Vasari, and Crowe and Cavelcaselle can be consulted as to the Gaddi. Other notices appear here and there—such asLa Cappella de’ Rinuccini in S. Croce di Firenze, by G. Ajazzi (1845).
Vasari, and Crowe and Cavelcaselle can be consulted as to the Gaddi. Other notices appear here and there—such asLa Cappella de’ Rinuccini in S. Croce di Firenze, by G. Ajazzi (1845).
(W. M. R.)
GADE, NIELS WILHELM(1817-1890), Danish composer, was born at Copenhagen, on the 22nd of February 1817, his father being a musical instrument maker. He was intended for his father’s trade, but his passion for a musician’s career, made evident by the ease and skill with which he learnt to play upon a number of instruments, was not to be denied. Though he became proficient on the violin under Wexschall, and in the elements of theory under Weyse and Berggreen, he was to a great extent self-taught. His opportunities of hearing and playing in the great masterpieces were many, since he was a member of the court band. In 1840 hisAladdinand his overture ofOssianattracted attention, and in 1841 hisNachklänge aus Ossianoverture gained the local musical society’s prize, the judges being Spohr and Schneider. This work also attracted the notice of the king, who gave the composer a stipend which enabled him to go to Leipzig and Italy. In 1844 Gade conducted the Gewandhaus concerts in Leipzig during Mendelssohn’s absence, and on the latter’s death became chief conductor. In 1848, on the outbreak of the Holstein War, he returned to Copenhagen, where he was appointed organist and conductor of the Musik-Verein. In 1852 he married a daughter of the composer J.P.E. Hartmann. He became court conductor in 1861, and was pensioned by the government in 1876—the year in which he visited Birmingham to conduct hisCrusaders. This work, and theFrühlingsfantasie, theErlkönigs Tochter,FrühlingsbotschaftandPsyche(written for Birmingham in 1882) have enjoyed a wide popularity. Indeed, they represent the strength and the weakness of Gade’s musical ability quite as well as any of his eight symphonies (the best of which are the first and fourth, while the fifth has an obbligato pianoforte part). Gade was distinctly a romanticist, but his music is highly polished and beautifully finished, lyrical rather than dramatic and effective. Much of the pianoforte music,Aquarellen,Spring Flowers, for instance, enjoyed a considerable vogue, as did theNovellettentrio; but Gade’s operaMariottahas not been heard outside the Copenhagen opera house. He died at Copenhagen on the 21st of December 1890.
GADOLINIUM(symbol Gd., atomic weight 157.3), one of the rare earth metals (seeErbium). The element was discovered in 1880 in the mineral samarskite by C. Marignac (Comptes rendus, 1880, 90, p. 899;Ann. chim. phys., 1880 [5] 20, p. 535). G. Urbain (Comptes rendus, 1905, 140, p. 583) separates the metal by crystallizing the double nitrate of nickel and gadolinium. The salts show absorption bands in the ultra-violet. The oxide Gd2O3is colourless (Lecoq de Boisbaudran).
GADSDEN, CHRISTOPHER(1724-1805), American patriot, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1724. His father, Thomas Gadsden, was for a time the king’s collector for the port of Charleston. Christopher went to school near Bristol, in England, returned to America in 1741, was afterwards employed in a counting house in Philadelphia, and became a merchant and planter at Charleston. In 1759 he was captain of an artillery company in an expedition against the Cherokees. He was a member of the South Carolina legislature almost continuously from 1760 to 1780, and represented his province in the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 and in the Continental Congress in 1774-1776. In February 1776 he was placed in command of all the military forces of South Carolina, and in October of the sameyear was commissioned a brigadier-general and was taken into the Continental service; but on account of a dispute arising out of a conflict between state and Federal authority resigned his command in 1777. He was lieutenant-governor of his state in 1780, when Charleston was surrendered to the British. For about three months following this event he was held as a prisoner on parole within the limits of Charleston; then, because of his influence in deterring others from exchanging their paroles for the privileges of British subjects, he was seized, taken to St Augustine, Florida, and there, because he would not give another parole to those who had violated the former agreement affecting him, he was confined for forty-two weeks in a dungeon. In 1782 Gadsden was again elected a member of his state legislature; he was also elected governor, but declined to serve on the ground that he was too old and infirm; in 1788 he was a member of the convention which ratified for South Carolina the Federal constitution; and in 1790 he was a member of the convention which framed the new state constitution. He died in Charleston on the 28th of August 1805. From the time that Governor Thomas Boone, in 1762, pronounced his election to the legislature improper, and dissolved the House in consequence, Gadsden was hostile to the British administration. He was an ardent leader of the opposition to the Stamp Act, advocating even then a separation of the colonies from the mother country; and in the Continental Congress of 1774 he discussed the situation on the basis of inalienable rights and liberties, and urged an immediate attack on General Thomas Gage, that he might be defeated before receiving reinforcements.
GADSDEN, JAMES(1788-1858), American soldier and diplomat, was born at Charleston, S.C., on the 15th of May 1788, the grandson of Christopher Gadsden. He graduated at Yale in 1806, became a merchant in his native city, and in the war of 1812 served in the regular U.S. Army as a lieutenant of engineers. In 1818 he served against the Seminoles, with the rank of captain, as aide on the staff of Gen. Andrew Jackson. In October 1820 he became inspector-general of the Southern Division, with the rank of colonel, and as such assisted in the occupation and the establishment of posts in Florida after its acquisition. From August 1821 to March 1822 he was adjutant-general, but, his appointment not being confirmed by the Senate, he left the army and became a planter in Florida. He served in the Territorial legislature, and as Federal commissioner superintended in 1823 the removal of the Seminole Indians to South Florida. In 1832 he negotiated with the Seminoles a treaty which provided for their removal within three years to lands in what is now the state of Oklahoma; but the Seminoles refused to move, hostilities again broke out, and in the second Seminole War Gadsden was quartermaster-general of the Florida Volunteers from February to April 1836. Returning to South Carolina he became a rice planter, and was president of the South Carolina railway. In 1853 President Franklin Pierce appointed him minister to Mexico, with which country he negotiated the so-called “Gadsden treaty” (signed the 30th of December 1853), which gave to the United States freedom of transit for mails, merchandise and troops across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and provided for a readjustment of the boundary established by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States acquiring 45,535 sq. m. of land, since known as the “Gadsden Purchase,” in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. In addition, Article XI. of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which bound the United States to prevent incursions of Indians from the United States into Mexico, and to restore Mexican prisoners captured by such Indians, was abrogated, and for these considerations the United States paid to Mexico the sum of $10,000,000. Ratifications of the treaty, slightly modified by the Senate, were exchanged on the 30th of June 1854; before this, however, Gadsden had retired from his post. The boundary line between Mexico and the “Gadsden Purchase” was marked by joint commissions appointed in 1855 and 1891, the second commission publishing its report in 1899. Gadsden died at Charleston, South Carolina, on the 25th of December 1858.
