Chapter 7

There is no complete edition of Gautier’s works, and the vicomte Spoelberch de Lovenjoul’sHistoire des œuvres de Théophile Gautier(1887) shows how formidable such an undertaking would be. But since his death numerous further collections of articles have been made:Fusains et eaux-fortesandTableaux à la plume(1880);L’Orient(2 vols., 1881);Les Vacances du lundi(new ed., 1888);La Nature chez elle(new ed., 1891). In 1879 his son-in-law, E. Bergerat, who had married his younger daughter Estelle (the elder, Mme Judith Gautier—herself a writer of distinction—was at one time Mme Catulle Mendès), issued a biography,Théophile Gautier, which has been often reprinted. With it should be compared Maxime du Camp’s volume in theGrands Écrivains français(1890) and the numerous references in theJournal des Goncourt. Critical eulogies, from Sainte-Beuve (repeatedly in theCauseries) and Baudelaire (two articles inL’Art romantique) downwards, are numerous. The chief of the decriers is Émile Faguet in hisÉtudes littéraires sur le XIXesiècle. In 1902 and 1903 there appeared two respectable academicélogesby H. Menai and H. Potez.

(G. Sa.)

GAUTIER D’ARRAS, Frenchtrouvère, flourished in the second half of the 12th century. Nothing is known of his biography except what may be gleaned from his works. He dedicated his romance ofÉracleto Theobald V., count of Blois (d. 1191); among his other patrons were Marie, countess of Champagne, daughter of Louis VII. and Eleanor of Guienne and Baldwin IV., count of Hainaut.Éracle, the hero of which becomes emperor of Constantinople as Heraclius, is purely aroman d’aventuresand enjoyed great popularity. His second romance,Ille et Galeron, dedicated to Beatrix, the second wife of Frederick Barbarossa, treats of a similar situation to that outlined in the lay of “Eliduc” by Marie de France.

See theŒuvres de Gautier d’Arras, ed. E. Löseth (2 vols., Paris, 1890);Hist. litt. de la France, vol. xxii. (1852); A. Dinaux,Les Trouvères(1833-1843), vol. iii.

GAUZE, a light, transparent fabric, originally of silk, and now sometimes made of linen or cotton, woven in an open manner with very fine yarn. It is said to have been originally made at Gaza in Palestine, whence the name. Some of the gauzes from eastern Asia were brocaded with flowers of gold or silver. In the weaving of gauze the warp threads, in addition to being crossed as in plain weaving, are twisted in pairs from left to right and from right to left alternately, after each shot of weft, thereby keeping the weft threads at equal distances apart, and retaining them in their parallel position. The textures are woven either plain, striped or figured; and the material receives many designations, according to its appearance and the purposes to which it is devoted. A thin cotton fabric, woven in the same way, is known as leno, to distinguish it from muslin made by plain weaving. Silk gauze was a prominent and extensive industry in the west of Scotland during the second half of the 18th century, but on the introduction of cotton-weaving it greatly declined. In addition to its use for dress purposes silk gauze is much employed for bolting or sifting flour and other finely ground substances. The term gauze is applied generallyto transparent fabrics of whatever fibre made, and to the fine-woven wire-cloth used in safety-lamps, sieves, window-blinds, &c.

GAVARNI, the name by whichSulpice Guillaume Chevalier(1801-1866), French caricaturist, is known. He is said to have taken thenom de plumefrom the place where he made his first published sketch. He was born in Paris of poor parents, and started in life as a workman in an engine-building factory. At the same time he attended the free school of drawing. In his first attempts to turn his abilities to some account he met with many disappointments, but was at last entrusted with the drawing of some illustrations for a journal of fashion. Gavarni was then thirty-four years of age. His sharp and witty pencil gave to these generally commonplace and unartistic figures a life-likeness and an expression which soon won for him a name in fashionable circles. Gradually he gave greater attention to this more congenial work, and finally ceased working as an engineer to become the director of the journalLes Gens du monde. His ambition rising in proportion to his success, Gavarni from this time followed the real bent of his inclination, and began a series of lithographed sketches, in which he portrayed the most striking characteristics, foibles and vices of the various classes of French society. The letterpress explanations attached to his drawings were always short, but were forcible and highly humorous, if sometimes trivial, and were admirably adapted to the particular subjects. The different stages through which Gavarni’s talent passed, always elevating and refining itself, are well worth being noted. At first he confined himself to the study of Parisian manners, more especially those of the Parisian youth. To this vein belongLes Lorettes,Les Actrices,Les Coulisses,Les Fashionables,Les Gentilshommes bourgeois,Les Artistes,Les Débardeurs,Clichy,Les Étudiants de Paris,Les Baliverneries parisiennes,Les Plaisirs champêtres,Les Bals masqués,Le Carnaval,Les Souvenirs du carnaval,Les Souvenirs du bal Chicard,La Vie des jeunes hommes,Les Patois de Paris. He had now ceased to be director ofLes Gens du monde; but he was engaged as ordinary caricaturist ofLe Charivari, and, whilst making the fortune of the paper, he made his own. His name was exceedingly popular, and his illustrations for books were eagerly sought for by publishers.Le Juif errant, by Eugène Sue (1843, 4 vols. 8vo), the French translation of Hoffman’s tales (1843, 8vo), the first collective edition of Balzac’s works (Paris, Houssiaux, 1850, 20 vols. 8vo),Le Diable à Paris(1844-1846, 2 vols. 4to),Les Français peints par eux-mêmes(1840-1843, 9 vols. 8vo), the collection ofPhysiologiespublished by Aubert in 38 vols. 18mo (1840-1842),—all owed a great part of their success at the time, and are still sought for, on account of the clever and telling sketches contributed by Gavarni. A single frontispiece or vignette was sometimes enough to secure the sale of a new book. Always desiring to enlarge the field of his observations, Gavarni soon abandoned his once favourite topics. He no longer limited himself to such types as theloretteand the Parisian student, or to the description of the noisy and popular pleasures of the capital, but turned his mirror to the grotesque sides of family life and of humanity at large.Les Enfants terribles,Les Parents terribles,Les Fourberies des femmes,La Politique des femmes,Les Maris vengés,Les Nuances du sentiment,Les Rêves,Les Petits Jeux de société,Les Petits Malheurs du bonheur,Les Impressions de menage,Les Interjections,Les Traductions en langue vulgaire,Les Propos de Thomas Vireloque, &c., were composed at this time, and are his most elevated productions. But whilst showing the same power of irony as his former works, enhanced by a deeper insight into human nature, they generally bear the stamp of a bitter and even sometimes gloomy philosophy. This tendency was still more strengthened by a visit to England in 1849. He returned from London deeply impressed with the scenes of misery and degradation which he had observed among the lower classes of that city. In the midst of the cheerful atmosphere of Paris he had been struck chiefly by the ridiculous aspects of vulgarity and vice, and he had laughed at them. But the debasement of human nature which he saw in London appears to have affected him so forcibly that from that time the cheerful caricaturist never laughed or made others laugh again. What he had witnessed there became the almost exclusive subject of his drawings, as powerful, as impressive as ever, but better calculated to be appreciated by cultivated minds than by the public, which had in former years granted him so wide a popularity. Most of these last compositions appeared in the weekly paperL’Illustration. In 1857 he published in one volume the series entitledMasques et visages(1 vol. 12mo), and in 1869, about two years after his death, his last artistic work,Les Douze Mois(1 vol. fol.), was given to the world. Gavarni was much engaged, during the last period of his life, in scientific pursuits, and this fact must perhaps be connected with the great change which then took place in his manner as an artist. He sent several communications to the Académie des Sciences, and till his death on the 23rd of November 1866 he was eagerly interested in the question of aerial navigation. It is said that he made experiments on a large scale with a view to find the means of directing balloons; but it seems that he was not so successful in this line as his fellow-artist, the caricaturist and photographer, Nadar.

