Chapter 2

An abridgment of his book was published in 1856 under the title ofThe Lion Hunter of South Africa, and in this form was frequently reprinted, a new edition appearing in 1904.

An abridgment of his book was published in 1856 under the title ofThe Lion Hunter of South Africa, and in this form was frequently reprinted, a new edition appearing in 1904.

GORE, CATHERINE GRACE FRANCES(1799-1861), English novelist and dramatist, the daughter of Charles Moody, a wine-merchant, was born in 1799 at East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1823 she was married to Captain Charles Gore; and, in the next year, she published her first work,Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour. Then followed, among others, theLettre de Cachet(1827),The Reign of Terror(1827),Hungarian Tales(1829),Manners of the Day(1830),Mothers and Daughters(1831), andThe Fair of May Fair(1832),Mrs Armytage(1836). Every succeeding year saw several volumes from her pen: TheCabinet MinisterandThe Courtier of the Days of Charles II., in 1839;Prefermentin 1840. In 1841Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, attracted considerable attention.Greville, or a Season in Parisappeared in the same year; thenOrmington, or Cecil a Peer, Fascination, The Ambassador’s Wife; and in 1843The Banker’s Wife. Mrs Gore continued to write, with unfailing fertility of invention, till her death on the 29th of January 1861. She also wrote some dramas of which the most successful was theSchool for Coquettes, produced at the Haymarket (1831). She was a woman of versatile talent, and set to music Burns’s “And ye shall walk in silk attire,” one of the most popular songs of her day. Her extraordinary literary industry is proved by the existence of more than seventy distinct works. Her best novels areCecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, andThe Banker’s Wife.Cecilgives extremely vivid sketches of London fashionable life, and is full of happy epigrammatic touches. For the knowledge of London clubs displayed in it Mrs Gore was indebted to William Beckford, the author ofVathek.The Banker’s Wifeis distinguished by some clever studies of character, especially in the persons of Mr Hamlyn, the cold calculating money-maker, and his warm-hearted country neighbour, Colonel Hamilton.

Mrs Gore’s novels had an immense temporary popularity; they were parodied by Thackeray inPunch, in his “Lords and Liveries by the author ofDukes and Déjeuners”; but, tedious as they are to present-day readers, they presented on the whole faithful pictures of the contemporary life and pursuits of the English upper classes.

GORE, CHARLES(1853-  ), English divine, was born in 1853, the 3rd son of the Hon. Charles Alexander Gore, brother of the 4th earl of Arran. His mother was a daughter of the 4th earl of Bessborough. He was educated at Harrow and at Balliol College, Oxford, and was elected fellow of Trinity College in 1875. From 1880 to 1883 he was vice-principal of the theological college at Cuddesdon, and, when in 1884 Pusey House was founded at Oxford as a home for Dr Pusey’s library and a centre for the propagation of his principles, he was appointed principal, a position which he held until 1893. As principal of Pusey House Mr Gore exercised a wide influence over undergraduates and the younger clergy, and it was largely, if not mainly, under this influence that the “Oxford Movement” underwent a change which to the survivors of the old school of Tractarians seemed to involve a break with its basic principles. “Puseyism” had been in the highest degree conservative, basing itself on authority and tradition, and repudiating any compromise with the modern critical and liberalizing spirit. Mr Gore, starting from the samebasis of faith and authority, soon found from his practical experience in dealing with the “doubts and difficulties” of the younger generation that this uncompromising attitude was untenable, and set himself the task of reconciling the principle of authority in religion with that of scientific authority by attempting to define the boundaries of their respective spheres of influence. To him the divine authority of the Catholic Church was an axiom, and in 1889 he published two works, the larger of which,The Church and the Ministry, is a learned vindication of the principle of Apostolic Succession in the episcopate against the Presbyterians and other Protestant bodies, while the second,Roman Catholic Claims, is a defence, couched in a more popular form, of the Anglican Church and Anglican orders against the attacks of the Romanists.