An elder brother,Christopher Edwards Gadsden(1785-1852), was Protestant Episcopal bishop of South Carolina in 1839-1852.
GADWALL,a word of obscure origin,1the common English name of the duck, called by LinnaeusAnas strepera, but considered by many modern ornithologists to require removal from the genusAnasto that ofChaulelasmusorCtenorhynchus, of either of which it is almost the sole species. Its geographical distribution is almost identical with that of the common wild duck or mallard (seeDuck), since it is found over the greater part of the northern hemisphere; but, save in India, where it is one of the most abundant species of duck during the cold weather, it is hardly anywhere so numerous, and both in the eastern parts of the United States and in the British Islands it is rather rare than otherwise. Its habits also, so far as they have been observed, greatly resemble those of the wild duck; but its appearance on the water is very different, its small head, flat back, elongated form and elevated stern rendering it recognizable by the fowler even at such a distance as hinders him from seeing its very distinct plumage. In coloration the two sexes appear almost equally sombre; but on closer inspection the drake exhibits a pencilled grey coloration and upper wing-coverts of a deep chestnut, which are almost wanting in his soberly clad partner. She closely resembles the female of the mallard in colour, but has, like her own male, some of the secondary quills of a pure white, presenting a patch of that colour which forms one of the most readily perceived distinctive characters of the species. The gadwall is a bird of some interest in England, since it is one of the few that have been induced, by the protection afforded them in certain localities, to resume the indigenous position they once filled, but had, through the draining and reclaiming of marshy lands, long since abandoned. In regard to the present species, this fact was due to the efforts of Andrew Fountaine, on whose property, in West Norfolk and its immediate neighbourhood, the gadwall, from 1850, annually bred in increasing numbers. It has been always esteemed one of the best of wild fowl for the table.
(A. N.)
1TheNew English Dictionaryhas nothing to say. Webster gives the etymologygad well= go about well. Dr R.G. Latham suggested that it was taken from the syllablesquedul, of the Lat.querquedula, a teal. The spelling “gadwall” seems to be first found in Willughby in 1676, and has been generally adopted by later writers; but Merrett, in 1667, has “gaddel” (Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicarum, p. 180), saying that it was so called by bird-dealers. The synonym “gray,” given by Willughby and Ray, is doubtless derived from the general colour of the species, and has its analogue in the IcelandicGráönd, applied almost indifferently, or with some distinguishing epithet, to the female of any of the freshwater ducks, and especially to both sexes of the present, in which, as stated in the text, there is comparatively little conspicuous difference of plumage in drake and duck.
1TheNew English Dictionaryhas nothing to say. Webster gives the etymologygad well= go about well. Dr R.G. Latham suggested that it was taken from the syllablesquedul, of the Lat.querquedula, a teal. The spelling “gadwall” seems to be first found in Willughby in 1676, and has been generally adopted by later writers; but Merrett, in 1667, has “gaddel” (Pinax rerum naturalium Britannicarum, p. 180), saying that it was so called by bird-dealers. The synonym “gray,” given by Willughby and Ray, is doubtless derived from the general colour of the species, and has its analogue in the IcelandicGráönd, applied almost indifferently, or with some distinguishing epithet, to the female of any of the freshwater ducks, and especially to both sexes of the present, in which, as stated in the text, there is comparatively little conspicuous difference of plumage in drake and duck.
GAEKWAR,orGuicowar, the family name of the Mahratta rulers of Baroda (q.v.) in western India, which has been converted by the English into a dynastic title. It is derived from the vernacular word for the cow, but it is a mistake to suppose that the family are of the cowherd caste; they belong to the upper class of Mahrattas proper, sometimes claiming a Rajput origin. The dynasty was founded by a succession of three warriors, Damaji I., Pilaji and Damaji II., who established Mahratta supremacy throughout Gujarat during the first half of the 18th century. The present style of the ruler is Maharaja Gaekwar of Baroda.
GAETA(anc.Caietae Portus), a seaport and episcopal see of Campania, Italy, in the province of Caserta, from which it is 53 m. W.N.W. by rail via Sparanise. Pop. (1901) 5528. It occupies a lower projecting point of the promontory which forms the S.W. extremity of the Bay of Gaeta. The tomb of Munatius Plancus, on the summit of the promontory (seeCaietae Portus), is now a naval signal station, and lies in the centre of the extensive earthworks of the modern fortifications. The harbour is well sheltered except on the E., but has little commercial importance, being mainly a naval station. To the N.W. is the suburb of Elena (formerly Borgo di Gaeta). Pop. (1901) 10,369. Above the town is a castle erected by the Angevin kings, and strengthened at various periods. The cathedral of St Erasmus (S. Elmo), consecrated in 1106, has a fine campanile begun in860 and completed in 1279, and a nave and four aisles; the interior has, however, been modernized. Opposite the door of the cathedral is a candelabrum with interesting sculptures of the end of the 13th century, consisting of 48 panels in bas-relief, with 24 representations from the life of Christ, and 24 of the life of St Erasmus (A. Venturi,Storia dell’ arte Italiana, iii. Milan, 1904, 642 seq.). The cathedral possesses three fineExultetrolls, with miniatures dating from the 11th to the beginning of the 13th century. Behind the high altar is the banner sent by Pope Pius V. to Don John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. The constable of Bourbon, who fell in the sack of Rome of 1527, is buried here. The other churches are of minor interest; close to that of La Trinità is the Montagna Spaccata, where a vertical fissure from 6 to 15 ft. wide runs right down to the sea-level. Over the chasm is a chapeldel Crocefisso, the mountain having split, it is said, at the death of Christ.
