations, as well as the actual rolling of
the glass, is carried out by mechanical means, steam power and
subsequently electrical power having been successfully applied to this
purpose; the handling of the great weights of glass required for the
largest sheets of plate-glass which are produced at the present time
would, indeed, be impossible without the aid of machinery. The
casting-table usually consists of a perfectly smooth cast-iron slab,
frequently built up of a number of pieces carefully fitted together,
mounted upon a low, massive truck running upon rails, so that it can be
readily moved to any desired position in the casting-room. The viscous
mass having been thrown on the casting-table, a large and heavy roller
passes over it and spreads it out into a sheet. Rollers up to 5 tons in
weight are employed and are now generally driven by power. The width of
the sheet or plate is regulated by moving guides which are placed in
front of the roller and are pushed along by it, while its thickness is
regulated by raising or lowering the roller relatively to the surface of
the table. Since the surfaces produced by rolling have subsequently to
be ground and polished, it is essential that the glass should leave the
rolling-table with as smooth a surface as possible, so that great care
is required in this part of the process. It is, however, equally
important that the glass as a whole should be flat and remains flat
during the process of gradual cooling (annealing), otherwise great
thicknesses of glass would have to be ground away at the projecting
parts of the sheet. The annealing process is therefore carried out in a
manner differing essentially from that in use for any other variety of
flat glass and nearly resembling that used for optical glass. The rolled
sheet is left on the casting-table until it has set sufficiently to be
pushed over a flat iron plate without risk of distortion; meanwhile the
table has been placed in front of the opening of one of the large
annealing kilns and the slab of glass is carefully pushed into the kiln.
The annealing kilns are large fire-brick chambers of small height but
with sufficient floor area to accommodate four or six large slabs, and
the slabs are placed directly upon the floor of the kiln, which is built
up of carefully dressed blocks of burnt fireclay resting upon a bed of
sand; in order to avoid any risk of working or buckling in this floor
these blocks are set slightly apart and thus have room to expand freely
when heated. Before the glass is introduced, the annealing kiln is
heated to dull red by means of coal fires in grates which are provided
at the ends or sides of the kiln for that purpose. When the floor of the
kiln has been covered with slabs of glass the opening is carefully built
up and luted with fire-bricks and fire-clay, and the whole is then
allowed to cool. In the walls and floor of the kiln special cooling
channels or air passages are provided and by gradually opening these to
atmospheric circulation the cooling is considerably accelerated while a
very even distribution of temperature is obtained; by these means even
the largest slabs can now be cooled in three or four days and are
nevertheless sufficiently well annealed to be free from any serious
internal stress. From the annealing kiln the slabs of glass are
transported to the cutting room, where they are cut square, defective
slabs being rejected or cut down to smaller sizes. The glass at this
stage has a comparatively dull surface and this must now be replaced by
that brilliant and perfectly polished surface which is the chief beauty
of this variety of glass. The first step in this process is that of
grinding the surface down until all projections are removed and a close
approximation to a perfect plane is obtained. This operation, like all
the subsequent steps in the polishing of the glass, is carried out by
powerful machinery. By means of a rotating table either two surfaces of
glass, or one surface of glass and one of cast iron, are rubbed together
with the interposition of a powerful abrasive such as sand, emery or
carborundum. The machinery by which this is done has undergone numerous
modifications and improvements, all tending to produce more perfectly
plane glass, to reduce the risk of breakage, and to lessen the
expenditure of time and power required per sq. yd. of glass to be
worked. It is impossible to describe this machinery within the limits of
this article, but it is notable that the principal difficulties to be
overcome arise from the necessity of providing the glass with a
perfectly continuous and unyielding support to which it can be firmly
attached but from which it can be detached without undue difficulty.
When the surface of the glass has been ground down to a plane, the
surface itself is still "grey," i.e. deeply pitted with the marks of the
abrasive used in grinding it down; these marks are removed by the
process of smoothing, in which the surface is successively ground with
abrasives of gradually increasing fineness, leaving ultimately a very
smooth and very minutely pitted "grey" surface. This smooth surface is
then brilliantly polished by the aid of friction with a rubbing tool
covered with a soft substance like leather or felt and fed with a
polishing material, such as rouge. A few strokes of such a rubber are
sufficient to produce a decidedly "polished" appearance, but prolonged
rubbing under considerable pressure and the use of a polishing paste of
a proper consistency are required in order to remove the last trace of
pitting from the surface. This entire process must, obviously, be
applied in turn to each of the two surfaces of the slab of glass.
Plate-glass is manufactured in this manner in thicknesses varying from
3/16 in. to 1 in. or even more, while single sheets are produced
measuring more than 27 ft. by 13 ft.
_"Rolled Plate" and figured "Rolled Plate."_--Glass for this purpose,
with perhaps the exception of the best white and tinted varieties, is
now universally produced in tank-furnaces, similar in a general way to
those used for sheet-glass, except that the furnaces used for "rolled
plate" glass of the roughest kinds do not need such minutely careful
attention and do not work at so high a temperature. The composition of
these glasses is very similar to that of sheet-glass, but for the
ordinary kinds of rolled plate much less scrupulous selection need be
made in the choice of raw materials, especially of the sand.
The glass is taken from the furnace in large iron ladles, which are
carried upon slings running on overhead rails; from the ladle the glass
is thrown upon the cast-iron bed of a rolling-table, and is rolled into
sheet by an iron roller, the process being similar to that employed in
making plate-glass, but on a smaller scale. The sheet thus rolled is
roughly trimmed while hot and soft, so as to remove those portions of
glass which have been spoilt by immediate contact with the ladle, and
the sheet, still soft, is pushed into the open mouth of an annealing
tunnel or "lear," down which it is carried by a system of moving grids.
The surface of the glass produced in this way may be modified by
altering the surface of the rolling-table; if the table has a smooth
surface, the glass will also be more or less smooth, but much dented and
buckled on the surface and far from having the smooth face of blown
sheet. If the table has a pattern engraved upon it the glass will show
the same pattern in relief, the most frequent pattern of the kind being
either small parallel ridges or larger ribs crossing to form a lozenge
pattern.
The more elaborate patterns found on what is known as "figure rolled
plate" are produced in a somewhat different manner; the glass used for
this purpose is considerably whiter in colour and much softer than
ordinary rolled plate, and instead of being rolled out on a table it is
produced by rolling between two moving rollers from which the sheet
issues. The pattern is impressed upon the soft sheet by a printing
roller which is brought down upon the glass as it leaves the main rolls.
This glass shows a pattern in high relief and gives a very brilliant
effect.
The various varieties of rolled plate-glass are now produced for some
purposes with a reinforcement of wire netting which is embedded in the
mass of the glass. The wire gives the glass great advantages in the
event of fracture from a blow or from fire, but owing to the difference
in thermal expansion between wire and glass, there is a strong tendency
for such "wired glass" to crack spontaneously.
_Patent Plate-glass._--This term is applied to blown sheet-glass, whose
surface has been rendered plane and brilliant by a process of grinding
and polishing. The name "patent plate" arose from the fact that certain
patented devices originated by James Chance of Birmingham first made it
possible to polish comparatively thin glass in this way.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Modern American Glass-Press.]
(B) _Pressed Glass._--The technical difference between pressed and
moulded glass is that moulded glass-ware has taken its form from a mould
under the pressure of a workman's breath, or of compressed air, whereas
pressed glass-ware has taken its form from a mould under the pressure of
a plunger. Moulded glass receives the form of the mould on its interior
as well as on its exterior surface. In pressed glass the exterior
surface is modelled by the mould, whilst the interior surface is
modelled by the plunger (fig. 20).
The process of pressing glass was introduced to meet the demand for
cheap table-ware. Pressed glass, which is necessarily thick and
serviceable, has well met this legitimate demand, but it also caters for
the less legitimate taste for cheap imitations of hand-cut glass. An
American writer has expressed his satisfaction that the day-labourer can
now have on his table at a nominal price glass dishes of elaborate
design, which only an expert can distinguish from hand-cut crystal. The
deceptive effect is in some cases heightened by cutting over and
polishing by hand the pressed surface.
The glass for pressed ware must be colourless, and, when molten, must be
sufficiently fluid to adapt itself readily to the intricacies of the
moulds, which are often exceedingly complex. The materials employed are
sand, sulphate of soda, nitrate of soda, calcspar and in some works
carbonate of barium. The following is an analysis of a specimen of
English pressed glass; SiO2, 70.68%; Na2O, 18.38%; CaO, 5.45%; BaO,
4.17%; Al2O3, 0.33%; and Fe2O3, 0.20%. Tanks and pots are both used for
melting the glass. The moulds are made of cast iron. They are usually in
two main pieces, a base and an upper part or collar of hinged sections.
The plunger is generally worked by a hand lever. The operator knows by
touch when the plunger has pressed the glass far enough to exactly fill
the mould. Although the moulds are heated, the surface of the glass is
always slightly ruffled by contact with the mould. For this reason every
piece of pressed glass-ware, as soon as it is liberated from the mould,
is exposed to a sharp heat in a small subsidiary furnace in order that
the ruffled surface may be removed by melting. These small furnaces are
usually heated by an oil spray under the pressure of steam or compressed
air.
See Antonio Neri, _Ars vitraria, cum Merritti observationibus_
(Amsterdam, 1668) (Neri's work was translated into English by C.
Merritt in 1662, and the translation, _The Art of making Glass_, was
privately reprinted by Sir T. Phillipps, Bart., in 1826); Johann
Kunkel, _Vollständige Glasmacher-Kunst_ (Nuremberg, 1785); Apsley
Pellatt, _Curiosities of Glass-making_ (London, 1849); A. Sauzay,
_Marvels of Glass-making_ (from the French) (London, 1869); G.
Bontemps, _Guide du verrier_ (Paris, 1868); E. Peligot, _Le Verre, son
histoire, sa fabrication_ (Paris, 1878); W. Stein, "Die
Glasfabrikation," in Bolley's _Technologie_, vol. iii. (Brunswick,
1862); H. E. Benrath, _Die Glasfabrikation_ (Brunswick, 1875); J.
Falck and L. Lobmeyr, _Die Glasindustrie_ (Vienna, 1875); D. H.
Hovestadt, _Jenaer Glas_ (Jena, 1900; Eng. trans. by J. D. and A.
Everett, Macmillan, 1907); J. Henrivaux, _Le Verre et le cristal_
(Paris, 1887), and _La Verrerie au XX^e siècle_ (1903); Chance, Harris
and Powell, _Principles of Glass-making_ (London, 1883); Moritz V.
Rohr, _Theorie und Geschichte der photographischen Objektive_ (Berlin,
1899); C. E. Guillaume, _Traité pratique de la thermométrie de
précision_ (Paris, 1889); Louis Coffignal, _Verres et émaux_ (Paris,
1900); R. Gerner, _Die Glasfabrikation_ (Vienna, 1897); C. Wetzel,
_Herstellung grosser Glaskörper_ (Vienna, 1900); C. Wetzel,
_Bearbeitung von Glaskörpern_ (Vienna, 1901); E. Tscheuschner,
_Handbuch der Glasfabrikation_ (Weimar, 1885); R. Dralle, _Anlage und
Betrieb der Glasfabriken_ (Leipzig, 1886); G. Tammann,
_Kristallisieren und Schmelzen_ (Leipzig, 1903); W. Rosenhain, "Some
Properties of Glass," _Trans. Optical Society_ (London, 1903),
"Possible Directions of Progress in Optical Glass," _Proc. Optical
Convention_ (London, 1905) and _Glass Manufacture_ (London, 1908);
Introduction to section 1, _Catalogue of the Optical Convention_
(London, 1905). (H. J. P.; W. Rn.)
_History of Glass Manufacture._
The great similarity in form, technique and decoration of the earliest
known specimens of glass-ware suggests that the craft of glass-making
originated from a single centre. It has been generally assumed that
Egypt was the birthplace of the glass industry. It is true that many
conditions existed in Egypt favourable to the development of the craft.
The Nile supplied a waterway for the conveyance of fuel and for the
distribution of the finished wares. Materials were available providing
the essential ingredients of glass. The Egyptian potteries afforded
experience in dealing with vitreous glazes and vitreous colours, and
from Egyptian alabaster-quarries veined vessels were wrought, which may
well have suggested the decorative arrangement of zigzag lines (see
Plate I. figs, 1, 2, 4 d) so frequently found on early specimens of
glass-ware. In Egypt, however, no traces have at present been found of
the industry in a rudimentary condition, and the vases which have been
classified as "primitive" bear witness to an elaboration of technique
far in advance of the experimental period. The earliest specimens of
glass-ware which can be definitely claimed as Egyptian productions, and
the glass manufactory discovered by Dr Flinders Petrie at Tell el
Amarna, belong to the period of the XVIIIth dynasty. The comparative
lateness of this period makes it difficult to account for the wall
painting at Beni Hasan, which accurately represents the process of
glass-blowing, and which is attributed to the period of the XIth
dynasty. Dr Petrie surmounts the difficulty by saying that the process
depicted is not glass-blowing, but some metallurgical process in which
reeds were used tipped with lumps of clay. It is possible that the
picture does not represent Egyptian glass-blowers, but is a traveller's
record of the process of glass-blowing seen in some foreign or subject
country. The scarcity of specimens of early glass-ware actually found in
Egypt, and the advanced technique of those which have been found, lead
to the supposition that glass-making was exotic and not a native
industry. The tradition, recorded by Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 65),
assigns the discovery of glass to Syria, and the geographical position
of that country, its forests as a source of fuel, and its deposits of
sand add probability to the tradition. The story that Phoenician
merchants found a glass-like substance under their cooking pots, which
had been supported on blocks of natron, need not be discarded as pure
fiction. The fire may well have caused the natron, an impure form of
carbonate of soda, to combine with the surrounding sand to form silicate
of soda, which, although not a permanent glass, is sufficiently
glass-like to suggest the possibility of creating a permanent
transparent material. Moreover, Pliny (xxxvi. 66) actually records the
discovery which effected the conversion of deliquescent silicate of soda
into permanent glass. The words are "Coeptus addi magnes lapis." There
have been many conjectures as to the meaning of the words "magnes
lapis." The material has been considered by some to be magnetic iron ore
and by others oxide of manganese. Oxides of iron and manganese can only
be used in glass manufacture in comparatively small quantities for the
purpose of colouring or neutralizing colour in glass, and their
introduction would not be a matter of sufficient importance to be
specially recorded. In chapter 25 of the same book Pliny describes five
varieties of "magnes lapis." One of these he says is found in magnesia,
is white in colour, does not attract iron and is like pumice stone. This
variety must certainly be magnesian limestone. Magnesian limestone mixed
and fused with sand and an alkaline carbonate produces a permanent
glass. The scene of the discovery of glass is placed by Pliny on the
banks of the little river Belus, under the heights of Mount Carmel,
where sand suitable for glass-making exists and wood for fuel is
abundant. In this neighbourhood fragments and lumps of glass are still
constantly being dug up, and analysis proves that the glass contains a
considerable proportion of magnesia. The district was a glass-making
centre in Roman times, and it is probable that the Romans inherited and
perfected an indigenous industry of remote antiquity. Pliny has so
accurately recorded the stages by which a permanent glass was developed
that it may be assumed that he had good reason for claiming for Syria
the discovery of glass. Between Egypt and Syria there was frequent
intercourse both of conquest and commerce. It was customary for the
victor after a successful raid to carry off skilled artisans as
captives. It is recorded that Tahutmes III. sent Syrian artisans to
Egypt. Glass-blowers may have been amongst their captive craftsmen, and
may have started the industry in Egypt. The claims of Syria and Egypt
are at the present time so equally balanced that it is advisable to
regard the question of the birthplace of the glass industry as one that
has still to be settled.
The "primitive" vessels which have been found in Egypt are small in size
and consist of columnar stibium jars, flattened bottles and amphorae,
all decorated with zigzag lines, tiny wide-mouthed vases on feet and
minute jugs. The vessels of later date which have been found in
considerable quantities, principally in the coast towns and islands of
the Mediterranean, are amphorae and alabastra, also decorated with
zigzag lines. The amphorae (Plate I. figs. 1 and 2) terminate with a
point, or with an unfinished extension from the terminal point, or with
a knob. The alabastra have short necks, are slightly wider at the base
than at the shoulder and have rounded bases. Dr Petrie has called
attention to two technical peculiarities to be found in almost every
specimen of early glass-ware. The inner surface is roughened (Plate I.
fig. 4 c), and has particles of sand adhering to it, as if the vessel
had been filled with sand and subjected to heat, and the inside of the
neck has the impression of a metal rod (Plate I. fig. 4 a), which
appears to have been extracted from the neck with difficulty. From this
evidence Dr Petrie has assumed that the vessels were not blown, but
formed upon a core of sandy paste, modelled upon a copper rod, the rod
being the core of the neck (see EGYPT: _Art and Archaeology_). The
evidence, however, hardly warrants the abandonment of the simple process
of blowing in favour of a process which is so difficult that it may
almost be said to be impossible, and of which there is no record or
tradition except in connexion with the manufacture of small beads. The
technical difficulties to which Dr Petrie has called attention seem to
admit of a somewhat less heroic explanation. A modern glass-blower, when
making an amphora-shaped vase, finishes the base first, fixes an iron
rod to the finished base with a seal of glass, severs the vase from the
blowing iron, and finishes the mouth, whilst he holds the vase by the
iron attached to its base. The "primitive" glass-worker reversed this
process. Having blown the body of the vase, he finished the mouth and
neck part, and fixed a small, probably hollow, copper rod inside the
finished neck by pressing the neck upon the rod (Plate I. fig. 4 b).
Having severed the body of the vase from the blowing iron, he heated and
closed the fractured base, whilst holding the vase by means of the rod
fixed in the neck. Nearly every specimen shows traces of the pressure of
a tool on the outside of the neck, as well as signs of the base having
been closed by melting. Occasionally a knob or excrescence, formed by
the residue of the glass beyond the point at which the base has been
pinched together, remains as a silent witness of the process.
If glass-blowing had been a perfectly new invention of Graeco-Egyptian
or Roman times, some specimens illustrating the transition from
core-moulding to blowing must have been discovered. The absence of
traces of the transition strengthens the supposition that the revolution
in technique merely consisted in the discovery that it was more
convenient to finish the base of a vessel before its mouth, and such a
revolution would leave no trace behind. The roughened inner surface and
the adhering particles of sand may also be accounted for. The vessels,
especially those in which many differently coloured glasses were
incorporated, required prolonged annealing. It is probable that when the
metal rod was withdrawn the vessel was filled with sand, to prevent
collapse, and buried in heated ashes to anneal. The greater the heat of
the ashes the more would the sand adhere to and impress the inner
surface of the vessels. The decoration of zigzag lines was probably
applied directly after the body of the vase had been blown. Threads of
coloured molten glass were spirally coiled round the body, and, whilst
still viscid, were dragged into zigzags with a metal hook.
_Egypt_.--The glass industry flourished in Egypt in Graeco-Egyptian and
Roman times. All kinds of vessels were blown, both with and without
moulds, and both moulding and cutting were used as methods of
decoration. The great variety of these vessels is well shown in the
illustrated catalogue of Graeco-Egyptian glass in the Cairo museum,
edited by C. C. Edgar.
Another species of glass manufacture in which the Egyptians would appear
to have been peculiarly skilled is the so-called mosaic glass, formed by
the union of rods of various colours in such a manner as to form a
pattern; the rod so formed was then reheated and drawn out until reduced
to a very small size, 1 sq. in. or less, and divided into tablets by
being cut transversely, each of these tablets presenting the pattern
traversing its substance and visible on each face. This process was no
doubt first practised in Egypt, and is never seen in such perfection as
in objects of a decidedly Egyptian character. Very beautiful pieces of
ornament of an architectural character are met with, which probably once
served as decorations of caskets or other small pieces of furniture or
of trinkets; also tragic masks, human faces and birds. Some of the
last-named are represented with such truth of colouring and delicacy of
detail that even the separate feathers of the wings and tail are well
distinguished, although, as in an example in the British Museum, a
human-headed hawk, the piece which contains the figure may not exceed ¾
in. in its largest dimension. Works of this description probably belong
to the period when Egypt passed under Roman domination, as similar
objects, though of inferior delicacy, appear to have been made in Rome.
_Assyria_.--Early Assyrian glass is represented in the British Museum by
a vase of transparent greenish glass found in the north-west palace of
Nineveh. On one side of this a lion is engraved, and also a line of
cuneiform characters, in which is the name of Sargon, king of Assyria,
722 B.C. Fragments of coloured glasses were also found there, but our
materials are too scanty to enable us to form any decided opinion as to
the degree of perfection to which the art was carried in Assyria. Many
of the specimens discovered by Layard at Nineveh have all the appearance
of being Roman, and were no doubt derived from the Roman colony, Niniva
Claudiopolis, which occupied the same site.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
FIG. 1.
FIG. 2.
FIG. 3.
FIG. 4.
FIG. 5.
FIG. 6.
FIG. 7.
FIG. 8.
FIG. 9.
FIG. 10.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
FIG. 11.
FIG. 12.
FIG. 13.
FIG. 14.]
_Roman Glass_.--In the first centuries of our era the art of
glass-making was developed at Rome and other cities under Roman rule in
a most remarkable manner, and it reached a point of excellence which in
some respects has never been excelled or even perhaps equalled. It may
appear a somewhat exaggerated assertion that glass was used for more
purposes, and in one sense more extensively, by the Romans of the
imperial period than by ourselves in the present day; but it is one
which can be borne out by evidence. It is true that the use of glass for
windows was only gradually extending itself at the time when Roman
civilization sank under the torrent of German and Hunnish barbarism, and
that its employment for optical instruments was only known in a
rudimentary stage; but for domestic purposes, for architectural
decoration and for personal ornaments glass was unquestionably much more
used than at the present day. It must be remembered that the Romans
possessed no fine porcelain decorated with lively colours and a
beautiful glaze; Samian ware was the most decorative kind of pottery
which was then made. Coloured and ornamental glass held among them much
the same place for table services, vessels for toilet use and the like,
as that held among us by porcelain. Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 26, 67)
tells us that for drinking vessels it was even preferred to gold and
silver.
Glass was largely used in pavements, and in thin plates as a coating for
walls. It was used in windows, though by no means exclusively, mica,
alabaster and shells having been also employed. Glass, in flat pieces,
such as might be employed for windows, has been found in the ruins of
Roman houses, both in England and in Italy, and in the house of the faun
at Pompeii a small pane in a bronze frame remains. Most of the pieces
have evidently been made by casting, but the discovery of fragments of
sheet-glass at Silchester proves that the process of making sheet-glass
was known to the Romans. When the window openings were large, as was the
case in basilicas and other public buildings, and even in houses, the
pieces of glass were, doubtless, fixed in pierced slabs of marble or in
frames of wood or bronze. The Roman glass-blowers were masters of all
the ordinary methods of manipulation and decoration. Their craftsmanship
is proved by the large cinerary urns, by the jugs with wide, deeply
ribbed, scientifically fixed handles, and by vessels and vases as
elegant in form and light in weight as any that have been since produced
at Murano. Their moulds, both for blowing hollow vessels and for
pressing ornaments, were as perfect for the purposes for which they were
intended as those of the present time. Their decorative cutting (Plate
I. figs. 5 and 6), which took the form of simple, incised lines, or
bands of shallow oval or hexagonal hollows, was more suited to the
material than the deep prismatic cutting of comparatively recent times.
The Romans had at their command, of transparent colours, blue, green,
purple or amethystine, amber, brown and rose; of opaque colours, white,
black, red, blue, yellow, green and orange. There are many shades of
transparent blue and of opaque blue, yellow and green. In any large
collection of fragments it would be easy to find eight or ten varieties
of opaque blue, ranging from lapis lazuli to turquoise or to lavender
and six or seven of opaque green. Of red the varieties are fewer; the
finest is a crimson red of very beautiful tint, and there are various
gradations from this to a dull brick red. One variety forms the ground
of a very good imitation of porphyry; and there is a dull
semi-transparent red which, when light is passed through it, appears to
be of a dull green hue. With these colours the Roman _vitrarius_ worked,
either using them singly or blending them in almost every conceivable
combination, sometimes, it must be owned, with a rather gaudy and
inharmonious effect.
The glasses to which the Venetians gave the name "mille fiori" were
formed by arranging side by side sections of glass cane, the canes
themselves being built up of differently coloured rods of glass, and
binding them together by heat. A vast quantity of small cups and paterae
were made by this means in patterns which bear considerable resemblance
to the surfaces of madrepores. In these every colour and every shade of
colour seem to have been tried in great variety of combination with
effects more or less pleasing, but transparent violet or purple appears
to have been the most common ground colour. Although most of the vessels
of this mille fiori glass were small, some were made as large as 20 in.
in diameter. Imitations of natural stones were made by stirring together
in a crucible glasses of different colours, or by incorporating
fragments of differently coloured glasses into a mass of molten glass by
rolling. One variety is that in which transparent brown glass is so
mixed with opaque white and blue as to resemble onyx. This was sometimes
done with great success, and very perfect imitations of the natural
stone were produced. Sometimes purple glass is used in place of brown,
probably with the design of imitating the precious murrhine. Imitations
of porphyry, of serpentine, and of granite are also met with, but these
were used chiefly in pavements, and for the decoration of walls, for
which purposes the onyx-glass was likewise employed.
The famous cameo glass was formed by covering a mass of molten glass
with one or more coatings of a differently coloured glass. The usual
process was to gather, first, a small quantity of opaque white glass; to
coat this with a thick layer of translucent blue glass; and, finally, to
cover the blue glass with a coating of the white glass. The outer coat
was then removed from that portion which was to constitute the ground,
leaving the white for the figures, foliage or other ornamentation; these
were then sculptured by means of the gem-engraver's tools. Pliny no
doubt means to refer to this when he says (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 26. 66),
"aliud argenti modo caelatur," contrasting it with the process of
cutting glass by the help of a wheel, to which he refers in the words
immediately preceding, "aliud torno teritur."