So far his published views had been in complete consonance with those of the older Tractarians. But in 1890 a great stir was created by the publication, under his editorship, ofLux Mundi, a series of essays by different writers, being an attempt “to succour a distressed faith by endeavouring to bring the Christian Creed into its right relation to the modern growth of knowledge, scientific, historic, critical; and to modern problems of politics and ethics.” Mr Gore himself contributed an essay on “The Holy Spirit and Inspiration.” The book, which ran through twelve editions in a little over a year, met with a somewhat mixed reception. Orthodox churchmen, Evangelical and Tractarian alike, were alarmed by views on the incarnate nature of Christ that seemed to them to impugn his Divinity, and by concessions to the Higher Criticism in the matter of the inspiration of Holy Scriptures which appeared to them to convert the “impregnable rock,” as Gladstone had called it, into a foundation of sand; sceptics, on the other hand, were not greatly impressed by a system of defence which seemed to draw an artificial line beyond which criticism was not to advance. None the less the book produced a profound effect, and that far beyond the borders of the English Church, and it is largely due to its influence, and to that of the school it represents, that the High Church movement developed thenceforth on “Modernist” rather than Tractarian lines.

In 1891 Mr Gore was chosen to deliver the Bampton lectures before the university, and chose for his subject the Incarnation. In these lectures he developed the doctrine, the enunciation of which inLux Mundihad caused so much heart-searching. This is an attempt to explain how it came that Christ, though incarnate God, could be in error,e.g.in his citations from the Old Testament. The orthodox explanation was based on the principle of accommodation (q.v.). This, however, ignored the difficulty that if Christ during his sojourn on earth was not subject to human limitations, especially of knowledge, he was not a man as other men, and therefore not subject to their trials and temptations. This difficulty Gore sought to meet through the doctrine of theκένωσις. Ever since the Pauline epistles had been received into the canon theologians had, from various points of view, attempted to explain what St Paul meant when he wrote of Christ (2 Phil. ii. 7) that “he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant” (ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δουλοῦ λαβῶν). According to Mr Gore this means that Christ, on his incarnation, became subject to all human limitations, and had, so far as his life on earth was concerned, stripped himself of all the attributes of the Godhead, including the Divine omniscience, the Divine nature being, as it were, hidden under the human.1

Lux Mundiand the Bampton lectures led to a situation of some tension which was relieved when in 1893 Dr Gore resigned his principalship and became vicar of Radley, a small parish near Oxford. In 1894 he became canon of Westminster. Here he gained commanding influence as a preacher and in 1898 was appointed one of the court chaplains. In 1902 he succeeded J. J. S. Perowne as bishop of Worcester and in 1905 was installed bishop of Birmingham, a new see the creation of which had been mainly due to his efforts. While adhering rigidly to his views on the divine institution of episcopacy as essential to the Christian Church, Dr Gore from the first cultivated friendly relations with the ministers of other denominations, and advocated co-operation with them in all matters when agreement was possible. In social questions he became one of the leaders of the considerable group of High Churchmen known, somewhat loosely, as Christian Socialists. He worked actively against the sweating system, pleaded for European intervention in Macedonia, and was a keen supporter of the Licensing Bill of 1908. In 1892 he founded the clerical fraternity known as the Community of the Resurrection. Its members are priests, who are bound by the obligation of celibacy, live under a common rule and with a common purse. Their work is pastoral, evangelistic, literary and educational. In 1898 the House of the Resurrection at Mirfield, near Huddersfield, became the centre of the community; in 1903 a college for training candidates for orders was established there, and in the same year a branch house, for missionary work, was set up in Johannesburg in South Africa.

Dr Gore’s works includeThe Incarnation(Bampton Lectures, 1891),The Creed of the Christian(1895),The Body of Christ(1901),The New Theology and the Old Religion(1908), and expositions ofThe Sermon on the Mount(1896),Ephesians(1898), andRomans(1899), while in 1910 he publishedOrders and Unity.