During the break-up of the Roman empire, Gaeta, like Amalfi and Naples, would seem to have established itself as a practically independent port and to have carried on a thriving trade with the Levant. Its history, however, is obscure until, in 823, it appears as a lordship ruled by hereditaryhypatior consuls. In 844 the town fell into the hands of the Arabs, but four years later they were driven out with help supplied by Pope Leo IV. In 875 the town was in the hands of Pope John VIII., who gave it to the count of Capua as a fief of the Holy See, which had long claimed jurisdiction over it. In 877, however, thehypatusJohn (Ioannes) II. succeeded in recovering the lordship, which he established as a duchy under the suzerainty of the East Roman emperors. In the 11th century the duchy fell into the hands of the Norman counts of Aversa, afterwards princes of Capua, and in 1135 it was definitively annexed to his kingdom by Roger of Sicily. The town, however, had its own coinage as late as 1229.
In military history the town has played a conspicuous part. Its fortifications were strengthened in the 15th century. On the 30th of September 1707 it was stormed, after a three months’ siege, by the Austrians under Daun; and on the 6th of August 1734 it was taken, after a siege of four months, by French, Spanish and Sardinian troops under the future King Charles of Naples. The fortifications were again strengthened; and in 1799 it was temporarily occupied by the French. On the 18th of July 1806 it was captured, after an heroic defence, by the French under Masséna; and on the 18th of July 1815 it capitulated, after a three months’ siege, to the Austrians. In November 1848 Pope Pius IX., after his flight in disguise from Rome, found a refuge at Gaeta, where he remained till the 4th of September 1849. Finally, in 1860, it was the scene of the last stand of Francis II. of Naples against the forces of United Italy. Shut up in the fortress with 12,000 men, after Garibaldi’s occupation of Naples, the king, inspired by the heroic example of Queen Maria, offered a stubborn resistance, and it was not till the 13th of February 1861 that, the withdrawal of the French fleet having made bombardment from the sea possible, he was forced to capitulate.
See G.B. Federici,Degli antichi duchi, consoli o ipati della città di Gaeta(Naples, 1791); Onorato Gaetani d’ Aragona,Mem. stor. della città di Gaeta(Milan, 1879); C. Ravizza,Il Golfo di Gaeta(Novara, 1876).
See G.B. Federici,Degli antichi duchi, consoli o ipati della città di Gaeta(Naples, 1791); Onorato Gaetani d’ Aragona,Mem. stor. della città di Gaeta(Milan, 1879); C. Ravizza,Il Golfo di Gaeta(Novara, 1876).
(T. As.)
GAETANI,orCaetani, the name of the oldest of the Roman princely families which played a great part in the history of the city and of the papacy. The Gaetani are of Longobard origin, and the founder of the house is said to be one Dominus Constantinus Cagetanus, who flourished in the 10th century, but the family had no great importance until the election of Benedetto Gaetani to the papacy as Boniface VIII. in 1294, when they at once became the most notable in the city. The pope conferred on them the fiefs of Sermoneta, Bassiano, Ninfa and San Donato (1297-1300), and the marquisate of Ancona in 1300, while Charles II. of Anjou created the pope’s brother count of Caserta. Giordano Loffredo Gaetani by his marriage with Giovanna dell’ Aquila, heiress of the counts of Fondi and Traetto, in 1297 added the name of Aquila to his own, and his grandson Giacomo acquired the lordships of Piedimonte and Gioia. The Gaetani proved brave warriors and formed a bodyguard to protect Boniface VIII. from his many foes. During the 14th and 15th centuries their feuds with the Colonna caused frequent disturbances in Rome and the Campagna, sometimes amounting to civil war. They also played an important rôle as Neapolitan nobles. In 1500 Alexander VI., in his attempt to crush the great Roman feudal nobility, confiscated the Gaetani fiefs and gave them to his daughter Lucrezia Borgia (q.v.); but they afterwards regained them.
At present there are two lines of Gaetani: (1) Gaetani, princes of Teano and dukes of Sermoneta, founded by Giacobello Gaetani, whose grandson, Guglielmo Gaetani, was granted the duchy of Sermoneta by Pius III. in 1503, the marquisate of Cisterna being conferred on the family by Sixtus V. in 1585. In 1642, Francesco, the 7th duke of Sermoneta, acquired by marriage the county of Caserta, which was exchanged for the principality of Teano in 1750. The present head of the house, Onorato Gaetani, 14th duke of Sermoneta, 4th prince of Teano, duke of San Marco, marquis of Cisterna, &c., is a senator of the kingdom of Italy, and was minister for foreign affairs for a short time. (2) Gaetani dell’ Aquila d’Aragona, princes of Piedimonte, and dukes of Laurenzana, founded by Onorato Gaetani dell’ Aquila, count of Fondi, Traetto, Alife and Morcone, lord of Piedimonte and Gioia, in 1454. The additional surname of Aragona was assumed after the marriage of Onorato Gaetani, duke of Traetto (d. 1529), with Lucrezia of Aragon, natural daughter of King Ferdinand I. of Naples. The duchy of Laurenzana, in the kingdom of Naples, was acquired by Alfonso Gaetani by his marriage in 1606 with Giulia di Ruggiero, duchess of Laurenzana. The lordship of Piedimonte was raised to a principality in 1715. The present (1908) head of the house is Nicola Gaetani dell’ Aquila d’Aragona (b. 1857), 7th prince of Piedimonte and 12th duke of Laurenzana.
See A. von Reumont,Geschichte der Stadt Rom(Berlin, 1868); F. Gregorovius,Geschichte der Stadt Rom(Stuttgart, 1872);Almanach de Gotha(1907 and 1908).