Gavarni’sŒuvres choisieswere edited in 1845 (4 vols. 4to) with letterpress by J. Janin, Th. Gautier and Balzac, followed in 1850 by two other volumes namedPerles et parures; and some essays in prose and in verse written by him were collected by one of his biographers, Ch. Yriarte, and published in 1869. See also E. and J. de Goncourt,Gavarni, l’homme et l’œuvre(1873, 8vo). J. Claretie has also devoted to the great French caricaturist a curious and interesting essay. A catalogueraisonnéof Gavarni’s works was published by J. Armelhault and E. Bocher (Paris, 1873, 8vo).

GAVAZZI, ALESSANDRO(1809-1889), Italian preacher and patriot, was born at Bologna on the 21st of March 1809. He at first became a monk (1825), and attached himself to the Barnabites at Naples, where he afterwards (1829) acted as professor of rhetoric. In 1840, having already expressed liberal views, he was removed to Rome to fill a subordinate position. Leaving his own country after the capture of Rome by the French, he carried on a vigorous campaign against priests and Jesuits in England, Scotland and North America, partly by means of a periodical, theGavazzi Free Word. While in England he gradually went over (1855) to the Evangelical church, and became head and organizer of the Italian Protestants in London. Returning to Italy in 1860, he served as army-chaplain with Garibaldi. In 1870 he became head of the Free Church (Chiesa libera) of Italy, united the scattered Congregations into the “Unione delle Chiese libere in Italia,” and in 1875 founded in Rome the theological college of the Free Church, in which he himself taught dogmatics, apologetics and polemics. He died in Rome on the 9th of January 1889.

Amongst his publications areNo Union with Rome(1871);The Priest in Absolution(1877);My Recollections of the Last Four Popes, &c., in answer to Cardinal Wiseman (1858);Orations, 2 decades (1851).

GAVELKIND,1a peculiar system of tenure associated chiefly with the county of Kent, but found also in other parts of England. In Kent all land is presumed to be holden by this tenure until the contrary is proved, but some lands have been disgavelled by particular statutes. It is more correctly described as socage tenure, subject to the custom of gavelkind. The chief peculiarities of the custom are the following. (1) A tenant can alienate his lands by feoffment at fifteen years of age. (2) There is no escheat on attainder for felony, or as it is expressed in the old rhyme—

“The father to the bough,The son to the plough.”

“The father to the bough,

The son to the plough.”

(3) Generally the tenant could always dispose of his lands by will. (4) In case of intestacy the estate descends not to the eldest son but to all the sons (or, in the case of deceased sons, their representatives) in equal shares. “Every son is as great a gentleman as the eldest son is.” It is to this remarkable peculiarity that gavelkind no doubt owes its local popularity. Thoughfemales claiming in their own right are postponed to males, yet by representation they may inherit together with them. (5) A wife is dowable of one-half, instead of one-third of the land. (6) A widower may be tenant by courtesy, without having had any issue, of one-half, but only so long as he remains unmarried. An act of 1841, for commuting manorial rights in respect of lands of copyhold and customary tenure, contained a clause specially exempting from the operation of the act “the custom of gavelkind as the same now exists and prevails in the county of Kent.” Gavelkind is one of the most interesting examples of the customary law of England; it was, previous to the Conquest, the general custom of the realm, but was then superseded by the feudal law of primogeniture. Its survival in this instance in one part of the country is regarded as a concession extorted from the Conqueror by the superior bravery of the men of Kent.Irish gavelkindwas a species of tribal succession, by which the land, instead of being divided at the death of the holder amongst his sons, was thrown again into the common stock, and redivided among the surviving members of the sept. The equal division amongst children of an inheritance in land is of common occurrence outside the United Kingdom and is discussed underSuccession.

