Chapter 3

(A. H.-S.)

GILBART, JAMES WILLIAM(1794-1863), English writer on banking, was born in London on the 21st of March 1794. From1813 to 1825 he was clerk in a London bank. After a two years’ residence in Birmingham, he was appointed manager of the Kilkenny branch of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, and in 1829 he was promoted to the Waterford branch. In 1834 he became manager of the London and Westminster Bank; and he did much to develop the system of joint-stock banking. On more than one occasion he rendered valuable services to the joint-stock banks by his evidence before committees of the House of Commons; and, on the renewal of the bank charter in 1844, he procured the insertion of a clause granting to joint-stock banks the power of suing by their public officer, and also the right of accepting bills at less than six months’ date. In 1846 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He died in London on the 8th of August 1863. The Gilbart lectures on banking at King’s College are called after him.

The following are his principal works on banking, most of which have passed through more than one edition:Practical Treatise on Banking(1827);The History and Principles of Banking(1834);The History of Banking in America(1837);Lectures on the History and Principles of Ancient Commerce(1847);Logic for the Million(1851); andLogic of Banking(1857).

GILBERT, ALFRED(1854- ), British sculptor and goldsmith, born in London, was the son of Alfred Gilbert, musician. He received his education mainly in Paris (École des Beaux-Arts, under Cavelier), and studied in Rome and Florence where the significance of the Renaissance made a lasting impression upon him and his art. He also worked in the studio of Sir J. Edgar Boehm, R.A. His first work of importance was the charming group of the “Mother and Child,” then “The Kiss of Victory,” followed by “Perseus Arming” (1883), produced directly under the influence of the Florentine masterpieces he had studied. Its success was great, and Lord Leighton forthwith commissioned “Icarus,” which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1884, along with a remarkable “Study of a Head,” and was received with general applause. Then followed “The Enchanted Chair,” which, along with many other works deemed by the artist incomplete or unworthy of his powers, was ultimately broken by the sculptor’s own hand. The next year Mr Gilbert was occupied with the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, in Piccadilly, London, a work of great originality and beauty, yet shorn of some of the intended effect through restrictions put upon the artist. In 1888 was produced the statue of H.M. Queen Victoria, set up at Winchester, in its main design and in the details of its ornamentation the most remarkable work of its kind produced in Great Britain, and perhaps, it may be added, in any other country in modern times. Other statues of great beauty, at once novel in treatment and fine in design, are those set up to Lord Reay in Bombay, and John Howard at Bedford (1898); the highly original pedestal of which did much to direct into a better channel what are apt to be the eccentricities of what is called the “New Art” School. The sculptor rose to the full height of his powers in his “Memorial to the Duke of Clarence,” and his fast developing fancy and imagination, which are the main characteristics of all his work, are seen in his “Memorial Candelabrum to Lord Arthur Russell” and “Memorial Font to the son of the 4th Marquess of Bath.” Gilbert’s sense of decoration is paramount in all he does, and although in addition to the work already cited he produced busts of extraordinary excellence of Cyril Flower, John R. Clayton (since broken up by the artist—the fate of much of his admirable work), G. F. Watts, Sir Henry Tate, Sir George Birdwood, Sir Richard Owen, Sir George Grove and various others, it is on his goldsmithery that the artist would rest his reputation; on his mayoral chain for Preston, the epergne for Queen Victoria, the figurines of “Victory” (a statuette designed for the orb in the hand of the Winchester statue), “St Michael” and “St George,” as well as smaller objects such as seals, keys and the like. Mr Gilbert was chosen associate of the Royal Academy in 1887, full member in 1892 (resigned 1909), and professor of sculpture (afterwards resigned) in 1900. In 1889 he won theGrand Prixat the Paris International Exhibition. He was created a member of the Victorian Order in 1897. (SeeSculpture.)

SeeThe Life and Work of Alfred Gilbert, R.A., M.V.O., D.C.L., by Joseph Hatton (Art JournalOffice, 1903).

(M. H. S.)

GILBERT, ANN(1821-1904), American actress, was born at Rochdale, Lancashire, on the 21st of October 1821, her maiden name being Hartley. At fifteen she was a pupil at the ballet school connected with the Haymarket theatre, conducted by Paul Taglioni, and became a dancer on the stage. In 1846 she married George H. Gilbert (d. 1866), a performer in the company of which she was a member. Together they filled many engagements in English theatres, moving to America in 1849. Mrs Gilbert’s first success in a speaking part was in 1857 as Wichavenda in Brougham’sPocahontas. In 1869 she joined Daly’s company, playing for many years wives to James Lewis’s husbands, and old women’s parts, in which she had no equal. Mrs. Gilbert held a unique position on the American stage, on account of the admiration, esteem and affection which she enjoyed both in front and behind the footlights. She died at Chicago on the 2nd of December 1904.

SeeMrs Gilbert’s Stage Reminiscences(1901).

GILBERT, GROVE KARL(1843- ), American geologist, was born at Rochester, N.Y., on the 6th of May 1843. In 1869 he was attached to the Geological Survey of Ohio and in 1879 he became a member of the United States Geological Survey, being engaged on parts of the Rocky Mountains, in Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona. He is distinguished for his researches on mountain-structure and on the Great Lakes, as well as on glacial phenomena, recent earth movements, and on topographic features generally. His report on theGeology of the Henry Mountains(1877), in which the volcanic structure known as a laccolite was first described; hisHistory of the Niagara River(1890) andLake Bonneville(1891—the first of the Monographs issued by the United States Geological Survey) are specially important. He was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London in 1900.

GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY(c.1539-1583), English soldier, navigator and pioneer colonist in America, was the second son of Otho Gilbert, of Compton, near Dartmouth, Devon, and step-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was educated at Eton and Oxford; intended for the law; introduced at court by Raleigh’s aunt, Catherine Ashley, and appointed (July 1566) captain in the army of Ireland under Sir Henry Sidney. In April 1566 he had already joined with Antony Jenkinson in a petition to Elizabeth for the discovery of the North-East Passage; in November following he presented an independent petition for the “discovering of a passage by the north to go to Cataia.” In October 1569 he became governor of Munster; on the 1st of January 1570 he was knighted; in 1571 he was returned M.P. for Plymouth; in 1572 he campaigned in the Netherlands against Spain without much success; from 1573 to 1578 he lived in retirement at Limehouse, devoting himself especially to the advocacy of a North-West Passage (his famousDiscourseon this subject was published in 1576). Gilbert’s arguments, widely circulated even before 1575, were apparently of weight in promoting the Frobisher enterprises of 1576-1578. On the 11th of June 1578, Sir Humphrey obtained his long-coveted charter for North-Western discovery and colonization, authorizing him, his heirs and assigns, to discover, occupy and possess such remote “heathen lands not actually possessed of any Christian prince or people, as should seem good to him or them.” Disposing not only of his patrimony but also of the estates in Kent which he had through his wife, daughter of John Aucher of Ollerden, he fitted out an expedition which left Dartmouth on the 23rd of September 1578, and returned in May 1579, having accomplished nothing. In 1579 Gilbert aided the government in Ireland; and in 1583, after many struggles—illustrated by his appeal to Walsingham on the 11th of July 1582, for the payment of moneys due to him from government, and by his agreement with the Southampton venturers—he succeeded in equipping another fleet for “Western Planting.” On the 11th of June 1583, he sailed from Plymouth with five ships and the queen’s blessing; on the 13th of July the “Ark Raleigh,” built and manned at his brother’s expense, desertedthe fleet; on the 30th of July he was off the north coast of Newfoundland; on the 3rd of August he arrived off the present St John’s, and selected this site as the centre of his operations; on the 5th of August he began the plantation of the first English colony in North America. Proceeding southwards with three vessels, exploring and prospecting, he lost the largest near Cape Breton (29th of August); immediately after (31st of August) he started to return to England with the “Golden Hind” and the “Squirrel,” of forty and ten tons respectively. Obstinately refusing to leave the “frigate” and sail in his “great ship,” he shared the former’s fate in a tempest off the Azores. “Monday the 9th of September,” reports Hayes, the captain of the “Hind,” “the frigate was near cast away, ... yet at that time recovered; and, giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out unto us in the ‘Hind,’ ‘We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.’.... The same Monday night, about twelve, the frigate being ahead of us in the ‘Golden Hind,’ suddenly her lights were out, ... in that moment the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.”

See Hakluyt,Principal Navigations(1599); vol. iii. pp. 135-181; Gilbert’sDiscourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia, published by George Gascoigne in 1576, with additions, probably without Gilbert’s authority; Hooker’sSupplementto Holinshed’sIrish Chronicle; Roger Williams,The Actions of the Low Countries(1618);State Papers, Domestic(1577-1583); Wood’sAthenae Oxonienses;North British Review, No. 45; Fox Bourne’sEnglish Seamen under the Tudors; Carlos Slafter,Sir H. Gylberte and his Enterprise(Boston, 1903), with all important documents. Gilbert’s interesting writings on the need of a university for London, anticipating in many ways not only the modern London University but also the British Museum library and its compulsory sustenance through the provisions of the Copyright Act, have been printed by Furnivall (Queen Elizabeth’s Achademy) in the Early English Text Society Publications, extra series, No. viii.

GILBERT, JOHN(1810-1889); American actor, whose real name was Gibbs, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of February 1810, and made his first appearance there as Jaffier inVenice Preserved. He soon found that his true vein was in comedy, particularly in old-men parts. When in London in 1847 he was well received both by press and public, and played with Macready. He was the leading actor at Wallack’s from 1861-1888. He died on the 17th of June 1889.

See William Winter’sLife of John Gilbert(New York, 1890).