See A. von Reumont,Geschichte der Stadt Rom(Berlin, 1868); F. Gregorovius,Geschichte der Stadt Rom(Stuttgart, 1872);Almanach de Gotha(1907 and 1908).
GAETULIA,an ancient district in northern Africa, which in the usage of Roman writers comprised the wandering tribes of the southern slopes of Mount Aures and the Atlas, as far as the Atlantic, and the oases in the northern part of the Sahara. They were always distinguished from the Negro people to the south, and beyond doubt belonged to the same Berber race which formed the basis of the population of Numidia and Mauretania (q.v.). The tribes to be found there at the present day are probably of the same race, and retain the same wandering habits; and it is possible that they still bear in certain places the name of their Gaetulian ancestors (see Vivien St Martin,Le Nord de l’Afrique, 1863). A few only seem to have mingled with the Negroes of the Sahara, if we may thus interpret Ptolemy’s allusion to Melano-Gaetuli (4. 6. 5.). They were noted for the rearing of horses, and according to Strabo had 100,000 foals in a single year. They were clad in skins, lived on flesh and milk, and the only manufacture connected with their name is that of the purple dye which became famous from the time of Augustus onwards, and was made from the purple fish found on the coast, apparently both in the Syrtes and on the Atlantic.
We first hear of this people in the Jugurthine War (111-106B.C.), when, as Sallust tells us, they did not even know the name of Rome. They took part with Jugurtha against Rome; but when we next hear of them they are in alliance with Caesar against Juba I. (Bell. Afr.32). In 25B.C.Augustus seems to have given a part of Gaetulia to Juba II., together with his kingdom of Mauretania, doubtless with the object of controlling the turbulent tribes; but the Gaetulians rose and massacred the Roman residents, and it was not till a severe defeat had been inflicted on them by Lentulus Cossus (who thus acquired the surname Gaetulicus) inA.D.6 that they submitted to the king. After Mauretania became a Roman province inA.D.40, the Roman governors made frequent expeditions into the Gaetulian territory to the south, and the official view seems to be expressed by Pliny (v. 4. 30) when he says that all Gaetulia as far as the Niger and the Ethiopian frontier was reckoned as subject to theEmpire. How far this represents the fact is not clear; but inscriptions prove that Gaetulians served in the auxiliary troops of the empire, and it may be assumed that the country passed within the sphere of Roman influence, though hardly within the pale of Roman civilization.
For bibliography seeAfrica, Roman.
For bibliography seeAfrica, Roman.
GAGE, LYMAN JUDSON(1836- ), American financier, was born at De Ruyter, Madison county, New York, on the 28th of June 1836. He was educated at an academy at Rome, New York, where at the age of seventeen he became a bank clerk. In 1855 he removed to Chicago, served for three years as book-keeper in a planing-mill, and in 1858 entered the banking house of the Merchant’s Loan and Trust Company, of which he was cashier in 1861-1868. Afterwards he became successively assistant cashier (1868), vice-president (1882), and president (1891) of the First National Bank of Chicago, one of the strongest financial institutions in the middle west. He was chosen in 1892 president of the board of directors of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the successful financing of which was due more to him than to any other man. In politics he was originally a Republican, and was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1880, and chairman of its finance committee. In 1884, however, he supported Grover Cleveland for the presidency, and came to be looked upon as a Democrat. In 1892 President Cleveland, after his second election, offered Gage the post of secretary of the treasury, but the offer was declined. In the “free-silver” campaign of 1896 Gage laboured effectively for the election of William McKinley, and from March 1897 until January 1902 he was secretary of the treasury in the cabinets successively of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. From April 1902 until 1906 he was president of the United States Trust Company in New York City. His administration of the treasury department, through a more than ordinarily trying period, was marked by a conservative policy, looking toward the strengthening of the gold standard, the securing of greater flexibility in the currency, and a more perfect adjustment of the relations between the government and the National banks.
GAGE, THOMAS(1721-1787), British general and governor of Massachusetts, second son of the first Viscount Gage, was born in 1721. He entered the army in 1741 and saw service in Flanders and in the campaign of Culloden, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the 44th foot in March 1751. In 1754 he served in America, and he took part in the following year in General Braddock’s disastrous expedition. In 1758 he became colonel of a new regiment, and served in Amherst’s operations against Montreal. He was made governor of Montreal, and promoted major-general in 1761, and in 1763 succeeded Amherst in the command of the British forces in America; in 1770 he was made a lieutenant-general. In 1774 he was appointed governor of Massachusetts, and in that capacity was entrusted with carrying into effect the Boston Port Act. The difficulties which surrounded him in the execution of his office at this time of the gravest unrest culminated in 1775, and the action of the 19th of April at Lexington initiated the American War of Independence. After the battle of Bunker Hill, Gage was superseded by General (Sir William) Howe, and returned to England. He became general in 1782, and died on the 2nd of April 1787.
GAGE,a pledge, something deposited as security for the performance of an agreement, and liable to be forfeited on failure to carry it out. The word also appears in “engage,” and is taken from the O. Fr., as are “wage,” payment for services, and “wager,” bet, stake, from the collateral O. Fr.waige. These two words are from the Low Lat.wadiare,vadiare, to pledge,vadium, classical Lat.vas,vadis, but may be from the old Teutonic cognate base seen in Gothicwadi, a pledge (cf. Ger.wetten, to wager); this Teutonic base is seen in Eng. “wed,” to marry,i.e.to engage by a pledge (cf. Goth,gawadjon, to betrothe). A particular form of giving a “gage” or pledge was that of throwing down a glove or gauntlet as a challenge to a judicial combat, the glove being the “pledge” that the parties would appear on the field; hence the common phrase “to throw down the gage of defiance” for any challenge (seeGloveandWager).