SeeInheritance;Tenure. Also Robinson,On Gavelkind; Digby,History of the Law of Real Property; Pollock and Maitland,History of English Law; Challis,Real Property.

1This word is generally taken to represent in O. Eng.gafolgecynd, fromgafol, payment, tribute, andgecynd, species, kind, and originally to have meant tenure by payment of rent or non-military services, cf. gafol-land, and thence to have been applied to the particular custom attached to such tenure in Kent.Gafolapparently is derived from the Teutonic root seen in “to give”; the Med. Lat.gabulum, gablumgives the Fr.gabelle, tax.

GAVESTON, PIERS(d. 1312), earl of Cornwall, favourite of the English king Edward II., was the son of a Gascon knight, and was brought up at the court of Edward I. as companion to his son, the future king. Strong, talented and ambitious, Gaveston gained great influence over young Edward, and early in 1307 he was banished from England by the king; but he returned after the death of Edward I. a few months later, and at once became the chief adviser of Edward II. Made earl of Cornwall, he received both lands and money from the king, and added to his wealth and position by marrying Edward’s niece, Margaret, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295). He was regent of the kingdom during the king’s short absence in France in 1308, and took a very prominent part at Edward’s coronation in February of this year. These proceedings aroused the anger and jealousy of the barons, and their wrath was diminished neither by Gaveston’s superior skill at the tournament, nor by his haughty and arrogant behaviour to themselves. They demanded his banishment; and the king, forced to assent, sent his favourite to Ireland as lieutenant, where he remained for about a year. Returning to England in July 1309, Edward persuaded some of the barons to sanction this proceeding; but as Gaveston was more insolent than ever the old jealousies soon broke out afresh. In 1311 the king was forced to agree to the election of the “ordainers,” and the ordinances they drew up providedinter aliafor the perpetual banishment of his favourite. Gaveston then retired to Flanders, but returned secretly to England at the end of 1311. Soon he was publicly restored by Edward, and the barons had taken up arms. Deserted by the king he surrendered to Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324), at Scarborough in May 1312, and was taken to Deddington in Oxfordshire, where he was seized by Guy de Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1315). Conveyed to Warwick castle he was beheaded on Blacklow Hill near Warwick on the 19th of June 1312. Gaveston, whose body was buried in 1315 at King’s Langley, left an only daughter.

See W. Stubbs,Constitutional History, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1896); andChronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., edited by W. Stubbs. Rolls series (London, 1882-1883).

GAVOTTE(a French word adopted from the Provençalgavoto), properly the dance of the Gavots or natives of Gap, a district in the Upper Alps, in the old province of Dauphiné. It is a dance of a brisk and lively character, somewhat resembling the minuet, but quicker and less stately (seeDance); hence also the use of this name for a corresponding form of musical composition.

GAWAIN(Fr.Walwain(Brut),Gauvain, Gaugain; Lat.Walganus,Walwanus; Dutch,Walwein, Welsh,Gwalchmei), son of King Loth of Orkney, and nephew to Arthur on his mother’s side, the most famous hero of Arthurian romance. The first mention of his name is in a passage of William of Malmesbury, recording the discovery of his tomb in the province of Ros in Wales. He is there described as “Walwen qui fuit haud degener Arturis ex sorore nepos.” Here he is said to have reigned over Galloway; and there is certainly some connexion, the character of which is now not easy to determine, between the two. In the laterHistoriaofGeoffreyof Monmouth, and its French translation by Wace, Gawain plays an important and “pseudo-historic” rôle. On the receipt by Arthur of the insulting message of the Roman emperor, demanding tribute, it is he who is despatched as ambassador to the enemy’s camp, where his arrogant and insulting behaviour brings about the outbreak of hostilities. On receipt of the tidings of Mordred’s treachery, Gawain accompanies Arthur to England, and is slain in the battle which ensues on their landing. Wace, however, evidently knew more of Gawain than he has included in his translation, for he speaks of him as

Li quens WalwainsQui tant fu preudom de ses mains (11. 9057-58).

Li quens Walwains

Qui tant fu preudom de ses mains (11. 9057-58).

and later on says

Prous fu et de mult grant mesure,D’orgoil et de forfait n’ot qurePlus vaut faire qu’il ne distEt plus doner qu’il ne pramist (10. 106-109).

Prous fu et de mult grant mesure,

D’orgoil et de forfait n’ot qure

Plus vaut faire qu’il ne dist

Et plus doner qu’il ne pramist (10. 106-109).

The English Arthurian poems regard him as the type and model of chivalrous courtesy, “the fine father of nurture,” and as Professor Maynadier has well remarked, “previous to the appearance of Malory’s compilation it was Gawain rather than Arthur, who was the typical English hero.” It is thus rather surprising to find that in the earliest preserved MSS. of Arthurian romance,i.e.in the poems of Chrétien de Troyes, Gawain, though generally placed first in the list of knights, is by no means the heropar excellence. The latter part of thePercevalis indeed devoted to the recital of his adventures at theChastel Merveilleus, but of none of Chrétien’s poems is he the protagonist. The anonymous author of theChevalier à l’epéeindeed makes this apparent neglect of Gawain a ground of reproach against Chrétien. At the same time the majority of the short episodic poems connected with the cycle have Gawain for their hero. In the earlier form of the prose romances,e.g.in theMerlinproper, Gawain is a dominant personality, his feats rivalling in importance those ascribed to Arthur, but in the later forms such as theMerlincontinuations, theTristan, and the finalLancelotcompilation, his character and position have undergone a complete change, he is represented as cruel, cowardly and treacherous, and of indifferent moral character. Most unfortunately our English version of the romances, Malory’sMorte Arthur, being derived from these later forms (though his treatment of Gawain is by no means uniformly consistent), this unfavourable aspect is that under which the hero has become known to the modern reader. Tennyson, who only knew the Arthurian story through the medium of Malory, has, by exaggeration, largely contributed to this misunderstanding. Morris, inThe Defence of Guinevere, speaks of “gloomy Gawain”; perhaps the most absurdly misleading epithet which could possibly have been applied to the “gay, gratious, and gude” knight of early English tradition.