GILBERT, SIR JOHN(1817-1897), English painter and illustrator, one of the eight children of George Felix Gilbert, a member of a Derbyshire family, was born at Blackheath on the 21st of July 1817. He went to school there, and even in childhood displayed an extraordinary fondness for drawing and painting. Nevertheless, his father’s lack of means compelled him to accept employment for the boy in the office of Messrs Dickson & Bell, estate agents, in Charlotte Row, London. Yielding, however, to his natural bent, his parents agreed that he should take up art in his own way, which included but little advice from others, his only teacher being Haydon’s pupil, George Lance, the fruit painter. This artist gave him brief instructions in the use of colour. In 1836 Gilbert appeared in public for the first time. This was at the gallery of the Society of British Artists, where he sent drawings, the subjects of which were characteristic, being “The Arrest of Lord Hastings,” from Shakespeare, and “Abbot Boniface,” fromThe Monasteryof Scott. “Inez de Castro” was in the same gallery in the next year; it was the first of a long series of works in the same medium, representing similar themes, and was accompanied, from 1837, by a still greater number of works in oil which were exhibited at the British Institution. These included “Don Quixote giving advice to Sancho Panza,” 1841; “Brunette and Phillis,” fromThe Spectator, 1844; “The King’s Artillery at Marston Moor,” 1860; and “Don Quixote comes back for the last time to his Home and Family,” 1867. In that year the Institution was finally closed. Gilbert exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1838, beginning with the “Portrait of a Gentleman,” and continuing, except between 1851 and 1867, till his death to exhibit there many of his best and more ambitious works. These included such capital instances as “Holbein painting the Portrait of Anne Boleyn,” “Don Quixote’s first Interview with the Duke and Duchess,” 1842, “Charlemagne visiting the Schools,” 1846. “Touchstone and the Shepherd,” and “Rembrandt,” a very fine piece, were both there in 1867; and in 1873 “Naseby,” one of his finest and most picturesque designs, was also at the Royal Academy. Gilbert was elected A.R.A. 29th January 1872, and R.A. 29th June 1876. Besides these mostly large and powerful works, the artist’s true arena of display was undoubtedly the gallery of the Old Water Colour Society, to which from 1852, when he was elected an Associate exhibitor, till he died forty-five years later, he contributed not fewer than 270 drawings, most of them admirable because of the largeness of their style, massive coloration, broad chiaroscuro, and the surpassing vigour of their designs. These qualities induced the leading critics to claim for him opportunities for painting mural pictures of great historic themes as decorations of national buildings. “The Trumpeter,” “The Standard-Bearer,” “Richard II. resigning his Crown” (now at Liverpool), “The Drug Bazaar at Constantinople,” “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Turkish Water-Carrier” are but examples of that wealth of art which added to the attractions of the gallery in Pall Mall. There Gilbert was elected a full Member in 1855, and president of the Society in 1871, shortly after which he was knighted. As an illustrator of books, magazines and periodicals of every kind he was most prolific. To the success of theIllustrated London Newshis designs lent powerful aid, and he was eminently serviceable in illustrating theShakespeareof Mr Howard Staunton. He died on the 6th of October 1897.

(F. G. S.)

GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY(1817-1901); English chemist, was born at Hull on the 1st of August 1817. He studied chemistry first at Glasgow under Thomas Thomson; then at University College, London, in the laboratory of A. T. Thomson (1778-1849), the professor of medical jurisprudence, also attending Thomas Graham’s lectures; and finally at Giessen under Liebig. On his return to England from Germany he acted for a year or so as assistant to his old master A. T. Thomson at University College, and in 1843, after spending a short time in the study of calico dyeing and printing near Manchester, accepted the directorship of the chemical laboratory at the famous experimental station established by Sir J. B. Lawes at Rothamsted, near St Albans, for the systematic and scientific study of agriculture. This position he held for fifty-eight years, until his death on the 23rd of December 1901. The work which he carried out during that long period in collaboration with Lawes was of a most comprehensive character, involving the application of many branches of science, such as chemistry, meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, and geology; and its influence in improving the methods of practical agriculture extended all over the civilized world. Gilbert was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 was awarded a royal medal jointly with Lawes. In 1880 he presided over the Chemical Section of the British Association at its meeting at Swansea, and in 1882 he was president of the London Chemical Society, of which he had been a member almost from its foundation in 1841. For six years from 1884 he filled the Sibthorpian chair of rural economy at Oxford, and he was also an honorary professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He was knighted in 1893, the year in which the jubilee of the Rothamsted experiments was celebrated.

GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ELIZA ROSANNA[“Lola Montez”] (1818-1861), dancer and adventuress, the daughter of a British army officer, was born at Limerick, Ireland, in 1818. Her father dying in India when she was seven years old, and her mother marrying again, the child was sent to Europe to be educated, subsequently joining her mother at Bath. In 1837 she made a runaway match with a Captain James of the Indian army, and accompanied him to India. In 1842 she returned to England, and shortly afterwards her husband obtained a decreenisifor divorce. She then studied dancing, making an unsuccessful first appearance at Her Majesty’s theatre, London, in 1843, billed as “Lola Montez, Spanish dancer.” Subsequentlyshe appeared with considerable success in Germany, Poland and Russia. Thence she went to Paris, and in 1847 appeared at Munich, where she became the mistress of the old king of Bavaria, Ludwig I.; she was naturalized, created comtesse de Landsfeld, and given an income of £2000 a year. She soon proved herself the real ruler of Bavaria, adopting a liberal and anti-Jesuit policy. Her political opponents proved, however, too strong for her, and in 1848 she was banished. In 1849 she came to England, and in the same year was married to George Heald, a young officer in the Guards. Her husband’s guardian instituted a prosecution for bigamy against her on the ground that her divorce from Captain James had not been made absolute, and she fled with Heald to Spain. In 1851 she appeared at the Broadway theatre, New York, and in the following year at the Walnut Street theatre, Philadelphia. In 1853 Heald was drowned at Lisbon, and in the same year she married the proprietor of a San Francisco newspaper, but did not live long with him. Subsequently she appeared in Australia, but returned, in 1857, to act in America, and to lecture on gallantry. Her health having broken down, she devoted the rest of her life to visiting the outcasts of her own sex in New York, where, stricken with paralysis, she died on the 17th of January 1861.