The Portland or Barberini vase in the British Museum is the finest
example of this kind of work which has come down to us, and was entire
until it was broken into some hundred pieces by a madman. The pieces,
however, were joined together by Mr Doubleday with extraordinary skill,
and the beauty of design and execution may still be appreciated. The two
other most remarkable examples of this cameo glass are an amphora at
Naples and the Auldjo vase. The amphora measures 1 ft. 5/8 in. in
height, 1 ft. 7½ in. in circumference; it is shaped like the earthern
amphoras with a foot far too small to support it, and must no doubt have
had a stand, probably of gold; the greater part is covered with a most
exquisite design of garlands and vines, and two groups of boys gathering
and treading grapes and playing on various instruments of music; below
these is a line of sheep and goats in varied attitudes. The ground is
blue and the figures white. It was found in a house in the Street of
Tombs at Pompeii in the year 1839, and is now in the Royal Museum at
Naples. It is well engraved in Richardson's _Studies of Ornamental
Design_. The Auldjo vase, in the British Museum, is an oenochoe about 9
in. high; the ornament consists mainly of a most beautiful band of
foliage, chiefly of the vine, with bunches of grapes; the ground is blue
and the ornaments white; it was found at Pompeii in the house of the
faun. It also has been engraved by Richardson. The same process was used
in producing large tablets, employed, no doubt, for various decorative
purposes. In the South Kensington Museum is a fragment of such a tablet
or slab; the figure, a portion of which remains, could not have been
less than about 14 in. high. The ground of these cameo glasses is most
commonly transparent blue, but sometimes opaque blue, purple or dark
brown. The superimposed layer, which is sculptured, is generally opaque
white. A very few specimens have been met with in which several colours
are employed.
At a long interval after these beautiful objects come those vessels
which were ornamented either by means of coarse threads trailed over
their surfaces and forming rude patterns, or by coloured enamels merely
placed on them in lumps; and these, doubtless, were cheap and common
wares. But a modification of the first-named process was in use in the
4th and succeeding centuries, showing great ingenuity and manual
dexterity,--that, namely, in which the added portions of glass are
united to the body of the cup, not throughout, but only at points, and
then shaped either by the wheel or by the hand (Plate I. fig. 3). The
attached portions form in some instances inscriptions, as on a cup
found at Strassburg, which bears the name of the emperor Maximian (A.D.
286-310), on another in the Vereinigte Sammlungen at Munich, and on a
third in the Trivulzi collection at Milan, where the cup is white, the
inscription green and the network blue. Probably, however, the finest
example is a situla, 10½ in. high by 8 in. wide at the top and 4 in. at
the bottom, preserved in the treasury of St Mark at Venice. This is of
glass of a greenish hue; on the upper part is represented, in relief,
the chase of a lion by two men on horseback accompanied by dogs; the
costume appears to be Byzantine rather than Roman, and the style is very
bad. The figures are very much undercut. The lower part has four rows of
circles united to the vessel at those points alone where the circles
touch each other. All the other examples have the lower portion covered
in like manner by a network of circles standing nearly a quarter of an
inch from the body of the cup. An example connected with the specimens
just described is the cup belonging to Baron Lionel de Rothschild;
though externally of an opaque greenish colour, it is by transmitted
light of a deep red. On the outside, in very high relief, are figures of
Bacchus with vines and panthers, some portions being hollow from within,
others fixed on the exterior. The changeability of colour may remind us
of the "calices versicolores" which Hadrian sent to Servianus.
So few examples of glass vessels of this period which have been painted
in enamel have come down to us that it has been questioned whether that
art was then practised; but several specimens have been described which
can leave no doubt on the point; decisive examples are afforded by two
cups found at Vaspelev, in Denmark, engravings of which are published in
the _Annaler for Nordisk Oldkyndeghed_ for 1861, p. 305. These are small
cups, 3 in. and 2½ in. high, 3¾ in. and 3 in. wide, with feet and
straight sides; on the larger are a lion and a bull, on the smaller two
birds with grapes, and on each some smaller ornaments. On the latter are
the letters DVB. R. The colours are vitrified and slightly in relief;
green, blue and brown may be distinguished. They are found with Roman
bronze vessels and other articles.
The art of glass-making no doubt, like all other art, deteriorated
during the decline of the Roman empire, but it is probable that it
continued to be practised, though with constantly decreasing skill, not
only in Rome but in the provinces. Roman technique was to be found in
Byzantium and Alexandria, in Syria, in Spain, in Germany, France and
Britain.
_Early Christian and Byzantine Glass_.--The process of embedding gold
and silver leaf between two layers of glass originated as early as the
1st century, probably in Alexandria. The process consisted in spreading
the leaf on a thin film of blown glass and pressing molten glass on to
the leaf so that the molten glass cohered with the film of glass through
the pores of the metallic leaf. If before this application of the molten
glass the metallic leaf, whilst resting on the thin film of blown glass,
was etched with a sharp point, patterns, emblems, inscriptions and
pictures could be embedded and rendered permanent by the double coating
of glass. The plaques thus formed could be reheated and fashioned into
the bases of bowls and drinking vessels. In this way the so-called
"fondi d'oro" of the catacombs in Rome were made. They are the broken
bases of drinking vessels containing inscriptions, emblems, domestic
scenes and portraits etched in gold leaf. Very few have any reference to
Christianity, but they served as indestructible marks for indicating the
position of interments in the catacombs. The fondi d'oro suggested the
manufacture of plaques of gold which could be broken up into tesserae
for use in mosaics.
Some of the Roman artificers in glass no doubt migrated to
Constantinople, and it is certain that the art was practised there to a
very great extent during the middle ages. One of the gates near the port
took its name from the adjacent glass houses. St Sofia when erected by
Justinian had vaults covered with mosaics and immense windows filled
with plates of glass fitted into pierced marble frames; some of the
plates, 7 to 8 in. wide and 9 to 10 in. high, not blown but cast, which
are in the windows may possibly date from the building of the church.
It is also recorded that pierced silver disks were suspended by chains
and supported glass lamps "wrought by fire." Glass for mosaics was also
largely made and exported. In the 8th century, when peace was made
between the caliph Walid and the emperor Justinian II., the former
stipulated for a quantity of mosaic for the decoration of the new mosque
at Damascus, and in the 10th century the materials for the decoration of
the niche of the kibla at Cordova were furnished by Romanus II. In the
11th century Desiderius, abbot of Monte Casino, sent to Constantinople
for workers in mosaic.
We have in the work of the monk Theophilus, _Diversarum artium
schedula_, and in the probably earlier work of Eraclius, about the 11th
century, instructions as to the art of glass-making in general, and also
as to the production of coloured and enamelled vessels, which these
writers speak of as being practised by the Greeks. The only entire
enamelled vessel which we can confidently attribute to Byzantine art is
a small vase preserved in the treasury of St Mark's at Venice. This is
decorated with circles of rosettes of blue, green and red enamel, each
surrounded by lines of gold; within the circles are little figures
evidently suggested by antique originals, and precisely like similar
figures found on carved ivory boxes of Byzantine origin dating from the
11th or 12th century. Two inscriptions in Cufic characters surround the
vase, but they, it would seem, are merely ornamental and destitute of
meaning. The presence of these inscriptions may perhaps lead to the
inference that the vase was made in Sicily, but by Byzantine workmen.
The double-handled blue-glass vase in the British Museum, dating from
the 5th century, is probably a chalice, as it closely resembles the
chalices represented on early Christian monuments.
Of uncoloured glass brought from Constantinople several examples exist
in the treasury of St Mark's at Venice, part of the plunder of the
imperial city when taken by the crusaders in 1204. The glass in all is
greenish, very thick, with many bubbles, and has been cut with the
wheel; in some instances circles and cones, and in one the outlines of
the figure of a leopard, have been left standing up, the rest of the
surface having been laboriously cut away. The intention would seem to
have been to imitate vessels of rock crystal. The so-called "Hedwig"
glasses may also have originated in Constantinople. These are small cups
deeply and rudely cut with conventional representations of eagles, lions
and griffins. Only nine specimens are known. The specimen in the Rijks
Museum at Amsterdam has an eagle and two lions. The specimen in the
Germanic Museum at Nuremberg has two lions and a griffin.
_Saracenic Glass._--The Saracenic invasion of Syria and Egypt did not
destroy the industry of glass-making. The craft survived and flourished
under the Saracenic régime in Alexandria, Cairo, Tripoli, Tyre, Aleppo
and Damascus. In inventories of the 14th century both in England and in
France mention may frequently be found of glass vessels of the
manufacture of Damascus. A writer in the early part of the 15th century
states that "glass-making is an important industry at Haleb (Aleppo)."
Edward Dillon (_Glass_, 1902) has very properly laid stress on the
importance of the enamelled Saracenic glass of the 13th, 14th and 15th
centuries, pointing out that, whereas the Romans and Byzantine Greeks
made some crude and ineffectual experiments in enamelling, it was under
Saracenic influence that the processes of enamelling and gilding on
glass vessels were perfected. An analysis of the glass of a Cairene
mosque lamp shows that it is a soda-lime glass and contains as much as
4% of magnesia. This large proportion of magnesia undoubtedly supplied
the stability required to withstand the process of enamelling. The
enamelled Saracenic glasses take the form of flasks, vases, goblets,
beakers and mosque lamps. The enamelled decoration on the lamps is
restricted to lettering, scrolls and conventional foliage; on other
objects figure-subjects of all descriptions are freely used. C. H. Read
has pointed out a curious feature in the construction of the enamelled
beakers. The base is double but the inner lining has an opening in the
centre. Dillon has suggested that this central recess may have served to
support a wick. It is possible however, that it served no useful
purpose, but that the construction is a survival from the manufacture of
vessels with fondi d'oro. The bases containing the embedded gold leaf
must have been welded to the vessels to which they belonged, in the same
way as the bases are welded to the Saracenic beakers. The enamelling
process was probably introduced in the early part of the 13th century;
most of the enamelled mosque lamps belong to the 14th century.
_Venetian Glass_.--Whether refugees from Padua, Aquileia or other
Italian cities carried the art to the lagoons of Venice in the 5th
century, or whether it was learnt from the Greeks of Constantinople at a
much later date, has been a disputed question. It would appear not
improbable that the former was the case, for it must be remembered that
articles formed of glass were in the later days of Roman civilization in
constant daily use, and that the making of glass was carried on, not as
now in large establishments, but by artisans working on a small scale.
It seems certain that some knowledge of the art was preserved in France,
in Germany and in Spain, and it seems improbable that it should have
been lost in that archipelago, where the traditions of ancient
civilization must have been better preserved than in almost any other
place. In 523 Cassiodorus writes of the "innumerosa navigia" belonging
to Venice, and where trade is active there is always a probability that
manufactures will flourish. However this may be, the earliest positive
evidence of the existence at Venice of a worker in glass would seem to
be the mention of Petrus Flavianus, phiolarius, in the ducale of Vitale
Falier in the year 1090. In 1224 twenty-nine persons are mentioned as
friolari (i.e. phiolari), and in the same century "mariegole," or codes
of trade regulations, were drawn up (_Monografia della vetraria
Veneziana e Muranese_, p. 219). The manufacture had then no doubt
attained considerable proportions: in 1268 the glass-workers became an
incorporated body; in their processions they exhibited decanters,
scent-bottles and the like; in 1279 they made, among other things,
weights and measures. In the latter part of this century the
glass-houses were almost entirely transferred to Murano. Thenceforward
the manufacture continued to grow in importance; glass vessels were made
in large quantities, as well as glass for windows. The earliest example
which has as yet been described--a cup of blue glass, enamelled and
gilt--is, however, not earlier than about 1440. A good many other
examples have been preserved which may be assigned to the same century:
the earlier of these bear a resemblance in form to the vessels of silver
made in the west of Europe; in the later an imitation of classical forms
becomes apparent. Enamel and gilding were freely used, in imitation no
doubt of the much-admired vessels brought from Damascus. Dillon has
pointed out that the process of enamelling had probably been derived
from Syria, with which country Venice had considerable commercial
intercourse. Many of the ornamental processes which we admire in
Venetian glass were already in use in this century, as that of mille
fiori, and the beautiful kind of glass known as "vitro di trina" or lace
glass. An elaborate account of the processes of making the vitro di
trina and the vasi a reticelli (Plate I., fig. 7) is given in Bontemps's
_Guide du verrier_, pp. 602-612. Many of the examples of these processes
exhibit surprising skill and taste, and are among the most beautiful
objects produced at the Venetian furnaces. That peculiar kind of glass
usually called schmelz, an imperfect imitation of calcedony, was also
made at Venice in the 15th century. Avanturine glass, that in which
numerous small particles of copper are diffused through a transparent
yellowish or brownish mass, was not invented until about 1600.
The peculiar merits of the Venetian manufacture are the elegance of form
and the surprising lightness and thinness of the substance of the
vessels produced. The highest perfection with regard both to form and
decoration was reached in the 16th century; subsequently the Venetian
workmen somewhat abused their skill by giving extravagant forms to
vessels, making drinking glasses in the forms of ships, lions, birds,
whales and the like.
Besides the making of vessels of all kinds the factories of Murano had
for a long period almost an entire monopoly of two other branches of the
art--the making of mirrors and of beads. Attempts to make mirrors of
glass were made as early as A.D. 1317, but even in the 16th century
mirrors of steel were still in use. To make a really good mirror of
glass two things are required--a plate free from bubbles and striae, and
a method of applying a film of metal with a uniform bright surface free
from defects. The principle of applying metallic films to glass seems to
have been known to the Romans and even to the Egyptians, and is
mentioned by Alexander Neckam in the 12th century, but it would appear
that it was not until the 16th century that the process of "silvering"
mirrors by the use of an amalgam of tin and mercury had been perfected.
During the 16th and 17th centuries Venice exported a prodigious quantity
of mirrors, but France and England gradually acquired knowledge and
skill in the art, and in 1772 only one glass-house at Murano continued
to make mirrors.
The making of beads was probably practised at Venice from a very early
period, but the earliest documentary evidence bearing on the subject
does not appear to be of earlier date than the 14th century, when
prohibitions were directed against those who made of glass such objects
as were usually made of crystal or other hard stones. In the 16th
century it had become a trade of great importance, and about 1764
twenty-two furnaces were employed in the production of beads. Towards
the end of the same century from 600 to 1000 workmen were, it is stated,
employed on one branch of the art, that of ornamenting beads by the help
of the blow-pipe. A very great variety of patterns was produced; a
tariff of the year 1800 contains an enumeration of 562 species and a
vast number of sub-species.
The efforts made in France, Germany and England, in the 17th and 18th
centuries, to improve the manufacture of glass in those countries had a
very injurious effect on the industry of Murano. The invention of
colourless Bohemian glass brought in its train the practice of cutting
glass, a method of ornamentation for which Venetian glass, from its
thinness, was ill adapted. One remarkable man, Giuseppe Briati, exerted
himself, with much success, both in working in the old Venetian method
and also in imitating the new fashions invented in Bohemia. He was
especially successful in making vases and circular dishes of vitro di
trina; one of the latter in the Correr collection at Venice, believed to
have been made in his glass-house, measures 55 centimetres (nearly 23
in.) in diameter. The vases made by him are as elegant in form as the
best of the Cinquecento period, but may perhaps be distinguished by the
superior purity and brilliancy of the glass. He also made with great
taste and skill large lustres and mirrors with frames of glass
ornamented either in intaglio or with foliage of various colours. He
obtained a knowledge of the methods of working practised in Bohemia by
disguising himself as a porter, and thus worked for three years in a
Bohemian glass-house. In 1736 he obtained a patent at Venice to
manufacture glass in the Bohemian manner. He died in 1772.
The fall of the republic was accompanied by interruption of trade and
decay of manufacture, and in the last years of the 18th and beginning of
the 19th century the glass-making of Murano was at a very low ebb. In
the year 1838 Signor Bussolin revived several of the ancient processes
of glass-working, and this revival was carried on by C. Pietro Biguglia
in 1845, and by others, and later by Salviati, to whose successful
efforts the modern renaissance of Venetian art glass is principally due.
The fame of Venice in glass-making so completely eclipsed that of other
Italian cities that it is difficult to learn much respecting their
progress in the art. Hartshorne and Dillon have drawn attention to the
important part played by the little Ligurian town, Altare, as a centre
from which glass-workers migrated to all parts of Europe. It is said
that the glass industry was established at Altare, in the 11th century,
by French craftsmen. In the 14th century Muranese glass-workers settled
there and developed the industry. It appears that as early as 1295
furnaces had been established at Treviso, Vicenza, Padua, Mantua,
Ferrara, Ravenna and Bologna. In 1634 there were two glass-houses in
Rome and one in Florence; but whether any of these produced ornamented
vessels, or only articles of common use and window glass, would not
appear to have as yet been ascertained.
_Germany_--Glass-making in Germany during the Roman period seems to have
been carried on extensively in the neighbourhood of Cologne. The Cologne
museum contains many specimens of Roman glass, some of which are
remarkable for their cut decoration. The craft survived the downfall of
the Roman power, and a native industry was developed. This industry must
have won some reputation, for in 758 the abbot of Jarrow appealed to the
bishop of Mainz to send him a worker in glass. There are few records of
glass manufacture in Germany before the beginning of the 16th century.
The positions of the factories were determined by the supply of wood for
fuel, and subsequently, when the craft of glass-cutting was introduced,
by the accessibility of water-power. The vessels produced by the
16th-century glass-workers in Germany, Holland and the Low Countries are
closely allied in form and decoration. The glass is coloured (generally
green) and the decoration consists of glass threads and glass studs, or
prunts ("Nuppen"). The use of threads and prunts is illustrated by the
development of the "Roemer," so popular as a drinking-glass, and as a
feature in Dutch studies of still life. The "Igel," a squat tumbler
covered with prunts, gave rise to the "Krautstrunk," which is like the
"Igel," but longer and narrow-waisted. The "Roemer" itself consists of a
cup, a short waist studded with prunts and a foot. The foot at first was
formed by coiling a thread of glass round the base of the waist; but,
subsequently, an open glass cone was joined to the base of the waist,
and a glass thread was coiled upon the surface of the cone. The
"Passglas," another popular drinking-glass, is cylindrical in form and
marked with horizontal rings of glass, placed at regular intervals, to
indicate the quantity of liquor to be taken at a draught.
In the edition of 1581 of the _De re metallica_ by Georg Agricola, there
is a woodcut showing the interior of a German glass factory, and glass
vessels both finished and unfinished.
In 1428 a Muranese glass-worker set up a furnace in Vienna, and another
furnace was built in the same town by an Italian in 1486. In 1531 the
town council of Nuremberg granted a subsidy to attract teachers of
Venetian technique. Many specimens exist of German winged and enamelled
glasses of Venetian character. The Venetian influence, however, was
indirect rather than direct. The native glass-workers adopted the
process of enamelling, but applied it to a form of decoration
characteristically German. On tall, roomy, cylindrical glasses they
painted portraits of the emperor and electors of Germany, or the
imperial eagle bearing on its wings the arms of the states composing the
empire. The earliest-known example of these enamelled glasses bears the
date 1553. They were immensely popular and the fashion for them lasted
into the 18th century. Some of the later specimens have views of cities,
battle scenes and processions painted in grisaille.
A more important outcome, however, of Italian influence was the
production, in emulation of Venetian glass, of a glass made of refined
potash, lime and sand, which was more colourless than the material it
was intended to imitate. This colourless potash-lime glass has always
been known as Bohemian glass. It was well adapted for receiving cut and
engraved decoration, and in these processes the German craftsmen proved
themselves to be exceptionally skilful. At the end of the 16th century
Rudolph II. brought Italian rock-crystal cutters from Milan to take
control of the crystal and glass-cutting works he had established at
Prague. It was at Prague that Caspar Lehmann and Zachary Belzer learnt
the craft of cutting glass. George Schwanhart, a pupil of Caspar
Lehmann, started glass-cutting at Ratisbon, and about 1690 Stephen
Schmidt and Hermann Schwinger introduced the crafts of cutting and
engraving glass in Nuremberg. To the Germans must be credited the
discovery, or development, of colourless potash-lime glass, the
reintroduction of the crafts of cutting and engraving on glass, the
invention by H. Schwanhart of the process of etching on glass by means
of hydrofluoric acid, and the rediscovery by J. Kunkel, who was director
of the glass-houses at Potsdam in 1679, of the method of making
copper-ruby glass.
_Low Countries and the United Provinces._--The glass industry of the Low
Countries was chiefly influenced by Italy and Spain, whereas German
influence and technique predominated in the United Provinces. The
history of glass-making in the provinces is almost identical with that
of Germany. In the 17th and 18th centuries the processes of scratching,
engraving and etching were brought to great perfection.
The earliest record of glass-making in the Low Countries consists in an
account of payments made in 1453-1454 on behalf of Philip the Good of
Burgundy to "Gossiun de Vieuglise, Maître Vorrier de Lille" for a glass
fountain and four glass plateaus. Schuermans has traced Italian
glass-workers to Antwerp, Liége, Brussels and Namur. Antwerp appears to
have been the headquarters of the Muranese, and Liége the headquarters
of the Altarists. Guicciardini in his description of the Netherlands, in
1563, mentions glass as among the chief articles of export to England.
In 1599 the privilege of making "Voires de cristal à la faschon Venise,"
was granted to Philippe de Gridolphi of Antwerp. In 1623 Anthony Miotti,
a Muranese, addressed a petition to Philip IV. of Spain for permission
to make glasses, vases and cups of fine crystal, equal to those of
Venice, but to be sold at one-third less than Venetian glasses. In 1642
Jean Savonetti "gentilhomme Verrier de Murano" obtained a patent for
making glass in Brussels. The Low Country glasses are closely copied
from Venetian models, but generally are heavier and less elegant. Owing
to the fashion of Dutch and Flemish painters introducing glass vases and
drinking-glasses into their paintings of still life, interiors and
scenes of conviviality, Holland and Belgium at the present day possess
more accurate records of the products of their ancient glass factories
than any other countries.
_Spain._--During the Roman occupation Pliny states that glass was made
"per Hispanias" (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 26. 66). Traces of Roman glass
manufactories have been found in Valencia and Murcia, in the valleys
which run down to the coast of Catalonia, and near the mouth of the
Ebro. Little is known about the condition of glass-making in Spain
between the Roman period and the 13th century. In the 13th century the
craft of glass-making was practised by the Moors in Almeria, and was
probably a survival from Roman times. The system of decorating vases and
vessels by means of strands of glass trailed upon the surface in knots,
zigzags and trellis work, was adopted by the Moors and is characteristic
of Roman craftsmanship. Glass-making was continued at Pinar de la
Vidriera and at Al Castril de la Pena into the 17th century. The objects
produced show no sign of Venetian influence, but are distinctly Oriental
in form. Many of the vessels have four or as many as eight handles, and
are decorated with serrated ornamentation, and with the trailed strands
of glass already referred to. The glass is generally of a dark-green
colour.
Barcelona has a long record as a centre of the glass industry. In 1324 a
municipal edict was issued forbidding the erection of glass-furnaces
within the city. In 1455 the glass-makers of Barcelona were permitted to
form a gild. Jeronimo Paulo, writing in 1491, says that glass vessels of
various sorts were sent thence to many places, and even to Rome.
Marineus Siculus, writing early in the 16th century, says that the best
glass was made at Barcelona; and Gaspar Baneiros, in his
_Chronographia_, published in 1562, states that the glass made at
Barcelona was almost equal to that of Venice and that large quantities
were exported.
The author of the _Atlante español_, writing at the end of the 18th
century, says that excellent glass was still made at Barcelona on
Venetian models. The Italian influence was strongly felt in Spain, but
Spanish writers have given no precise information as to when it was
introduced or whence it came. Schuermans has, however, discovered the
names of more than twenty Italians who found their way into Spain, in
some cases by way of Flanders, either from Altare or from Venice. The
Spanish glass-makers were very successful in imitating the Venetian
style, and many specimens supposed to have originated from Murano are
really Spanish. In addition to the works at Barcelona, the works which
chiefly affected Venetian methods were those of Cadalso in the province
of Toledo, founded in the 16th century, and the works established in
1680 at San Martin de Valdeiglesias in Avila. There were also works at
Valdemaqueda and at Villafranca. In 1680 the works in Barcelona,
Valdemaqueda and Villafranca are named in a royal schedule giving the
prices at which glass was to be sold in Madrid. In 1772 important glass
works were established at Recuenco in the province of Cuenca, mainly to
supply Madrid. The royal glass manufactory of La Granja de San Ildefonso
was founded about 1725; in the first instance for the manufacture of
mirror plates, but subsequently for the production of vases and
table-ware in the French style. The objects produced are mostly of white
clear glass, cut, engraved and gilded. Engraved flowers, views and
devices are often combined with decorative cutting. Don Sigismundo Brun
is credited with the invention of permanent gilding fixed by heat.
Spanish glass is well represented in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
_France._--Pliny states that glass was made in Gaul, and there is reason
to believe that it was made in many parts of the country and on a
considerable scale. There were glass-making districts both in Normandy
and in Poitou.
Little information can be gathered concerning the glass industry between
the Roman period and the 14th century. It is recorded that in the 7th
century the abbot of Wearmouth in England obtained artificers in glass
from France; and there is a tradition that in the 11th century
glass-workers migrated from Normandy and Brittany and set up works at
Altare near Genoa.
In 1302 window glass, probably crown-glass, was made at Beza le Forêt in
the department of the Eure. In 1416 these works were in the hands of
Robin and Leban Guichard, but passed subsequently to the Le Vaillants.
In 1338 Humbert, the dauphin, granted a part of the forest of Chamborant
to a glass-worker named Guionet on the condition that Guionet should
supply him with vessels of glass.
In 1466 the abbess of St Croix of Poitiers received a gross of glasses
from the glass-works of La Ferrière, for the privilege of gathering fern
for the manufacture of potash.
In France, as in other countries, efforts were made to introduce Italian
methods of glass-working. Schuermans in his researches discovered that
during the 15th and 16th centuries many glass-workers left Altare and
settled in France,--the Saroldi migrated to Poitou, the Ferri to
Provence, the Massari to Lorraine and the Bormioli to Normandy. In 1551
Henry II. of France established at St Germain en Laye an Italian named
Mutio; he was a native of Bologna, but of Altare origin. In 1598 Henry
IV. permitted two "gentil hommes verriers" from Mantua to settle at
Rouen in order to make "verres de cristal, verres dorée emaul et autres
ouvrages qui se font en Venise."
France assimilated the craft of glass-making, and her craftsmen acquired
a wide reputation. Lorraine and Normandy appear to have been the most
important centres. To Lorraine belong the well-known names Hennezel, de
Thietry, du Thisac, de Houx; and to Normandy the names de Bongar, de
Cacqueray le Vaillant and de Brossard.