Dr Gore’s works includeThe Incarnation(Bampton Lectures, 1891),The Creed of the Christian(1895),The Body of Christ(1901),The New Theology and the Old Religion(1908), and expositions ofThe Sermon on the Mount(1896),Ephesians(1898), andRomans(1899), while in 1910 he publishedOrders and Unity.

1Cf. the Lutheran theologian Ernst Sartorius in hisLehre von der heiligen Liebe(1844),Lehreii. pp. 21 et seq.: “the Son of God veils his all-seeing eye and descends into human darkness and as child of man opens his eye as the gradually growing light of the world of humanity, until at the right hand of the Father he allows it to shine forth in all its glory.” See Loofs, Art. “Kenosis” in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(ed. 1901), x. 247.

1Cf. the Lutheran theologian Ernst Sartorius in hisLehre von der heiligen Liebe(1844),Lehreii. pp. 21 et seq.: “the Son of God veils his all-seeing eye and descends into human darkness and as child of man opens his eye as the gradually growing light of the world of humanity, until at the right hand of the Father he allows it to shine forth in all its glory.” See Loofs, Art. “Kenosis” in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(ed. 1901), x. 247.

GORE.(1) (O. Eng.gor, dung or filth), a word formerly used in the sense of dirt, but now confined to blood that has thickened after being shed. (2) (O. Eng.gára, probably connected withgare, an old word for “spear”), something of triangular shape, resembling therefore a spear-head. The word is used for a tapering strip of land, in the “common or open field” system of agriculture, where from the shape of the land the acre or half-acre strips could not be portioned out in straight divisions. Similarly “gore” is used in the United States, especially in Maine and Vermont, for a strip of land left out in surveying when divisions are made and boundaries marked. The triangular sections of material used in forming the covering of a balloon or an umbrella are also called “gores,” and in dressmaking the term is used for a triangular piece of material inserted in a dress to adjust the difference in widths. To gore,i.e.to stab or pierce with any sharp instrument, but more particularly used of piercing with the horns of a bull, is probably directly connected withgare, a spear.

GOREE,an island off the west coast of Africa, forming part of the French colony of Senegal. It lies at the entrance of the large natural harbour formed by the peninsula of Cape Verde. The island, some 900 yds. long by 330 broad, and 3 m. distant from the nearest point of the mainland, is mostly barren rock. The greater part of its surface is occupied by a town, formerly a thriving commercial entrepôt and a strong military post. Until 1906 it was a free port. With the rise of Dakar (q.v.), c. 1860, on the adjacent coast, Goree lost its trade and its inhabitants, mostly Jolofs, had dwindled in 1905 to about 1500. Its healthy climate, however, makes it useful as a sanatorium. The streets are narrow, and the houses, mainly built of dark-red stone, are flat-roofed. The castle of St Michael, the governor’s residence, the hospital and barracks, testify to the former importance of the town. Within the castle is an artesian well, the only water-supply, save that collected in rain tanks, on the island. Goree was first occupied by the Dutch, who took possession of it early in the 17th century and called it Goeree or Goedereede, in memory of the island on their own coast now united with Overflakkee. Its native name is Bir,i.e.a belly, in allusion to its shape. It was captured by the English under Commodore (afterwards Admiral Sir Robert) Holmes in 1663, but retaken in the following year by de Ruyter. The Dutch were finally expelled in 1677 by the French under Admiral d’Estrées. Goree subsequently fell again into the hands of the English, but was definitely occupied by France in 1817 (seeSenegal:History).

GORGE,strictly the French word for the throat considered externally. Hence it is applied in falconry to a hawk’s crop,and thus, with the sense of something greedy or ravenous, to food given to a hawk and to the contents of a hawk’s crop or stomach. It is from this sense that the expression of a person’s “gorge rising at” anything in the sense of loathing or disgust is derived. “Gorge,” from analogy with “throat,” is used with the meaning of a narrow opening as of a ravine or valley between hills; in fortification, of the neck of an outwork or bastion; and in architecture, of the narrow part of a Roman Doric column, between the echinus and the astragal. From “gorge” also comes a diminutive “gorget,” a portion of a woman’s costume in the middle ages, being a close form of wimple covering the neck and upper part of the breast, and also that part of the body armour covering the neck and collarbone (seeGorget). The word “gorgeous,” of splendid or magnificent appearance, comes from the O. Fr.gorgias, with the same meaning, and has very doubtfully been connected with gorge, a ruffle or neck-covering, of a supposed elaborate kind.