GAGERN, HANS CHRISTOPH ERNST,Baron von(1766-1852), German statesman and political writer, was born at Kleinniedesheim, near Worms, on the 25th of January 1766. After studying law at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen, he entered the service of the prince of Nassau-Weilburg, whom in 1791 he represented at the imperial diet. He was afterwards appointed the prince’s envoy at Paris, where he remained till the decree of Napoleon, forbidding all persons born on the left side of the Rhine to serve any other state than France, compelled him to resign his office (1811). He then retired to Vienna, and in 1812 he took part in the attempt to excite a second insurrection against Napoleon in Tirol. On the failure of this attempt he left Austria and joined the headquarters of the Prussian army (1813), and became a member of the board of administration for north Germany. In 1814 he was appointed administrator of the Orange principalities; and, when the prince of Orange became king of the Netherlands, Baron Gagern became his prime minister. In 1815 he represented him at the congress of Vienna, and succeeded in obtaining for the Netherlands a considerable augmentation of territory. From 1816 to 1818 he was Luxemburg envoy at the German diet, but was recalled, at the instance of Metternich, owing to his too independent advocacy of state constitutions. In 1820 he retired with a pension to his estate at Hornau, near Höchst, in Hesse-Darmstadt; but as a member of the first chamber of the states of the grand-duchy he continued to take an active share in the promotion of measures for the welfare of his country. He retired from public life in 1848, and died at Hornau on the 22nd of October 1852. Baron von Gagern wrote a history of the German nation (Vienna, 1813; 2nd ed., 2 vols., Frankfort, 1825-1826), and several other books on subjects connected with history and social and political science. Of most permanent value, however, is his autobiography,Mein Anteil an der Politik, 5 vols. (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1823-1845).
Of Hans Christoph von Gagern’s sons three attained considerable eminence:—
Friedrich Balduin, Freiherr von Gagern (1794-1848), the eldest, was born at Weilburg on the 24th of October 1794. He entered the university of Göttingen, but soon left, and, taking service in the Austrian army, took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, and fought in the following year at Dresden, Kulm and Leipzig. He then entered the Dutch service, took part in the campaigns of 1815, and, after studying another year at Heidelberg, was member for Luxemburg of the military commission of the German federal diet (1824, 1825). In 1830 and 1831 he took part in the Dutch campaign in Belgium, and in 1844, after being promoted to the rank of general, was sent on an important mission to the Dutch East Indies to inquire into the state of their military defences. In 1847 he was appointed governor at the Hague, and commandant in South Holland. In the spring of 1848 he was in Germany, and on the outbreak of the revolutionary troubles he accepted the invitation of the government of Baden to take the command against the insurgent “free companies” (Freischaaren). At Kandern, on the 20th of April, he made a vain effort to persuade the leaders to submit, and was about to order his troops to attack when he was mortally wounded by the bullets of the insurgents. HisLife, in 3 vols. (Heidelberg and Leipzig, 1856-1857), was written by his brother Heinrich von Gagern.
Heinrich Wilhelm August, Freiherr von Gagern (1799-1880), the third son, was born at Bayreuth on the 20th of August 1799, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in the service of the duke of Nassau, fought at Waterloo. Leaving the service after the war, he studied jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Göttingen and Jena, and in 1819 went for a while to Geneva to complete his studies. In 1821 he began his official career as a lawyer in the grand-duchy of Hesse, and in 1832 was elected to the second chamber. Already at the universities he had proclaimed his Liberal sympathies as a member of theBurschenschaft, and he now threw himself into open opposition to the unconstitutional spirit of the Hessian government, an attitude which led to his dismissal from the state service in 1833. Henceforth he lived in comparative retirement, cultivating afarm rented by his father at Monsheim, and occasionally publishing criticisms of public affairs, until the February revolution of 1848 and its echoes in Germany recalled him to active political life. For a short while he was at the head of the new Hessian administration; but his ambition was to share in the creation of a united Germany. At the Heidelberg meeting and the preliminary convention (Vorparlament) of Frankfort he deeply impressed the assemblies with the breadth and moderation of his views; with the result that when the German national parliament met (May 18), he was elected its first president. His influence was at first paramount, both with the Unionist party and with the more moderate elements of the Left, and it was he who was mainly instrumental in imposing the principle of a united empire with a common parliament, and in carrying the election of the Archduke John as regent. With the growing split between the Great Germans (Grossdeutschen), who wished the new empire to include the Austrian provinces, and the Little Germans (Kleindeutschen), who realized that German unity could only be attained by excluding them, his position was shaken. On the 15th of December, when Schmerling and the Austrian members had left the cabinet, Gagern became head of the imperial ministry, and on the 18th he introduced a programme (known as theGagernsche Programm) according to which Austria was to be excluded from the new federal state, but bound to it by a treaty of union. After a severe struggle this proposal was accepted; but the academic discussion on the constitution continued for weary months, and on the 20th of May, realizing the hopelessness of coming to terms with the ultra-democrats, Gagern and his friends resigned. Later on he attempted to influence the Prussian Northern Union in the direction of the national policy, and he took part in the sessions of the Erfurt parliament; but, soon realizing the hopelessness of any good results from the vacillating policy of Prussia, he retired from the contest, and, as a major in the service of the Schleswig-Holstein government, took part in the Danish War of 1850. After the war he retired into private life at Heidelberg. In 1862, misled by the constitutional tendency of Austrian politics, he publicly declared in favour of the Great German party. In 1864 he went as Hessian envoy to Vienna, retiring in 1872 when the post was abolished. He died at Darmstadt on the 22nd of May 1880.
Maximilian, Freiherr von Gagern (1810-1889), the youngest son, was born at Weilburg on the 26th of March 1810. Up to 1848 he was a government official in Nassau; in that year he became a member of the German national parliament and under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. Throughout the revolutionary years he supported his brother’s policy, became a member of the Erfurt parliament, and, after the collapse of the national movement, returned to the service of the duchy of Nassau. In 1855 he turned Roman Catholic and entered the Austrian service as court and ministerial councillor in the department of foreign affairs. In 1871 he retired, and in 1881 was nominated a life member of the Upper Chamber (Herrenhaus). He died at Vienna on the 17th of October 1889.
SeeAllgemeine deutsche Biographie, Band viii. p. 301, &c. (1878) and Band xlix. p. 654 (1904).
SeeAllgemeine deutsche Biographie, Band viii. p. 301, &c. (1878) and Band xlix. p. 654 (1904).