The truth appears to be that Gawain, the Celtic and mythic origin of whose character was frankly admitted by the late M. Gaston Paris, belongs to the very earliest stage of Arthurian tradition, long antedating the crystallization of such tradition into literary form. He was certainly known in Italy at a very early date; Professor Rajna has found the names of Arthur and Gawain in charters of the early 12th century, the bearers of those names being then grown to manhood; and Gawain is figured in the architrave of the north doorway of Modena cathedral, a 12th-century building. Recent discoveries have made it practically certain that there existed, prior to the extant romances, a collection of short episodic poems, devoted to the glorification of Arthur’s famous nephew and his immediate kin (his brother Ghaeris, or Gareth, and his son Guinglain), the authorship of which was attributed to a Welshman, Bleheris; fragments of thiscollection have been preserved to us alike in the first continuation of Chrétien de TroyesPerceval, due to Wauchier de Denain, and in our vernacularGawainpoems. Among these “Bleheris” poems was one dealing with Gawain’s adventures at the Grail castle, where the Grail is represented as non-Christian, and presents features strongly reminiscent of the ancient Nature mysteries. There is good ground for believing that as Grail quester and winner, Gawain preceded alike Perceval and Galahad, and that the solution of the mysterious Grail problem is to be sought rather in the tales connected with the older hero than in those devoted to the glorification of the younger knights. The explanation of the very perplexing changes which the character of Gawain has undergone appears to lie in a misunderstanding of the original sources of that character. Whether or no Gawain was a sun-hero, and he certainly possessed some of the features—we are constantly told how his strength waxed with the waxing of the sun till noontide, and then gradually decreased; he owned a steed known by a definite name le Gringalet; and a light-giving sword, Escalibur (which, as a rule, is represented as belonging to Gawain, not to Arthur)—all traits of a sun-hero—he certainly has much in common with the primitive Irish hero Cuchullin. The famous head-cutting challenge, so admirably told inSyr Gawayne and the Grene Knighte, was originally connected with the Irish champion. Nor was the lady of Gawain’s love a mortal maiden, but the queen of the other-world. In Irish tradition the other-world is often represented as an island, inhabited by women only; and it is this “Isle of Maidens” that Gawain visits inDiu Crone; returning therefrom dowered with the gift of eternal youth. The Chastel Merveilleus adventure, related at length by Chrétien and Wolfram is undoubtedly such an “other-world” story. It seems probable that it was this connexion which won for Gawain the title of the “Maidens’ Knight,” a title for which no satisfactory explanation is ever given. When the source of the name was forgotten its meaning was not unnaturally misinterpreted, and gained for Gawain the reputation of a facile morality, which was exaggerated by the pious compilers of the later Grail romances into persistent and aggravated wrong-doing; at the same time it is to be noted that Gawain is never like Tristan and Lancelot, the hero of an illicit connexion maintained under circumstances of falsehood and treachery. Gawain, however, belonged to the pre-Christian stage of Grail tradition, and it is not surprising that writers, bent on spiritual edification, found him somewhat of a stumbling-block. Chaucer, when he spoke of Gawain coming “again out of faërie,” spoke better than he knew; the home of that very gallant and courteous knight is indeed Fairy-land, and the true Gawain-tradition is informed with fairy glamour and grace.

SeeSyr Gawayne, the English poems relative to that hero, edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the Bannatyne Club, 1839 (out of print and difficult to procure);Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. xxx.; introduction and summary of episodic “Gawain” poems by Gaston Paris;The Legend of Sir Gawain, by Jessie L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol. vii.;The Legend of Sir Perceval, by Jessie L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol. xvii.; “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” “Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle” and “Sir Gawain and the Lady of Lys,” vols. i., vi and vii. ofArthurian Romances(Nutt).

GAWLER, a town of Gawler county, South Australia, on the Para river, 24¾ m. by rail N.E. of Adelaide. It is one of the most thriving places in the colony, being the centre of a large wheat-growing district; it has also engineering works, foundries, flour-mills, breweries and saw-mills, while gold, silver, copper and lead are found in the neighbouring hills. The inhabitants of the town and its extensive suburbs number about 7000; though the population of the town itself in 1901 was 1996.

GAY, JOHN(1685-1732), English poet, was baptized on the 16th of September 1685 at Barnstaple, where his family had long been settled. He was educated at the grammar school of the town under Robert Luck, who had published some Latin and English poems. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Dr Johnson, “of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation,” he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he spent some time with his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London, and though no details are available for his biography until the publication ofWinein 1708, the account he gives inRural Sports(1713), of years wasted in attending on courtiers who were profuse in promises never kept, may account for his occupations. Among his early literary friends were Aaron Hill and Eustace Budgell. InThe Present State of Wit(1711) Gay attempted to give an account of “all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal.” He especially praised theTatlerand theSpectator, and Swift, who knew nothing of the authorship of the pamphlet, suspected it to be inspired by Steele and Addison. To Lintot’sMiscellany(1712) Gay contributed “An Epistle to Bernard Lintot,” containing some lines in praise of Pope, and a version of the story of Arachne from the sixth book of theMetamorphosesof Ovid. In the same year he was received into the household of the duchess of Monmouth as secretary, a connexion which was, however, broken before June 1714.