In the 17th century the manufacture of mirror glass became an important
branch of the industry. In 1665 a manufactory was established in the
Faubourg St Antoine in Paris, and another at Tour-la-Ville near
Cherbourg.
Louis Lucas de Nehou, who succeeded de Cacqueray at the works at
Tour-la-Ville, moved in 1675 to the works in Paris. Here, in 1688, in
conjunction with A. Thevart, he succeeded in perfecting the process of
casting plate-glass. Mirror plates previous to the invention had been
made from blown "sheet" glass, and were consequently very limited in
size. De Nehou's process of rolling molten glass poured on an iron table
rendered the manufacture of very large plates possible.
The Manufactoire Royale des Glaces was removed in 1693 to the Château de
St Gobain.
In the 18th century the manufacture of _vases de verre_ had become so
neglected that the Academy of Sciences in 1759 offered a prize for an
essay on the means by which the industry might be revived (Labarte,
_Histoire des arts industriels_).
The famous Baccarat works, for making crystal glass, were founded in
1818 by d'Artigues.
_English Glass._--The records of glass-making in England are exceedingly
meagre. There is reason to believe that during the Roman occupation the
craft was carried on in several parts of the country. Remains of a Roman
glass manufactory of considerable extent were discovered near the
Manchester Ship Canal at Warrington. Wherever the Romans settled glass
vessels and fragments of glass have been found. There is no evidence to
prove that the industry survived the withdrawal of the Roman garrison.
It is probable that the glass drinking-vessels, which have been found in
pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon tombs, were introduced from Germany. Some are
elaborate in design and bear witness to advanced technique of Roman
character. In 675 Benedict Biscop, abbot of Wearmouth, was obliged to
obtain glass-workers from France, and in 758 Cuthbert, abbot of Jarrow,
appealed to the bishop of Mainz to send him artisans to manufacture
"windows and vessels of glass, because the English were ignorant and
helpless." Except for the statement in Bede that the French artisans,
sent by Benedict Biscop, taught their craft to the English, there is at
present no evidence of glass having been made in England between the
Roman period and the 13th century. In some deeds relating to the parish
of Chiddingfold, in Surrey, of a date not later than 1230, a grant is
recorded of twenty acres of land to Lawrence "vitrearius," and in
another deed, of about 1280, the "ovenhusveld" is mentioned as a
boundary. This field has been identified, and pieces of crucible and
fragments of glass have been dug up. There is another deed, dated 1300,
which mentions one William "le verir" of Chiddingfold.
About 1350 considerable quantities of colourless flat glass were
supplied by John Alemayn of Chiddingfold for glazing the windows in St
George's chapel, Windsor, and in the chapel of St Stephen, Westminster.
The name Alemayn (Aleman) suggests a foreign origin. In 1380 John
Glasewryth, a Staffordshire glass-worker, came to work at Shuerewode,
Kirdford, and there made brode-glas and vessels for Joan, widow of John
Shertere.
There were two kinds of flat glass, known respectively as "brode-glas"
and "Normandy" glass. The former was made, as described by Theophilus,
from cylinders, which were split, reheated and flattened into square
sheets. It was known as Lorraine glass, and subsequently as "German
sheet" or sheet-glass. Normandy glass was made from glass circles or
disks. When, in after years, the process was perfected, the glass was
known as "crown" glass. In 1447 English flat glass is mentioned in the
contract for the windows of the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, but
disparagingly, as the contractor binds himself not to use it. In 1486,
however, it is referred to in such a way as to suggest that it was
superior to "Dutch, Venice or Normandy glass." The industry does not
seem to have prospered, for when in 1567 an inquiry was made as to its
condition, it was ascertained that only small rough goods were being
made.
In the 16th century the fashion for using glass vessels of ornamental
character spread from Italy into France and England. Henry VIII. had a
large collection of glass drinking-vessels chiefly of Venetian
manufacture. The increasing demand for Venetian drinking-glasses
suggested the possibility of making similar glass in England, and
various attempts were made to introduce Venetian workmen and Venetian
methods of manufacture. In 1550 eight Muranese glass-blowers were
working in or near the Tower of London. They had left Murano owing to
slackness of trade, but had been recalled, and appealed to the Council
of Ten in Venice to be allowed to complete their contract in London.
Seven of these glass-workers left London in the following year, but one,
Josepho Casselari, remained and joined Thomas Cavato, a Dutchman. In
1574 Jacob Verzellini, a fugitive Venetian, residing in Antwerp,
obtained a patent for making drinking-glasses in London "such as are
made in Murano." He established works in Crutched Friars, and to him is
probably due the introduction of the use of soda-ash, made from seaweed
and seaside plants, in place of the crude potash made from fern and wood
ashes. His manufactory was burnt down in 1575, but was rebuilt. He
afterwards moved his works to Winchester House, Broad Street. There is a
small goblet (Pl. I., fig. 8) in the British Museum which is attributed
to Verzellini. It is Venetian in character, of a brownish tint, with two
white enamel rings round the body. It is decorated with diamond or
steel-point etching, and bears on one side the date 1586, and on the
opposite side the words "In God is al mi trust." Verzellini died in 1606
and was buried at Down in Kent. In 1592 the Broad Street works had been
taken over by Jerome Bowes. They afterwards passed into the hands of Sir
R. Mansel, and in 1618 James Howell, author of _Epistolae Ho-elianae_,
was acting as steward. The works continued in operation until 1641.
During excavations in Broad Street in 1874 many fragments of glass were
found; amongst them were part of a wine-glass, a square scent-bottle and
a wine-glass stem containing a spiral thread of white enamel.
A greater and more lasting influence on English glass-making came from
France and the Low Countries. In 1567 James Carré of Antwerp stated that
he had erected two glass-houses at "Fernefol" (Fernfold Wood in Sussex)
for Normandy and Lorraine glass for windows, and had brought over
workmen. From this period began the records in England of the great
glass-making families of Hennezel, de Thietry, du Thisac and du Houx
from Lorraine, and of de Bongar and de Cacqueray from Normandy. About
this time glass-works were established at Ewhurst and Alford in Surrey,
Loxwood, Kirdford, Wisborough and Petworth in Sussex, and Sevenoaks and
Penshurst in Kent. Beginning in Sussex, Surrey and Kent, where wood for
fuel was plentiful, the foreign glass-workers and their descendants
migrated from place to place, always driven by the fuel-hunger of their
furnaces. They gradually made their way into Hampshire, Wiltshire,
Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Northumberland, Scotland and Ireland.
They can be traced by cullet heaps and broken-down furnaces, and by
their names, often mutilated, recorded in parish registers.
In 1610 a patent was granted to Sir W. Slingsby for burning coal in
furnaces, and coal appears to have been used in the Broad Street works.
In 1615 all patents for glass-making were revoked and a new patent
issued for making glass with coal as fuel, in the names of Mansel,
Zouch, Thelwall, Kellaway and Percival. To the last is credited the
first introduction of covered crucibles to protect the molten glass from
the products of burning coal.
Simultaneously with the issue of this patent the use of wood for melting
glass was prohibited, and it was made illegal to import glass from
abroad. About 1617 Sir R. Mansel, vice-admiral and treasurer of the
navy, acquired the sole rights of making glass in England. These rights
he retained for over thirty years.
During the protectorate all patent rights virtually lapsed, and mirrors
and drinking-glasses were once more imported from Venice. In 1663 the
duke of Buckingham, although unable to obtain a renewal of the monopoly
of glass-making, secured the prohibition of the importation of glass for
mirrors, coach plates, spectacles, tubes and lenses, and contributed to
the revival of the glass industry in all its branches. Evelyn notes in
his _Diary_ a visit in 1673 to the Italian glass-house at Greenwich,
"where glass was blown of finer metal than that of Murano," and a visit
in 1677 to the duke of Buckingham's glass-works, where they made huge
"vases of mettal as cleare, ponderous and thick as chrystal; also
looking-glasses far larger and better than any that came from Venice."
Some light is thrown on the condition of the industry at the end of the
17th century by the Houghton letters on the improvement of trade and
commerce, which appeared in 1696. A few of these letters deal with the
glass trade, and in one a list is given of the glass-works then in
operation. There were 88 glass factories in England which are thus
classified:
Bottles 39
Looking-glass plates 2
Crown and plate-glass 5
Window glass 15
Flint and ordinary glass 27
--
88
It is probable that the flint-glass of that date was very different from
the flint-glass of to-day. The term flint-glass is now understood to
mean a glass composed of the silicates of potash and lead. It is the
most brilliant and the most colourless of all glasses, and was
undoubtedly first perfected in England. Hartshorne has attributed its
discovery to a London merchant named Tilson, who in 1663 obtained a
patent for making "crystal glass." E. W. Hulme, however, who has
carefully investigated the subject, is of opinion that flint-glass in
its present form was introduced about 1730. The use of oxide of lead in
glass-making was no new thing; it had been used, mainly as a flux, both
by Romans and Venetians. The invention, if it may be regarded as one,
consisted in eliminating lime from the glass mixture, substituting
refined potash for soda, and using a very large proportion of lead
oxide. It is probable that flint-glass was not invented, but gradually
evolved, that potash-lead glasses were in use during the latter part of
the 17th century, but that the mixture was not perfected until the
middle of the following century.
The 18th century saw a great development in all branches of
glass-making. Collectors of glass are chiefly concerned with the
drinking-glasses which were produced in great profusion and adapted for
every description of beverage. The most noted are the glasses with stout
cylindrical legs (Plate I. fig. 9), containing spiral threads of air, or
of white or coloured enamel. To this type of glass belong many of the
Jacobite glasses which commemorate the old or the young Pretender.
In 1746 the industry was in a sufficiently prosperous condition to tempt
the government to impose an excise duty. The report of the commission of
excise, dealing with glass, published in 1835 is curious and interesting
reading. So burdensome was the duty and so vexatious were the
restrictions that it is a matter for wonder that the industry survived.
In this respect England was more fortunate than Ireland. Before 1825,
when the excise duty was introduced into Ireland, there were flourishing
glass-works in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and Waterford. By 1850 the Irish
glass industry had been practically destroyed. Injurious as the excise
duty undoubtedly was to the glass trade generally, and especially to the
flint-glass industry, it is possible that it may have helped to develop
the art of decorative glass-cutting. The duty on flint-glass was imposed
on the molten glass in the crucibles and on the unfinished goods. The
manufacturer had, therefore, a strong inducement to enhance by every
means in his power the selling value of his glass after it had escaped
the exciseman's clutches. He therefore employed the best available art
and skill in improving the craft of glass-cutting. It is the development
of this craft in connexion with the perfecting of flint-glass that makes
the 18th century the most important period in the history of English
glass-making. Glass-cutting was a craft imported from Germany, but the
English material so greatly surpassed Bohemian glass in brilliance that
the Bohemian cut-glass was eclipsed. Glass-cutting was carried on at
works in Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, London,
Newcastle, Stourbridge, Whittington and Waterford. The most important
centres of the craft were London, Bristol, Birmingham and Waterford (see
Plate I., fig. 10, for oval cut-glass Waterford bowl). The finest
specimens of cut-glass belong to the period between 1780 and 1810. Owing
to the sacrifice of form to prismatic brilliance, cut-glass gradually
lost its artistic value. Towards the middle of the 19th century it
became the fashion to regard all cut-glass as barbarous, and services of
even the best period were neglected and dispersed. At the present time
scarcely anything is known about the origin of the few specimens of
18th-century English cut-glass which have been preserved in public
collections. It is strange that so little interest has been taken in a
craft in which for some thirty years England surpassed all competitors,
creating a wave of fashion which influenced the glass industry
throughout the whole of Europe.
In the report of the Excise Commission a list is given of the glass
manufactories which paid the excise duty in 1833. There were 105
factories in England, 10 in Scotland and 10 in Ireland. In England the
chief centres of the industry were Bristol, Birmingham, London,
Manchester, Newcastle, Stourbridge and York. Plate-glass was made by
Messrs Cookson of Newcastle, and by the British Plate Glass Company of
Ravenhead. Crown and German sheet-glass were made by Messrs Chance &
Hartley of Birmingham. The London glass-works were those of Apsley
Pellatt of Blackfriars, Christie of Stangate, and William Holmes of
Whitefriars. In Scotland there were works in Glasgow, Leith and
Portobello. In Ireland there were works in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and
Waterford. The famous Waterford works were in the hands of Gatchell &
Co.
_India._--Pliny states (_Nat. Hist._ xxxvi. 26, 66) that no glass was to
be compared to the Indian, and gives as a reason that it was made from
broken crystal; and in another passage (xii. 19, 42) he says that the
Troglodytes brought to Ocelis (Ghella near Bab-el-Mandeb) objects of
glass. We have, however, very little knowledge of Indian glass of any
considerable antiquity. A few small vessels have been found in the
"topes," as in that at Manikiala in the Punjab, which probably dates
from about the Christian era; but they exhibit no remarkable character,
and fragments found at Brahmanabad are hardly distinguishable from Roman
glass of the imperial period. The chronicle of the Sinhalese kings, the
_Mahavamsa_, however, asserts that mirrors of glittering glass were
carried in procession in 306 B.C., and beads like gems, and windows with
ornaments like jewels, are also mentioned at about the same date. If
there really was an important manufacture of glass in Ceylon at this
early time, that island perhaps furnished the Indian glass of Pliny. In
the later part of the 17th century some glass decorated with enamel was
made at Delhi. A specimen is in the Indian section of the South
Kensington Museum. Glass is made in several parts of India--as Patna and
Mysore--by very simple and primitive methods, and the results are
correspondingly defective. Black, green, red, blue and yellow glasses
are made, which contain a large proportion of alkali and are readily
fusible. The greater part is worked into bangles, but some small bottles
are blown (Buchanan, _Journey through Mysore_, i. 147, iii. 369).
_Persia._--No very remarkable specimens of Persian glass are known in
Europe, with the exception of some vessels of blue glass richly
decorated with gold. These probably date from the 17th century, for
Chardin tells us that the windows of the tomb of Shah Abbas II. (ob.
1666), at Kum, were "de cristal peint d'or et d'azur." At the present
day bottles and drinking-vessels are made in Persia which in texture and
quality differ little from ordinary Venetian glass of the 16th or 17th
centuries, while in form they exactly resemble those which may be seen
in the engravings in Chardin's _Travels_.
_China._--The history of the manufacture of glass in China is obscure,
but the common opinion that it was learnt from the Europeans in the 17th
century seems to be erroneous. A writer in the _Mémoires concernant les
Chinois_ (ii. 46) states on the authority of the annals of the Han
dynasty that the emperor Wu-ti (140 B.C.) had a manufactory of the kind
of glass called "lieou-li" (probably a form of opaque glass), that in
the beginning of the 3rd century of our era the emperor Tsaou-tsaou
received from the West a considerable present of glasses of all colours,
and that soon after a glass-maker came into the country who taught the
art to the natives.
The Wei dynasty, to which Tsaou-tsaou belonged, reigned in northern
China, and at this day a considerable manufacture of glass is carried on
at Po-shan-hien in Shantung, which it would seem has existed for a long
period. The Rev. A. Williamson (_Journeys in North China_, i. 131) says
that the glass is extremely pure, and is made from the rocks in the
neighbourhood. The rocks are probably of quartz, i.e. rock crystal, a
correspondence with Pliny's statement respecting Indian glass which
seems deserving of attention.
Whether the making of glass in China was an original discovery of that
ingenious people, or was derived via Ceylon from Egypt, cannot perhaps
be now ascertained; the manufacture has, however, never greatly extended
itself in China. The case has been the converse of that of the Romans;
the latter had no fine pottery, and therefore employed glass as the
material for vessels of an ornamental kind, for table services and the
like. The Chinese, on the contrary, having from an early period had
excellent porcelain, have been careless about the manufacture of glass.
A Chinese writer, however, mentions the manufacture of a huge vase in
A.D. 627, and in 1154 Edrisi (first climate, tenth section) mentions
Chinese glass. A glass vase about a foot high is preserved at Nara in
Japan, and is alleged to have been placed there in the 8th century. It
seems probable that this is of Chinese manufacture. A writer in the
_Mémoires concernant les Chinois_ (ii. 463 and 477), writing about 1770,
says that there was then a glass-house at Peking, where every year a
good number of vases were made, some requiring great labour because
nothing was blown (rien n'est soufflé), meaning no doubt that the
ornamentation was produced not by blowing and moulding, but by cutting.
This factory was, however, merely an appendage to the imperial
magnificence. The earliest articles of Chinese glass the date of which
has been ascertained, which have been noticed, are some bearing the name
of the emperor Kienlung (1735-1795), one of which is in the Victoria and
Albert Museum.
In the manufacture of ornamental glass the leading idea in China seems
to be the imitation of natural stones. The coloured glass is usually not
of one bright colour throughout, but semi-transparent and marbled; the
colours in many instances are singularly fine and harmonious. As in
1770, carving or cutting is the chief method by which ornament is
produced, the vessels being blown very solid.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Georg Agricola, _De re metallica_ (Basel, 1556); Percy
Bate, _English Table Glass_ (n.d.); G. Bontemps, _Guide du verrier_
(Paris, 1868); Edward Dillon, _Glass_ (London, 1907); C. C. Edgar,
"Graeco-Egyptian Glass," _Catalogue du Musée du Caire_ (1905); Sir A.
W. Franks, _Guide to Glass Room in British Museum_ (1888); Rev. A.
Hallen, "Glass-making in Sussex," _Scottish Antiquary_, No. 28 (1893);
Albert Hartshorne, _Old English Glasses_ (London); E. W. Hulme,
"English Glass-making in XVI. and XVII. Centuries," _The Antiquary_,
Nos. 59, 60, 63, 64, 65; Alexander Nesbitt, "Glass," _Art Handbook_,
Victoria and Albert Museum; E. Peligot, _Le Verre, son histoire, sa
fabrication_ (Paris, 1878); Apsley Pellatt, _Curiosities of
Glass-making_ (London, 1849); F. Petrie, _Tell-el-Amarna_, Egypt
Exploration Fund (1894); "Egypt," sect. _Art_; H. J. Powell, "Cut
Glass," _Journal Society of Arts_, No. 2795; C. H. Read, "Saracenic
Glass," _Archaeologia_, vol. 58, part 1.; Juan F. Riano, "Spanish
Arts," _Art Handbook_, Victoria and Albert Museum; H. Schuermans,
"Muranese and Altarist Glass Workers," eleven letters: _Bulletins des
commissions royales_ (Brussels, 1883, 1891). For the United States,
see vol. x. of _Reports of the 12th Census_, pp. 949-1000, and
_Special Report of Census of Manufactures_ (1905), Part III., pp.
837-935. (A. Ne.; H. J. P.)
GLASS, STAINED. All coloured glass is, strictly speaking, "stained" by
some metallic oxide added to it in the process of manufacture. But the
term "stained glass" is popularly, as well as technically, used in a
more limited sense, and is understood to refer to stained glass windows.
Still the words "stained glass" do not fully describe what is meant; for
the glass in coloured windows is for the most part not only stained but
painted. Such painting was, however, until comparatively modern times,
used only to give details of drawing and to define _form_. The _colour_
in a stained glass window was not painted on the glass but incorporated
in it, mixed with it in the making--whence the term "pot-metal" by which
self-coloured glass is known, i.e. glass coloured in the melting pot.
A medieval window was consequently a patchwork of variously coloured
pieces. And the earlier its date the more surely was it a mosaic, not in
the form of tesserae, but in the manner known as "opus sectile." Shaped
pieces of coloured glass were, that is to say, put together like the
parts of a puzzle. The nearest approach to an exception to this rule is
a fragment at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in which actual tesserae
are fused together into a solid slab of many-coloured glass, in effect a
window panel, through which the light shines with all the brilliancy of
an Early Gothic window. But apart from the fact that the design proves
in this case to be even more effective with the light upon it, the use
of gold leaf in the tesserae confirms the presumption that this work,
which (supposing it to be genuine) would be Byzantine, centuries earlier
than any coloured windows that we know of, and entirely different from
them in technique, is rather a specimen of fused mosaic that happens to
be translucent than part of a window designedly executed in tesserae.
The Eastern (and possibly the earlier) practice was to set chips of
coloured glass in a heavy fretwork of stone or to imbed them in plaster.
In a medieval window they were held together by strips of lead, in
section something like the letter H, the upright strokes of which
represent the "tapes" extending on either side well over the edges of
the glass, and the crossbar the connecting "core" between them. The
leading was soldered together at the points of junction, cement or putty
was rubbed into the crevices between glass and lead, and the window was
attached (by means of copper wires soldered on to the leads) to iron
saddle-bars let into the masonry.
Stained glass was primarily the art of the glazier; but the painter,
called in to help, asserted himself more and more, and eventually took
it almost entirely into his own hands. Between the period when it was
glazier's work eked out by painting and when it was painter's work with
the aid of the glazier lies the entire development of stained and
painted window-making. With the eventual endeavour of the glass painter
to do without the glazier, and to get the colour by painting in
translucent _enamel_ upon colourless glass, we have the beginning of a
form of art no longer monumental and comparatively trivial.
This evolution of the painted window from a patchwork of little pieces
of coloured glass explains itself when it is remembered that coloured
glass was originally not made in the big sheets produced nowadays, but
at first in jewels to look as much as possible like rubies, sapphires,
emeralds and other precious stones, and afterwards in rounds and sheets
of small dimensions. Though some of the earliest windows were in the
form of pure glazing ("leaded-lights"), the addition of painting seems
to have been customary from the very first. It was a means of rendering
detail not to be got in lead. Glazing affords by itself scope for
beautiful pattern work; but the old glaziers never carried their art as
far as they might have done in the direction of ornament; their aim was
always in the direction of picture; the idea was to make windows serve
the purpose of coloured story books. That was beyond the art of the
glazier. It was easy enough to represent the drapery of a saint by red
glass, the ground on which he stood by green, the sky above by blue, his
crown by yellow, the scroll in his hand by white, and his flesh by
brownish pink; but when it came to showing the folds of red drapery,
blades of green grass, details of goldsmith's work, lettering on the
scroll, the features of the face--the only possible way of doing it was
by painting. The use of paint was confined at first to an opaque brown,
used, not as colour, but only as a means of stopping out light, and in
that way defining comparatively delicate details within the lead lines.
These themselves outlined and defined the main forms of the design. The
pigment used by the glass painter was of course vitreous: it consisted
of powdered glass and sundry metallic oxides (copper, iron, manganese,
&c.), so that, when the pieces of painted glass were made red hot in the
kiln, the powdered glass became fused to the surface, and with it the
dense colouring matter also. When the pieces of painted glass were
afterwards glazed together and seen against the light, the design
appeared in the brilliant colour of the glass, its forms drawn in the
uniform black into which, at a little distance, leadwork and painting
lines became merged.
It needed solid painting to stop out the light entirely: thin paint only
obscured it. And, even in early glass, thin paint was used, whether to
subdue crude colour or to indicate what little shading a 13th-century
draughtsman might desire. In the present state of old glass, the surface
often quite disintegrated, it is difficult to determine to what extent
thin paint was used for either purpose. There must always have been the
temptation to make tint do instead of solid lines; but the more
workmanlike practice, and the usual one, was to get difference of tint,
as a pen-draughtsman does, by lines of solid opaque colour. In
comparatively colourless glass (_grisaille_) the pattern was often made
to stand out by cross-hatching the background; and another common
practice was to coat the glass with paint all over, and scrape the
design out of it. The effect of either proceeding was to lower the tone
of the glass without dirtying the colour, as a smear of thin paint would
do.
Towards the 14th century, when Gothic design took a more naturalistic
direction, the desire to get something like modelling made it necessary
to carry painting farther, and they got rid to some extent of the ill
effect of shading-colour smeared on the glass by stippling it. This not
only softened the tint and allowed of gradation according to the amount
of stippling, but let some light through, where the bristles of the
stippling-tool took up the pigment. Shading of this kind enforced by
touches of strong brushwork, cross-hatching and some scratching out of
high lights was the method of glass painting adopted in the 14th
century.
Glass was never at the best a pleasant surface to paint on; and glass
painting, following the line of least resistance, developed in the later
Gothic and early Renaissance periods into something unlike any other
form of painting. The outlines continued to be traced upon the glass and
fixed in the fire; but, after that, the process of painting consisted
mainly in the removal of paint. The entire surface of the glass was
coated with an even "matt" of pale brown; this was allowed to dry; and
then the high lights were rubbed off, and the modelling was got by
scrubbing away the paint with a dry hog-hair brush, more or less,
according to the gradations required. Perfect modelling was got by
repeating the operation--how often depended upon the dexterity of the
painter. A painter's method is partly the outcome of his individuality.
One man would float on his colour and manipulate it to some extent in
the moist state; another would work entirely upon the dry matt. Great
use was made of the pointed stick with which sharp lines of light were
easily scraped out; and in the 16th century Swiss glass painters,
working upon a relatively small scale, got their modelling entirely with
a needle-point, scraping away the paint just as an etcher scratches away
the varnish from his etching plate. The practice of the two craftsmen
is, indeed, identical, though the one scratches out what are to be black
lines and the other lines of light. In the end, then, though a painter
would always use touches of the brush to get crisp lines of dark, the
manipulation of glass painting consisted more in erasing lights than in
painting shadows, more in rubbing out or scraping off paint than in
putting it on in brush strokes.
So far there was no thought of getting colour by means of paint. The
colour was in the glass itself, permeating the mass ("pot-metal"). There
was only one exception to this--ruby glass, the colour of which was so
dense that red glass thick enough for its purpose would have been
practically obscure; and so they made a colourless pot-metal coated on
one side only with red glass. This led to a practice which forms an
exception to the rule that in "pot-metal" glass every change of colour,
or from colour to white, is got by the use of a separate piece of glass.
It was possible in the ease of this "flashed" ruby to grind away
portions of the surface and thus obtain white on red or red on white.
Eventually they made coated glass of blue and other colours, with a view
to producing similar effects by abrasion. (The same result is arrived at
nowadays by means of etching. The skin of coloured glass, in old days
laboriously ground or cut away, is now easily eaten off by fluoric
acid.) One other exceptional expedient in colouring had very
considerable effect upon the development of glass design from about the
beginning of the 14th century. The discovery that a solution of silver
applied to glass would under the action of the fire stain it yellow
enabled the glass painter to get yellow upon colourless glass, green
upon grey-blue, and (by staining only the abraded portions) yellow upon
blue or ruby. This yellow was neither enamel nor pot-metal colour, but
stain--the only staining actually done by the glass painter as distinct
from the glass maker. It varied in colour from pale lemon to deep
orange, and was singularly pure in quality. As what is called "white"
glass became purer and was employed in greater quantities it was
lavishly used; so much so that a brilliant effect of silvery white and
golden yellow is characteristic of later Gothic windows.