GÖRGEI, ARTHUR(1818-  ), Hungarian soldier, was born at Toporcz, in Upper Hungary, on the 30th of January 1818. He came of a Saxon noble family who were converts to Protestantism. In 1837 he entered the Bodyguard of Hungarian Nobles at Vienna, where he combined military service with a course of study at the university. In 1845, on the death of his father, he retired from the army and devoted himself to the study of chemistry at Prague, after which he retired to the family estates in Hungary. On the outbreak of the revolutionary War of 1848, Görgei offered his sword to the Hungarian government. Entering the Honvéd army with the rank of captain, he was employed in the purchase of arms, and soon became major and commandant of the national guards north of the Theiss. Whilst he was engaged in preventing the Croatian army from crossing the Danube, at the island of Csepel, below Pest, the wealthy Hungarian magnate Count Eugene Zichy fell into his hands, and Görgei caused him to be arraigned before a court-martial on a charge of treason and immediately hanged. After various successes over the Croatian forces, of which the most remarkable was that at Ozora, where 10,000 prisoners fell into his hands, Görgei was appointed commander of the army of the Upper Danube, but, on the advance of Prince Windischgrätz across the Leitha, he resolved to fall back, and in spite of the remonstrances of Kossuth he held to his resolution and retreated upon Waitzen. Here, irritated by what he considered undue interference with his plans, he issued (January 5th, 1849) a proclamation throwing the blame for the recent want of success upon the government, thus virtually revolting against their authority. Görgei retired to the Hungarian Erzgebirge and conducted operations on his own initiative. Meanwhile the supreme command had been conferred upon the Pole Dembinski, but the latter fought without success the battle of Kapolna, at which action Görgei’s corps arrived too late to take an effective part, and some time after this the command was again conferred upon Görgei. The campaign in the spring of 1849 was brilliantly conducted by him, and in a series of engagements, he defeated Windischgrätz. In April he won the victories of Gödöllö Izaszeg and Nagy Sarló, relieved Komorn, and again won a battle at Acs or Waitzen. Had he followed up his successes by taking the offensive against the Austrian frontier, he might perhaps have dictated terms in the Austrian capital itself. As it was, he contented himself with reducing Ofen, the Hungarian capital, in which he desired to re-establish the diet, and after effecting this capture he remained inactive for some weeks. Meanwhile, at a diet held at Debreczin, Kossuth had formally proposed the dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty and Hungary had been proclaimed a republic. Görgei had refused the field-marshal’s bâton offered him by Kossuth and was by no means in sympathy with the new régime. However, he accepted the portfolio of minister of war, while retaining the command of the troops in the field. The Russians had now intervened in the struggle and made common cause with the Austrians; the allies were advancing into Hungary on all sides, and Görgei was defeated by Haynau at Pered (20th-21st of June). Kossuth, perceiving the impossibility of continuing the struggle and being unwilling himself to make terms, resigned his position as dictator, and was succeeded by Görgei, who meanwhile had been fighting hard against the various columns of the enemy. Görgei, convinced that he could not break through the enemy’s lines, surrendered, with his army of 20,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, to the Russian general Rüdiger at Vilagos. Görgei was not court-marshaled, as were his generals, but kept in confinement at Klagenfurt, where he lived, chiefly employed in chemical work, until 1867, when he was pardoned and returned to Hungary. The surrender, and particularly the fact that his life was spared while his generals and many of his officers and men were hanged or shot, led, perhaps naturally, to his being accused of treason by public opinion of his countrymen. After his release he played no further part in public life. Even in 1885 an attempt which was made by a large number of his old comrades to rehabilitate him was not favourably received in Hungary. After some years’ work as a railway engineer he retired to Visegrád, where he lived thenceforward in retreat. (See alsoHungary:History.)