The dedication of hisRural Sports(1713) to Pope was the beginning of a lasting friendship. Gay could have no pretensions to rivalry with Pope, who seems never to have tired of helping his friend. In 1713 he produced a comedy,The Wife of Bath, which was acted only three nights, andThe Fan, one of his least successful poems; and in 1714The Shepherd’s Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic life. Pope had urged him to undertake this last task in order to ridicule the Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised by theGuardian, to the neglect of Pope’s claims as the first pastoral writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay’s pastorals completely achieved this object, but his ludicrous pictures of the English swains and their loves were found to be abundantly entertaining on their own account. Gay had just been appointed secretary to the British ambassador to the court of Hanover through the influence of Jonathan Swift, when the death of Queen Anne three months later put an end to all his hopes of official employment. In 1715, probably with some help from Pope, he producedWhat d’ye call it?a dramatic skit on contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Otway’sVenice Preserved. It left the public so ignorant of its real meaning that Lewis Theobald and Benjamin Griffin (1680-1740) published aComplete Key to what d’ye call itby way of explanation. In 1716 appeared hisTrivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, a poem in three books, for which he acknowledged having received several hints from Swift. It contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period. In January 1717 he produced the comedy ofThree Hours after Marriage, which was grossly indecent without being amusing, and was a complete failure. There is no doubt that in this piece he had assistance from Pope and Arbuthnot, but they were glad enough to have it assumed that Gay was the sole author.

Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he publishedPoems on Several Occasionsby subscription, realizing £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay, disregarding the prudent advice of Pope and other of his friends, invested his all in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. As a matter of fact Gay had always been a spoilt child, who expected everything to be done for him. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath, in the third earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the third earl of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from Congreve and Arbuthnot. In 1724 he produced a tragedy calledThe Captives. In 1727 he wrote for Prince William, afterwards duke of Cumberland, his famousFifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to have regarded, for no very obvious reason, as an indignity. As theFableswere written for the amusement of one royal child,there would appear to have been a measure of reason in giving him a sinecure in the service of another. His friends thought him unjustly neglected by the court, but he had already received (1722) a sinecure as lottery commissioner with a salary of £150 a year, and from 1722 to 1729 he had lodgings in the palace at Whitehall. He had never rendered any special services to the court.

He certainly did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by his next production, theBeggars’ Opera, a lyrical drama produced on the 29th of January 1728 by Rich, in which Sir Robert Walpole was caricatured. This famous piece, which was said to have made “Rich gay and Gay rich,” was an innovation in many respects, and for a time it drove Italian opera off the English stage. Under cover of the thieves and highwaymen who figured in it was disguised a satire on society, for Gay made it plain that in describing the moral code of his characters he had in mind the corruptions of the governing class. Part of the success of theBeggars’ Operamay have been due to the acting of Lavinia Fenton, afterwards duchess of Bolton, in the part of Polly Peachum. The play ran for sixty-two nights, though the representations, four of which were “benefits” of the author, were not, as has sometimes been stated, consecutive. Swift is said to have suggested the subject, and Pope and Arbuthnot were constantly consulted while the work was in progress, but Gay must be regarded as the sole author. He wrote a sequel,Polly, the representation of which was forbidden by the lord chamberlain, no doubt through the influence of Walpole. This act of “oppression” caused no loss to Gay. It proved an excellent advertisement forPolly, which was published by subscription in 1729, and brought its author more than £1000. The duchess of Queensberry was dismissed from court for enlisting subscribers in the palace. The duke of Queensberry gave him a home, and the duchess continued her affectionate patronage until Gay’s death, which took place on the 4th of December 1732. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The epitaph on his tomb is by Pope, and is followed by Gay’s own mocking couplet:—

“Life is a jest, and all things show it,I thought so once, and now I know it.”

“Life is a jest, and all things show it,

I thought so once, and now I know it.”

Acis and Galatea, an English pastoral opera, the music of which was written by Handel, was produced at the Haymarket in 1732. The profits of his posthumous opera ofAchilles(1733), and a new volume ofFables(1738) went to his two sisters, who inherited from him a fortune of £6000. He left two other pieces,The Distressed Wife(1743), a comedy, andThe Rehearsal at Goatham(1754), a farce. TheFables, slight as they may appear, cost him more labour than any of his other works. The narratives are in nearly every case original, and are told in clear and lively verse. The moral which rounds off each little story is never strained. They are masterpieces in their kind, and the very numerous editions of them prove their popularity. They have been translated into Latin, French and Italian, Urdu and Bengali.

See hisPoetical Works(1893) in the Muses’ Library, with an introduction by Mr John Underhill; also Samuel Johnson’sLives of the Poets, John Gay’sSingspiele(1898), edited by G. Sarrazin (Englische Textbibliothek II.); and an article by Austin Dobson in vol. 21 of theDictionary of National Biography;Gay’s Chair(1820), edited by Henry Lee, a fellow-townsman, contained a biographical sketch by his nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller.