The last stage of glass painting was the employment of enamel not for
stopping out light but to get colour. It began to be used in the early
part of the 16th century--at first only in the form of a flesh tint; but
it was not long before other colours were introduced. This use of colour
no longer _in_ the glass but _upon_ it marks quite a new departure in
technique. Enamel colour was finely powdered coloured glass mixed with
gum or some such substance into a pigment which could be applied with a
brush. When the glass painted with it was brought to a red heat in the
oven, the powdered glass melted and was fused to it, just like the
opaque brown employed from the very beginning of glass-painting.
This process of enamelling was hardly called for in the interests of
art. Even the red flesh-colour (borrowed from the Limoges enamellers
upon copper) did not in the least give the quality of flesh, though it
enabled the painter to suggest by contrast the whiteness of a man's
beard. As for the brighter enamel colours, they had nothing like the
depth or richness of "stained" glass. What enamel really did was to make
easy much that had been impossible in mosaic, as, for example, to
represent upon the very smallest shield of arms any number of "charges"
all in the correct tinctures. It encouraged the minute workmanship
characteristic of Swiss glass painting; and, though this was not
altogether inappropriate to domestic window panes, the painter was
tempted by it to depart from the simplicity and breadth of design
inseparable from the earlier mosaic practice. In the end he introduced
coloured glass only where he could hardly help it, and glazed the great
part of his window in rectangular panes of clear glass, upon which he
preferred to paint his picture in opaque brown and translucent enamel
colours.
Enamel upon glass has not stood the test of time. Its presence is
usually to be detected in old windows by specks of light shining through
the colour. This is where the enamel has crumbled off. There is a very
good reason for that. Enamel must melt at a temperature at which the
glass it is painted on keeps its shape. The lower the melting point of
the powdered glass the more easily it is fused. The painter is
consequently inclined to use enamel of which the contraction and
expansion is much greater than that of his glass--with the result that,
under the action of the weather, the colour is apt to work itself free
and expose the bare white glass beneath. The only enamel which has held
its own is that of the Swiss glass-painters of the 16th and 17th
centuries. The domestic window panes they painted may not in all cases
have been tried by the sudden changes of atmosphere to which church
windows are subject; but credit must be given them for exceptionally
skilful and conscientious workmanship.
The story of stained glass is bound up with the history of architecture,
to which it was subsidiary, and of the church, which was its patron. Its
only possible course of development was in the wake of church building.
From its very inception it was Gothic and ecclesiastical. And, though it
survived the upheaval of the Renaissance and was turned to civil and
domestic use, it is to church windows that we must go to see what
stained glass really was--or is; for time has been kind to it. The charm
of medieval glass lies to a great extent in the material, and especially
in the inequality of it. Chemically impure and mechanically imperfect,
it was rarely crude in tint or even in texture. It shaded off from light
to dark according to its thickness; it was speckled with air bubbles; it
was streaked and clouded; and all these imperfections of manufacture
went to perfection of colour. And age has improved it: the want of
homogeneousness in the material has led to the disintegration of its
surface; soft particles in it have been dissolved away by the action of
the weather, and the surface, pitted like an oyster-shell, refracts the
light in a way which adds greatly to the effect; at the same time there
is roothold for the lichen which (like the curtains of black cobwebs)
veils and gives mystery to the colour. An appreciable part of the beauty
of old glass is the result of age and accident. In that respect no new
glass can compare with it. There is, however, no such thing as "the lost
secret" of glass-making. It is no secret that age mellows.
Stained and painted glass is commonly apportioned to its "period,"
Gothic or Renaissance, and further to the particular phase of the style
to which it belongs. C. Winston, who was the first to inquire thoroughly
into English glass, adopting T. Rickman's classification, divided Gothic
windows into Early English (to c. 1280), Decorated (to c. 1380) and
Perpendicular (to c. 1530). These dates will do. But the transition from
one phase of design to another is never so sudden, nor so easily
defined, as any table of dates would lead us to suppose. The old style
lingered in one district long after the new fashion was flourishing in
another. Besides, the English periods do not quite coincide with those
of other countries. France, Germany and the Low Countries count for much
in the history of stained glass; and in no two places was the pace of
progress quite the same. There was, for example, scarcely any
13th-century Gothic in Germany, where the "geometric" style, equivalent
to our Decorated, was preceded by the Romanesque period; in France the
Flamboyant took the place of our Perpendicular; and in Italy Gothic
never properly took root at all. All these considered, a rather rough
and ready division presents the least difficulty to the student of old
glass; and it will be found convenient to think of Gothic glass as (1)
Early, (2) Middle and (3) Late, and of the subsequent windows as (1)
Renaissance and (2) Late Renaissance. The three periods of Gothic
correspond approximately to the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The
limits of the two periods of the Renaissance are not so easily defined.
In the first part of the 16th century (in Italy long before that) the
Renaissance and Gothic periods overlapped; in the latter part of it,
glass painting was already on the decline; and in the 17th and 18th
centuries it sank to deeper depths of degradation.
The likeness of early windows to translucent enamel (which is also
glass) is obvious. The lines of lead glazing correspond absolutely to
the "cloisons" of Byzantine goldsmith's work. Moreover, the extreme
minuteness of the leading (not always either mechanically necessary or
architecturally desirable) suggests that the starting point of all this
gorgeous illumination was the idea of reproducing on a grandiose scale
the jewelled effect produced in small by cloisonné enamellers. In other
respects the earliest glass shows the influence of Byzantine tradition.
It is mainly according to the more or less Byzantine character of its
design and draughtsmanship that archaeologists ascribe certain remains
of old glass to the 12th or the 11th century. Apart from documentary or
direct historic evidence, it is not possible to determine the precise
date of any particular fragment. In the "restored" windows at St Denis
there are remnants of glass belonging to the year 1108. Elsewhere in
France (Reims, Anger, Le Mans, Chartres, &c.) there is to be found very
early glass, some of it probably not much later than the end of the 10th
century, which is the date confidently ascribed to certain windows at St
Remi (Reims) and at Tegernsee. The rarer the specimen the greater may be
its technical and antiquarian interest. But, even if we could be quite
sure of its date, there is not enough of this very early work, and it
does not sufficiently distinguish itself from what followed, to count
artistically for much. The glory of early glass belongs to the 13th
century.
The design of windows was influenced, of course, by the conditions of
the workshop, by the nature of glass, the difficulty of shaping it, the
way it could be painted, and the necessity of lead glazing. The place of
glass in the scheme of church decoration led to a certain severity in
the treatment of it. The growing desire to get more and more light into
the churches, and the consequent manufacture of purer and more
transparent glass, affected the glazier's colour scheme. For all that,
the fashion of a window was, _mutatis mutandis_, that of the painting,
carving, embroidery, goldsmith's work, enamel and other craftsmanship of
the period. The design of an ivory triptych is very much that of a
three-light window. There is a little enamelled shrine of German
workmanship in the Victoria and Albert Museum which might almost have
been designed for glass; and the famous painted ceiling at Hildesheim is
planned precisely on the lines of a medallion window of the 13th
century. By that time glass had fallen into ways of its own, and there
were already various types of design which we now recognize as
characteristic of the first great period, in some respects the greatest
of all.
Pre-eminently typical of the first period is the "medallion window."
Glaziers began by naïvely accepting the iron bars across the light as
the basis of their composition, and planned a window as a series of
panels, one above the other, between the horizontal crossbars and the
upright lines of the border round it. The next step was to mitigate the
extreme severity of this composition by the introduction of a circular
or other medallion within the square boundary lines. Eventually these
were abandoned altogether, the iron bars were shaped according to the
pattern, and there was evolved the "medallion window," in which the main
divisions of the design are emphasized by the strong bands of iron round
them. Medallions were invariably devoted to picturing scenes from Bible
history or from the lives of the saints, set forth in the simplest and
most straightforward manner, the figures all on one plane, and as far as
possible clear-cut against a sapphire-blue or ruby-red ground. Scenery
was not so much depicted as suggested. An arch or two did duty for
architecture, any scrap of foliated ornament for landscape. Simplicity
of silhouette was absolutely essential to the readableness of pictures
on the small scale allowed by the medallion. As it is, they are so
difficult to decipher, so confused and broken in effect, as to give rise
(the radiating shape of "rose windows" aiding) to the misconception that
the design of early glass is kaleidoscopic--which it is not. The
intervals between subject medallions were filled in England (Canterbury)
with scrollwork, in France (Chartres) more often with geometric diaper,
in which last sometimes the red and blue merge into an unpleasant
purple. Design on this small scale was obviously unsuited to distant
windows. Clerestory lights were occupied by figures, sometimes on a
gigantic scale, entirely occupying the window, except for the border and
perhaps the slightest pretence of a niche. This arrangement lent itself
to broad effects of colour. The drawing may be rude; at times the
figures are grotesque; but the general impression is one of mysterious
grandeur and solemnity.
The depth and intensity of colour in the windows so far described comes
chiefly from the quality of the glass, but partly also from the fact
that very little white or pale-coloured glass was used. It was not the
custom at this period to dilute the colour of a rich window with white.
If light was wanted they worked in white, enlivened, it might be, by
colour. Strictly speaking, 13th-century glass was never colourless, but
of a greenish tint, due to impurities in the sand, potash or other
ingredients; it was of a horny consistency, too; but it is convenient to
speak of all would-be-clear glass as "white." The greyish windows in
which it prevails are technically described as "in grisaille." There are
examples (Salisbury, Châlons, Bonlieu, Angers) of "plain glazing" in
grisaille, in which the lead lines make very ingenious and beautiful
pattern. In the more usual case of painted grisaille the lead lines
still formed the groundwork of the design, though supplemented by
foliated or other detail, boldly outlined in strong brown and emphasized
by a background of cross-hatching. French grisaille was frequently all
in white (Reims, St Jean-aux-Bois, Sens), English work was usually
enlivened by bands and bosses of colour (Salisbury); but the general
effect of the window was still grey and silvery, even though there might
be distributed about it (the "five sisters," York minster) a fair amount
of coloured glass. The use of grisaille is sufficiently accounted for by
considerations of economy and the desire to get light; but it was also
in some sort a protest (witness the Cistercian interdict of 1134)
against undue indulgence in the luxury of colour. At this stage of its
development it was confined strictly to patternwork; figure subjects
were always in colour. For all that, some of the most restful and
entirely satisfying work of the 13th century was in grisaille
(Salisbury, Chartres, Reims, &c.).
The second or Middle period of Gothic glass marks a stage between the
work of the Early Gothic artist who thought out his design as glazing,
and that of the later draughtsman who conceived it as something to be
painted. It represents to many the period of greatest interest--probably
because of its departure from the severity of Early work. It was the
period of more naturalistic design; and a touch of nature is more easily
appreciated than architectural fitness. Middle Gothic glass, halting as
it does between the relatively rude mosaic of early times and the
painter-like accomplishment of fully-developed glass painting, has not
the salient merits of either. In the matter of tone also it is
intermediate between the deep, rich, sober harmonies of Early windows
and the lighter, brighter, gayer colouring of later glass. Now for the
first time grisaille ornament and coloured figurework were introduced
into the same window. And this was done in a very judicious way, in
alternate bands of white and deep rich colour, binding together the long
lights into which windows were by this time divided (chapter-house, York
minster). A similar horizontal tendency of design is noticeable in
windows in which the figures are enshrined under canopies, henceforth a
feature in glass design. The pinnaclework falls into pronounced bands of
brassy yellow between the tiers of figures (nave, York minster) and
serves to correct the vertical lines of the masonry. Canopywork grew
sometimes to such dimensions as quite to overpower the figure it was
supposed to frame; but, then, the sense of scale was never a directing
factor in Decorated design. A more interesting form of ornament is to be
found in Germany, where it was a pleasing custom (Regensburg) to fill
windows with conventional foliage without figurework. There is abundance
of Middle Gothic glass in England (York, Wells, Ely, Oxford), but the
best of it, such as the great East window at Gloucester cathedral, has
features more characteristic of the 15th than of the 14th century.
The keynote of Late Gothic glass is brilliancy. It had a silvery
quality. The 15th century was the period of white glass, which
approached at last to colourlessness, and was employed in great
profusion. Canopywork, more universal than ever, was represented almost
entirely in white touched with yellow stain, but not in sufficient
quantities to impair its silveriness. Whatever the banality of the idea
of imitation stonework in glass, the effect of thus framing coloured
pictures in delicate white is admirable: at last we have white and
colour in perfect combination. Fifteenth-century figurework contains
usually a large proportion of white glass; flesh tint is represented by
white; there is white in the drapery; in short, there is always white
enough in the figures to connect them with the canopywork and make the
whole effect one. The preponderance of white will be better appreciated
when it is stated that very often not a fifth or sixth part of the glass
is coloured. It is no uncommon thing to find figures draped entirely in
white with only a little colour in the background; and figurework all in
grisaille upon a ground of white latticework is quite characteristic of
Perpendicular glass.
One of the most typical forms of Late English Gothic canopy is where
(York minster) its slender pinnacles fill the upper part of the window,
and its solid base frames a picture in small of some episode in the
history of the personage depicted as large as life above. A much less
satisfactory continental practice was to enrich only the lower half of
the window with stained glass and to make shift above (Munich) with
"roundels" of plain white glass, the German equivalent for diamond
latticework.
[Illustration: PLATE I.
I. EARLY GLAZING. From S. Serge, Angers, Grisaille, with colour
introduced in the small circles.
II. AN EARLY BORDER. From S. Kunibert, Cologne.
III. PORTION OF AN EARLY MEDALLION WINDOW. From Canterbury, showing
the plan of the design and the ornamental details.
IV. AN EARLY FIGUREJFROM LYONS. Showing the leading of the eyes, hair,
nimbus, and drapery.
V. DECORATED LIGHTS. From S. Urbain, Troyes, showing both the
influence of the early period in the figures, and the beginning of the
architectural canopy.
VI. TYPICAL DECORATED CANOPY. From Exeter.
Nos. I., II., III., IV., VI. are taken from illustrations in Lewis F.
Day, _Windows_, by permission of B. T. Batsford.]
[Illustration: PLATE II.
I. A TYPICAL PERPENDICULAR CANOPY (from Lewis F. Day, _Windows_, by
permission of B. T. Batsford).
II. A WINDOW FROM AUCH. Illustrating the transition from Perpendicular
to Renaissance.
III. A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY JESSE WINDOW. From Beauvais (source as in
Fig. I.).
IV. PORTION OF A RENAISSANCE WINDOW. From Montmorency, showing the
perfection of glass painting.
From Lutien Magne, _Oeuvre des Peintres Verriers Français_, by
permission of Firmin-Didot et C^ie.]
A sign of later times is the way pictures spread beyond the confines of
a single light. This happened by degrees. At first the connexion between
the figures in separate window openings was only in idea, as when a
central figure of the crucified Christ was flanked by the Virgin and St
John in the side lights. Then the arms of the cross would be carried
through, or as it were behind, the mullions. The expansion to a picture
right across the window was only a question of time. Not that the artist
ventured as yet to disregard the architectural setting of his
picture--that happened later on--but that he often composed it with such
cunning reference to intervening stonework that it did not interfere
with it. It has been argued that each separate light of a window ought
to be complete in itself. On the other hand it has proved possible to
make due acknowledgment of architectural conditions without cramping
design in that way. There can be no doubt as to the variety and breadth
of treatment gained by accepting the whole window as field for a design.
And, when a number of lights go to make a window, it is the window, and
no separate part of it, which is the main consideration.
By the end of the Gothic period, glass painters proceeded on an entirely
different method from that of the 13th century. The designer of early
days began with glazing: he thought in mosaic and leadwork; the lines he
first drew were the lines of glazing; painting was only a supplementary
process, enabling him to get what lead lines would not give. The Late
Gothic draughtsman began with the idea of painting; glazing was to him
of secondary importance; he reached a stage (Creation window, Great
Malvern) where it is clear that he first sketched out his design, and
then bethought him how to glaze it in such wise that the leadwork (which
once boldly outlined everything) should not interfere with the picture.
The artful way in which he would introduce little bits of colour into a
window almost entirely white, makes it certain that he had always at the
back of his mind the consideration of the glazing to come. So long as he
thought of that, and did not resent it, all was fairly well with glass
painting, but there came a point where he found it difficult, if not
impossible, to reconcile the extreme delicacy of his painting upon white
glass with the comparatively brutal strength of his lead lines. It is
here that the conditions of painting and glazing clash at last.
It must not be supposed that Late Gothic windows were never by any
chance rich in colour. Local conservatism and personal predilection
prevented anything like monotonous progress in a single direction. There
is (St Sebald, Nuremberg) Middle Gothic glass as dense in colour as any
13th-century work, and Late Gothic (Troyes cathedral) which, from its
colour, one might take at first to be a century earlier than it is. In
Italy (Florence) and to some extent in Spain (Seville) it was the custom
to make canopywork so rich in colour that it was more like part of the
picture than a frame to it. But that was by exception. The tendency was
towards lighter windows. Glass itself was less deeply stained when
painters depended more upon their power of deepening it by paint. It was
the seeking after delicate effects of painting, quite as much as the
desire to let light into the church, which determined the tone of later
windows. The clearer the glass the more scope it gave for painting.
It is convenient to draw a line between Gothic art and Renaissance.
Nothing is easier than to say that windows in which crocketed canopywork
occurs are Gothic, and that those with arabesque are Renaissance. But
that is an arbitrary distinction, which does not really distinguish.
Some of the most beautiful work in glass, such for example as that at
Auch, is so plainly intermediate between two styles that it is
impossible to describe it as anything but "transitional." And, apart
from particular instances, we have only to look at the best Late Gothic
work to see that it is informed by the new spirit, and at fine
Renaissance glass to observe how it conforms to Gothic traditions of
workmanship. The new idea gave a spurt to Gothic art; and it was Gothic
impetus which carried Renaissance glass painting to the summit of
accomplishment reached in the first half of the 16th century. When that
subsided, and the pictorial spirit of the age at last prevailed, the
bright days of glass were at an end. If we have to refer to the early
Renaissance as the culminating period of glass painting, it is because
the technique of an earlier period found in it freer and fuller
expression. With the Renaissance, design broke free from the restraints
of tradition.
An interesting development of Renaissance design was the framing of
pictures in golden-yellow arabesque ornament, scarcely architectural
enough to be called canopywork, and reminiscent rather of beaten
goldsmith's work than of stone carving. This did for the glass picture
what a gilt frame does for a painting in oil. Very often framework of
any kind was dispensed with. The primitive idea of accepting bars and
mullions as boundaries of design, and filling the compartments formed by
them with a medley of little subjects, lingered on. The result was
delightfully broken colour, but inevitable confusion; for iron and
masonry do not effectively separate glass pictures. There was no longer
in late glass any pretence of preserving the plane of the window. It was
commonly designed to suggest that one saw out of it. Throughout the
period of the Renaissance, architectural and landscape backgrounds play
an important part in design. An extremely beautiful feature in early
16th-century French glass pictures (Rouen, &c.) is the little peep of
distant country delicately painted upon the pale-blue glass which
represents the sky. In larger work landscape and architecture were
commonly painted upon white (King's College, Cambridge). The landscape
effect was always happiest when one or other of these conventions was
adopted. Canopywork never went quite out of fashion. For a long while
the plan was still to frame coloured pictures in white. Theoretically
this is no less effectually to be done by Italian than by Gothic
shrinework. Practically the architectural setting assumed in the 16th
century more and more the aspect of background to the figures, and, in
order that it should take its place in the picture, they painted it so
heavily that it no longer told as white. Already in van Orley's
magnificent transept windows at St Gudule, Brussels, the great triumphal
arch behind the kneeling donors and their patron saints (in late glass
donors take more and more the place of holy personages) tells dark
against the clear ground. There came a time, towards the end of the
century, when, as in the wonderful windows at Gouda, the very quality of
white glass is lost in heavily painted shadow.
The pictorial ambition of the glass painter, active from the first, was
kept for centuries within the bounds of decoration. Medallion subjects
were framed in ornament, standing figures in canopywork, and pictures
were conceived with regard to the window and its place in architecture.
Severity of treatment in design may have been due more to the
limitations of technique than to restraint on the part of the painter.
The point is that it led to unsurpassed results. It was by absolute
reliance upon the depth and brilliancy of self-coloured glass that all
the beautiful effects of early glass were obtained. We need not compare
early mosaic with later painted glass; each was in its way admirable;
but the early manner is the more peculiar to glass, if not the more
proper to it. The ruder and more archaic design gives in fullest measure
the glory of glass--for the loss of which no quality of painting ever
got in glass quite makes amends. The pictorial effects compatible with
glass design are those which go with pure, brilliant and translucent
colour. The ideal of a "primitive" Italian painter was more or less to
be realized in glass: that of a Dutch realist was not. It is astonishing
what glass painters did in the way of light and shade. But the fact
remains that heavy painting obscured the glass, that shadows rendered in
opaque surface-colour lacked translucency, and that in seeking before
all things the effects of shadow and relief, glass painters of the 17th
century fell short of the qualities on the one hand of glass and on the
other of painting.
The course of glass painting was not so even as this general survey of
its progress might seem to imply. It was quickened here, impeded there,
by historic events. The art made a splendid start in France; but its
development was stayed by the disasters of war, just when in England it
was thriving under the Plantagenets. It revived again under Francis I.
In Germany it was with the prosperity of the free cities of the Empire
that glass painting prospered. In the Netherlands it blossomed out under
the favour of Charles V. In the Swiss Confederacy its direction was
determined by civil and domestic instead of church patronage. In most
countries there were in different districts local schools of glass
painting, each with some character of its own. To what extent design was
affected by national temperament it is not easy to say. The marked
divergence of the Flemish from the French treatment of glass in the
16th century is not entirely due to a preference on the one part for
colour and on the other for light and shade, but is partly owing to the
circumstance that, whilst in France design remained in the hands of
craftsmen, whose trade was glass painting, in the Netherlands it was
entrusted by the emperor to his court painter, who concerned himself as
little as possible with a technique of which he knew nothing. If in
France we come also upon the names of well-known artists, they seem,
like Jean Cousin, to have been closely connected with glass painting:
they designed so like glass painters that they might have begun their
artistic career in the workshop.
The attribution of fine windows to famous artists should not be too
readily accepted; for, though it is a foible of modern times to father
whatever is noteworthy upon some great name, the masterpieces of
medieval art are due to unknown craftsmen. In Italy, where glass
painting was not much practised, and it seems to have been the custom
either to import glass painters as they were wanted or to get work done
abroad, it may well be that designs were supplied by artists more or
less distinguished. Ghiberti and Donatello may have had a hand in the
cartoons for the windows of the Duomo at Florence; but it is not to any
sculptor that we can give the entire credit of design so absolutely in
the spirit of colour decoration. The employment of artists not connected
with glass design would go far to explain the great difference of
Italian glass from that of other countries. The 14th-century work at
Assisi is more correctly described as "Trecento" than as Gothic, and the
"Quattrocento" windows at Florence are as different as could be from
Perpendicular work. One compares them instinctively with Italian
paintings, not with glass elsewhere. And so with the 15th-century
Italian glass. The superb 16th-century windows of William of Marseilles
at Arezzo, in which painting is carried to the furthest point possible
short of sacrificing the pure quality of glass, are more according to
contemporary French technique. Both French and Italian influence may be
traced in Spanish glass (Avila, Barcelona, Burgos, Granada, Leon,
Seville, Toledo). Some of it is said to have been executed in France. If
so it must have been done to Spanish order. The coarse effectiveness of
the design, the strength of the colour, the general robustness of the
art, are characteristically Spanish; and nowhere this side of the
Pyrenees do we find detail on a scale so enormous.
We have passed by, in following the progressive course of craftsmanship,
some forms of design, peculiar to no one period but very characteristic
of glass. The "quarry window," barely referred to, its diamond-shaped or
oblong panes painted, richly bordered, relieved by bosses of coloured
ornament often heraldic, is of constant occurrence. Entire windows, too,
were from first to last given up to heraldry. The "Jesse window" occurs
in every style. According to the fashion of the time the "Stem of Jesse"
burst out into conventional foliage, vine branches or arbitrary
scrollwork. It appealed to the designer by the scope it gave for freedom
of design. He found vent, again, for fantastic imagination in the
representation of the "Last Judgment," to which the west window was
commonly devoted. And there are other schemes in which he delighted; but
this is not the place to dwell upon them.
The glass of the 17th century does not count for much. Some of the best
in England is the work of the Dutch van Linge family (Wadham and Balliol
Colleges, Oxford). What glass painting came to in the 18th century is
nowhere better to be seen than in the great west window of the
ante-chapel at New College, Oxford. That is all Sir Joshua Reynolds and
the best china painter of his day could do between them. The very idea
of employing a china painter shows how entirely the art of the glass
painter had died out.
It re-awoke in England with the Gothic revival of the 19th century; and
the Gothic revival determined the direction modern glass should take.
Early Victorian doings are interesting only as marking the steps of
recovery (cf. the work of T. Willement in the choir of the Temple
church; of Ward and Nixon, lately removed from the south transept of
Westminster Abbey; of Wailes). Better things begin with the windows at
Westminster inspired by A. C. Pugin, who exercised considerable
influence over his contemporaries. John Powell (Hardman & Co.) was an
able artist content to walk, even after that master's death, reverently
in his footsteps. Charles Winston, whose _Hints on Glass Painting_ was
the first real contribution towards the understanding of Gothic glass,
and who, by the aid of the Powells (of Whitefriars) succeeded in getting
something very like the texture and colour of old glass, was more
learned in ancient ways of workmanship than appreciative of the art
resulting from them. (He is responsible for the Munich glass in Glasgow
cathedral.) So it was that, except for here and there a window entrusted
by exception to W. Dyce, E. Poynter, D. G. Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown or
E. Burne-Jones, glass, from the beginning of its recovery, fell into the
hands of men with a strong bias towards archaeology. The architects
foremost in the Gothic revival (W. Butterfield, Sir G. Scott, G. E.
Street, &c.) were all inclined that way; and, as they had the placing of
commissions for windows, they controlled the policy of glass painters.