See E. B. D’Auvergne,Lola Montez(New York, 1909).

GILBERT, NICOLAS JOSEPH LAURENT(1751-1780), French poet, was born at Fontenay-le-Château in Lorraine in 1751. Having completed his education at the college of Dôle, he devoted himself for a time to a half-scholastic, half-literary life at Nancy, but in 1774 he found his way to the capital. As an opponent of the Encyclopaedists and a panegyrist of Louis XV., he received considerable pensions. He died in Paris on the 12th of November 1780 from the results of a fall from his horse. The satiric force of one or two of his pieces, asMon Apologie(1778) andLe Dix-huitième Siècle(1775), would alone be sufficient to preserve his reputation, which has been further increased by modern writers, who, like Alfred de Vigny in hisStello(chaps. 7-13), considered him a victim to the spite of his philosophic opponents. His best-known verses are theOde imitée de plusieurs psaumes, usually entitled Adieux à la vie.

Among his other works may be mentionedLes Familles de Darius et d’Éridame, histoire persane(1770),Le Carnaval des auteurs(1773),Odes nouvelles et patriotiques(1775). Gilbert’sŒuvres complèteswere first published in 1788, and they have since been edited by Mastrella (Paris, 1823), by Charles Nodier (1817 or 1825), and by M. de Lescure (1882).

GILBERT(orGylberde),WILLIAM(1544-1603), the most distinguished man of science in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the father of electric and magnetic science, was a member of an ancient Suffolk family, long resident in Clare, and was born on the 24th of May 1544 at Colchester, where his father, Hierome Gilbert, became recorder. Educated at Colchester school, he entered St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1558, and after taking the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in due course, graduated M.D. in 1569, in which year he was elected a senior fellow of his college. Soon afterwards he left Cambridge, and after spending three years in Italy and other parts of Europe, settled in 1573 in London, where he practised as a physician with “great success and applause.” He was admitted to the College of Physicians probably about 1576, and from 1581 to 1590 was one of the censors. In 1587 he became treasurer, holding the office till 1592, and in 1589 he was one of the committee appointed to superintend the preparation of thePharmacopoeia Londinensiswhich the college in that year decided to issue, but which did not actually appear till 1618. In 1597 he was again chosen treasurer, becoming at the same time consiliarius, and in 1599 he succeeded to the presidency. Two years later he was appointed physician to Queen Elizabeth, with the usual emolument of £100 a year. After this time he seems to have removed to the court, vacating his residence, Wingfield House, which was on Peter’s Hill, between Upper Thames Street and Little Knightrider Street, and close to the house of the College of Physicians. On the death of the queen in 1603 he was reappointed by her successor; but he did not long enjoy the honour, for he died, probably of the plague, on the 30th of November (10th of December, N.S.) 1603, either in London or in Colchester. He was buried in the latter town, in the chancel of Holy Trinity church, where a monument was erected to his memory. To the College of Physicians he left his books, globes, instruments and minerals, but they were destroyed in the great fire of London.

Gilbert’s principal work is his treatise on magnetism, entitledDe magnete, magneticisque corporibus, et de magno magnete tellure(London, 1600; later editions—Stettin, 1628, 1633; Frankfort, 1629, 1638). This work, which embodied the results of many years’ research, was distinguished by its strict adherence to the scientific method of investigation by experiment, and by the originality of its matter, containing, as it does, an account of the author’s experiments on magnets and magnetical bodies and on electrical attractions, and also his great conception that the earth is nothing but a large magnet, and that it is this which explains, not only the direction of the magnetic needle north and south, but also the variation and dipping or inclination of the needle. Gilbert’s is therefore not merely the first, but the most important, systematic contribution to the sciences of electricity and magnetism. A posthumous work of Gilbert’s was edited by his brother, also called William, from two MSS. in the possession of Sir William Boswell; its title isDe mundo nostro sublunari philosophia nova(Amsterdam, 1651). He is the reputed inventor besides of two instruments to enable sailors “to find out the latitude without seeing of sun, moon or stars,” an account of which is given in Thomas Blondeville’sTheoriques of the Planets(London, 1602). He was also the first advocate of Copernican views in England, and he concluded that the fixed stars are not all at the same distance from the earth.

It is a matter of great regret for the historian of chemistry that Gilbert left nothing on that branch of science, to which he was deeply devoted, “attaining to great exactness therein.” So at least says Thomas Fuller, who in hisWorthies of Englandprophesied truly how he would be afterwards known: “Mahomet’s tomb at Mecca,” he says, “is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone; but the memory of this doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable bookDe magnetewill support to eternity.”

An English translation of theDe magnetewas published by P. F. Mottelay in 1893, and another, with notes by S. P. Thompson, was issued by the Gilbert Club of London in 1900.