GAY, MARIE FRANÇOISE SOPHIE(1776-1852), French author, was born in Paris on the 1st of July 1776. Madame Gay was the daughter of M. Nichault de la Valette and of Francesca Peretti, an Italian lady. In 1793 she was married to M. Liottier, an exchange broker, but she was divorced from him in 1799, and shortly afterwards was married to M. Gay, receiver-general of the department of the Roër or Ruhr. This union brought her into intimate relations with many distinguished personages; and her salon came to be frequented by all the distinguished littérateurs, musicians, actors and painters of the time, whom she attracted by her beauty, her vivacity and her many amiable qualities. Her first literary production was a letter written in 1802 to theJournal de Paris, in defence of Madame de Staël’s novel,Delphine; and in the same year she published anonymously her first novelLaure d’Estell.Léonie de Montbreuse, which appeared in 1813, is considered by Sainte-Beuve her best work; butAnatole(1815), the romance of a deaf-mute, has perhaps a higher reputation. Among her other works,Salons célèbres(2 vols., 1837) may be especially mentioned. Madame Gay wrote several comedies and opera libretti which met with considerable success. She was also an accomplished musician, and composed both the words and music of a number of songs. She died in Paris on the 5th of March 1852. For an account of her daughter, Delphine Gay, Madame de Girardin, seeGirardin.

See her ownSouvenirs d’une vieille femme(1834); also Théophile Gautier,Portraits contemporains; and Sainte-Beuve,Causeries du lundi, vol. vi.

GAY, WALTER(1856- ), American artist, was born at Hingham, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of January 1856. In 1876 he became a pupil of Léon Bonnat in Paris. He received an honourable mention in the Salon of 1885; a gold medal in 1888, and similar awards at Vienna (1894), Antwerp (1895), Berlin (1896) and Munich (1897). He became an officer of the Legion of Honour and a member of the Society of Secession, Munich. Works by him are in the Luxembourg, the Tate Gallery (London), and the Boston and Metropolitan (New York) Museums of Art. His compositions are mainly figure subjects portraying French peasant life.

GAYA, a city and district of British India, in the Patna division of Bengal. The city is situated 85 m. S. of Patna by rail. Pop. (1901) 71,288. It consists of two distinct parts, adjoining each other; the part containing the residences of the priests is Gaya proper; and the other, which is the business quarter, is called Sahibganj. The civil offices and residences of the European inhabitants are situated here. Gaya derives its sanctity from incidents in the life of Buddha. But a local legend also exists concerning a pagan monster of great sanctity, named Gaya, who by long penance had become holy, so that all who saw or touched him were saved from perdition. Yama, the lord of hell, appealed to the gods, who induced Gaya to lie down in order that his body might be a place of sacrifice; and once down, Yama placed a large stone on him to keep him there. The tricked demon struggled violently, and, in order to pacify him, Vishnu promised that the gods should take up their permanent residence in him, and that any one who made a pilgrimage to the spot where he lay should be delivered from the terrors of the Hindu place of torment. This may possibly be a Brahmanic rendering of Buddha’s life and work. There are forty-five sacred spots (of which the temple of Vishnupada is the chief) in and around the city, and these are visited by thousands of pilgrims annually. During the Mutiny the large store of treasure here was conveyed safely to Calcutta by Mr A. Money. The city contains a government high school and an hospital, with a Lady Elgin branch for women.

TheDistrict of Gayacomprises an area of 4712 sq. m. Generally speaking, it consists of a level plain, with a ridge of prettily wooded hills along the southern boundary, whence the country falls with a gentle slope towards the Ganges. Rocky hills occasionally occur, either detached or in groups, the loftiest being Maher hill about 12 m. S.E. of Gaya city, with an elevation of 1620 ft. above sea-level. The eastern part of the district is highly cultivated; the portions to the north and west are less fertile; while in the south the country is thinly peopled and consists of hills, the jungles on which are full of wild animals. The principal river is the Son, which marks the boundary between Gaya and Shahabad, navigable by small boats throughout the year, and by craft of 20-tons burden in the rainy season. Other rivers are the Punpun, Phalgu and Jamuna. Two branches of the Son canal system, the eastern main canal and the Patna canal, intersect the district. In 1901 the population was 2,059,933, showing a decrease of 3% in the decade. Among the higher castes there is an unusually large proportion of Brahmans, a circumstance due to the number of sacred places which the district contains. The Gayawals, or priests in charge of the holyplaces, are held in high esteem by the pilgrims; but they are not pure Brahmans, and are looked down upon by those who are. They live an idle and dissolute life, but are very wealthy, from contributions extorted from the pilgrims. Buddh Gaya, about 6 m. S. of Gaya city, is one of the holiest sites of Buddhism, as containing the tree under which Sakyamuni attained enlightenment. In addition to many ruins and sculptures, there is a temple restored by the government in 1881. Another place of religious interest is a temple of great antiquity, which crowns the highest peak of the Barabar hills, and at which a religious fair is held each September, attended by 10,000 to20,000pilgrims. At the foot of the hill are numerous rock caves excavated about 200B.C.The opium poppy is largely cultivated. There are a number of lac factories. Manufactures consist of common brass utensils, black stone ornaments, pottery, tussur-silk and cotton cloth. Formerly paper-making was an important manufacture in the district, but it has entirely died out. The chief exports are food grains, oil seeds, indigo, crude opium (sent to Patna for manufacture), saltpetre, sugar, blankets, brass utensils, &c. The imports are salt, piece goods, cotton, timber, bamboos, tobacco, lac, iron, spices and fruits. The district is traversed by four branches of the East Indian railway. In 1901 it suffered severely from the plague.

SeeDistrict Gazetteer(1906); Sir A. Cunningham,Mahabodhi(1892).

GAYAL, a domesticated ox allied to the Gaur, but distinguished, among other features, by the more conical and straighter horns, and the straight line between them. Gayal are kept by the natives of the hill-districts of Assam and parts of Tenasserim and Upper Burma. Although it has received a distinct name,Bos(Bibos)frontalis, there can be little doubt that the gayal is merely a domesticated breed of the gaur, many gayal-skulls showing characters approximating to those of the gaur.