GAHANBAR,festivals of the ancient Avesta calendar celebrated by the Parsees at six seasons of the year which correspond with the six periods of creation: (1)Maidhyozaremaya(mid spring), (2)Maidhyoshema(midsummer), (3)Paitishahya(season of corn), (4)Ayathrema(season of flocks), (5)Maidhyarya(winter solstice), (6)Hamaspathmaedha(festival of sacrifices).
GAIGNIÈRES, FRANÇOIS ROGER DE(1642-1715), French genealogist, antiquary and collector, was the son of Aimé de Gaignières, secretary to the governor of Burgundy, and was born on the 30th of December 1642. He became écuyer (esquire) to Louis Joseph, duke of Guise, and afterwards to Louis Joseph’s aunt, Marie of Guise, by whom in 1679 he was appointed governor of her principality of Joinville. At an early age he began to make a collection of original materials for history generally, and, in particular, for that of the French church and court. He brought together a large collection of original letters and other documents, together with portraits and prints, and had copies made of a great number of the most curious antiquarian objects, such as seals, tombstones, stained glass, miniatures and tapestry. In 1711 he presented the whole of his collections to the king. The bulk of them is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and a certain number in the Bodleian library at Oxford.
See G. Duplessis,Roger de Gaignières(Paris, 1870); L. Delisle,Cabinet des manuscrits, t. i. pp. 335-356; H. Bouchot,Les Portraits aux crayon des XVIeet XVIIesiècles(Paris, 1884); Ch. de Grandmaison,Gaignières, ses correspondants et ses collections de portraits(Niort, 1892).
See G. Duplessis,Roger de Gaignières(Paris, 1870); L. Delisle,Cabinet des manuscrits, t. i. pp. 335-356; H. Bouchot,Les Portraits aux crayon des XVIeet XVIIesiècles(Paris, 1884); Ch. de Grandmaison,Gaignières, ses correspondants et ses collections de portraits(Niort, 1892).
GAIL, JEAN BAPTISTE(1755-1829), French hellenist, was born in Paris on the 4th of July 1755. In 1791 he was appointed deputy, and in 1792 titular professor at the Collège de France. During the Revolution he quietly performed his professional duties, taking no part in politics, although he possessed the faculty of ingratiating himself with those in authority. In 1815 he was appointed by the king keeper of Greek MSS. in the royal library over the heads of the candidates proposed by the other conservators, an appointment which made him many enemies. Gail imagined that there was an organized conspiracy to belittle his learning and professional success, and there was a standing quarrel between him and his literary opponents, the most distinguished of whom was P.L. Courier. He died on the 5th of February 1829. Without being a great Greek scholar, Gail was a man of unwearied industry, whose whole life was devoted to his favourite studies, and he deserves every credit for having rescued Greek from the neglect into which it had fallen during the troublous times in which he lived. The list of Gail’s published works filled 500 quarto pages of the introduction to his edition of Xenophon. The best of these is his edition of Theocritus (1828). He also wrote a number of elementary educational works, based on the principles of the school of Port Royal. His communications to the Académie des Inscriptions being coldly received and seldom accorded the honour of print, he inserted them in a vast compilation in 24 volumes, which he calledLe Philologue, containing a mass of ill-digested notes on Greek grammar, geography, archaeology, and various authors.
See “Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de J. B. G.,” inMém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, ix.; the articles inBiographie universelle(by A. Pillon) and Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie(by C.F. Bähr); a list of his works will be found in J.M. Quérard,La France littéraire(1829), including the contents of the volumes ofLe Philologue.
See “Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de J. B. G.,” inMém. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, ix.; the articles inBiographie universelle(by A. Pillon) and Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie(by C.F. Bähr); a list of his works will be found in J.M. Quérard,La France littéraire(1829), including the contents of the volumes ofLe Philologue.
GAILLAC,a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Tarn, on the right bank of the Tarn, 15 m. W. of Albi on the railway from that city to Toulouse. Pop. (1906) town, 5388; commune, 7535. The churches of St Michel and St Pierre, both dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, have little architectural importance. There are some interesting houses, one of which, the Maison Yversen, of the Renaissance, is remarkable for the rich carving of its doors. The public institutions include the sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance, and a communal college. Its industries include the manufacture of lime and wooden shoes, while dyeing, wood-sawing and flour-milling are also carried on; it has a considerable trade in grain, flour, vegetables, dried plums, anise, coriander, &c., and in wine, the white and red wines of the arrondissement having a high reputation. Gaillac grew up round the Benedictine abbey of St Michel, founded in the 10th century.
GAILLARD, GABRIEL HENRI(1726-1806), French historian, was born at Ostel, Picardy, in 1726. He was educated for the bar, but after finishing his studies adopted a literary career, ultimately devoting his chief attention to history. He was already a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres (1760), when, after the publication of the three first volumes of hisHistoire de la rivalité de la France et d’Angleterre, he was elected to the French Academy (1771); and when Napoleon created the Institute he was admitted into its third class (Académie française) in 1803. For forty years he was the intimate friend of Malesherbes, whose life (1805) he wrote. He died at St Firmin, near Chantilly, on the 13th of February 1806. Gaillard is painstaking and impartial in his statement of facts,and his style is correct and elegant, but the unity of his narrative is somewhat destroyed by digressions, and by his method of treating war, politics, civil administration, and ecclesiastical affairs under separate heads. His most important work is hisHistoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Angleterre(in 11 vols., 1771-1777); and among his other works may be mentionedEssai de rhétorique française, à l’usage des jeunes demoiselles(1745), often reprinted, and in 1822 with a life of the author;Histoire de Marie de Bourgogne(1757);Histoire de François Ier(7 vols., 1776-1779);Histoire des grandes querelles entre Charles V. et François Ier(2 vols., 1777);Histoire de Charlemagne(2 vols., 1782);Histoire de la rivalité de la France et de l’Espagne(8 vols., 1801);Dictionnaire historique(6 vols., 1789-1804), making part of theEncyclopédie méthodique; andMélanges littéraires, containingélogeson Charles V., Henry IV., Descartes, Corneille, La Fontaine, Malesherbes and others.