GILBERT, SIR WILLIAM SCHWENK(1836- ), English playwright and humorist, son of William Gilbert (a descendant of Sir Humphrey Gilbert), was born in London on the 18th of November 1836. His father was the author of a number of novels, the best-known of which wereShirley Hall Asylum(1863) andDr Austin’s Guests(1866). Several of these novels—which were characterized by a singular acuteness and lucidity of style, by a dry, subacid humour, by a fund of humanitarian feeling and by a considerable medical knowledge, especially in regard to the psychology of lunatics and monomaniacs—were illustrated by his son, who developed a talent for whimsical draughtsmanship. W. S. Gilbert was educated at Boulogne, at Ealing and at King’s College, graduating B.A. from the university of London in 1856. The termination of the Crimean War was fatal to his project of competing for a commission in the Royal Artillery, but he obtained a post in the education department of the privy council office (1857-1861). Disliking the routine work, he left the Civil Service, entered the Inner Temple, was called to the bar in November 1864, and joined the northern circuit. His practice was inconsiderable, and his military and legal ambitions were eventually satisfied by a captaincy in the volunteers and appointment as a magistrate for Middlesex (June 1891). In 1861 the comic journalFunwas started by H. J. Byron, and Gilbert became from the first a valued contributor. Failing to obtain anentrée to Punch, he continued sending excellent comic verse toFun, with humorous illustrations, the work of his own pen, over the signature of “Bab.” A collection of these lyrics, in which deft craftsmanship unites a titillating satire on the deceptiveness of appearances with the irrepressible nonsense of a Lewis Carroll, was issued separately in 1869 under the title ofBab Ballads, and was followed byMore Bab Ballads. Thetwo collections andSongs of a Savoyardwere united in a volume issued in 1898, with many new illustrations. The best of the old cuts, such as those depicting the “Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo” and the “Discontented Sugar Broker,” were preserved intact.

While remaining a staunch supporter ofFun, Gilbert was soon immersed in other journalistic work, and his position as dramatic critic to theIllustrated Timesturned his attention to the stage. He had not to wait long for an opportunity. Early in December 1866 T. W. Robertson was asked by Miss Herbert, lessee of the St James’s theatre, to find some one who could turn out a bright Christmas piece in a fortnight, and suggested Gilbert; the latter promptly producedDulcamara, a burlesque ofL’Elisire d’amore, written in ten days, rehearsed in a week, and duly performed at Christmas. He sold the piece outright for £30, a piece of rashness which he had cause to regret, for it turned out a commercial success. In 1870 he was commissioned by Buckstone to write a blank verse fairy comedy, based uponLe Palais de la vérité, the novel by Madame de Genlis. The result wasThe Palace of Truth, a fairy drama, poor in structure but clever in workmanship, which served the purpose of Mr and Mrs Kendal in 1870 at the Haymarket. This was followed in 1871 byPygmalion and Galatea, another three-act “mythological comedy,” a clever and effective but artificial piece. Another fairy comedy,The Wicked World, written for Buckstone and the Kendals, was followed in March 1873 by a burlesque version, in collaboration with Gilbert à Beckett, entitledThe Happy Land. Gilbert’s next dramatic ventures inclined more to the conventional pattern, combining sentiment and a cynical humour in a manner strongly reminiscent of his father’s style. Of these pieces,Sweetheartswas given at the Prince of Wales’s theatre, 7th November 1874;Tom Cobbat the St James’s, 24th April 1875;Broken Heartsat the Court, 9th December 1875;Dan’l Druce(a drama in darker vein, suggested to some extent bySilas Marner) at the Haymarket, 11th September 1876; andEngagedat the Haymarket, 3rd October 1877. The first and last of these proved decidedly popular.Gretchen, a verse drama in four acts, appeared in 1879. A one-act piece, calledComedy and Tragedy, was produced at the Lyceum, 26th January, 1884. Two dramatic trifles of later date wereFoggerty’s FairyandRozenkrantz and Guildenstern, a travesty ofHamlet, performed at the Vaudeville in June 1891. Several of these dramas were based upon short stories by Gilbert, a number of which had appeared from time to time in the Christmas numbers of various periodicals. The best of them have been collected in the volume entitledFoggerty’s Fairy, and other Stories. In the autumn of 1871 Gilbert commenced his memorable collaboration (which lasted over twenty years) with Sir Arthur Sullivan. The first two comic operas,Thespis; or The Gods grown Old(26th September 1871) andTrial by Jury(Royalty, 25th March 1875) were merely essays. Like one or two of their successors, they were, as regards plot, little more than extended “Bab Ballads.” Later (especially in theYeomen of the Guard), much more elaboration was attempted. The next piece was produced at the Opera Comique (17th November 1877) asThe Sorcerer. At the same theatre were successfully givenH.M.S. Pinafore(25th May 1878),The Pirates of Penzance; or The Slave of Duty(3rd April 1880), andPatience; or Bunthorne’s Bride(23rd April 1881). In October 1881 the successfulPatiencewas removed to a new theatre, the Savoy, specially built for the Gilbert and Sullivan operas by Richard D’Oyly Carte.Patiencewas followed, on 25th November 1882, byIolanthe; or The Peer and the Peri; and then came, on 5th January 1884,Princess Ida; or Castle Adamant, a re-cast of a charming and witty fantasia which Gilbert had written some years previously, and had then described as a “respectful perversion of Mr. Tennyson’s exquisite poem.” The impulse reached its fullest development in the operas that followed next in order—The Mikado; or The Town of Titipu(14th March 1885);Ruddigore(22nd January 1887);The Yeomen of the Guard(3rd October 1888); andThe Gondoliers(7th December 1889). After the appearance ofThe Gondoliersa coolness occurred between the composer and librettist, owing to Gilbert’s considering that Sullivan had not supported him in a business disagreement with D’Oyly Carte. But the estrangement was only temporary. Gilbert wrote several more librettos, and of theseUtopia Limited(1893) and the exceptionally wittyGrand Duke(1896) were written in conjunction with Sullivan. As a master of metre Gilbert had shown himself consummate, as a dealer in quips and paradoxes and ludicrous dilemmas, unrivalled. Even for the music of the operas he deserves some credit, for the rhythms were frequently his own (as in “I have a Song to Sing, O”), and the metres were in many cases invented by himself. One or two of his librettos, such as that ofPatience, are virtually flawless. Enthusiasts are divided only as to the comparative merit of the operas.Princess IdaandPatienceare in some respects the daintiest. There is a genuine vein of poetry inThe Yeomen of the Guard. Some of the drollest songs are inPinaforeandRuddigore. TheGondoliersshows the most charming lightness of touch, while with the general publicThe Mikadoproved the favourite. The enduring popularity of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was abundantly proved by later revivals. Among the birthday honours in June 1907 Gilbert was given a knighthood. In 1909 hisFallen Fairies(music by Edward German) was produced at the Savoy.