GAYANGOS Y ARCE, PASCUAL DE(1809-1897), Spanish scholar and Orientalist, was born at Seville on the 21st of June 1809. At the age of thirteen he was sent to be educated at Pont-le-Voy near Blois, and in 1828 began the study of Arabic under Silvestre de Sacy. After a visit to England, where he married, he obtained a post in the Spanish treasury, and was transferred to the foreign office as translator in 1833. In 1836 he returned to England, wrote extensively in English periodicals, and translated Almakkari’sHistory of the Mahommedan Dynasties in Spain(1840-1843) for the Royal Asiatic Society. In England he also made the acquaintance of Ticknor, to whom he was very serviceable. In 1843 he returned to Spain as professor of Arabic at the university of Madrid, which post he held until 1881, when he was made director of public instruction. This office he resigned upon being elected senator for the district of Huelva. His latter years were spent in cataloguing the Spanish manuscripts in the British Museum; he had previously continued Bergenroth’s catalogue of the manuscripts relating to England in the Simancas archives. His best-known original work is his dissertation on Spanish romances of chivalry in Rivadeneyra’sBiblioteca de autores españoles. He died in London on the 4th of October 1897.

GAYARRÉ, CHARLES ÉTIENNE ARTHUR(1805-1895), American historian, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the 9th of January 1805. After studying at the Collège d’Orléans he began, in 1826, to study law in Philadelphia, and three years later was admitted to the bar. In 1830 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Louisiana, in 1831 was appointed deputy attorney-general of his state, in 1833 became presiding judge of the city court of New Orleans, and in 1834 was elected as a Jackson Democrat to the United States Senate. On account of ill-health, however, he immediately resigned without taking his seat, and for the next eight years travelled in Europe and collected historical material from the French and the Spanish archives. In 1844-1845 and in 1856-1857 he was again a member of the state House of Representatives, and from 1845 to 1853 was secretary of state of Louisiana. He supported the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War, in which he lost a large fortune, and after its close lived chiefly by his pen. He died in New Orleans on the 11th of February 1895. He is best known as the historian of Louisiana. He wroteHistoire de la Louisiane(1847);Romance of the History of Louisiana(1848);Louisiana: its Colonial History and Romance(1851), reprinted inA History of Louisiana;History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination(1854);Philip II. of Spain(1866); andA History of Louisiana(4 vols., 1866), the last being a republication and continuation of his earlier works in this field, the whole comprehending the history of Louisiana from its earliest discovery to 1861. He wrote also several dramas and romances, the best of the latter beingFernando de Lemos(1872).

GAY-LUSSAC, JOSEPH LOUIS(1778-1850), French chemist and physicist, was born at St Léonard, in the department of Haute Vienne, on the 6th of December 1778. He was the elder son of Antoine Gay,procureur du roiand judge at Pont-de-Noblac, who assumed the name Lussac from a small property he had in the neighbourhood of St Léonard. Young Gay-Lussac received his early education at home under the direction of the abbé Bourdieux and other masters, and in 1794 was sent to Paris to prepare for the École Polytechnique, into which he was admitted at the end of 1797 after a brilliant examination. Three years later he was transferred to the École des Ponts et Chaussées, and shortly afterwards was assigned to C.L. Berthollet, who wanted an able student to help in his researches. The new assistant scarcely came up to expectations in respect of confirming certain theoretical views of his master’s by the experiments set him to that end, and appears to have stated the discrepancy without reserve; but Berthollet nevertheless quickly recognized the ability displayed, and showed his appreciation not only by desiring to be Gay-Lussac’s “father in science,” but also by making him in 1807 an original member of the Société d’Arcueil. In 1802 he was appointed demonstrator to A.F. Fourcroy at the École Polytechnique, where subsequently (1809) he became professor of chemistry, and from 1808 to 1832 he was professor of physics at the Sorbonne, a post which he only resigned for the chair of chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes. In 1831 he was elected to represent Haute Vienne in the chamber of deputies, and in 1839 he entered the chamber of peers. He died in Paris on the 9th of May 1850.

Gay-Lussac’s earlier researches were mostly physical in character and referred mainly to the properties of gases, vapour-tensions, hygrometry, capillarity, &c. In his first memoir (Ann. de Chimie, 1802) he showed that different gases are dilated in the same proportion when heated from 0° to 100° C. Apparently he did not know of Dalton’s experiments on the same point, which indeed were far from accurate; but in a note he explained that “le cit. Charles avait remarqué depuis 15 ans la même propriété dans ces gaz; mais n’ayant jamais publié ses résultats, c’est par le plus grand hasard que je les ai connus.” In consequence of his candour in thus rescuing from oblivion the observation which his fellow-citizen did not think worth publishing, his name is sometimes dissociated from this law, which instead is known as that of Charles. In 1804 he had an opportunity of prosecuting his researches on air in somewhat unusual conditions, for the French Academy, desirous of securing some observations on the force of terrestrial magnetism at great elevations above the earth, through Berthollet and J.E. Chaptal obtained the use of the balloon which had been employed in Egypt, and entrusted the task to him and J.B. Biot. In their first ascent from the garden of the Conservatoire des Arts on the 24th of August 1804 an altitude of 4000 metres (about 13,000 ft.) was attained. But this elevation was not considered sufficient by Gay-Lussac, who therefore made a second ascent by himself oh the 16th of September, when the balloon rose 7016 metres (about 23,000 ft.) above sea-level. At this height, with the thermometer marking 9½ degrees below freezing, he remained for a considerable time, making observations not only on magnetism, but also on the temperature and humidity of the air, and collecting several samples of air at different heights. The magnetic observations, though imperfect, led him to the conclusion that the magnetic effect at all attainable elevations abovethe earth’s surface remains constant; and on analysing the samples of air he could find no difference of composition at different heights. (For an account of both ascents seeJourn. de phys.for 1804.) On the 1st of October in the same year, in conjunction with Alexander von Humboldt, he read a paper on eudiometric analysis (Ann. de Chim., 1805), which contained the germ of his most important generalization, the authors noting that when oxygen and hydrogen combine together by volume, it is in the proportion of one volume of the former to two volumes of the latter. But his law of combination by volumes was not enunciated in its general form until after his return from a scientific journey through Switzerland, Italy and Germany, on which with Humboldt he started from Paris in March 1805. This journey was interrupted in the spring of 1806 by the news of the death of M.J. Brisson, and Gay-Lussac hurried back to Paris in the hope, which was gratified, that he would be elected to the seat thus vacated in the Academy. In 1807 an account of the magnetic observations made during the tour with Humboldt was published in the first volume of theMémoires d’Arcueil, and the second volume, published in 1809, contained the important memoir on gaseous combination (read to the Société Philomathique on the last day of 1808), in which he pointed out that gases combining with each other in volume do so in the simplest proportions—1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3—and that the volume of the compound formed bears a simple ratio to that of the constituents.