Designers were constrained to work in the pedantically archaeological
manner prescribed by architectural fashion. Unwillingly as it may have
been, they made mock-medieval windows, the interest in which died with
the popular illusion about a Gothic revival. But they knew their trade;
and when an artist like John Clayton (master of a whole school of later
glass painters) took a window in hand (St Augustine's, Kilburn; Truro
cathedral; King's College Chapel, Cambridge) the result was a work of
art from which, tradework as it may in a sense be, we may gather what
such men might have done had they been left free to follow their own
artistic impulse. It is necessary to refer to this because it is
generally supposed that whatever is best in recent glass is due to the
romantic movement. The charms of Burne-Jones's design and of William
Morris's colour, place the windows done by them among the triumphs of
modern decorative art; but Morris was neither foremost in the reaction,
nor quite such a master of the material he was working in as he showed
himself in less exacting crafts. Other artists to be mentioned in
connexion with glass design are: Clement Heaton, Bayne, N. H. J.
Westlake and Henry Holiday, not to speak of a younger generation of able
men.
Foreign work shows, as compared with English, a less just appreciation
of glass, though the foremost draughtsmen of their day were enlisted for
its design. In Germany, King Louis of Bavaria employed P. von Cornelius
and W. von Kaulbach (Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Glasgow); in France the
Bourbons employed J. A. D. Ingres, F. V. E. Delacroix, Vernet and J. H.
Flandrin (Dreux); and the execution of their designs was entrusted to
the most expert painters to be procured at Munich and Sèvres; but all to
little effect. They either used pot-metal glass of poor quality, or
relied upon enamel--with the result that their colour lacks the
qualities of glass. Where it is not heavy with paint it is thin and
crude. In Belgium happier results were obtained. In the chapel of the
Holy Sacrament at Brussels there is one window by J. B. Capronnier not
unworthy of the fine series by B. van Orley which it supplements. At the
best, however, foreign artists failed to appreciate the quality of
glass; they put better draughtsmanship into their windows than English
designers of the mid-Victorian era, and painted them better; but they
missed the glory of translucent colour.
Modern facilities of manufacture make possible many things which were
hitherto out of the question. Enamel colours are richer; their range is
extended; and it may be possible, with the improved kilns and greater
chemical knowledge we possess, to make them hold permanently fast. It
was years ago demonstrated at Sèvres how a picture may be painted in
colours upon a sheet of plate-glass measuring 4 ft. by 2½ ft. We are now
no doubt in a position to produce windows painted on much larger sheets.
But the results achieved, technically wonderful as they are, hardly
warrant the waste of time and labour upon work so costly, so fragile, so
lacking in the qualities of a picture on the one hand and of glass on
the other.
In America, John la Farge, finding European material not dense enough,
produced pot-metal more heavily charged with colour. This was wilfully
streaked, mottled and quasi-accidentally varied; some of it was
opalescent; much of it was more like agate or onyx than jewels. Other
forms of American enterprise were: the making of glass in lumps, to be
chipped into flakes; the ruckling it; the shaping it in a molten state,
or the pulling it out of shape. It takes an artist of some reserve to
make judicious use of glass like this. La Farge and L. C. Tiffany have
turned it to beautiful account; but even they have put it to purposes
more pictorial than it can properly fulfil. The design it calls for is a
severely abstract form of ornament verging upon the barbaric.
_Examples of Important Historical Stained Glass._
There are remains of the earliest known glass: in France--at Le Mans,
Chartres, Châlons-sur-Marne, Angers and Poitiers cathedrals, the abbey
church of St Denis and at St Remi, Reims: in England--at York minster
(fragments): in Germany--at Augsburg and Strassburg cathedrals: in
Austria--in the cloisters of Heiligen Kreuz.
The following is a classified list of some of the most characteristic
and important windows, omitting for the most part isolated examples,
and giving by preference the names of churches where there is a fair
amount of glass remaining; the country in which at each period the art
throve best is put first.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
EARLY GOTHIC
_France._ _England._
Chartres \ Canterbury \
Le Mans | Salisbury > cathedrals.
Bourges > cathedrals. Lincoln /
Reims | York minster.
Auxerre /
Ste Chapelle, Paris.
Church of St Jean-aux-Bois.
_Germany._
Church of St Kunibert, Cologne (Romanesque).
Cologne cathedral.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MIDDLE GOTHIC
_England._ _Germany._
York minster. Church of St Sebald, Nuremberg.
Ely cathedral. Strassburg \
Wells cathedral. Regensburg |
Tewkesbury abbey. Augsburg > cathedrals.
Erfurt |
Freiburg /
Church of Nieder Haslach.
_France._ _Italy._
Évreux cathedral. Church of St Francis, Assisi.
Church of St Pierre, Chartres. Church of Or San Michele,
Cathedral and church of St Urbain, Florence.
Troyes. Church of S. Petronio, Bologna.
Church of Ste Radegonde, Poitiers.
Cathedral and church of St Ouen, Rouen.
_Spain._
Toledo cathedral.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LATE GOTHIC
_England._ _France._
New College, Oxford. Bourges \ cathedrals.
Gloucester cathedral. Troyes /
York, minster and other churches. Church of Notre Dame, Alençon.
Great Malvern abbey.
Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury.
Fairford church.
_Italy._ _Germany._
The Duomo, Florence. Cologne \
Ulm > cathedrals.
_Spain._ Munich /
Church of St Lorenz, Nuremberg.
Toledo cathedral.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSITION PERIOD
The choir of the cathedral at Auch.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
RENAISSANCE
_France._ _Netherlands._
St Vincent \ Brussels cathedral.
St Patrice > Rouen. Church of St Jacques \
St Godard / Church of St Martin > Liége.
Church of St Foy, Conches. Cathedral /
Church of St Gervais, Paris.
Church of St Étienne-du-Mont, Paris. _Switzerland._
Church of St Martin, Montmorency.
Church of Écouen. Lucerne and most of the other
Church of St Étienne, Beauvais. principal museums.
Church of St Nizier, Troyes.
Church of Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse.
The Château de Chantilly.
_Italy._ _England._
Arezzo \ cathedrals. King's College chapel, Cambridge.
Milan / Lichfield cathedral.
Certosa di Pavia. St George's church, Hanover Square,
Church of S. Petronio, Bologna. London.
Church of Sta Maria Novella, St Margaret's church, Westminster.
Florence.
_Germany._ _Spain._
Freiburg cathedral. Granada \ cathedrals.
Seville /
----------------------------------------------------------------------
LATE RENAISSANCE
_Netherlands._ _France._
Groote Kirk, Gouda. Church of St Martin-ès-Vignes, Troyes.
Choir of Brussels cathedral. Nave and transepts of Auch cathedral.
Antwerp cathedral.
_England._ _Switzerland._
Wadham \ Most museums.
Balliol > colleges, Oxford.
New /
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Of late years each country has been learning so much from the others
that the newest effort is very much in one direction. It seems to be
agreed that the art of the window-maker begins with glazing, that the
all-needful thing is beautiful glass, that painting may be reduced to a
minimum, and on occasion (thanks to new developments in the making of
glass) dispensed with altogether. A tendency has developed itself in the
direction not merely of mosaic, but of carrying the glazier's art
farther than has been done before and rendering landscapes and even
figure subjects in unpainted glass. When, however, it comes to the
representation of the human face, the limitations of simple lead-glazing
are at once apparent. A possible way out of the difficulty was shown at
the Paris Exhibition of 1900 by M. Tournel, who, by fusing together
coloured tesserae on to larger pieces of colourless glass, anticipated
the discovery of the already mentioned fragment of Byzantine mosaic now
in the Victoria and Albert Museum. He may have seen or heard Of
something of the sort. There would be no advantage in building up whole
windows in this way; but for the rendering of the flesh and sundry
minute details in a window for the most part heavily leaded, this fusing
together of tesserae, and even of little pieces of glass cut carefully
to shape, seems to supply the want of something more in keeping with
severe mosaic glazing than painted flesh proves to be.
Glass painters are allowed to-day a freer hand than formerly. They are
no longer exclusively engaged upon ecclesiastical work; domestic glass
is an important industry; and a workman once comparatively exempt from
pedantic control is not so easily restrained from self-expression.
Moreover, the recognition of the artistic position of craftsmen in
general makes it possible for a man to devote himself to glass without
sinking to the rank of a mechanic; and artists begin to realize the
scope glass offers them. What they lack as yet is experience in their
craft, and perhaps due workmanlike respect for traditional ways of
workmanship. When the old methods come to be superseded it will be only
by new ones evolved out of them. At present the conditions of glass
painting remain very much what they were. The supreme beauty of glass is
still in the purity, the brilliancy, the translucency of its colour. To
make the most of this the designer must be master of his trade. The test
of window design is, now as ever, that it should have nothing to lose
and everything to gain by execution in stained glass.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Theophilus, _Arts of the Middle Ages_ (London, 1847);
Charles Winston, _An Inquiry into the Difference of Style observable
in Ancient Glass Painting, especially in England_ (Oxford, 1847), and
_Memoirs illustrative of the Art of Glass Painting_ (London, 1865); N.
H. J. Westlake, _A History of Design in Painted Glass_ (4 vols.,
London, 1881-1894); L. F. Day, _Windows, A Book about Stained and
Painted Glass_ (London, 1909), and _Stained Glass_ (London, 1903); A.
W. Franks, _A Book of Ornamental Glazing Quarries_ (London, 1849); _A
Booke of Sundry Draughtes, principaly serving for Glasiers_ (London,
1615, reproduced 1900); F. G. Joyce, _The Fairford Windows_ (coloured
plates) (London, 1870); _Divers Works of Early Masters in
Ecclesiastical Decoration_, edited by John Weale (2 vols., London,
1846); Ferdinand de Lasteyrie, _Histoire de la peinture sur verre
d'après ses monuments en France_ (2 vols., Paris, 1852), and _Quelques
mots sur la théorie de la peinture sur verre_ (Paris, 1853); L. Magne,
_Oeuvre des peintres verriers français_ (2 vols., Paris, 1885);
Viollet le Duc, "Vitrail," vol. ix. of the _Dictionnaire raisonné de
l'architecture_ (Paris, 1868); O. Merson, "Les Vitraux," _Bibliothèque
de l'enseignement des beaux-arts_ (Paris, 1895); E. Levy and J. B.
Capronnier, _Histoire de la peinture sur verre_ (coloured plates)
(Brussels, 1860); Ottin, _Le Vitrail, son histoire à travers les âges_
(Paris); Pierre le Vieil, _L'Art de la peinture sur verre et de la
vitrerie_ (Paris, 1774); C. Cahier and A. Martin, _Vitraux peints de
Bourges du XIII^e siècle_ (2 vols., Paris, 1841-1844); S. Clement and
A. Guitard, _Vitraux du XIII^e siècle de la cathédrale de Bourges_
(Bourges, 1900): M. A. Gessert, _Geschichte der Glasmalerei in
Deutschland und den Niederlanden, Frankreich, England, &c., von ihrem
Ursprung bis auf die neueste Zeit_ (Tübingen and Stuttgart, 1839; also
an English translation, London, 1851); F. Geiges, _Der alte
Fensterschmuck des Freiburger Münsters_, 5 parts (Freiburg im
Breisgau, 1902, &c.); A. Hafner, _Chefs-d'oeuvre de la peinture suisse
sur verre_ (Berlin). (L. F. D.)
GLASSBRENNER, ADOLF (1810-1876), German humorist and satirist, was born
at Berlin on the 27th of March 1810. After being for a short time in a
merchant's office, he took to journalism, and in 1831 edited _Don
Quixote_, a periodical which was suppressed in 1833 owing to its
revolutionary tendencies. He next, under the pseudonym _Adolf
Brennglas_, published a series of pictures of Berlin life, under the
titles _Berlin wie es ist und--trinkt_ (30 parts, with illustrations,
1833-1849), and _Buntes Berlin_ (14 parts, with illustrations, Berlin,
1837-1858), and thus became the founder of a popular satirical
literature associated with modern Berlin. In 1840 he married the actress
Adele Peroni (1813-1895), and removed in the following year to
Neustrelitz, where his wife had obtained an engagement at the Grand
ducal theatre. In 1848 Glassbrenner entered the political arena and
became the leader of the democratic party in Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
Expelled from that country in 1850, he settled in Hamburg, where he
remained until 1858; and then he became editor of the _Montagszeitung_
in Berlin, where he died on the 25th of September 1876.
Among Glassbrenner's other humorous and satirical writings may be
mentioned: _Leben und Treiben der feinen Welt_ (1834); _Bilder und
Träume aus Wien_ (2 vols., 1836); Gedichte (1851, 5th ed. 1870); the
comic epics, _Neuer Reineke Fuchs_ (1846, 4th ed. 1870) and _Die
verkehrte Welt_ (1857, 6th ed. 1873); also _Berliner Volksleben_ (3
vols., illustrated; Leipzig, 1847-1851). Glassbrenner has published
some charming books for children, notably _Lachende Kinder_ (14th ed.,
1884), and _Sprechende Tiere_ (20th ed., Hamburg, 1899).
See R. Schmidt-Cabanis, "Adolf Glassbrenner," in _Unsere Zeit_ (1881).
GLASS CLOTH, a textile material, the name of which indicates the use for
which it was originally intended. The cloths are in general woven with
the plain weave, and the fabric may be all white, striped or cheeked
with red, blue or other coloured threads; the checked cloths are the
most common. The real article should be all linen, but a large quantity
is made with cotton warp and tow weft, and in some cases they are
composed entirely of cotton. The short fibres of the cheaper kind are
easily detached from the cloth, and hence they are not so satisfactory
for the purpose for which they are intended.
GLASSIUS, SALOMO (1593-1656), theologian and biblical critic, was born
at Sondershausen, in the principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, on
the 20th of May 1593. In 1612 he entered the university of Jena. In
1615, with the idea of studying law, he moved to Wittenberg. In
consequence of an illness, however, he returned to Jena after a year.
Here, as a student of theology under Johann Gerhard, he directed his
attention especially to Hebrew and the cognate dialects; in 1619 he was
made an "adjunctus" of the philosophical faculty, and some time
afterwards he received an appointment to the chair of Hebrew. From 1625
to 1638 he was superintendent in Sondershausen; but shortly after the
death of Gerhard (1637) he was, in accordance with Gerhard's last wish,
appointed to succeed him at Jena. In 1640, however, at the earnest
invitation of Duke Ernest the Pious, he removed to Gotha as court
preacher and general superintendent in the execution of important
reforms which had been initiated in the ecclesiastical and educational
establishments of the duchy. The delicate duties attached to this office
he discharged with tact and energy; and in the "syncretistic"
controversy, by which Protestant Germany was so long vexed, he showed an
unusual combination of firmness with liberality, of loyalty to the past
with a just regard to the demands of the present and the future. He died
on the 27th of July 1656.
His principal work, _Philologia sacra_ (1623), marks the transition
from the earlier views on questions of biblical criticism to those of
the school of Spener. It was more than once reprinted during his
lifetime, and appeared in a new and revised form, edited by J. A.
Dathe (1731-1791) and G. L. Bauer at Leipzig. Glassius succeeded
Gerhard as editor of the Weimar _Bibelwerk_, and wrote the commentary
on the poetical books of the Old Testament for that publication. A
volume of his _Opuscula_ was printed at Leiden in 1700.
See the article in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencyklopädie_.
GLASSWORT, a name given to _Salicornia herbacea_ (also known as marsh
samphire), a salt-marsh herb with succulent, jointed, leafless stems, in
reference to its former use in glass-making, when it was burnt for
barilla. _Salsola Kali_, an allied plant with rigid, fleshy,
spinous-pointed leaves, which was used for the same purpose, was known
as prickly glasswort. Both plants are members of the natural order
Chenopodiaceae.
GLASTONBURY, a market town and municipal borough in the Eastern
parliamentary division of Somersetshire, England, on the main road from
London to Exeter, 37 m. S.W. of Bath by the Somerset & Dorset railway.
Pop. (1901) 4016. The town lies in the midst of orchards and
water-meadows, reclaimed from the fens which encircled Glastonbury Tor,
a conical height once an island, but now, with the surrounding flats, a
peninsula washed on three sides by the river Brue.
The town is famous for its abbey, the ruins of which are fragmentary,
and as the work of destruction has in many places descended to the very
foundations it is impossible to make out the details of the plan. Of the
vast range of buildings for the accommodation of the monks hardly any
part remains except the abbot's kitchen, noteworthy for its octagonal
interior (the exterior plan being square, with the four corners filled
in with fireplaces and chimneys), the porter's lodge and the abbey barn.
Considerable portions are standing of the so-called chapel of St Joseph
at the west end, which has been identified with the Lady chapel,
occupying the site of the earliest church. This chapel, which is the
finest part of the ruins, is Transitional work of the 12th century. It
measures about 66 ft. from east to west and about 36 from north to
south. Below the chapel is a crypt of the 15th century inserted beneath
a building which had no previous crypt. Between the chapel and the great
church is an Early English building which appears to have served as a
Galilee porch. The church itself was a cruciform structure with a choir,
nave and transepts, and a tower surmounting the centre of intersection.
From east to west the length was 410 ft. and the breadth of the nave was
about 80 ft. The nave had ten bays and the choir six. Of the nave three
bays of the south side are still standing, and the windows have pointed
arches externally and semicircular arches internally. Two of the tower
piers and a part of one arch give some indication of the grandeur of the
building. The foundations of the Edgar chapel, discovered in 1908, make
the whole church the longest of cathedral or monastic churches in the
country. The old clock, presented to the abbey by Adam de Sodbury
(1322-1335), and noteworthy as an early example of a clock striking the
hours automatically with a count-wheel, was once in Wells cathedral, but
is now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Glastonbury thorn, planted, according to the legend, by Joseph of
Arimathea, has been the object of considerable comment. It is said to be
a distinct variety, flowering twice a year. The actual thorn visited by
the pilgrims was destroyed about the Reformation time, but specimens of
the same variety are still extant in various parts of the country.
The chief buildings, apart from the abbey, are the church of St John
Baptist, Perpendicular in style, with a fine tower and some 15th-century
monuments; St Benedict's, dating from 1493-1524; St John's hospital,
founded 1246; and the George Inn, built in the time of Henry VII. or
VIII. The present stone cross replaced a far finer one of great age,
which had fallen into decay. The Antiquarian Museum contains an
excellent collection, including remains from a prehistoric village of
the marshes, discovered in 1892, and consisting of sixty mounds within a
space of five acres. There is a Roman Catholic missionaries' college. In
the 16th century the woollen industry was introduced by the duke of
Somerset; and silk manufacture was carried on in the 18th century.
Tanning and tile-making, and the manufacture of boots and sheep-skin
rugs are practised. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12
councillors. Area, 5000 acres.
The lake-village discovered in 1892 proves that there was a Celtic
settlement about 300-200 B.C. on an island in the midst of swamps, and
therefore easily defensible. British earthworks and Roman roads and
relics prove later occupation. The name of Glastonbury, however, is of
much later origin, being a corruption of the Saxon _Glæstyngabyrig_. By
the Britons the spot seems to have been called Ynys yr Afalon (latinized
as Avallonia) or Ynysvitrin (see AVALON), and it became the local
habitation of various fragments of Celtic romance. According to the
legends which grew up under the care of the monks, the first church of
Glastonbury was a little wattled building erected by Joseph of Arimathea
as the leader of the twelve apostles sent over to Britain from Gaul by
St Philip. About a hundred years later, according to the same
authorities, the two missionaries, Phaganus and Deruvianus, who came to
king Lucius from Pope Eleutherius, established a fraternity of
anchorites on the spot, and after three hundred years more St Patrick
introduced among them a regular monastic life. The British monastery
founded about 601 was succeeded by a Saxon abbey built by Ine in 708.
From the decadent state into which Glastonbury was brought by the Danish
invasions it was recovered by Dunstan, who had been educated within its
walls and was appointed its abbot about 946. The church and other
buildings of his erection remained till the installation, in 1082, of
the first Norman abbot, who inaugurated the new epoch by commencing a
new church. His successor Herlewin (1101-1120), however, pulled it down
to make way for a finer structure. Henry of Blois (1126-1172) added
greatly to the extent of the monastery. In 1184 (on 25th May) the whole
of the buildings were laid in ruins by fire; but Henry II. of England,
in whose hands the monastery then was, entrusted his chamberlain
Rudolphus with the work of restoration, and caused it to be carried out
with much magnificence. The great church of which the ruins still remain
was then erected. In the end of the 12th century, and on into the
following, Glastonbury was distracted by a strange dispute, caused by
the attempt of Savaric, the ambitious bishop of Bath, to make himself
master of the abbey. The conflict was closed by the decision of Innocent
III., that the abbacy should be merged in the new see of Bath and
Glastonbury, and that Savaric should have a fourth of the property. On
Savaric's death his successor gave up the joint bishopric and allowed
the monks to elect their own abbot. From this date to the Reformation
the monastery, one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in England, continued
to flourish, the chief events in its history being connected with the
maintenance of its claims to the possession of the bodies or tombs of
King Arthur and St Dunstan. From early times through the middle ages it
was a place of pilgrimage. As early at least as the beginning of the
11th century the tradition that Arthur was buried at Glastonbury appears
to have taken shape; and in the reign of Henry II., according to
Giraldus Cambrensis and others, the abbot Henry de Blois, causing search
to be made, discovered at the depth of 16 ft. a massive oak trunk with
an inscription "Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex Arthurus in insula
Avalonia." After the fire of 1184 the monks asserted that they were in
possession of the remains of St Dunstan, which had been abstracted from
Canterbury after the Danish sack of 1011 and kept in concealment ever
since. The Canterbury monks naturally denied the assertion, and the
contest continued for centuries. In 1508 Warham and Goldston having
examined the Canterbury shrine reported that it contained all the
principal bones of the saint, but the abbot of Glastonbury in reply as
stoutly maintained that this was impossible. The day of such disputes
was, however, drawing to a close. In 1539 the last and 60th abbot of
Glastonbury, Robert Whyting, was lodged in the Tower on account of
"divers and sundry treasons." "The 'account' or 'book' of his treasons
... seems to be lost, and the nature of the charges ... can only be a
matter of speculation" (Gairdner, _Cal. Pap._ on Hen. VIII., xiv. ii.
_pref._ xxxii). He was removed to Wells, where he was "arraigned and
next day put to execution for robbing of Glastonbury church." The
execution took place on Glastonbury Tor. His body was quartered and his
head fixed on the abbey gate. A darker passage does not occur in the
annals of the English Reformation than this murder of an able and
high-spirited man, whose worst offence was that he defended as best he
could from the hand of the spoiler the property in his charge.
In 1907, the site of the abbey with the remains of the buildings, which
had been in private hands since the granting of the estate to Sir Peter
Carew by Elizabeth in 1559, was bought by Mr Ernest Jardine for the
purpose of transferring it to the Church of England. Bishop Kennion of
Bath and Wells entered into an agreement to raise a sum of £31,000, the
cost of the purchase; this was completed, and the site and buildings
were formally transferred at a dedicatory service in 1909 to the
Diocesan Trustees of Bath and Wells, who are to hold and manage the
property according to a deed of trust. This deed provided for the
appointment of an advisory council, consisting of the archbishop of
Canterbury, the bishop of Bath and Wells and four other bishops, each
with power to nominate one clerical and one lay member. The council has
the duty of deciding the purpose for which the property is to be used
"in connexion with and for the benefit of the Church of England." To
give time for further collection of funds and deliberation, the property
was re-let for five years to the original purchaser.
In the 8th century Glastonbury was already a borough owned by the abbey,
which continued to be overlord till the Dissolution. The abbey obtained
charters in the 7th century, but the town received its first charter
from Henry II., who exempted the men of Glastonbury from the
jurisdiction of royal officials and freed them from certain tolls. This
was confirmed by Henry III. in 1227, by Edward I. in 1278, by Edward II.
in 1313 and by Henry VI. in 1447. The borough was incorporated by Anne
in 1706, and the corporation was reformed by the act of 1835. In 1319
Glastonbury received a writ of summons to parliament, but made no
return, and has not since been represented. A fair on the 8th of
September was granted in 1127; another on the 29th of May was held under
a charter of 1282. Fairs known as Torr fair and Michaelmas fair are now
held on the second Mondays in September and October and are chiefly
important for the sale of horses and cattle. The market day every other
Monday is noted for the sale of cheese. Glastonbury owed its medieval
importance to its connexion with the abbey. At the Dissolution the
introduction of woollen manufacture checked the decay of the town. The
cloth trade flourished for a century and was replaced by silk-weaving,
stocking-knitting and glove-making, all of which have died out.
See Abbot Gasquet. _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_ (1906),
and _The Last Abbot of Glastonbury_ (1895 and 1908); William of
Malmesbury, "De antiq. Glastoniensis ecclesiae," in _Rerum Anglicarum
script. vet._ tom. i. (1684) (also printed by Hearne and Migne); John
of Glastonbury, _Chronica sive de hist. de rebus Glast._, ed. by
Hearne (2 vols., Oxford, 1726); Adam of Domerham, _De rebus gestis
Glast._, ed. by Hearne (2 vols., Oxford, 1727); _Hist. and Antiq. of
Glast._ (London, 1807); _Avalonian Guide to the Town of Glastonbury_
(8th ed., 1839); Warner, _Hist. of the Abbey and Town_ (Bath, 1826);
Rev. F. Warre, "Glastonbury Abbey," in _Proc. of Somersetshire_
_Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc._, 1849; Rev. F. Warre, "Notice of
Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey," ib. 1859; Rev. W. A. Jones, "On the
Reputed Discovery of King Arthur's Remains at Glastonbury," ib. 1859;
Rev. J. R. Green, "Dunstan at Glastonbury" and "Giso and Savaric," ib.
1863; Rev. Canon Jackson, "Savaric, Bishop of Bath and Glastonbury,"
ib. 1862, 1863; E. A. Freeman, "King Ine," ib. 1872 and 1874; Dr W.
Beattie, in _Journ. of Brit. Archaeol. Ass._ vol. xii., 1856; Rev. R.
Willis, _Architectural History of Glastonbury Abbey_ (1866); W. H. P.
Greswell, _Chapters on the Early History of Glastonbury Abbey_ (1909);
Views and plans of the abbey building will be found in Dugdale's
_Monasticon_ (1655); Stevens's _Monasticon_ (1720); Stukeley,
_Itinerarium curiosum_ (1724); Grose, _Antiquities_ (1754); Carter,
_Ancient Architecture_ (1800); Storer, _Antiq. and Topogr. Cabinet_,
ii., iv., v. (1807), &c.; Britton's _Architectural Antiquities_, iv.