GAINESVILLE,a city and the county-seat of Alachua county, Florida, U.S.A., about 70 m. S.W. of Jacksonville. Pop. (1890) 2790; (1900) 3633, of whom 1803 were negroes; (1905) 5413; (1910) 6183. Gainesville is served by the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, and the Tampa & Jacksonville railways, and is an important railway junction. It is the seat of the University of the State of Florida, established at Lake City in 1905 and removed to Gainesville in 1906. The university includes a school of language and literature, a general scientific school, a school of agriculture, a technological school, a school of pedagogy, a normal school, and an agricultural experiment station. In 1908 the university had 15 instructors and 103 students. The Florida Winter Bible Conference and Chautauqua is held here. Gainesville is well known as a winter resort, and its climate is especially beneficial to persons affected by pulmonary troubles. In the neighbourhood are the Alachua Sink, Payne’s Prairie, Newman’s Lake, the Devil’s Mill Hopper and other objects of interest. The surrounding country produces Sea Island cotton, melons, citrus and other fruits, vegetables and naval stores. About 15 m. W. of the city there is a rich phosphate mining district. The city has bottling works, and manufactures fertilizers, lumber, coffins, ice, &c. The municipality owns and operates the water-works; the water-supply comes from a spring 2 m. from the city, and the water closely resembles that of the Poland Springs in Maine. Gainesville is in the midst of the famous Seminole country. The first settlement was made here about 1850; and Gainesville, named in honour of General E.P. Gaines, was incorporated as a town in 1869, and was chartered as a city in 1907.
GAINESVILLE,a city and the county-seat of Cooke county, Texas, U.S.A., about 6 m. S. of the Red river, and about 60 m. N. of Fort Worth. Pop. (1890) 6594; (1900) 7874 (1201 negroes and 269 foreign-born); (1910) 7624. The city is served by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fé, and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railways, and by an interurban electric railway. Gainesville is a trading centre and market for the surrounding country, in which cotton, grains, garden truck, fruit and alfalfa are grown and live-stock is raised; and a wholesale distributing point for the neighbouring region in Texas and Oklahoma. The city has cotton-compresses and cotton-gins, and among its manufactures are cotton-seed oil, flour, cement blocks, pressed bricks, canned goods, foundry products, waggon-beds and creamery products. Gainesville was settled about 1851, was incorporated in 1873, and was chartered as a city in 1879; it was named in honour of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines (1777-1849), who served with distinction in the War of 1812, becoming a brigadier-general in March 1814 and receiving the brevet of major-general and the thanks of Congress for his defence of Fort Erie in August 1814. Gaines took a prominent part in the operations against the Seminoles in Florida in 1817 (when he was in command of the Southern Military District) and in 1836 and during the Mexican War commanded the department of the South-West, with headquarters at New Orleans.
GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS(1727-1788), English painter, one of the greatest masters of the English school in portraiture, and only less so in landscape, was born at Sudbury, Suffolk, in the spring of 1727. His father, who carried on the business of a woollen crape-maker in that town, was of a respectable character and family, and was noted for his skill in fencing; his mother excelled in flower-painting, and encouraged her son in the use of the pencil. There were nine children of the marriage, two of the painter’s brothers being of a very ingenious turn.
At ten years old, Gainsborough “had sketched every fine tree and picturesque cottage near Sudbury,” and at fourteen, having filled his task-books with caricatures of his schoolmaster, and sketched the portrait of a man whom he had detected on the watch for robbing his father’s orchard, he was allowed to follow the bent of his genius in London, with some instruction in etching from Gravelot, and under such advantages as Hayman, the historical painter, and the academy in St Martin’s Lane could afford. Three years of study in the metropolis, where he did some modelling and a few landscapes, were succeeded by two years in the country. Here he fell in love with Margaret Burr, a young lady of many charms, including an annuity of £200, married her after painting her portrait, and a short courtship, and, at the age of twenty, became a householder in Ipswich, his rent being £6 a year. The annuity was reported to come from Margaret’s real (not her putative) father, who was one of the exiled Stuart princes or else the duke of Bedford. She was sister of a young man employed by Gainsborough’s father as a traveller. At Ipswich, Gainsborough tells us, he was “chiefly in the face-way”; his sitters were not so numerous as to prevent him from often rambling with his friend Joshua Kirby (president of the Society of Artists) on the banks of the Orwell, from painting many landscapes with an attention to details which his later works never exhibited, or from joining a musical club and entertaining himself and his fellow-townsmen by giving concerts. As he advanced in years he became ambitious of advancing in reputation. Bath was then the general resort of wealth and fashion, and to that city, towards the close of the year 1759, he removed with his wife and two daughters, the only issue of their marriage. His studio in the circus was soon thronged with visitors; he gradually raised his price for a half-length portrait from 5 to 40 guineas, and for a whole-length from 8 to 100 guineas; and he rapidly developed beyond the comparatively plain and humdrum quality of his Ipswich paintings. Among his sitters at this period were the authors Sterne and Richardson, and the actors Quin, Henderson and Garrick. Meanwhile he contributed both portraits and landscapes to the annual exhibitions in London. He indulged his taste for music by learning to play the viol-di-gamba, the harp, the hautboy, the violoncello. His house harboured Italian, German, French and English musicians. He haunted the green-room of Palmer’s theatre, and painted gratuitously the portraits of many of the actors: he constantly gave away his sketches and landscapes. In the summer of 1774, having already attained a position of great prosperity, he took his departure for London, and fixed his residence at Schomberg House, Pall Mall, a noble mansion still standing, for a part of which the artist paid £300 a year.
Gainsborough had not been many months in London ere he received a summons to the palace, and to the end of his career he divided with West the favour of the court, and with Reynolds the favour of the town. Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, Franklin, Canning, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mrs Siddons, Clive, Blackstone, Hurd, were among the number of those who sat to him. But in London as in Bath his landscapes were exhibited, were commended, and were year after year returned to him, “till they stood,” says Sir William Beechey, “ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting-room.” Gainsborough was a member of the Royal Academy, one of the original 36 elected in 1768; but in 1784, being dissatisfied with the position assigned on the exhibition walls to his portrait of the three princesses, he withdrew that and his other pictures, and he never afterwards exhibited there. Even before this he had taken no part in the business of the Institution. After seceding he got up an exhibition in his own house, not successfully. In February 1788, while witnessing the trial of Warren Hastings, he felt an extraordinary chill at the back of his neck; this was the beginning of a cancer(or, as some say, a malignant wen) which proved fatal on the 2nd of August of the same year. He lies buried at Kew.