General Görgei wrote a justification of his operations (Mein Leben und Wirken in Ungarn1848-1859, Leipzig, 1852), an anonymous paper under the titleWas verdanken wir der Revolution?(1875), and a reply to Kossuth’s charges (signed “Joh. Demár”) inBudapesti Szemle, 1881, 25-26. Amongst those who wrote in his favour were Captain Stephan Görgei (1848 és 1849 böl, Budapest, 1885), and Colonel Aschermann (Ein offenes Wort in der Sache des Honvéd-Generals Arthur Görgei, Klausenburg, 1867).

See also A. G. Horn,Görgei, Oberkommandant d. ung. Armee(Leipzig, 1850); Kinety,Görgei’s Life and Work in Hungary(London, 1853); Szinyei, inMagyár Irók(iii. 1378), Hentaller,Görgei as a Statesman(Hungarian); Elemár,Görgei in 1848-1849(Hungarian, Budapest, 1886).

See also A. G. Horn,Görgei, Oberkommandant d. ung. Armee(Leipzig, 1850); Kinety,Görgei’s Life and Work in Hungary(London, 1853); Szinyei, inMagyár Irók(iii. 1378), Hentaller,Görgei as a Statesman(Hungarian); Elemár,Görgei in 1848-1849(Hungarian, Budapest, 1886).

GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO(c.1566-1647), English colonial pioneer in America and the founder of Maine, was born in Somersetshire, England, probably in 1566. From youth both a soldier and a sailor, he was a prisoner in Spain at the age of twenty-one, having been captured by a ship of the Spanish Armada. In 1589 he was in command of a small body of troops fighting for Henry IV. of France, and after distinguishing himself at the siege of Rouen was knighted there in 1591. In 1596 he was commissioned captain and keeper of the castle and fort at Plymouth and captain of St Nicholas Isle; in 1597 he accompanied Essex on the expedition to the Azores; in 1599 assisted him in the attempt to suppress the Tyrone rebellion in Ireland, and in 1600 was implicated in Essex’s own attempt at rebellion in London. In 1603, on the accession of James I., he was suspended from his post at Plymouth, but was restored in the same year and continued to serve as “governor of the forts and island of Plymouth” until 1629, when, his garrison having been without pay for three and a half years, his fort a ruin, and all his applications for aid having been ignored, he resigned. About 1605 he began to be greatly interested in the New World; in 1606 he became a member of the Plymouth Company, and he laboured zealously for the founding of the Popham colony at the mouth of the Sagadahoc (now the Kennebec) river in 1607. For several years following the failure of that enterprise in 1608 he continued to fit out ships for fishing, trading and exploring, with colonization as the chief end in view. He was largely instrumental in procuring the new charter of 1620 for the Plymouth Company, and was at all times of its existence perhaps the most influential member of that body. He was the recipient, either solely or jointly, of several grants of territory from it, for one of which he received in 1639 the royal charter of Maine (seeMaine). In 1635 he sought to be appointed governor-general of all New England, but the English Civil War—in which he espoused the royal cause—prevented him from ever actually holding that office. A short time before his death at Long Ashton in 1647 he wrote hisBriefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of America. He was an advocate, especially late in life, of the feudal type of colony.

See J. P. Baxter (ed.),Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine(3 vols., Boston, 1890; in the Prince Society Publications), the first volume of which is a memoir of Gorges, and the other volumes contain a reprint of theBriefe Narration, Gorges’s letters, and other documentary material.

See J. P. Baxter (ed.),Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine(3 vols., Boston, 1890; in the Prince Society Publications), the first volume of which is a memoir of Gorges, and the other volumes contain a reprint of theBriefe Narration, Gorges’s letters, and other documentary material.