(T. Se.)

GILBERT DE LA PORRÉE,frequently known as Gilbertus Porretanus or Pictaviensis (1070-1154); scholastic logician and theologian, was born at Poitiers. He was educated under Bernard of Chartres and Anselm of Laon. After teaching for about twenty years in Chartres, he lectured on dialectics and theology in Paris (from 1137), and in 1141 returned to Poitiers, being elected bishop in the following year. His heterodox opinions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity drew upon his works the condemnation of the church. The synod of Reims in 1148 procured papal sanction for four propositions opposed to certain of Gilbert’s tenets, and his works were condemned until they should be corrected in accordance with the principles of the church. Gilbert seems to have submitted quietly to this judgment; he yielded assent to the four propositions, and remained on friendly terms with his antagonists till his death on the 4th of September 1154. Gilbert is almost the only logician of the 12th century who is quoted by the greater scholastics of the succeeding age. His chief logical work, the treatiseDe sex principiis, was regarded with a reverence almost equal to that paid to Aristotle, and furnished matter for numerous commentators, amongst them Albertus Magnus. Owing to the fame of this work, he is mentioned by Dante as theMagister sex principiorum. The treatise itself is a discussion of the Aristotelian categories, specially of the six subordinate modes. Gilbert distinguishes in the ten categories two classes, one essential, the other derivative. Essential or inhering (formae inhaerentes) in the objects themselves are onlysubstance,quantity,qualityandrelationin the stricter sense of that term. The remaining six,when,where,action,passion,positionandhabit, are relative and subordinate (formae assistentes). This suggestion has some interest, but is of no great value, either in logic or in the theory of knowledge. More important in the history of scholasticism are the theological consequences to which Gilbert’s realism led him. In the commentary on the treatiseDe Trinitate(erroneously attributed to Boëtius) he proceeds from the metaphysical notion that pure or abstract being is prior in nature to that which is. This pure being is God, and must be distinguished from the triune God as known to us. God is incomprehensible, and the categories cannot be applied to determine his existence. In God there is no distinction or difference, whereas in all substances or things there is duality, arising from the element of matter. Between pure being and substances stand the ideas or forms, which subsist, though they are not substances. These forms, when materialized, are calledformae substantialesorformae nativae; they are the essences of things, and in themselves have no relation to the accidents of things. Things are temporal, the ideas perpetual, God eternal. The pure form of existence, that by which God is God, must be distinguished from the three persons who are God by participation in this form. The form or essence is one, the persons or substances three. It was this distinction between Deitas orDivinitas and Deus that led to the condemnation of Gilbert’s doctrine.

De sex principiisand commentary on theDe Trinitatein Migne,Patrologia Latina, lxiv. 1255 and clxxxviii. 1257; see also Abbé Berthaud,Gilbert de la Porrée(Poitiers, 1892); B. Hauréau,De la philosophie scolastique, pp. 294-318; R. Schmid’s article “Gilbert Porretanus” in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyk. f. protest. Theol.(vol. 6, 1899); Prantl,Geschichte d. Logik, ii. 215; Bach,Dogmengeschichte, ii. 133; articleScholasticism.

GILBERT OF SEMPRINGHAM, ST,founder of the Gilbertines, the only religious order of English origin, was born at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, c. 1083-1089. He was educated in France, and ordained in 1123, being presented by his father to the living of Sempringham. About 1135 he established there a convent for nuns; and to perform the heavy work and cultivate the fields he formed a number of labourers into a society of lay brothers attached to the convent. Similar establishments were founded elsewhere, and in 1147 Gilbert tried to get them incorporated in the Cistercian order. Failing in this, he proceeded to form communities of priests and clerics to perform the spiritual ministrations needed by the nuns. The women lived according to the Benedictine rule as interpreted by the Cistercians; the men according to the rule of St Augustine, and were canons regular. The special constitutions of the order were largely taken from those of the Premonstratensian canons and of the Cistercians. Like Fontevrault (q.v.) it was a double order, the communities of men and women living side by side; but, though the property all belonged to the nuns, the superior of the canons was the head of the whole establishment, and the general superior was a canon, called “Master of Sempringham.” The general chapter was a mixed assembly composed of two canons and two nuns from each house; the nuns had to travel to the chapter in closed carts. The office was celebrated together in the church, a high stone screen separating the two choirs of canons and nuns. The order received papal approbation in 1148. By Gilbert’s death (1189) there were nine double monasteries and four of canons only, containing about 700 canons and 1000 nuns in all. At the dissolution there were some 25 monasteries, whereof 4 ranked among the greater monasteries (see list in F. A. Gasquet’sEnglish Monastic Life). The order never spread beyond England. The habit of the Gilbertines was black, with a white cloak.