Gainsborough was tall, fair and handsome, generous, impulsive to the point of capriciousness, easily irritated, not of bookish likings, a lively talker, good at repartee. He was a most thorough embodiment of the artistic temperament; delighting in nature and “the look of things,” insatiable in working, fond of music and the theatre hardly less than of painting—a warm, rich personality, to whom severe principle was perhaps as foreign as deliberate wrong-doing. The property which he left at his death was not large. One of his daughters, Mary, had married the musician Fischer contrary to his wishes, and was subject to fits of mental aberration. The other daughter, Margaret, died unmarried. Mrs Gainsborough, an extremely sweet-tempered woman, survived her husband ten years. There is a pretty anecdote that Gainsborough, if he ever had a tiff with her, would write a pacifying note, confiding it to his dog Fox, who delivered it to the lady’s pet spaniel Tristram. The note was worded as in the person of Fox to Tristram, and Mrs Gainsborough replied in the best of humours, as from Tristram to Fox.
Gainsborough and Reynolds rank side by side as the greatest portrait-painters of the English school. They were at variance; but Gainsborough on his death-bed sought and obtained a reconciliation. It is difficult to say which stands the higher of the two, although Reynolds may claim to have worked with a nearer approach to even and demonstrable excellence. In grace, spirit, and lightness of insight and of touch, Gainsborough is peculiarly eminent. His handling was slight for the most part, and somewhat arbitrary, but in a high degree masterly; and his landscapes and rustic compositions are not less gifted than his portraits. Among his finest works are portraits of “Lady Ligonier,” “Georgiana, duchess of Devonshire,” “Master Buttall (the Blue Boy),” now in Grosvenor House, “Mrs Sheridan and Mrs Tickell,” “Orpin, the parish clerk” (National Gallery), “the Hon. Mrs Graham” (Scottish National Gallery), his own portrait (Royal Academy), “Mrs Siddons” (National Gallery); also “the Cottage Door,” “the Market Cart,” “the Return from Harvest,” “the Woodman and his Dog in a Storm” (destroyed by fire), and “Waggon and Horses passing a Brook” (National Gallery—this was a favourite with its painter). He made a vast number of drawings and sketches.
A few observations may be added: (1) as to individual works by Gainsborough, and (2) as to his general characteristics as a painter.
Two of his first portraits, executed when he was settled at Ipswich, were separate likenesses of Mr and Mrs Hingeston. His first great hit was made at Bath with a portrait of Lord Nugent. With a likeness of Mr Poyntz, 1762, we find a decided advance in artistic type, and his style became fixed towards 1768. The date of the “Blue Boy” is somewhat uncertain: most accounts name 1779, but perhaps 1770 is nearer the mark. This point is not without interest for dilettanti; because it is said that Gainsborough painted the picture with a view to confuting a dictum of Reynolds, to the effect that blue was a colour unsuitable for the main light of a work. But, if the picture was produced before 1778, the date of Reynolds’s dictum, this long-cherished and often-repeated tradition must be given up. A full-length of the duke of Norfolk was perhaps the latest work to which Gainsborough set his hand. His portrait of Elizabeth, duchess of Devonshire, famous for its long disappearance, has aroused much controversy; whether this painting, produced not long after Gainsborough had settled in London, and termed “the Duchess of Devonshire,” does really represent that lady, is by no means certain. It was mysteriously stolen in 1876 in London immediately after it had been purchased by Messrs Agnew at the Wynn Ellis sale at a huge price, and a long time elapsed before it was retraced. The picture was taken to New York, and eventually to Chicago; and in April 1901, through the agency of a man named Pat Sheedy, it was given up to the American detectives working for Messrs Agnew; it was then sold to Mr Pierpont Morgan.
Gainsborough’s total output of paintings exceeded 300, including 220 portraits: he also etched at least 18 plates, and 3 in aquatint. At the date of his death 56 paintings remained on hand: these, along with 148 drawings, were then exhibited. In his earlier days he made a practice of copying works by Vandyck (the object of his more special admiration), Titian, Rubens, Teniers, Hobbema, Claude and some others, but not in a spirit of servile reproduction.
Gainsborough was pre-eminent in that very essential element of portraiture—truthful likeness. In process of time he advanced in the rendering of immediate expression, while he somewhat receded in general character. He always made his sitters look pleasant, and, after a while, distinguished. Unity of impression is one of the most marked qualities in his work; he seems to have seen his subject as an integer, and he wrought at the various parts of it together, every touch (and very wilful some of his touches look) tending towards the foreseen result. He painted with arrowy speed, more especially in his later years. For portraits he used at times brushes upon sticks 6 ft. long; there was but little light in his painting-room, and he often worked in the evenings. He kept his landscape work distinct from his portraiture, not ever adding to the latter a fully realized landscape background; his views he never signed or dated—his likenesses only once or twice. His skies are constantly cloudy, the country represented is rough and broken; the scenes are of a pastoral kind, with an effect generally of coming rain, or else of calm sun-setting. The prevalent feeling of his landscapes is somewhat sad, and to children, whether in subject-groups or in portraits, he mostly lent an expression rather plaintive than mirthful. It should be acknowledged that, whether in portraiture or in landscape, the painter’s mannerisms of execution increased in process of time—patchings of the brush, tufty foliage, &c.; some of his portraits are hurried and flimsy, with a minimum of solid content, though not other than artistic in feeling. Here are a few of his axioms:—“What makes the difference between man and man is real performance, and not genius or conception.” “I don’t think it would be more ridiculous for a person to put his nose close to the canvas and say the colours smelt offensive than to say how rough the paint lies, for one is just as material as the other with regard to hurting the effect and drawing of a picture.” “The eye is the only perspective-master needed by a landscape-painter.”