GORGET(O. Fr.gorgete, dim. ofgorge, throat), the name applied after about 1480 to the collar-piece of a suit of armour. It was generally formed of small overlapping rings of plate, and attached either to the body armour or to the armet. It was worn in the 16th and 17th centuries with the half-armour, with the plain cuirass, and even occasionally without any body armour at all. During these times it gradually became a distinctive badge for officers, and as such it survived in several armies—in the form of a small metal plate affixed to the front of the collar of the uniform coat—until after the Napoleonic wars. In the German army to-day a gorget-plate of this sort is the distinctive mark of military police, while the former officer’s gorget is represented in British uniforms by the red patches or tabs worn on the collar by staff officers and by the white patches of the midshipmen in the Royal Navy.

GORGIAS(c.483-375B.C.), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. In 427 he was sent by his fellow-citizens at the head of an embassy to ask Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. He subsequently settled in Athens, and supported himself by the practice of oratory and by teaching rhetoric. He died at Larissa in Thessaly. His chief claim to recognition consists in the fact that he transplanted rhetoric to Greece, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. He was the author of a lost workOn Nature or the Non-existent(Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ἦ περὶ φύσεως, fragments edited by M. C. Valeton, 1876), the substance of which may be gathered from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, and also from the treatise (ascribed to Theophrastus)De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Gorgias is the central figure in the Platonic dialogueGorgias. The genuineness of two rhetorical exercises (The Encomium of HelenandThe Defence of Palamedes, edited with Antiphon by F. Blass in the Teubner series, 1881), which have come down under his name, is disputed.

For his philosophical opinions seeSophistsandScepticism. See also Gomperz,Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans. vol. i. bk. iii. chap. vii.; Jebb’sAttic Orators, introd. to vol. i. (1893); F. Blass,Die attische Beredsamkeit, i. (1887); and articleRhetoric.

For his philosophical opinions seeSophistsandScepticism. See also Gomperz,Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans. vol. i. bk. iii. chap. vii.; Jebb’sAttic Orators, introd. to vol. i. (1893); F. Blass,Die attische Beredsamkeit, i. (1887); and articleRhetoric.

GORGON, GORGONS(Gr.Γοργώ,Γοργόνες, the “terrible,” or, according to some, the “loud-roaring”), a figure or figures in Greek mythology. Homer speaks of only one Gorgon, whose head is represented in theIliad(v. 741) as fixed in the centre of the aegis of Zeus. In theOdyssey(xi. 633) she is a monster of the under-world. Hesiod increases the number of Gorgons to three—Stheno (the mighty), Euryale (the far-springer) and Medusa (the queen), and makes them the daughters of the sea-god Phorcys and of Keto. Their home is on the farthest side of the western ocean; according to later authorities, in Libya (Hesiod,Theog.274; Herodotus ii. 91; Pausanias ii. 21). The Attic tradition, reproduced in Euripides (Ion1002), regarded the Gorgon as a monster, produced by Gaea to aid her sons the giants against the gods and slain by Athena (the passage is alocus classicuson the aegis of Athena).

The Gorgons are represented as winged creatures, having the form of young women; their hair consists of snakes; they are round-faced, flat-nosed, with tongues lolling out and large projecting teeth. Sometimes they have wings of gold, brazen claws and the tusks of boars. Medusa was the only one of the three who was mortal; hence Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head. From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus, her two sons by Poseidon. The head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield; according to another account, Perseus buried it in the market-place of Argos. The hideously grotesque original type of the Gorgoneion, as the Gorgon’s head was called, was placed on the walls of cities, and on shields and breastplates to terrify an enemy (cf. the hideous faces on Chinese soldiers’ shields), and used generally as an amulet, a protection against the evil eye. Heracles is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa’s hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and given it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack (Apollodorus ii. 7. 3). According to Roscher, it was supposed, when exposed to view, to bring on a storm, which put the enemy to flight. Frazer (Golden Bough, i. 378) gives examples of the superstition that cut hair caused storms. According to the later idea of Medusa as a beautiful maiden, whose hair had been changed into snakes by Athena, the head was represented in works of art with a wonderfully handsome face, wrapped in the calm repose of death. The Rondanini Medusa at Munich is a famous specimen of this conception. Various accounts of the Gorgons were given by later ancient writers. According to Diod. Sic. (iii. 54. 55) they were female warriors living near Lake Tritonis in Libya, whose queen was Medusa; according to Alexander of Myndus, quoted in Athenaeus (v. p. 221), they were terrible wild animals whose mere look turned men to stone. Pliny (Nat. Hist.vi. 36 [31]) describes them as savage women, whose persons were covered with hair, which gave rise to the story of their snaky hair and girdle. Modern authorities have explained them as the personification of the waves of the sea or of the barren, unproductive coast of Libya; or as the awful darkness of the storm-cloud, which comes from the west and is scattered by the sun-god Perseus. More recent is the explanation of anthropologists that Medusa, whose virtue is really in her head, is derived from the ritual mask common to primitive cults.