(1813); _Vetusta monumenta_, iv. (1815); and _New Monasticon_, i.
(1817).
GLATIGNY, JOSEPH ALBERT ALEXANDRE (1830-1873), French poet, was born at
Lillebonne (Seine Inférieure) on the 21st of May 1839. His father, who
was a carpenter and afterwards a gendarme, removed in 1844 to Bernay,
where Albert received an elementary education. Soon after leaving school
he was apprenticed to a printer at Pont Audemer, where he produced a
three-act play at the local theatre. He then joined a travelling company
of actors to whom he acted as prompter. Inspired primarily by the study
of Théodore de Banville, he published his _Vignes folles_ in 1857; his
best collection of lyrics, _Les Flèches d'or_, appeared in 1864; and a
third volume, _Gilles et pasquins_, in 1872. After Glatigny settled in
Paris he improvised at café concerts and wrote several one-act plays. On
an expedition to Corsica with a travelling company he was on one
occasion arrested and put in irons for a week through being mistaken by
the police for a notorious criminal. His marriage with Emma Dennie
brought him great happiness, but the hardships of his life weakened his
health and he died at Sèvres on the 16th of April 1873.
See Catulle Mendès, _Légende du Parnasse contemporain_ (1884), and
_Glatigny, drame funambulesque_ (1906).
GLATZ (Slav. _Kladsko_), a fortified town of Germany, in the Prussian
province of Silesia, in a narrow valley on the left bank of the Neisse,
not far from the Austrian frontier, 58 m. S.W. from Breslau by rail.
Pop. (1905) 16,051. The town with its narrow streets winds up the
fortified hill which is crowned by the old citadel. Across the river, on
the Schäferberg, lies a more modern fortress built by the Prussians
about 1750. Before the town on both banks of the river there is a
fortified camp by which bombardment from the neighbouring heights can be
hindered and which affords accommodation for 10,000 men. The inner
ceinture of walls was razed in 1891 and their site is now occupied by
new streets. There are a Lutheran and two Roman Catholic churches, one
of which, the parish church, contains the monuments of seven Silesian
dukes. Among the other buildings the principal are the Royal Catholic
gymnasium and the military hospital. The industries include machine
shops, breweries, and the manufacture of spirits, linen, damask, cloth,
hosiery, beads and leather.
Glatz existed as early as the 10th century, and received German settlers
about 1250. It was besieged several times during the Thirty Years' War
and during the Seven Years' War and came into the possession of Prussia
in 1742. In 1821 and 1883 great devastation was caused here by floods.
The county of Glatz was long contended for by the kingdoms of Poland and
of Bohemia. Eventually it became part of the latter country, and in 1534
was sold to the house of Habsburg, from whom it was taken by Frederick
the Great during his attack on Silesia.
See Ludwig, _Die Grafschaft Glatz in Wort und Bild_ (Breslau, 1897);
Kutzen, _Die Grafschaft Glatz_ (Glogau, 1873); and _Geschichtsquellen
der Grafschaft Glatz_, edited by F. Volkmer and Hohaus (1883-1891).
GLAUBER, JOHANN RUDOLF (1604-1668), German chemist, was born at
Karlstadt, Bavaria, in 1604 and died at Amsterdam in 1668. Little more
is known of his life than that he resided successively in Vienna,
Salzburg, Frankfurt and Cologne before settling in Holland, where he
made his living chiefly by the sale of secret chemical and medicinal
preparations. Though his writings abound in universal solvents and other
devices of the alchemists, he made some real contributions to chemical
knowledge. Thus he clearly described the preparation of hydrochloric
acid by the action of oil of vitriol on common salt, the manifold
virtues of sodium sulphate--_sal mirabile_, Glauber's salt--formed in
the process being one of the chief themes of his _Miraculum mundi_; and
he noticed that nitric acid was formed when nitre was substituted for
the common salt. Further he prepared a large number of substances,
including the chlorides and other salts of lead, tin, iron, zinc,
copper, antimony and arsenic, and he even noted some of the phenomena of
double decomposition. He was always anxious to turn his knowledge to
practical account, whether in preparing medicines, or in furthering
industrial arts such as dyeing, or in increasing the fertility of the
soil by artificial manures. One of his most notable works was his
_Teutschlands Wohlfarth_ in which he urged that the natural resources of
Germany should be developed for the profit of the country and gave
various instances of how this might be done.
His treatises, about 30 in number, were collected and published at
Frankfort in 1658-1659, at Amsterdam in 1661, and, in an English
translation by Packe, at London in 1689.
GLAUBER'S SALT, decahydrated sodium sulphate, Na2SO4, 10H2O. It is said
by J. Kunkel to have been known as an _arcanum_ or secret medicine to
the electoral house of Saxony in the middle of the 16th century, but it
was first described by J. R. Glauber (_De natura salium_, 1658), who
prepared it by the action of oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid on common
salt, and, ascribing to it many medicinal virtues, termed it _sal
mirabile Glauberi_. As the mineral thenardite or mirabilite, which
crystallizes in the rhombic system, it occurs in many parts of the
world, as in Spain, the western states of North America and the Russian
Caucasus; in the last-named region, about 25 m. E. of Tiflis, there is a
thick bed of the pure salt about 5 ft. below the surface, and at
Balalpashinsk there are lakes or ponds the waters of which are an almost
pure solution. The substance is the active principle of many mineral
waters, e.g. Frederickshall; it occurs in sea-water and it is a constant
constituent of the blood. In combination with calcium sulphate, it
constitutes the mineral glauberite or brongniartite, Na2SO4·CaSO4, which
assumes forms belonging to the monoclinic system and occurs in Spain and
Austria. It has a bitter, saline, but not acrid taste. At ordinary
temperatures it crystallizes from aqueous solutions in large colourless
monoclinic prisms, which effloresce in dry air, and at 35°C. melt in
their water of crystallization. At 100° they lose all their water, and
on further heating fuse at 843°. Its maximum solubility in water is at
34°; above that temperature it ceases to exist in the solution as a
decahydrate, but changes to the anhydrous salt, the solubility of which
decreases with rise of temperature. Glauber's salt readily forms
supersaturated solutions, in which crystallization takes place suddenly
when a crystal of the salt is thrown in; the same effect is obtained by
exposure to the air or by touching the solution with a glass rod. In
medicine it is employed as an aperient, and is one of the safest and
most innocuous known. For children it may be mixed with common salt and
the two be used with the food without the child being conscious of any
difference. Its simulation of the taste of common salt also renders it
suitable for administration to insane patients and others who refuse to
take any drug. If, however, its presence is recognized sodium phosphate
may be substituted.
GLAUCHAU, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the right bank
of the Mulde, 7 m. N. of Zwickau and 17 W. of Chemnitz by rail. Pop.
(1875) 21,743; (1905) 24,556. It has important manufactures of woollen
and half-woollen goods, in regard to which it occupies a high position
in Germany. There are also dye-works, print-works, and manufactories of
paper, linen, thread and machinery. Glauchau possesses a high grade
school, elementary schools, a weaving school, an orphanage and an
infirmary. Some portions of the extensive old castle date from the 12th
century, and the Gottesacker church contains interesting antiquarian
relics. Glauchau was founded by a colony of Sorbs and Wends, and
belonged to the lords of Schönburg as early as the 12th century.
See R. Hofmann, _Rückblick über die Geschichte der Stadt Glauchau_
(1897).
GLAUCONITE, a mineral, green in colour, and chemically a hydrous
silicate of iron and potassium. It especially occurs in the green sands
and muds which are gathering at the present time on the sea bottom at
many different places. The wide extension of these sands and muds was
first made known by the naturalists of the "Challenger," and it is now
found that they occur in the Mediterranean as well as in the open ocean,
but they have not been found in the Black Sea or in any fresh-water
lakes. These deposits are not in a true sense abyssal, but are of
terrigenous origin, the mud and sand being derived from the wear of the
continents, transported by marine currents. The greater part of the mass
consists in all cases of minerals such as quartz, felspar (often
labradorite), mica, chlorite, with more or less calcite which is
probably always derived from shells or other organic sources. Many
accessory minerals such as tourmaline and zircon have been identified
also, while augite, hornblende and other volcanic minerals occur in
varying proportion as in all the sediments of the open sea. The depth in
which they accumulate varies a good deal, viz. from 200 up to 2000
fathoms, but as a rule is less than 1000 fathoms, and it is believed
that the most common situations are where the continental shores slope
rather steeply into moderate depths of water. Many of the blue muds,
which owe their colour to fine particles of sulphide of iron, contain
also a small quantity of glauconite; in Globigerina oozes this substance
has also been found, and in fact there exists every gradation between
the glauconitic deposits and the other types of sands and muds which are
found at similar depths.
The colouring matter is believed in every case to be glauconite. Other
ingredients, such as lime, alumina and magnesia are usually shown to be
present by the analyses, but may perhaps be regarded as non-essential:
it is impossible to isolate this substance in a pure state as it occurs
only in fine aggregates, mixed with other minerals. The glauconite,
though crystalline, never occurs well crystallized but only as dense
clusters of very minute particles which react feebly on polarized light.
They have one well-marked characteristic inasmuch as they often form
rounded lumps. In many cases it is certain that these are casts, which
fill up the interior of empty shells of Foraminifera. They may be seen
occupying these shells, and when the shell is dissolved away perfect
casts of glauconite are set free. Apparently in some manner not
understood, the decaying organic matter in the shell of the dead
organism initiated or favoured the chemical reactions by which the
glauconite was formed. That the mineral originated on the sea bottom
among the sand and mud is quite certainly established by these facts;
moreover, since it is so soft and friable that it is easily powdered up
by pressure with the fingers, it cannot have been transported from any
great distance by currents. Small rounded glauconite lumps, which are
common on the sands but show no trace of having filled the chambers of
Foraminifera, may have arisen by a re-deposit of broken-down casts such
as have been described; probably slight movement of the deposits,
occasioned by currents, may have broken up the glauconite casts and
scattered the soft material through the water. Films or stains of
glauconite on shells, sand grains and phosphate nodules are explained by
a similar deposit of fragmental glauconite.
In a small number of Tertiary and older rocks glauconite occurs as an
essential component. It is found in the Pliocene sands of Holland, the
Eocene sands of Paris and the "Molasse" of Switzerland, but is much more
abundant in the Lower Cretaceous rocks of N. Europe, especially in the
subdivision known as the Greensand. Rounded lumps and casts like those
of the green sands of the present day are plentiful in these rocks, and
it is obvious that the mode of formation was in all respects the same.
The green sand when weathered is brown or rusty coloured, the glauconite
being oxidized to limonite. Calcareous sands or impure limestones with
glauconite are also by no means rare, an example being the well-known
Kentish Rag. In the Chalk-rock and Chalk-marl of some parts of England
glauconite is rather frequent, and glauconitic chalk is known also in
the north of France. Among the oldest rocks which contain this mineral
are the Lower Silurian of the St Petersburg district, but it is very
rare in the Palaeozoic formations, possibly because it undergoes
crystalline change and is also liable to be oxidized and converted into
other ferruginous minerals. It has been suggested that certain deposits
of iron ores may owe their origin to deposits of glauconite, as for
example those of the Mesabi range, Minnesota, U.S.A. (J. S. F.)
GLAUCOUS (Gr. [Greek: glaukos], bright, gleaming), a word meaning of a
sea-green colour, in botany covered with bloom, like a plum or a
cabbage-leaf.
GLAUCUS ("bright"), the name of several figures in Greek mythology, the
most important of which are the following:
1. GLAUCUS, surnamed _Pontius_, a sea divinity. Originally a fisherman
and diver of Anthedon in Boeotia, having eaten of a certain magical herb
sown by Cronus, he leapt into the sea, where he was changed into a god,
and endowed with the gift of unerring prophecy. According to others he
sprang into the sea for love of the sea-god Melicertes, with whom he was
often identified (Athenaeus vii. 296). He was worshipped not only at
Anthedon, but on the coasts of Greece, Sicily and Spain, where fishermen
and sailors at certain seasons watched for his arrival during the night
in order to consult him (Pausanias ix. 22). In art he is depicted as a
vigorous old man with long hair and beard, his body terminating in a
scaly tail, his breast covered with shells and seaweed. He was said to
have been the builder and pilot of the Argo, and to have been changed
into a god after the fight between the Argonauts and Tyrrhenians. He
assisted the expedition in various ways (Athenaeus, loc. cit.; see also
Ovid, _Metam._ xiii. 904). Glaucus was the subject of a satyric drama by
Aeschylus. He was famous for his amours, especially those with Scylla
and Circe.
See the exhaustive monograph by R. Gaedechens, _Glaukos der Meergott_
(1860), and article by the same in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_;
and for Glaucus and Scylla, E. Vinet in _Annali dell' Instituto di
Correspondenza archeologica_, xv. (1843).
2. GLAUCUS, usually surnamed _Potnieus_, from Potniae near Thebes, son
of Sisyphus by Merope and father of Bellerophon. According to the legend
he was torn to pieces by his own mares (Virgil, _Georgics_, iii. 267;
Hyginus, _Fab._ 250, 273). On the isthmus of Corinth, and also at
Olympia and Nemea, he was worshipped as Taraxippus ("terrifier of
horses"), his ghost being said to appear and frighten the horses at the
games (Pausanias vi. 20). He is closely akin to Glaucus Pontius, the
frantic horses of the one probably representing the stormy waves, the
other the sea in its calmer mood. He also was the subject of a lost
drama of Aeschylus.
3. GLAUCUS, the son of Minos and Pasiphaë. When a child, while playing
at ball or pursuing a mouse, he fell into a jar of honey and was
smothered. His father, after a vain search for him, consulted the
oracle, and was referred to the person who should suggest the aptest
comparison for one of the cows of Minos which had the power of assuming
three different colours. Polyidus of Argos, who had likened it to a
mulberry (or bramble), which changes from white to red and then to
black, soon afterwards discovered the child; but on his confessing his
inability to restore him to life, he was shut up in a vault with the
corpse. Here he killed a serpent which was revived by a companion, which
laid a certain herb upon it. With the same herb Polyidus brought the
dead Glaucus back to life. According to others, he owed his recovery to
Aesculapius. The story was the subject of plays by the three great Greek
tragedians, and was often represented in mimic dances.
See Hyginus, _Fab._ 136; Apollodorus iii. 3. 10; C. Höck, _Kreta_,
iii. 1829; C. Eckermann, _Melampus_, 1840.
4. GLAUCUS, son of Hippolochus, and grandson of Bellerophon, mythical
progenitor of the kings of Ionia. He was a Lycian prince who, along with
his cousin Sarpedon, assisted Priam in the Trojan War. When he found
himself opposed to Diomedes, with whom he was connected by ties of
hospitality, they ceased fighting and exchanged armour. Since the
equipment of Glaucus was golden and that of Diomedes brazen, the
expression "golden for brazen" (_Iliad_, vi. 236) came to be used
proverbially for a bad exchange. Glaucus was afterwards slain by Ajax.
All the above are exhaustively treated by R. Gaedechens in Ersch and
Gruber's _Allgemeine Encyclopädie_.
GLAZING.--The business of the glazier may be confined to the mere
fitting and setting of glass (q.v.), even the cutting up of the plates
into squares being generally an independent art, requiring a degree of
tact and judgment not necessarily possessed by the building artificer.
The tools generally used by the glazier are the diamond for cutting,
laths or straight edges, tee square, measuring rule, glazing knife,
hacking knife and hammer, duster, sash tool, two-foot rule and a
glazier's cradle for carrying the glass. Glaziers' materials are glass,
putty, priming or paint, springs, wash-leather or india-rubber for door
panels, size, black. The glass is supplied by the manufacturer and cut
to the sizes required for the particular work to be executed. Putty is
made of whiting and linseed oil, and is generally bought in iron kegs of
½ or 1 cwt.; the putty should always be kept covered over, and when
found to be getting hard in the keg a little oil should be put on it to
keep it moist. Priming is a thin coat of paint with a small amount of
red lead in it. In the majority of cases after the sashes for the
windows are fitted they are sent to the glazier's and primed and glazed,
and then returned to the job and hung in their proper positions. When
priming sashes it is important that the rebates be thoroughly primed,
else the putty will not adhere. All wood that is to be painted requires
before being primed to have the knots coated with knotting. When the
priming is dry, the glass is cut and fitted into its place; each pane
should fit easily with about 1/16th in. play all round. The glazier runs
the putty round the rebates with his hands, and then beds the glass in
it, pushing it down tight, and then further secures it by knocking in
small nails, called glaziers' sprigs, on the rebate side. He then trims
up the edges of the protruding putty and bevels off the putty on the
rebate or outside of the sash with a putty knife. The sash is then ready
for painting. Large squares and plate glass are usually inserted when
the sashes are hung to avoid risks of breakage. For inside work the
panes of glass are generally secured with beads (not with putty), and in
the best work these beads are fixed with brass screws and caps to allow
of easy removal without breaking the beads and damaging the paint, &c.
In the case of glass in door panels where there is much vibration and
slamming, the glass is bedded in wash-leather or india-rubber and
secured with beads as before mentioned.
Varieties of glass.
The most common glass and that generally used is clear sheet in varying
thicknesses, ranging in weight from 15 to 30 oz. per sq. ft. This can be
had in several qualities of English or foreign manufacture. But there
are many other varieties--obscured, fluted, enamelled, coloured and
ornamental, rolled and rough plate, British polished plate, patent
plate, fluted rolled, quarry rolled, chequered rough, and a variety of
figured rolled, and stained glass, and crown-glass with bulls'-eyes in
the centre.
Lead light glazing is the glazing of frames with small squares of glass,
which are held together by reticulations of lead; these are secured by
means of copper wire to iron saddle bars, which are let into mortices in
the wood frames or stone jambs. This is formed with strips of lead,
soldered at the angles; the glass is placed between the strips and the
lead flattened over the edges of glass to secure it. This is much used
in public buildings and private residences. In Weldon's method the
saddle bars are bedded in the centre of the strips of lead, thus
strengthening the frame of lead strips and giving a better appearance.
_Wired rolled plate or wired cast plate_, usually ¼ in. thick, has wire
netting embedded in it to prevent the glass from falling in the case of
fire; its use is obligatory in London for all lantern and skylights,
screens and doors on the staircases of public and warehouse buildings,
in accordance with the London Building Act. It is also used for the
decks of ships and for port and cabin lights, as it is much stronger
than plain glass, and if fractured is held together by the wire.
Patent prismatic rolled glass, or "refrax" (fig. 1), consists of an
effectual application of the well-known properties of the prism; it
absorbs all the light that strikes the window opening, and diffuses it
in the most efficient manner possible in the darkest portions of the
apartment. It can be fixed in the ordinary way or placed over the
existing glass.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Prism Window Glass.]
Pavement lights (fig. 2) and stallboard lights are constructed with iron
frames in small squares and glazed with thick prismatic glass, and are
used to light basements. They are placed on the pavement and under shop
fronts in the portion called the stallboard, and are also inserted in
iron coal plates.
Great skill has of late years been displayed in the ornamentation of
glass such as is seen in public saloons, restaurants, &c., as, for
instance, in bevelling the edges, silvering, brilliant cutting,
embossing, bending, cutting shelving to fancy shapes and polishing, and
in glass ventilators.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Section through Prism Pavement Light, the
direction of light rays being indicated by arrows.]
Roof glazing.
There are several patent methods of roof glazing, such as are applied
to railway stations, studios and printing and other factories
requiring light. Some of the first patents of this kind were erected
with wood glazing bars; these were unsightly, since they required to
be of large sectional area when spanning a distance of 7 or 8 ft., and
also required to be constantly painted. This was a source of trouble;
the roof was constantly leaking and, moreover, it was not
fire-resisting.
Of subsequent patents one includes the use of steel T-bars, in which
the glass is bedded and covered with a capping of copper or zinc
secured with bolts and nuts. Another employs steel bars covered with
lead; and this is a very good method, as the bars are of small
section, require no painting, and are also fire-resisting. There is
one reason for preferring wood to steel, namely, that wood does not
expand and contract like steel does. After the sun has been on steel
bars, especially those in long lengths, they tend to buckle and then
when cold contract, thus getting out of shape; there is also the
possibility that when expanding they may break the glass. This is more
noticeable in the case of iron ventilating frames in this glazing,
which after having weathered for a year or two will begin to get out
of shape and so give trouble in opening and closing.
Care should be taken not to fit the glass in iron bars tightly, but a
good 1/8th in. play all round should be allowed. A few of the systems
of patent roof glazing will be described in the following pages,
together with illustrations.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--"British Challenge" Glazing.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Mellowes' Glazing.]
The system of glazing known as the "British Challenge" (fig. 3), with
steel bars encased with a sheeting of 4-lb. lead, is very simple and
durable, needs no painting, and can be fixed at as much as 8 ft. clear
bearings, with the bars spaced 2 ft. apart. The ends of the bars rest
on the wood or steel purlins or plates, and are either notched and
screwed down, or simply fitted with a bracket which is screwed. The
bar is of T section with condensation grooves, and the lead wings on
top are turned down on to the glass after fitting. This lead-covered
steel bar is a great improvement on the plain steel bar as it is
entirely unaffected by smoke, acids or exhaust fumes from steam
engines; this is important in the case of a railway station, where the
fumes would otherwise eat the steel away and so weaken the bars that
in time they would snap. Another somewhat similar system is known as
"Mellowes' Eclipse Roof Glazing" (fig. 4). It consists of steel T-bars
having lead wings on top to turn on to the glass in a similar manner
to the last, the top wings being double and the underside of the bar
having an additional wing to catch the condensation. The Heywood
combination system (fig. 5) is composed of galvanized steel T-bars,
sometimes encased in lead and sometimes partly encased. It has a
capping and condensation gutters of lead, and the glass is bedded on
asbestos packing to get a better bearing edge, so as to be held more
securely. Hope's glazing is very similar, but the bars are either T or
cross according to the span. The "Perfection" glazing used by Messrs
Helliwell & Co. (fig. 6) is composed of steel shaped T bars with
copper capping, secured with bolts and nuts and having asbestos
packing on top of the glass under the edges of the capping.
Pennycook's glazing is composed of steel shaped T bars encased with
lead and lead wings. Rendle's "Invincible" glazing (fig. 7) is
composed of steel T bars with specially shaped copper water and
condensation channels, all formed in the one piece and resting on top
of the T steel; the glass rests on the zinc channel, and a copper
capping is fixed over the edges of the glass and secured with bolts
and nuts. Deard's glazing is very similar, and is composed of T steel
encased with lead; it claims to save all drilling for fixing to iron
roofs. There are also other systems composed of wood bars with
condensation gutter and capping of copper secured with bolts and nuts,
and asbestos packing with slight differences in some minor matters,
but these systems are but little used.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Heywood's Glazing.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Helliwell's "Perfection" Glazing.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Rendle's "Invincible" Glazing.]
Cloisonné glass is a patent ornamental glass formed by placing two
pieces flat against each other enclosing a species of glass mosaic.
Designs are worked and shaped in gilt wire and placed on one sheet of
glass; the space between the wire is then filled in with coloured
beads, and another sheet of glass is placed on top of it to keep them
in position, and the edges of the glass are bound with linen, &c., to
keep them firmly together.
Use in building.
Glass is now used for decorative purposes, such as wall tiling and
ceilings; it is coloured and decorated in almost any shade and presents
a very effective appearance. An invention has been patented for building
houses entirely of glass; the walls are constructed of blocks or bricks
of opaque glass, the several walls being varied in thickness according
to the constructional requirements.
It is certainly true that daylight has much to do with the sanitary
condition of all buildings, and this being so the proper distribution of
daylight to a building is of the greatest possible importance, and must
be effected by an ample provision of windows judiciously arranged. The
heads of all windows should be kept as near the ceiling as possible, as
well to obtain easy ventilation as to ensure good lighting. As far as is
practicable a building should be planned so that each room receives the
sun's rays for some part of the day. This is rarely an easy matter,
especially in towns where the aspect of the building is out of the
architect's hands. The best sites for light are found in streets running
north and south and east and west, and lighting areas or courts in
buildings should always if possible be arranged on these lines. The task
of adequately lighting lofty city buildings has been greatly minimized
by the introduction of many forms of reflecting and intensifying
contrivances, which are used to deflect light into those apartments into
which daylight does not directly penetrate, and which would otherwise
require the use of artificial light to render them of any use; the most
useful of these inventions are the various forms of prism glass already
referred to and illustrated in this article.
See L. F. Day, _Stained and Painted Class_; and W. Eckstein, _Interior
Lighting_. (J. Bt.)
GLAZUNOV, ALEXANDER CONSTANTINOVICH (1865- ), Russian musical composer,
was born in St Petersburg on the 10th of August 1865, his father being a
publisher and bookseller. He showed an early talent for music, and
studied for a year or so with Rimsky-Korsakov. At the age of sixteen he
composed a symphony (afterwards elaborated and published as _op._ 5),
but his _opus_ 1 was a quartet in D, followed by a pianoforte suite on
_S-a-c-h-a_, the diminutive of his name Alexander. In 1884 he was taken
up by Liszt, and soon became known as a composer. His first symphony was
played that year at Weimar, and he appeared as a conductor at the Paris
exhibition in 1889. In 1897 his fourth and fifth symphonies were
performed in London under his own conducting. In 1900 he became
professor at the St Petersburg conservatoire. His separate works,
including orchestral symphonies, dance music and songs, make a long
list. Glazunov is a leading representative of the modern Russian school,
and a master of orchestration; his tendency as compared with
contemporary Russian composers is towards classical form, and he was
much influenced by Brahms, though in "programme music" he is represented
by such works as his symphonic poems _The Forest_, _Stenka Razin_, _The
Kremlin_ and his suite _Aus dem Mittelalter_. His ballet music, as in
_Raymonda_, achieved much popularity.