See Bollandists’Acta Sanctorum(4th of Feb.); William Dugdale,Monasticon(1846); Helyot,Hist. des ordres religieux(1714); ii. c. 29. The best modern account isSt Gilbert of Sempringham, and the Gilbertines, by Rose Graham (1901). The art. inDictionary of National Biographygives abundant information on St Gilbert, but is unsatisfactory on the order, as it might easily convey the impression that the canons and nuns lived together, whereas they were most carefully separated; and altogether undue prominence is given to a single scandal. Miss Graham declares that the reputation of the order was good until the end.

(E. C. B.)

GILBERT FOLIOT(d. 1187), bishop of Hereford, and of London, is first mentioned as a monk of Cluny, whence he was called in 1136 to plead the cause of the empress Matilda against Stephen at the Roman court. Shortly afterwards he became prior of Cluny; then prior of Abbéville, a house dependent upon Cluny. In 1139 he was elected abbot of Gloucester. The appointment was confirmed by Stephen, and from the ecclesiastical point of view was unexceptionable. But the new abbot proved himself a valuable ally of the empress, and her ablest controversialist. Gilbert’s reputation grew rapidly. He was respected at Rome; and he acted as the representative of the primate, Theobald, in the supervision of the Welsh church. In 1148, on being nominated by the pope to the see of Hereford, Gilbert with characteristic wariness sought confirmation both from Henry of Anjou and from Stephen. But he was an Angevin at heart, and after 1154 was treated by Henry II. with every mark of consideration. He was Becket’s rival for the primacy, and the only bishop who protested against the king’s choice. Becket, with rare forbearance, endeavoured to win his friendship by procuring for him the see of London (1163). But Gilbert evaded the customary profession of obedience to the primate, and apparently aspired to make his see independent of Canterbury. On the questions raised by the Constitutions of Clarendon he sided with the king, whose confessor he had now become. He urged Becket to yield, and, when this advice was rejected, encouraged his fellow-bishops to repudiate the authority of the archbishop. In the years of controversy which followed Becket’s flight the king depended much upon the bishop’s skill as a disputant and diplomatist. Gilbert was twice excommunicated by Becket, but both on these and on other occasions he showed great dexterity in detaching the pope from the cause of the exile. To him it was chiefly due that Henry avoided an open conflict with Rome of the kind which John afterwards provoked. Gilbert was one of the bishops whose excommunication in 1170 provoked the king’s knights to murder Becket; but he cannot be reproached with any share in the crime. His later years were uneventful, though he enjoyed great influence with the king and among his fellow bishops. Scholarly, dignified, ascetic in his private life, devoted to the service of the Church, he was nevertheless more respected than loved. His nature was cold; he made few friends; and the taint of a calculating ambition runs through his whole career. He died in the spring of 1187.

See Gilbert’sLetters, ed. J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1845);Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson (Rolls series, 1875-1885); and Miss K. Norgate’sEngland under the Angevin Kings(1887).

(H. W. C. D.)

GILBERT(Kingsmill)ISLANDS, an extensive archipelago belonging to Great Britain in the mid-western Pacific Ocean, lying N. and S. of the equator, and between 170° and 180° E. There are sixteen islands, all coral reefs or atolls, extending in crescent form over about five degrees of latitude. The principal is Taputenea or Drummond Island. The soil, mostly of coral sand, is productive of little else than the coco-nut palm, and the chief source of food supply is the sea. The population of these islands presents a remarkable phenomenon; in spite of adverse conditions of environment and complete barbarism it is exceedingly dense, in strong contradistinction to that of many other more favoured islands. The land area of the group is only 166 m., yet the population is about 30,000. The Gilbert islanders are a dark and coarse type of the Polynesian race, and show signs of much crossing. They are tall and stout, with an average height of 5 ft. 8 in., and are of a vigorous, energetic temperament. They are nearly always naked, but wear a conical hat of pandanus leaf. In war they have an armour of plaited coco-nut fibres. They are fierce fighters, their chief weapon being a sword armed with sharks’ teeth. Their canoes are well made of coco-nut wood boards sewn neatly together and fastened on frames. British and American missionary work has been prosecuted with some success. The large population led to the introduction of natives from these islands into Hawaii as labourers in 1878-1884, but they were not found satisfactory. The islands were discovered by John Byron in 1765 (one of them bearing his name); Captains Gilbert and Marshall visited them in 1788; and they were annexed by Great Britain in 1892.