See Jane E. Harrison,Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion(1903); W. H. Roscher,Die Gorgonen und Verwandtes(1879); J. Six,De Gorgone(1885), on the types of the Gorgon’s head; articles by Roscher and Furtwängler in Roscher’sLexikon der Mythologie, by G. Glotz in Daremberg and Saglio’sDictionnaire des antiquités, and by R. Gädechens in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; N. G. Polites (Ὁ περὶ τῶν Γοργόνων μῦθος παρὰ τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ λαῷ, 1878) gives an account of the Gorgons, and of the various superstitions connected with them, from the modern Greek point of view, which regards them as malevolent spirits of the sea.

See Jane E. Harrison,Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion(1903); W. H. Roscher,Die Gorgonen und Verwandtes(1879); J. Six,De Gorgone(1885), on the types of the Gorgon’s head; articles by Roscher and Furtwängler in Roscher’sLexikon der Mythologie, by G. Glotz in Daremberg and Saglio’sDictionnaire des antiquités, and by R. Gädechens in Ersch and Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; N. G. Polites (Ὁ περὶ τῶν Γοργόνων μῦθος παρὰ τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ λαῷ, 1878) gives an account of the Gorgons, and of the various superstitions connected with them, from the modern Greek point of view, which regards them as malevolent spirits of the sea.

GORGONZOLA,a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, from which it is 11 m. E.N.E. by steam tramway. Pop. (1901) 5134. It is the centre of the district in which is produced the well-known Gorgonzola cheese.

GORI,a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis and 49 m. by rail N.W. of the city of Tiflis, on the river Kura; altitude, 2010 ft. Pop. (1897) 10,457. The surrounding country is very picturesque. Gori has a high school for girls, and a school for Russian and Tatar teachers. At one time celebrated for its silk and cotton stuffs, it is now famous for corn, reputed the best in Georgia, and the wine is also esteemed. The climate is excellent, delightfully cool in summer, owing to the refreshing breezes from the mountains, though these are, however, at times disagreeable in winter. Gori was founded (1123) by the Georgian king David II., the Renovater, for the Armenians who fled their country on the Persian invasion. The earliest remains of the fortress are Byzantine; it was thoroughly restored in 1634-1658, but destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia in the 18th century. There is a church constructed in the 17th century by Capuchin missionaries from Rome. Five miles east of Gori is the remarkable rock-cut town of Uplis-tsykhe, which was a fortress in the time of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and an inhabited city in the reign of the Georgian king Bagrat III. (980-1014).