GLEBE (Lat. _glaeba_, _gleba_, clod or lump of earth, hence soil, land),
in ecclesiastical law the land devoted to the maintenance of the
incumbent of a church. Burn (_Ecclesiastical Law, s.v._ "Glebe Lands")
says: "Every church of common right is entitled to house and glebe, and
the assigning of them at the first was of such absolute necessity that
without them no church could be regularly consecrated. The house and
glebe are both comprehended under the word _manse_, of which the rule of
the canon law is, _sancitum est ut unicuique ecclesiae unus mansus
integer absque ullo servitio tribuatur_." In the technical language of
English law the fee-simple of the glebe is said to be in _abeyance_,
that is, it exists "only in the remembrance, expectation and intendment
of the law." But the freehold is in the parson, although at common law
he could alienate the same only with proper consent,--that is, in his
case, with the consent of the bishop. The disabling statutes of
Elizabeth (Alienation by Bishops, 1559, and Dilapidations, &c., 1571)
made void all alienations by ecclesiastical persons, except leases for
the term of twenty-one years or three lives. By an act of 1842 (5 & 6
Vict. c. 27, Ecclesiastical Leases) glebe land and buildings may be let
on lease for farming purposes for fourteen years or on an improving
lease for twenty years. But the parsonage house and ten acres of glebe
situate most conveniently for occupation must not be leased. By the
Ecclesiastical Leasing Acts of 1842 (5 & 6 Vict. c. 108) and 1858 glebe
lands may be let on building leases for not more than ninety-nine years
and on mining leases for not more than sixty years. The Tithe Act 1842,
the Glebe Lands Act 1888 and various other acts make provision for the
sale, purchase, exchange and gift of glebe lands. In Scots
ecclesiastical law, the manse now signifies the minister's
dwelling-house, the glebe being the land to which he is entitled in
addition to his stipend. All parish ministers appear to be entitled to a
glebe, except the ministers in royal burghs proper, who cannot claim a
glebe unless there be a landowner's district annexed; and even in that
case, when there are two ministers, it is only the first who has a
claim.
See Phillimore, _Ecclesiastical Law_ (2nd ed.); Cripps, _Law of Church
and Clergy_; Leach, _Tithe Acts_ (6th ed.); Dart, _Vendors and
Purchasers_ (7th ed.).
GLEE, a musical term for a part-song of a particular kind. The word, as
well as the thing, is essentially confined to England. The technical
meaning has been explained in different ways; but there is little doubt
of its derivation through the ordinary sense of the word (i.e.
merriment, entertainment) from the A.S. _gleov_, _gleo_, corresponding
to Lat. _gaudium_, _delectamentum_, hence _ludus musicus_; on the other
hand, a musical "glee" is by no means necessarily a merry composition.
Gleeman (A.S. "gleo-man") is translated simply as "musicus" or "cantor,"
to which the less distinguished titles of "mimus, jocista, scurra," are
frequently added in old dictionaries. The accomplishments and social
position of the gleeman seem to have been as varied as those of the
Provençal "joglar." There are early examples of the word "glee" being
used as synonymous with harmony or concerted music. The former
explanation, for instance, is given in the _Promptorium parvulorum_, a
work of the 15th century. Glee in its present meaning signifies, broadly
speaking, a piece of concerted vocal music, generally unaccompanied, and
for male voices, though exceptions are found to the last two
restrictions. The number of voices ought not to be less than three. As
regards musical form, the glee is little distinguished from the
catch,--the two terms being often used indiscriminately for the same
song; but there is a distinct difference between it and the
madrigal--one of the earliest forms of concerted music known in England.
While the madrigal does not show a distinction of contrasted movements,
this feature is absolutely necessary in the glee. In the madrigal the
movement of the voices is strictly contrapuntal, while the more modern
form allows of freer treatment and more compact harmonies. Differences
of tonality are fully explained by the development of the art, for while
the madrigal reached its acme in Queen Elizabeth's time, the glee proper
was little known before the Commonwealth; and its most famous
representatives belong to the 18th century and the first quarter of the
19th. Among the numerous collections of the innumerable pieces of this
kind, only one of the earliest and most famous may be mentioned, _Catch
that Catch can, a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds and Canons, for
three and four voices_, published by John Hilton in 1652. The name
"glee," however, appears for the first time in John Playford's _Musical
Companion_, published twenty-one years afterwards, and reprinted again
and again, with additions by later composers--Henry Purcell, William
Croft and John Blow among the number. The originator of the glee in its
modern form was Dr Arne, born in 1710. Among later English musicians
famous for their glees, catches and part-songs, the following may be
mentioned:--Attwood, Boyce, Bishop, Crotch, Callcott, Shield, Stevens,
Horsley, Webb and Knyvett. The convivial character of the glee led, in
the 18th century, to the formation of various societies, which offered
prizes and medals for the best compositions of the kind and assembled
for social and artistic purposes. The most famous amongst these--The
Glee Club--was founded in 1787, and at first used to meet at the house
of Mr Robert Smith, in St Paul's churchyard. This club was dissolved in
1857. A similar society--The Catch Club--was formed in 1761 and is still
in existence.
GLEICHEN, two groups of castles in Germany, thus named from their
resemblance to each other (Ger. _gleich_ = like, or resembling). The
first is a group of three, each situated on a hill in Thuringia between
Gotha and Erfurt. One of these called Gleichen, the Wanderslebener
Gleiche (1221 ft. above the sea), was besieged unsuccessfully by the
emperor Henry IV. in 1088. It was the seat of a line of counts, one of
whom, Ernest III., a crusader, is the subject of a romantic legend.
Having been captured, he was released from his imprisonment by a Turkish
woman, who returned with him to Germany and became his wife, a papal
dispensation allowing him to live with two wives at the same time (see
Reineck, _Die Sage von der Doppelehe eines Grafen von Gleichen_, 1891).
After belonging to the elector of Mainz the castle became the property
of Prussia in 1803. The second castle is called Mühlburg (1309 ft. above
the sea). This existed as early as 704 and was besieged by Henry IV. in
1087. It came into the hands of Prussia in 1803. The third castle,
Wachsenburg (1358 ft.), is still inhabited and contains a collection of
weapons and pictures belonging to its owner, the duke of
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose family obtained possession of it in 1368. It
was built about 935 (see Beyer, _Die drei Gleichen_, Erfurt, 1898). The
other group consists of two castles, Neuen-Gleichen and Alten-Gleichen.
Both are in ruins and crown two hills about 2 m. S.E. from Göttingen.
The name of Gleichen is taken by the family descended from Prince Victor
of Hohenlohe-Langenburg through his marriage with Miss Laura Seymour,
daughter of Admiral Sir George Francis Seymour, a branch of the
Hohenlohe family having at one time owned part of the county of
Gleichen.
GLEIG, GEORGE (1753-1840), Scottish divine, was born at Boghall,
Kincardineshire, on the 12th of May 1753, the son of a farmer. At the
age of thirteen he entered King's College, Aberdeen, where the first
prize in mathematics and physical and moral sciences fell to him. In his
twenty-first year he took orders in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and
was ordained to the pastoral charge of a congregation at Pittenweem,
Fife, whence he removed in 1790 to Stirling. He became a frequent
contributor to the _Monthly Review_, the _Gentleman's Magazine_, the
_Anti-Jacobin Review_ and the _British Critic_. He also wrote several
articles for the third edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and
on the death of the editor, Colin Macfarquhar, in 1793, was engaged to
edit the remaining volumes. Among his principal contributions to this
work were articles on "Instinct," "Theology" and "Metaphysics." The two
supplementary volumes were mainly his own work. He was twice chosen
bishop of Dunkeld, but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards
primus, rendered the election on both occasions ineffectual. In 1808 he
was consecrated assistant and successor to the bishop of Brechin, in
1810 was preferred to the sole charge, and in 1816 was elected primus of
the Episcopal Church of Scotland, in which capacity he greatly aided in
the introduction of many useful reforms, in fostering a more catholic
and tolerant spirit, and in cementing a firm alliance with the sister
church of England. He died at Stirling on the 9th of March 1840.
Besides various sermons, Gleig was the author of _Directions for the
Study of Theology_, in a series of letters from a bishop to his son on
his admission to holy orders (1827); an edition of _Stackhouse's
History of the Bible_ (1817); and a life of Robertson the historian,
prefixed to an edition of his works. See _Life of Bishop Gleig_, by
the Rev. W. Walker (1879). Letters to Henderson of Edinburgh and John
Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, are in the British Museum.
His third and only surviving son, GEORGE ROBERT GLEIG (1796-1888), was
educated at Glasgow University, whence he passed with a Snell exhibition
to Balliol College, Oxford. He abandoned his scholastic studies to enter
the army, and served with distinction in the Peninsular War (1813-14),
and in the American War, in which he was thrice wounded. Resuming his
work at Oxford, he proceeded B.A. in 1818, M.A. in 1821, and, having
been ordained in 1820, held successively curacies at Westwell in Kent
and Ash (to the latter the rectory of Ivy Church was added in 1822). He
was subsequently appointed chaplain of Chelsea hospital (1824),
chaplain-general of the forces (1844-1875) and inspector-general of
military schools (1846-1857). From 1848 till his death on the 9th of
July 1888 he was prebend of Willesden in St Paul's cathedral. During the
last sixty years of his life he was a prolific, if not very scientific,
writer; he wrote for _Blackwood's Magazine_ and _Fraser's Magazine_, and
produced a large number of historical works.
Among the latter were (besides histories of the campaigns in which he
served), _Life of Sir Thomas Munro_ (3 vols., 1830); _History of
India_ (4 vols., 1830-1835); _The Leipsic Campaign and Lives of
Military Commanders_ (1831); _Story of the Battle of Waterloo_ (1847);
_Sketch of the Military History of Great Britain_ (1845); _Sale's
Brigade in Afghanistan_ (1847); biographies of Lord Clive (1848), the
duke of Wellington (1862), and Warren Hastings (1848; the subject of
Macaulay's essay, in which it is described as "three big bad volumes
full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric").
GLEIM, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG (1719-1803), German poet, was born on the
2nd of April 1719 at Ermsleben, near Halberstadt. Having studied law at
the university of Halle he became secretary to Prince William of
Brandenburg-Schwedt at Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of Ewald
von Kleist, whose devoted friend he became. When the prince fell at the
battle of Prague, Gleim became secretary to Prince Leopold of Dessau;
but he soon gave up his position, not being able to bear the roughness
of the "Old Dessauer." After residing a few years in Berlin he was
appointed, in 1747, secretary of the cathedral chapter at Halberstadt.
"Father Gleim" was the title accorded to him throughout all literary
Germany on account of his kind-hearted though inconsiderate and
undiscriminating patronage alike of the poets and poetasters of the
period. He wrote a large number of feeble imitations of Anacreon, Horace
and the minnesingers, a dull didactic poem entitled _Halladat oder das
rote Buch_ (1774), and collections of fables and romances. Of higher
merit are his _Preussische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier_ (1758).
These, which were inspired by the campaigns of Frederick II., are often
distinguished by genuine feeling and vigorous force of expression. They
are also noteworthy as being the first of that long series of noble
political songs in which later German literature is so rich. With this
exception, Gleim's writings are for the most part tamely commonplace in
thought and expression. He died at Halberstadt on the 18th of February
1803.
Gleim's _Sämtliche Werke_ appeared in 7 vols. in the years 1811-1813;
a reprint of the _Lieder eines Grenadiers_ was published by A. Sauer
in 1882. A good selection of Gleim's poetry will be found in F.
Muncker, _Anakreontiker und preussisch-patriotische Lyriker_ (1894).
See W. Körte, _Gleims Leben aus seinen Briefen und Schriften_ (1811).
His correspondence with Heinse was published in 2 vols. (1894-1896);
with Uz (1889), in both cases edited by C. Schüddekopf.
GLEIWITZ, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the
Klodnitz, and the railway between Oppeln and Cracow, 40 m. S.E. of the
former town. Pop. (1875) 14,156; (1905) 61,324. It possesses two
Protestant and four Roman Catholic churches, a synagogue, a mining
school, a convent, a hospital, two orphanages, and barracks. Gleiwitz is
the centre of the mining industry of Upper Silesia. Besides the royal
foundry, with which are connected machine manufactories and
boiler-works, there are other foundries, meal mills and manufactories of
wire, gas pipes, cement and paper.
See B. Nietsche, _Geschichte der Stadt Gleiwitz_ (1886); and Seidel,
_Die königliche Eisengiesserei zu Gleiwitz_ (Berlin, 1896).
GLENALMOND, a glen of Perthshire, Scotland, situated to the S.E. of Loch
Tay. It comprises the upper two-thirds of the course of the Almond, or a
distance of 20 m. For the greater part it follows a direction east by
south, but at Newton Bridge it inclines sharply to the south-east for 3
m., and narrows to such a degree that this portion is known as the Small
(or Sma') Glen. At the end of this pass the glen expands and runs
eastwards as far as the well-known public school of Trinity College,
where it may be considered to terminate. The most interesting spot in
the glen is that traditionally known as the grave of Ossian. The
district east of Buchanty, near which are the remains of a Roman camp,
is said to be the Drumtochty of Ian Maclaren's stories. The mountainous
region at the head of the glen is dominated by Ben y Hone or Ben Chonzie
(3048 ft. high).
GLENCAIRN, EARLS OF. The 1st earl of Glencairn in the Scottish peerage
was ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM (d. 1488), a son of Sir Robert Cunningham of
Kilmaurs in Ayrshire. Made a lord of the Scottish parliament as Lord
Kilmaurs not later than 1469, Cunningham was created earl of Glencairn
in 1488; and a few weeks later he was killed at the battle of
Sauchieburn whilst fighting for King James III. against his rebellious
son, afterwards James IV. His son and successor, ROBERT (d. c. 1490),
was deprived of his earldom by James IV., but before 1505 this had been
revived in favour of Robert's son, CUTHBERT (d. c. 1540), who became 3rd
earl of Glencairn, and whose son WILLIAM (c. 1490-1547) was the 4th
earl. This noble, an early adherent of the Reformation, was during his
public life frequently in the pay and service of England, although he
fought on the Scottish side at the battle of Solway Moss (1542), where
he was taken prisoner. Upon his release early in 1543 he promised to
adhere to Henry VIII., who was anxious to bring Scotland under his rule,
and in 1544 he entered into other engagements with Henry, undertaking
_inter alia_ to deliver Mary queen of Scots to the English king.
However, he was defeated by James Hamilton, earl of Arran, and the
project failed; Glencairn then deserted his fellow-conspirator, Matthew
Stewart, earl of Lennox, and came to terms with the queen-mother, Mary
of Guise, and her party.
William's son, ALEXANDER, the 5th earl (d. 1574), was a more pronounced
reformer than his father, whose English sympathies he shared, and was
among the intimate friends of John Knox. In March 1557 he signed the
letter asking Knox to return to Scotland; in the following December he
subscribed the first "band" of the Scottish reformers; and he
anticipated Lord James Stewart, afterwards the regent Murray, in taking
up arms against the regent, Mary of Guise, in 1558. Then, joined by
Stewart and the lords of the congregation, he fought, against the
regent, and took part in the attendant negotiations with Elizabeth of
England, whom he visited in London in December 1560. When in August 1561
Mary queen of Scots returned to Scotland, Glencairn was made a member of
her council; he remained loyal to her after she had been deserted by
Murray, but in a few weeks rejoined Murray and the other Protestant
lords, returning to Mary's side in 1566. After the queen had married the
earl of Bothwell she was again forsaken by Glencairn, who fought against
her at Carberry Hill and at Langside. The earl, who was always to the
fore in destroying churches, abbeys and other "monuments of idolatry,"
died on the 23rd of November 1574. His short satirical poem against the
Grey Friars is printed by Knox in his _History of the Reformation_.
JAMES, the 7th earl (d. c. 1622), took part in the seizure of James VI.,
called the raid of Ruthven in 1582. WILLIAM, the 9th earl (c.
1610-1664), a somewhat lukewarm Royalist during the Civil War, was a
party to the "engagement" between the king and the Scots in 1647; for
this proceeding the Scottish parliament deprived him of his office as
lord justice-general, and nominally of his earldom. In March 1653
Charles II. commissioned the earl to command the Royalist forces in
Scotland, pending the arrival of General John Middleton, and the
insurrection of this year is generally known as Glencairn's rising.
After its failure he was betrayed and imprisoned, but although excepted
from pardon he was not executed; and when Charles II. was restored he
became lord chancellor of Scotland. After a dispute with his former
friend, James Sharp, archbishop of St Andrews, he died at Belton in
Haddingtonshire on the 30th of May 1664. This earl's son JOHN (d. 1703),
who followed his brother Alexander as 11th earl in 1670, was a supporter
of the Revolution of 1688. His descendant, JAMES, the 14th earl
(1749-1791), is known as the friend and patron of Robert Burns. He
performed several useful services for the poet; and when he died on the
30th of January 1791 Burns wrote a _Lament_ beginning, "The wind blew
hollow frae the hills," and ending with the lines, "But I'll remember
thee, Glencairn, and a' that thou hast done for me." The 14th earl was
never married, and when his brother and successor, John, died childless
in September 1796 the earldom became extinct, although it was claimed by
Sir Adam Fergusson, Bart., a descendant of the 10th earl.
GLENCOE, a glen in Scotland, situated in the north of Argyllshire.
Beginning at the north-eastern base of Buchaille Etive, it takes a
gentle north-westerly trend for 10 m. to its mouth on Loch Leven, a
salt-water arm of Loch Linnhe. On both sides it is shut in by wild and
precipitous mountains and its bed is swept by the Coe--Ossian's "dark
Cona,"--which rises in the hills at its eastern end. About half-way down
the glen the stream forms the tiny Loch Triochatan. Towards Invercoe the
landscape acquires a softer beauty. Here Lord Strathcona, who, in 1894,
purchased the heritage of the Macdonalds of Glencoe, built his stately
mansion of Mount Royal. The principal mountains on the south side are
the various peaks of Buachaille Etive, Stob Dearg (3345 ft.), Bidean nam
Bian (3756 ft.) and Meall Mor (2215 ft.), and on the northern side the
Pap of Glencoe (2430 ft.), Sgor nam Fiannaidh (3168 ft.) and Meall Dearg
(3118 ft.). Points of interest are the Devil's Staircase, a steep,
boulder-strewn "cut" (1754 ft. high) across the hills to Fort William;
the Study; the cave of Ossian, where tradition says that he was born,
and the Iona cross erected in 1883 by a Macdonald in memory of his
clansmen who perished in the massacre of 1692. About 1 m. beyond the
head of the glen is Kingshouse, a relic of the old coaching days, when
it was customary for tourists to drive from Ballachulish via Tyndrum to
Loch Lomond. Now the Glencoe excursion is usually made from Oban--by
rail to Achnacloich, steamer up Loch Etive, coach up Glen Etive and down
Glencoe and steamer at Ballachulish to Oban. One mile to the west of the
Glen lies the village of BALLACHULISH (pop. 1143). It is celebrated for
its slate quarries, which have been worked since 1760. The industry
provides employment for 600 men and the annual output averages 30,000
tons. The slate is of excellent quality and is used throughout the
United Kingdom. Ballachulish is a station on the Callander and Oban
extension line to Fort William (Caledonian railway). The pier and ferry
are some 2 m. W. of the village.
GLENCORSE, JOHN INGLIS, Lord (1810-1891), Scottish judge, son of a
minister, was born at Edinburgh on the 21st of August 1810. From Glasgow
University he went to Balliol College, Oxford. He was admitted a member
of the Faculty of Advocates, and soon became known as an eloquent and
successful pleader. In 1852 he was made solicitor-general for Scotland
in Lord Derby's first ministry, three months later becoming Lord
Advocate. In 1858 he resumed this office in Lord Derby's second
administration, being returned to the House of Commons as member for
Stamford. He was responsible for the Universities of Scotland Act of
1858, and in the same year he was elevated to the bench as lord justice
clerk. In 1867 he was made lord justice general of Scotland and lord
president of the court of session, taking the title of Lord Glencorse.
Outside his judicial duties he was responsible for much useful public
work, particularly in the department of higher education. In 1869 he was
elected chancellor of Edinburgh University, having already been rector
of the university of Glasgow. He died on the 20th August 1891.
GLENDALOUGH, VALE OF, a mountain glen of Co. Wicklow, Ireland,
celebrated and frequently visited both on account of its scenic beauty
and, more especially, because of the collection of ecclesiastical
remains situated in it. Fortunately for its appearance, it is not
approached by any railway, but services of cars are maintained to
several points, of which Rathdrum, 8½ m. S.E., is the nearest railway
station, on the Dublin & South-Eastern. The glen is traversed by the
stream of Glenealo, a tributary of the Avonmore, expanding into small
loughs, the Upper and the Lower. The former of these is walled by the
abrupt heights of Camaderry (2296 ft.) and Lugduff (2176 ft.), and here
the extreme narrowness of the valley adds to its grandeur; while lower
down, where it widens, the romantic character of the scenery is enhanced
by the scattered ruins of the former monastic settlement. These ruins
have the collective name of the "Seven Churches." The settlement owed
its foundation to the hermit St Kevin, who is reputed to have died on
the 3rd of June 618; and it rapidly became a seat of learning of wide
fame, but suffered much at the hands of the Danes and the Anglo-Normans.
In close proximity to an hotel, and to one another, in an enclosure, are
a round tower, one of the finest in Ireland, 110 ft. high and 52 in
circumference; St Kevin's kitchen or church (closely resembling the
house of St Columba at Kells), which measures 25 ft. by 15, with a
high-pitched roof and round belfry--supposed to be the earliest example
of its type; and the cathedral, about 73 ft. in total length by 51 in
width. This possesses a good square-headed doorway, and an east window
of ornate character (the chancel being of later date than the nave), and
there are also some early tombs, but the whole is in a decayed
condition. In the enclosure are also a Lady chapel, chiefly remarkable
for its doorway of wrought granite, in a style of architecture
resembling Greek; a priest's house (restored), and slight remains of St
Chiaran's church. Here is also St Kevin's cross, a granite monolith
never completed; and the enclosure is entered by a fine though
dilapidated gateway. Other neighbouring remains are Trinity or the Ivy
Church, towards Laragh, with beautiful detailed work; St Saviour's
monastery, carefully restored under the direction of the Board of Works,
with a chancel arch of three orders (re-erected); while on the shores of
the upper lough are Reefert Church, the burial-place of the O'Toole
family, and Teampull-na-skellig, the church of the rock. St Kevin's bed
is a cave approachable with difficulty, above the lough, probably a
natural cavity artificially enlarged, to which attaches the legend of St
Kevin's hermitage. Along the valley there are a number of monuments and
stone crosses of various sizes and styles. The whole collection forms,
with the possible exception of Clonmacnoise in King's county, the most
striking monument of monasticism in Ireland.
GLENDOWER, OWEN (c. 1359-1415), the last to claim the title of an
independent prince of Wales, more correctly described as Owain ab
Gruffydd, lord of Glyndyvrdwy in Merioneth, was a man of good family,
with two great houses, Sycharth and Glyndyvrdwy in the north, besides
smaller estates in south Wales. His father was called Gruffydd Vychan,
and his mother Helen; on both sides he had pretensions to be descended
from the old Welsh princes. Owen was probably born about 1359, studied
law at Westminster, was squire to the earl of Arundel, and a witness for
Grosvenor in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor lawsuit in 1386. Afterwards
he was in the service of Henry of Bolingbroke, the future king, though
by an error it has been commonly stated that he was squire to Richard
II. Welsh sympathies were, however, on Richard's side, and combined with
a personal quarrel to make Owen the leader of a national revolt.
The lords of Glyndyvrdwy had an ancient feud with their English
neighbours, the Greys of Ruthin. Reginald Grey neglected to summon Owen,
as was his duty, for the Scottish expedition of 1400, and then charged
him with treason for failing to appear. Owen thereupon took up arms, and
when Henry IV. returned from Scotland in September he found north Wales
ablaze. A hurried campaign under the king's personal command was
ineffectual. Owen's estates were declared forfeit and vigorous measures
threatened by the English government. Still the revolt gathered
strength. In the spring of 1401 Owen was raiding in south Wales, and
credited with the intention of invading England. A second campaign by
the king in the autumn was defeated, like that of the previous year,
through bad weather and the Fabian tactics of the Welsh. Owen had
already been intriguing with Henry Percy (Hotspur), who during 1401 held
command in north Wales, and with Percy's brother-in-law, Sir Edmund
Mortimer. During the winter of 1401-1402 his plans were further extended
to negotiations with the rebel Irish, the Scots and the French. In the
spring he had grown so strong that he attacked Ruthin, and took Grey
prisoner. In the summer he defeated the men of Hereford under Edmund
Mortimer at Pilleth, near Brynglas, in Radnorshire. Mortimer was taken
prisoner and treated with such friendliness as to make the English doubt
his loyalty; within a few months he married Owen's daughter. In the
autumn the English king was for the third time driven "bootless home and
weather-beaten back." The few English strongholds left in Wales were now
hard pressed, and Owen boasted that he would meet his enemy in the
field. Nevertheless, in May 1403 Henry of Monmouth was allowed to sack
Sycharth and Glyndyvrdwy unopposed. Owen had a greater plot in hand. The
Percies were to rise in arms, and meeting Owen at Shrewsbury, overwhelm
the prince before help could arrive. But Owen's share in the undertaking
miscarried through his own defeat near Carmarthen on the 12th of July,
and Percy was crushed at Shrewsbury ten days later. Still the Welsh
revolt was never so formidable. Owen styled himself openly prince of
Wales, established a regular government, and called a parliament at
Machynlleth. As a result of a formal alliance the French sent troops to
his aid, and in the course of 1404 the great castles of Harlech and
Aberystwith fell into his hands.
In the spring of 1405 Owen was at the height of his power; but the tide
turned suddenly. Prince Henry defeated the Welsh at Grosmont in March,
and twice again in May, when Owen's son Griffith and his chancellor were
made prisoners. Scrope's rebellion in the North prevented the English
from following up their success. The earl of Northumberland took refuge
in Wales, and the tripartite alliance of Owen with Percy and Mortimer
(transferred by Shakespeare to an earlier occasion) threatened a renewal
of danger. But Northumberland's plots and the active help of the French
proved ineffective. The English under Prince Henry gained ground
steadily, and the recovery of Aberystwith, after a long siege, in the
autumn of 1408 marked the end of serious warfare. In February 1409
Harlech was also recaptured, and Owen's wife, daughter and grandchildren
were taken prisoners. Owen himself still held out and even continued to
intrigue with the French. In July 1415 Gilbert Talbot had power to treat
with Owen and his supporters and admit them to pardon. Owen's name does
not occur in the document renewing Talbot's powers in February 1416;
according to Adam of Usk he died in 1415. Later English writers allege
that he died of starvation in the mountains; but Welsh legend represents
him as spending a peaceful old age with his sons-in-law at Ewyas and
Monington in Herefordshire, till his death and burial at the latter
place. The dream of an independent and united Wales was never nearer
realization than under Owen's leadership. The disturbed state of England
helped him, but he was indeed a remarkable personality, and has not
undeservedly become a national hero. Sentiment and tradition have
magnified his achievements, and confused his career with tales of
portents and magical powers. Owen left many bastard children; his
legitimate representative in 1433 was his daughter Alice, wife of Sir
John Scudamore of Ewyas.