GILBEY, SIR WALTER,1st Bart.(1831- ), English wine-merchant, was born at Bishop Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1831. His father, the owner and frequently the driver of the daily coach between Bishop Stortford and London, died when he was eleven years old, and young Gilbey was shortly afterwards placed in the office of an estate agent at Tring, subsequently obtaining a clerkship in a firm of parliamentary agents in London. On the outbreak of the Crimean War, Walter Gilbey and his younger brother, Alfred, volunteered for civilian service at the front, and were employed at a convalescent hospital on the Dardanelles. Returning to London on the declaration of peace, Walter and Alfred Gilbey, on the advice of their eldest brother, Henry Gilbey, a wholesale wine-merchant, started in the retail wine and spirit trade. The heavy duty then levied by the British government on French, Portuguese and Spanish wines was prohibitive of a sale among the English middle classes, and especially lower middle classes, whose usual alcoholic beverage was accordingly beer. Henry Gilbey was of opinion that these classes would gladly drink wine if they could get it at a moderate price, and by his advice Walter and Alfred determined to push the sales of colonial, and particularly of Cape, wines, on whichthe duty was comparatively light. Backed by capital obtained through Henry Gilbey, they accordingly opened in 1857 a small retail business in a basement in Oxford Street, London. The Cape wines proved popular, and within three years the brothers had 20,000 customers on their books. The creation of the off-licence system by Mr Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer, in 1860, followed by the large reduction in the duty on French wines effected by the commercial treaty between England and France in 1861, revolutionized their trade and laid the foundation of their fortunes. Three provincial grocers, who had been granted the new off-licence, applied to be appointed the Gilbeys’ agents in their respective districts, and many similar applications followed. These were granted, and before very long a leading local grocer was acting as the firm’s agents in every district in England. The grocer who dealt in the Gilbeys’ wines and spirits was not allowed to sell those of any other firm, and the Gilbeys in return handed over to him all their existing customers in his district. This arrangement was of mutual advantage, and the Gilbeys’ business increased so rapidly that in 1864 Henry Gilbey abandoned his own undertaking to join his brothers. In 1867 the three brothers secured the old Pantheon theatre and concert hall in Oxford Street for their headquarters. In 1875 the firm purchased a large claret-producing estate in Médôc, on the banks of the Gironde, and became also the proprietors of two large whisky-distilleries in Scotland. In 1893 the business was converted, for family reasons, into a private limited liability company, of which Walter Gilbey, who in the same year was created a baronet, was chairman. Sir Walter Gilbey also became well known as a breeder of shire horses, and he did much to improve the breed of English horses (other than race-horses) generally, and wrote extensively on the subject. He became president of the Shire Horse Society, of the Hackney Horse Society, and of the Hunters’ Improvement Society, and he was the founder and chairman of the London Cart Horse Parade Society. He was also a practical agriculturist, and president of the Royal Agricultural Society.

GILDAS,orGildus(c.516-570), the earliest of British historians (seeCelt:Literature, “Welsh”), surnamed by some Sapiens, and by others Badonicus, seems to have been born in the year 516. Regarding him little certain is known, beyond some isolated particulars that may be gathered from hints dropped in the course of his work. Two short treatises exist, purporting to be lives of Gildas, and ascribed respectively to the 11th and 12th centuries; but the writers of both are believed to have confounded two, if not more, persons that had borne the name. It is from an incidental remark of his own, namely, that the year of the siege of Mount Badon—one of the battles fought between the Saxons and the Britons—was also the year of his own nativity, that the date of his birth has been derived; the place, however, is not mentioned. His assertion that he was moved to undertake his task mainly by “zeal for God’s house and for His holy law,” and the very free use he has made of quotations from the Bible, leave scarcely a doubt that he was an ecclesiastic of some order or other. In addition, we learn that he went abroad, probably to France, in his thirty-fourth year, where, after 10 years of hesitation and preparation, he composed, about 560, the work bearing his name. His materials, he tells us, were collected from foreign rather than native sources, the latter of which had been put beyond his reach by circumstances. TheCambrian Annalsgive 570 as the year of his death.

The writings of Gildas have come down to us under the title ofGildae Sapientis de excidio Britanniae liber querulus. Though at first written consecutively, the work is now usually divided into three portions,—a preface, the history proper, and an epistle,—the last, which is largely made up of passages and texts of Scripture brought together for the purpose of condemning the vices of his countrymen and their rulers, being the least important, though by far the longest of the three. In the second he passes in brief review the history of Britain from its invasion by the Romans till his own times. Among other matters reference is made to the introduction of Christianity in the reign of Tiberius; the persecution under Diocletian; the spread of the Arian heresy; the election of Maximus as emperor by the legions in Britain, and his subsequent death at Aquileia; the incursions of the Picts and Scots into the southern part of the island; the temporary assistance rendered to the harassed Britons by the Romans; the final abandonment of the island by the latter; the coming of the Saxons and their reception by Guortigern (Vortigern); and, finally, the conflicts between the Britons, led by a noble Roman, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and the new invaders. Unfortunately, on almost every point on which he touches, the statements of Gildas are vague and obscure. With one exception already alluded to, no dates are given, and events are not always taken up in the order of their occurrence. These faults are of less importance during the period when Greek and Roman writers notice the affairs of Britain; but they become more serious when, as is the case from nearly the beginning of the 5th century to the date of his death, Gildas’s brief narrative is our only authority for most of what passes current as the history of our island during those years. Thus it is on his sole, though in this instance perhaps trustworthy, testimony that the famous letter rests, said to have been sent to Rome in 446 by the despairing Britons, commencing:—“To Agitius (Aetius), consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons.”

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