About this time Gay-Lussac’s work, although he by no means entirely abandoned physical questions, became of a more chemical character; and in three instances it brought him into direct rivalry with Sir Humphry Davy. In the first case Davy’s preparation of potassium and sodium by the electric current spurred on Gay-Lussac and his collaborator L.J. Thénard, who had no battery at their disposal, to search for a chemical method of obtaining those metals, and by the action of red-hot iron on fused potash—a method of which Davy admitted the advantages—they succeeded in 1808 in preparing potassium, going on to make a full study of its properties and to use it, as Davy also did, for the reduction of boron from boracic acid in 1809. The second concerned the nature of “oxymuriatic acid” (chlorine). While admitting the possibility that it was an elementary body, after many experiments they finally declared it to be a compound (Mém. d’Arcueil, 1809). Davy, on the other hand, could see no reason to suppose it contained oxygen, as they surmised, and ultimately they had to accept his view of its elementary character. The third case roused most feeling of all. Davy, passing through Paris on his way to Italy at the end of 1813, obtained a few fragments of iodine, which had been discovered by Bernard Courtois (1777-1838) in 1811, and after a brief examination by the aid of his limited portable laboratory perceived its analogy to chlorine and inferred it to be an element. Gay-Lussac, it is said, was nettled at the idea of a foreigner making such a discovery in Paris, and vigorously took up the study of the new substance, the result being the “Mémoire sur l’iode,” which appeared in theAnn. de chim.in 1814. He too saw its resemblance to chlorine, and was obliged to agree with Davy’s opinion as to its simple nature, though not without some hesitation, due doubtless to his previous declaration about chlorine. Davy on his side seems to have felt that the French chemist was competing with him, not altogether fairly, in trying to appropriate the honour of discovering the character of the substance and of its compound, hydriodic acid.

In 1810 he published a paper which contains some classic experiments on fermentation, a subject to which he returned in a second paper published in 1815. At the same time he was working with Thénard at the improvement of the methods of organic analysis, and by combustion with oxidizing agents, first potassium chlorate and subsequently copper oxide, he determined the composition of a number of organic substances. But his last great piece of pure research was on prussic acid. In a note published in 1811 he described the physical properties of this acid, but he said nothing about its chemical composition till 1815, when he described cyanogen as a compound radicle, prussic acid as a compound of that radicle with hydrogen alone, and the prussiates (cyanides) as compounds of the radicle with metals. The proof that prussic acid contains hydrogen but no oxygen was a most important support to the hydrogen-acid theory, and completed the downfall of Lavoisier’s oxygen theory; while the isolation of cyanogen was of equal importance for the subsequent era of compound radicles in organic chemistry.

After this research Gay-Lussac’s attention began to be distracted from purely scientific investigation. He had now secured a leading if not the foremost place among the chemists of the French capital, and the demand for his services as adviser in technical problems and matters of practical interest made great inroads on his available time. He had been a member of the consultative committee on arts and manufactures since 1805; he was attached to the “administration des poudres et salpêtres” in 1818, and in 1829 he received the lucrative post of assayer to the mint. In these new fields he displayed the powers so conspicuous in his scientific inquiries, and he was now to introduce and establish scientific accuracy where previously there had been merely practical approximations. His services to industry included his improvements in the processes for the manufacture of sulphuric acid (1818) and oxalic acid (1829); methods of estimating the amount of real alkali in potash and soda by the volume of standard acid required for neutralization, and for estimating the available chlorine in bleaching powder by a solution of arsenious acid; directions for the use of the centesimal alcoholometer published in 1824 and specially commended by the Institute; and the elaboration of a method of assaying silver by a standard solution of common salt, a volume on which was published in 1833. Among his research work of this period may be mentioned the improvements in organic analysis and the investigation of fulminic acid made with the help of Liebig, who gained the privilege of admission to his private laboratory in 1823-1824.

Gay-Lussac was patient, persevering, accurate to punctiliousness, perhaps a little cold and reserved, and not unaware of his great ability. But he was also bold and energetic, not only in his work but also in support and defence of his friends. His early childish adventures, as told by Arago, herald the fearless aeronaut and the undaunted investigator of volcanic eruptions (Vesuvius was in full eruption when he visited it during his tour in 1805); and the endurance he exhibited under the laboratory accidents that befell him shows the power of will with which he would face the prospect of becoming blind and useless for the prosecution of the science which was his very life, and of which he was one of the most distinguished ornaments. Only at the very end, when the disease from which he was suffering left him no hope, did he complain with some bitterness of the hardship of leaving this world where the many discoveries being made pointed to yet greater discoveries to come.

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