The facts of Owen's life must be pieced together from scattered
references in contemporary chronicles and documents; perhaps the most
important are Adam of Usk's _Chronicle_ and Ellis's _Original
Letters_. On the Welsh side something is given by the bards Iolo Goch
and Lewis Glyn Cothi. For modern accounts consult J. H. Wylie's
_History of England under Henry IV._ (4 vols., 1884-1898); A. C.
Bradley's popular biography; and Professor Tout's article in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_. (C. L. K.)
GLENELG, CHARLES GRANT, BARON (1778-1866), eldest son of Charles Grant
(q.v.), chairman of the directors of the East India Company, was born in
India on the 26th of October 1778, and was educated at Magdalene
College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1802. Called to the
bar in 1807, he was elected member of parliament for the Inverness
burghs in 1807, and having gained some reputation as a speaker in the
House of Commons, he was made a lord of the treasury in December 1813,
an office which he held until August 1819, when he became secretary to
the lord-lieutenant of Ireland and a privy councillor. In 1823 he was
appointed vice-president of the board of trade; from September 1827 to
June 1828 he was president of the board and treasurer of the navy; then
joining the Whigs, he was president of the board of control under Earl
Grey and Lord Melbourne from November 1830 to November 1834. At the
board of control Grant was primarily responsible for the act of 1833,
which altered the constitution of the government of India. In April 1835
he became secretary for war and the colonies, and was created Baron
Glenelg. His term of office was a stormy one. His differences with Sir
Benjamin d'Urban (q.v.), governor of Cape Colony, were serious; but more
so were those with King William IV. and others over the administration
of Canada. He was still secretary when the Canadian rebellion broke out
in 1837; his wavering and feeble policy was fiercely attacked in
parliament; he became involved in disputes with the earl of Durham, and
the movement for his supercession found supporters even among his
colleagues in the cabinet. In February 1839 he resigned, receiving
consolation in the shape of a pension of £2000 a year. From 1818 until
he was made a peer Grant represented the county of Inverness in
parliament, and he has been called "the last of the Canningites." Living
mainly abroad during the concluding years of his life, he died unmarried
at Cannes on the 23rd of April 1866 when his title became extinct.
Glenelg's brother, SIR ROBERT GRANT (1779-1838), who was third wrangler
in 1801, was, like his brother, a fellow of Magdalene College,
Cambridge, and a barrister. From 1818 to 1834 he represented various
constituencies in parliament, where he was chiefly prominent for his
persistent efforts to relieve the disabilities of the Jews.[1] In June
1834 he was appointed governor of Bombay, and he died in India on the
9th of July 1838. Grant wrote a _Sketch of the History of the East India
Co._ (1813), and is also known as a writer of hymns.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Sir S. Walpole (_History of England_, vol. v.) is wrong in
stating that Charles Grant introduced bills to remove Jewish
disabilities in 1833 and 1834. They were introduced by his brother
Robert.
GLENELG, a municipal town and watering place of Adelaide county, South
Australia, on Holdfast Bay, 6½ m. by rail S.S.W. of the city of
Adelaide. Pop. (1901) 3949. It is a popular summer resort, connected
with Adelaide by two lines of railway. In the vicinity is the "Old Gum
Tree" under which South Australia was proclaimed British territory by
Governor Hindmarsh in 1836.
GLENGARRIFF, or GLENGARIFF ("Rough Glen"), a celebrated resort of
tourists in summer and invalids in winter, in the west riding of county
Cork, Ireland, on Glengarriff Harbour, an inlet on the northern side of
Bantry Bay, 11 m. by coach road from Bantry on the Cork, Bandon & South
Coast railway. Beyond its hotels, Glengarriff is only a small village,
but the island-studded harbour, the narrow glen at its head and the
surrounding of mountains, afford most attractive views, and its
situation on the "Prince-of Wales'" route travelled by King Edward VII.
in 1848, and on a fine mountain coach road from Macroom, brings it into
the knowledge of many travellers to Killarney. Thackeray wrote
enthusiastically of the harbour. The glaciated rocks of the glen are
clothed with vegetation of peculiar luxuriance, flourishing in the mild
climate which has given Glengarriff its high reputation as a health
resort for those suffering from pulmonary complaints.
GLEN GREY, a division of the Cape province south of the Stormberg,
adjoining on the east the Transkeian Territories. Pop. (1904) 55,107.
Chief town Lady Frere, 32 m. N.E. of Queenstown. The district is well
watered and fertile, and large quantities of cereals are grown. Over 96%
of the inhabitants are of the Zulu-Xosa (Kaffir) race, and a
considerable part of the district was settled during the Kaffir wars of
Cape Colony by Tembu (Tambookies) who were granted a location by the
colonial government in recognition of their loyalty to the British. Act
No. 25 of 1894 of the Cape parliament, passed at the instance of Cecil
Rhodes, which laid down the basis upon which is effected the change of
land tenure by natives from communal to individual holdings, and also
dealt with native local self-government and the labour question, applied
in the first instance to this division, and is known as the Glen Grey
Act (see CAPE COLONY: _History_). The provisions of the act respecting
individual land tenure and local self-government were in 1898 applied,
with certain modifications, to the Transkeian Territories. The division
is named after Sir George Grey, governor of Cape Colony 1854-1861.
GLENS FALLS, a village of Warren county, New York, U.S.A., 55 m. N. of
Troy, on the Hudson river. Pop. (1890) 9509; (1900) 12,613, of whom 1762
were foreign-born; (1910 census) 15,243. Glens Falls is served by the
Delaware & Hudson and the Hudson Valley (electric) railways. The village
contains a state armoury, the Crandall free public library, a Y.M.C.A.
building, the Park hospital, an old ladies' home, and St Mary's (Roman
Catholic) and Glens Falls (non-sectarian) academies. There are two
private parks, open to the public, and a waterworks system is maintained
by the village. An iron bridge crosses the river just below the falls,
connecting Glens Falls and South Glens Falls (pop. in 1910, 2247). The
falls of the Hudson here furnish a fine water-power, which is utilized,
in connexion with steam and electricity, in the manufacture of lumber,
paper and wood pulp, women's clothing, shirts, collars and cuffs, &c. In
1905 the village's factory products were valued at $4,780,331. About 12
m. above Glens Falls, on the Hudson, a massive stone dam has been
erected; here electric power, distributed to a large area, is generated.
In the neighbourhood of Glens Falls are valuable quarries of black
marble and limestone, and lime, plaster and Portland cement works. Glens
Falls was settled about the close of the French and Indian War (1763),
and was incorporated as a village in 1839.
GLENTILT, a glen in the extreme north of Perthshire, Scotland. Beginning
at the confines of Aberdeenshire, it follows a north-westerly direction
excepting for the last 4 m., when it runs due S. to Blair Atholl. It is
watered throughout by the Tilt, which enters the Garry after a course of
14 m., and receives on its right the Tarff, which forms some beautiful
falls just above the confluence, and on the left the Fender, which has
some fine falls also. The attempt of the 6th duke of Atholl (1814-1864)
to close the glen to the public was successfully contested by the
Scottish Rights of Way Society. The group of mountains--Carn nan Gabhar
(3505 ft.), Ben y Gloe (3671) and Carn Liath (3193)--on its left side
dominate the lower half of the glen. Marble of good quality is
occasionally quarried in the glen, and the rock formation has attracted
the attention of geologists from the time of James Hutton.
GLEYRE, MARC CHARLES GABRIEL (1806-1874), French painter, of Swiss
origin, was born at Chevilly in the canton of Vaud on the 2nd of May
1806. His father and mother died while he was yet a boy of some eight or
nine years of age; and he was brought up by an uncle at Lyons, who sent
him to the industrial school of that city. Going up to Paris a lad of
seventeen or nineteen, he spent four years in close artistic study--in
Hersent's studio, in Suisse's academy, in the galleries of the Louvre.
To this period of laborious application succeeded four years of
meditative inactivity in Italy, where he became acquainted with Horace
Vernet and Léopold Robert; and six years more were consumed in
adventurous wanderings in Greece, Egypt, Nubia and Syria. At Cairo he
was attacked with ophthalmia, and in the Lebanon he was struck down by
fever; and he returned to Lyons in shattered health. On his recovery he
proceeded to Paris, and, fixing his modest studio in the rue de
Université, began carefully to work out the conceptions which had been
slowly shaping themselves in his mind. Mention is made of two decorative
panels--"Diana leaving the Bath," and a "Young Nubian"--as almost the
first fruits of his genius; but these did not attract public attention
till long after, and the painting by which he practically opened his
artistic career was the "Apocalyptic Vision of St John," sent to the
Salon of 1840. This was followed in 1843 by "Evening," which at the time
received a medal of the second class, and afterwards became widely
popular under the title of the Lost Illusions. It represents a poet
seated on the bank of a river, with drooping head and wearied frame,
letting his lyre slip from a careless hand, and gazing sadly at a bright
company of maidens whose song is slowly dying from his ear as their boat
is borne slowly from his sight.
In spite of the success which attended these first ventures, Gleyre
retired from public competition, and spent the rest of his life in quiet
devotion to his own artistic ideals, neither seeking the easy applause
of the crowd, nor turning his art into a means of aggrandizement and
wealth. After 1845, when he exhibited the "Separation of the Apostles,"
he contributed nothing to the Salon except the "Dance of the Bacchantes"
in 1849. Yet he laboured steadily and was abundantly productive. He had
an "infinite capacity of taking pains," and when asked by what method he
attained to such marvellous perfection of workmanship, he would reply,
"En y pensant toujours." A long series of years often intervened between
the first conception of a piece and its embodiment, and years not
unfrequently between the first and the final stage of the embodiment
itself. A landscape was apparently finished; even his fellow artists
would consider it done; Gleyre alone was conscious that he had not
"found his sky." Happily for French art this high-toned laboriousness
became influential on a large number of Gleyre's younger contemporaries;
for when Delaroche gave up his studio of instruction he recommended his
pupils to apply to Gleyre, who at once agreed to give them lessons twice
a week, and characteristically refused to take any fee or reward. By
instinct and principle he was a confirmed celibate: "Fortune, talent,
health,--he had everything; but he was married," was his lamentation
over a friend. Though he lived in almost complete retirement from public
life, he took a keen interest in politics, and was a voracious reader of
political journals. For a time, indeed, under Louis Philippe, his studio
had been the rendezvous of a sort of liberal club. To the last--amid all
the disasters that befell his country--he was hopeful of the future, "la
raison finira bien par avoir raison." It was while on a visit to the
Retrospective Exhibition, opened on behalf of the exiles from Alsace and
Lorraine, that he died suddenly on the 5th of May 1874. He left
unfinished the "Earthly Paradise," a noble picture, which Taine has
described as "a dream of innocence, of happiness and of beauty--Adam and
Eve standing in the sublime and joyous landscape of a paradise enclosed
in mountains,"--a worthy counterpart to the "Evening." Among the other
productions of his genius are the "Deluge," which represents two angels
speeding above the desolate earth, from which the destroying waters have
just begun to retire, leaving visible behind them the ruin they have
wrought; the "Battle of the Lemanus," a piece of elaborate design,
crowded but not cumbered with figures, and giving fine expression to the
movements of the various bands of combatants and fugitives; the
"Prodigal Son," in which the artist has ventured to add to the parable
the new element of mother's love, greeting the repentant youth with a
welcome that shows that the mother's heart thinks less of the repentance
than of the return; "Ruth and Boaz"; "Ulysses and Nausicaa"; "Hercules
at the feet of Omphale"; the "Young Athenian," or, as it is popularly
called, "Sappho"; "Minerva and the Nymphs"; "Venus [Greek: pandêmos]";
"Daphnis and Chloë"; and "Love and the Parcae." Nor must it be omitted
that he left a considerable number of drawings and water-colours, and
that we are indebted to him for a number of portraits, among which is
the sad face of Heine, engraved in the _Revue des deux mondes_ for April
1852. In Clément's catalogue of his works there are 683 entries,
including sketches and studies.
See Fritz Berthoud in _Bibliothèque universelle de Genève_ (1874);
Albert de Montet, _Dict. biographique des Genevois et des Vaudois_
(1877); and _Vie de Charles Gleyre_ (1877), written by his friend,
Charles Clément, and illustrated by 30 plates from his works.
GLIDDON, GEORGE ROBINS (1809-1857), British Egyptologist, was born in
Devonshire in 1809. His father, a merchant, was United States consul at
Alexandria, and there Gliddon was taken at an early age. He became
United States vice-consul, and took a great interest in Egyptian
antiquities. Subsequently he lectured in the United States and succeeded
in rousing considerable attention to the subject of Egyptology
generally. He died at Panama in 1857. His chief work was _Ancient Egypt_
(1850, ed. 1853). He wrote also _Memoir on the Cotton of Egypt_ (1841);
_Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments
of Egypt_ (1841); _Discourses on Egyptian Archaeology_ (1841); _Types of
Mankind_ (1854), in conjunction with J. C. Nott and others; _Indigenous
Races of the Earth_ (1857), also in conjunction with Nott and others.
GLINKA, FEDOR NIKOLAEVICH (1788-1849); Russian poet and author, was born
at Smolensk in 1788, and was specially educated for the army. In 1803 he
obtained a commission as an officer, and two years later took part in
the Austrian campaign. His tastes for literary pursuits, however, soon
induced him to leave the service, whereupon he withdrew to his estates
in the government of Smolensk, and subsequently devoted most of his time
to study or travelling about Russia. Upon the invasion of the French in
1812, he re-entered the Russian army, and remained in active service
until the end of the campaign in 1814. Upon the elevation of Count
Milarodovich to the military governorship of St Petersburg, Glinka was
appointed colonel under his command. On account of his suspected
revolutionary tendencies he was, in 1826, banished to Petrozavodsk, but
he nevertheless retained his honorary post of president of the Society
of the Friends of Russian Literature, and was after a time allowed to
return to St Petersburg. Soon afterwards he retired completely from
public life, and died on his estates in 1849.
Glinka's martial songs have special reference to the Russian military
campaigns of his time. He is known also as the author of the
descriptive poem _Kareliya_, &c. (_Carelia, or the Captivity of Martha
Joanovna_) (1830), and of a metrical paraphrase of the book of Job.
His fame as a military author is chiefly due to his _Pisma Russkago
Ofitsera_ (_Letters of a Russian Officer_) (8 vols., 1815-1816).
GLINKA, MICHAEL IVANOVICH (1803-1857), Russian musical composer, was
born at Novospassky, a village in the Smolensk government, on the 2nd of
June 1803. His early life he spent at home, but at the age of thirteen
we find him at the Blagorodrey Pension, St Petersburg, where he studied
music under Carl Maier and John Field, the Irish composer and pianist,
who had settled in Russia. We are told that in his seventeenth year he
had already begun to compose romances and other minor vocal pieces; but
of these nothing now is known. His thorough musical training did not
begin till the year 1830, when he went abroad and stayed for three years
in Italy, to study the works of old and modern Italian masters. His
thorough knowledge of the requirements of the voice may be connected
with this course of study. His training as a composer was finished under
the contrapuntist Dehn, with whom Glinka stayed for several months at
Berlin. In 1833 he returned to Russia, and devoted himself to operatic
composition. On the 27th of September (9th of October) 1836, took place
the first representation of his opera _Life for the Tsar_ (the libretto
by Baron de Rosen). This was the turning-point in Glinka's life,--for
the work was not only a great success, but in a manner became the origin
and basis of a Russian school of national music. The story is taken from
the invasion of Russia by the Poles early in the 17th century, and the
hero is a peasant who sacrifices his life for the tsar. Glinka has
wedded this patriotic theme to inspiring music. His melodies, moreover,
show distinct affinity to the popular songs of the Russians, so that the
term "national" may justly be applied to them. His appointment as
imperial chapelmaster and conductor of the opera of St Petersburg was
the reward of his dramatic successes. His second opera _Russlan and
Lyudmila_, founded on Pushkin's poem, did not appear till 1842; it was
an advance upon _Life for the Tsar_ in its musical aspect, but made no
impression upon the public. In the meantime Glinka wrote an overture and
four entre-actes to Kukolnik's drama _Prince Kholmsky_. In 1844 he went
to Paris, and his _Jota Arragonesa_ (1847), and the symphonic work on
Spanish themes, _Une Nuit à Madrid_, reflect the musical results of two
years' sojourn in Spain. On his return to St Petersburg he wrote and
arranged several pieces for the orchestra, amongst which the so-called
_Kamarinskaya_ achieved popularity beyond the limits of Russia. He also
composed numerous songs and romances. In 1857 he went abroad for the
third time; he now wrote his autobiography, orchestrated Weber's
_Invitation à la valse_, and began to consider a plan for a musical
version of Gogol's _Tarass-Boulba_. Abandoning the idea and becoming
absorbed in a passion for ecclesiastical music he went to Berlin to
study the ancient church modes. Here he died suddenly on the 2nd of
February 1857.
GLINKA, SERGY NIKOLAEVICH (1774-1847), Russian author, the elder brother
of Fedor N. Glinka, was born at Smolensk in 1774. In 1796 he entered the
Russian army, but after three years' service retired with the rank of
major. He afterwards employed himself in the education of youth and in
literary pursuits, first in the Ukraine, and subsequently at Moscow,
where he died in 1847. His poems are spirited and patriotic; he wrote
also several dramatic pieces, and translated Young's _Night Thoughts_.
Among his numerous prose works the most important from an historical
point of view are: _Russkoe Chtenie_ (_Russian Reading: Historical
Memorials of Russia in the 18th and 19th Centuries_) (2 vols., 1845);
_Istoriya Rossii_, &c. (_History of Russia for the use of Youth_) (10
vols., 1817-1819, 2nd ed. 1822, 3rd ed. 1824); _Istoriya Armyan_, &c.
(_History of the Migration of the Armenians of Azerbijan from Turkey
to Russia_) (1831); and his contributions to the _Russky Vyestnik
(Russian Messenger)_, a monthly periodical, edited by him from 1808 to
1820.
GLOBE-FISH, or SEA-HEDGEHOG, the names by which some sea-fishes are
known, which have the remarkable faculty of inflating their stomachs
with air. They belong to the families Diodontidae and Tetrodontidae.
Their jaws resemble the sharp beak of a parrot, the bones and teeth
being coalesced into one mass with a sharp edge. In the Diodonts there
is no mesial division of the jaws, whilst in the Tetrodonts such a
division exists, so that they appear to have two teeth above and two
below. By means of these jaws they are able to break off branches of
corals, and to masticate other hard substances on which they feed.
Usually they are of a short, thick, cylindrical shape, with powerful
fins (fig. 1). Their body is covered with thick skin, without scales,
but provided with variously formed spines, the size and extent of which
vary in the different species. When they inflate their capacious
stomachs with air, they assume a globular form, and the spines protrude,
forming a more or less formidable defensive armour (fig. 2). A fish thus
blown out turns over and floats belly upwards, driving before the wind
and waves. Many of these fishes are highly poisonous when eaten, and
fatal accidents have occurred from this cause. It appears that they
acquire poisonous qualities from their food, which frequently consists
of decomposing or poisonous animal matter, such as would impart, and
often does impart, similar deleterious qualities to other fish. They are
most numerous between the tropics and in the seas contiguous to them,
but a few species live in large rivers, as, for instance, the _Tetrodon
fahaka_, a fish well known to all travellers on the Nile. Nearly 100
different species are known.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Diodon maculatus.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Diodon maculatus_ (inflated).]
GLOBIGERINA, A. d'Orbigny, a genus of Perforate Foraminifera (q.v.) of
pelagic habit, and formed of a conical spiral aggregate of spheroidal
chambers with a crescentic mouth. The shells accumulate at the bottom of
moderately deep seas to form "Globigerina ooze" and are preserved thus
in the chalk. _Hastigerina_ only differs in the "flat" or nautiloid
spiral.
GLOCKENSPIEL, or ORCHESTRAL BELLS (Fr. _carillon_; Ger. _Glockenspiel_,
_Stahlharmonika_; Ital. _campanelli_; Med. Lat. _tintinnabulum_,
_cymbalum_, _bombulum_), an instrument of percussion of definite musical
pitch, used in the orchestra, and made in two or three different styles.
The oldest form of glockenspiel, seen in illuminated MSS. of the middle
ages, consists of a set of bells mounted on a frame and played by one
performer by means of steel hammers. The name "bell" is now generally a
misnomer, other forms of metal or wood having been found more
convenient. The pyramid-shaped glockenspiel, formerly used in the
orchestra for simple rhythmical effects, consists of an octave of
semitone, hemispherical bells, placed one above the other and fastened
to an iron rod which passes through the centre of each, the bells being
of graduated sizes and diminishing in diameter as the pitch rises. The
lyre-shaped glockenspiel, or steel harmonica (_Stahlharmonika_), is a
newer model, which has instead of bells twelve or more bars of steel,
graduating in size according to their pitch. These bars are fastened
horizontally across two bars of steel set perpendicularly in a steel
frame in the shape of a lyre. The bars are struck by little steel
hammers attached to whalebone sticks.
Wagner has used the glockenspiel with exquisite judgment in the fire
scene of the last act of _Die Walküre_ and in the peasants' waltz in
the last scene of _Die Meistersinger_. When chords are written for the
glockenspiel, as in Mozart's _Magic Flute_, the keyed harmonica[1] is
used. It consists of a keyboard having a little hammer attached to
each key, which strikes a bar of glass or steel when the key is
depressed. The performer, being able to use both hands, can play a
melody with full harmonies, scale and arpeggio passages in single and
double notes. A peal of hemispherical bells was specially constructed
for Sir Arthur Sullivan's _Golden Legend_. It consists of four bells
constructed of bell-metal about 1 in. thick, the largest measuring 27
in. in diameter, the smallest 23. They are fixed on a stand one above
the other, with a clearance of about ¾ in. between them; the rim of
the lowest and largest bell is 15 in. from the foot of the stand. The
bells are struck by mallets, which are of two kinds--a pair of hard
wood for forte passages, and a pair covered with wash-leather for
piano effects. The peal was unique at the time it was made for the
_Golden Legend_, but a smaller bell of the same shape, ¼ in. thick,
with a diameter measuring about 16 in., specially made for the
performance of Liszt's _St Elizabeth_, when conducted by the composer
in London, evidently suggested the idea for the peal. (K. S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See "The Keyed Harmonica improved by H. Klein of Pressburg,"
article in the _Allg. musik. Ztg._, Bd. i. pp. 675-699 (Leipzig,
1798); also Becker, p. 254, _Bartel_.
GLOGAU, a fortified town of Germany, in the Prussian province of
Silesia, 59 m. N.W. from Breslau, on the railway to Frankfort-on-Oder.
Pop. (1905) 23,461. It is built partly on an island and partly on the
left bank of the Oder; and owing to the fortified enceinte having been
pushed farther afield, new quarters have been opened up. Among its most
important buildings are the cathedral, in the Gothic, and a castle (now
used as a courthouse), in the Renaissance style, two other Roman
Catholic and three Protestant churches, a new town-hall, a synagogue, a
military hospital, two classical schools (_Gymnasien_) and several
libraries. Owing to its situation on a navigable river and at the
junction of several lines of railway, Glogau carries on an extensive
trade, which is fostered by a variety of local industries, embracing
machinery-building, tobacco, beer, oil, sugar and vinegar. It has also
extensive lithographic works, and its wool market is celebrated.
In the beginning of the 11th century Glogau, even then a populous and
fortified town, was able to withstand a regular siege by the emperor
Henry V.; but in 1157 the duke of Silesia, finding he could not hold out
against Frederick Barbarossa, set it on fire. In 1252 the town, which
had been raised from its ashes by Henry I., the Bearded, became the
capital of a principality of Glogau, and in 1482 town and district were
united to the Bohemian crown. In the course of the Thirty Years' War
Glogau suffered greatly. The inhabitants, who had become Protestants
soon after the Reformation, were dragooned into conformity by
Wallenstein's soldiery; and the Jesuits received permission to build
themselves a church and a college. Captured by the Protestants in 1632,
and recovered by the Imperialists in 1633, the town was again captured
by the Swedes in 1642, and continued in Protestant hands till the peace
of Westphalia in 1648, when the emperor recovered it. In 1741 the
Prussians took the place by storm, and during the Seven Years' War it
formed an important centre of operations for the Prussian forces. After
the battle of Jena (1806) it fell into the hands of the French; and was
gallantly held by Laplane, against the Russian and Prussian besiegers,
after the battle of Katzbach in August 1813 until the 17th of the
following April.
See Minsberg, _Geschichte der Stadt und Festung Glogau's_ (2 vols.,
Glogau, 1853); and H. von Below, _Zur Geschichte des Jahres_ 1806.
_Glogau's Belagerung und Verteidigung_ (Berlin, 1893).
GLORIOSA, in botany, a small genus of plants belonging to the natural
order Liliaceae, native of tropical Asia and Africa. They are bulbous
plants, the slender stems of which support themselves by tendril-like
prolongations of the tips of some of the narrow generally lanceolate
leaves. The flowers, which are borne in the leaf-axils at the ends of
the stem, are very handsome, the six, generally narrow, petals are bent
back and stand erect, and are a rich orange yellow or red in colour; the
six stamens project more or less horizontally from the place of
insertion of the petals. They are generally grown in cultivation as
stove-plants.
GLORY (through the O. Fr. _glorie_, modern _gloire_, from Lat. _gloria_,
cognate with Gr. [Greek: kleos, kluein]), a synonym for fame, renown,
honour, and thus used of anything which reflects honour and renown on
its possessor. In the phrase "glory of God" the word implies both the
honour due to the Creator, and His majesty and effulgence. In liturgies
of the Christian Church are the _Gloria Patri_, the doxology beginning
"Glory be to the Father," the response _Gloria tibi, Domine_, "Glory be
to Thee, O Lord," sung or said after the giving out of the Gospel for
the day, and the _Gloria in excelsis_, "Glory be to God on high," sung
during the Mass and Communion service. A "glory" is the term often used
as synonymous with halo, nimbus or aureola (q.v.) for the ring of light
encircling the head or figure in a pictorial or other representation of
sacred persons.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 - "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory"" ***
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