GORILLA(orPongo), the largest of the man-like apes, and a native of West Africa from the Congo to Cameroon, whence it extends eastwards across the continent to German East Africa. Many naturalists regard the gorilla as best included in the same genus as the chimpanzee, in which case it should be known asAnthropopithecus gorilla, but by others it is regarded as the representative of a genus by itself, when its title will beGorilla savagei, orG. gorilla. That there are local forms of gorilla is quite certain: but whether any of these are entitled to rank as distinct species may be a matter of opinion. It was long supposed that the apes encountered on an island off the west coast of Africa by Hanno, the Carthaginian, were gorillas, but in theopinion of some of those best qualified to judge, it is probable that the creatures in question were really baboons. The first real account of the gorilla appears to be the one given by an English sailor, Andrew Battel, who spent some time in the wilds of West Africa during and about the year 1590; his account being presented in Purchas’sPilgrimage, published in the year 1613. From this it appears that Battel was familiar with both the chimpanzee and the gorilla, the former of which he terms engeco and the latter pongo—names which ought apparently to be adopted for these two species in place of those now in use. Between Battel’s time and 1846 nothing appears to have been heard of the gorilla or pongo, but in that year a missionary at the Gabun accidentally discovered a skull of the huge ape; and in 1847 a sketch of that specimen, together with two others, came into the hands of Sir R. Owen, by whom the nameGorilla savageiwas proposed for the new ape in 1848. Dr Thomas Savage, a missionary at the Gabun, who sent Owen information with regard to the original skull, had, however, himself proposed the nameTroglodytes gorillain 1847. The first complete skeleton of a gorilla sent to Europe was received at the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1851, and the first complete skin appears to have reached the British Museum in 1858. Paul B. du Chaillu’s account (1861) of his journeys in the Gabun region popularized the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla. Male gorillas largely exceed the females in size, and attain a height of from 5½ ft. to 6½ ft., or perhaps even more. Some of the features distinguishing the gorilla from the mere gorilla-like chimpanzees will be found mentioned in the articlePrimates. Among them are the small ears, elongated head, the presence of a deep groove alongside the nostrils, the small size of the thumb, and the great length of the arm, which reaches half-way down the shin-bone (tibia) in the erect posture. In old males the eyes are overhung by a beetling penthouse of bone, the hinder half of the middle line of the skull bears a wall-like bony ridge for the attachment of the powerful jaw-muscles, and the tusks, or canines, are of monstrous size, recalling those of a carnivorous animal. The general colour is blackish, with a more or less marked grey or brownish tinge on the hair of the shoulders, and sometimes of chestnut on the head. Mr G. L. Bates (inProc. Zool. Soc., 1905, vol. i.) states that gorillas only leave the depths of the forest to enter the outlying clearings in the neighbourhood of human settlements when they are attracted by some special fruit or succulent plant; the favourite being the fruit of the “mejom,” a tall cane-like plant (perhaps a kind ofAmomum) which grows abundantly on deserted clearings. At one isolated village the natives, who were unarmed, reported that they not unfrequently saw and heard the gorillas, which broke down the stalks of the plantains in the rear of the habitations to tear out and eat the tender heart. On the old clearings of another village Mr Bates himself, although he did not see a gorilla, saw the fresh tracks of these great apes and the torn stems and discarded fruit rinds of the “mejoms,” as well as the broken stalks of the latter, which had been used for beds. On another occasion he came across the bed of an old gorilla which had been used only the night before, as was proved by a negro woman, who on the previous evening had heard the animal breaking and treading down the stalks to form its couch. According to native report, the gorillas sleep on these beds, which are of sufficient thickness to raise them a foot or two above the ground, in a sitting posture, with the head inclined forwards on the breast. In the first case Mr Bates states that the tracks and beds indicated the presence of three or four gorillas, some of which were small. This account does not by any means accord with one given by von Koppenfels, in which it is stated that while the old male gorilla sleeps in a sitting posture at the base of a tree-trunk (no mention being made of a bed), the female and young ones pass the night in a nest in the tree several yards above the ground, made by bending the boughs together and covering them with twigs and moss. Mr Bates’s account, as being based on actual inspection of the beds, is probably the more trustworthy. Even when asleep and snoring, gorillas are difficult to approach, since they awake at the slightest rustle, and an attempt to surround the one heard making his bed by the woman resulted in failure. Most gorillas killed by natives are believed by Mr Bates to have been encountered suddenly in the daytime on the ground or in low trees in the outlying clearings. Many natives, even if armed, refuse, however, to molest an adult male gorilla, on account of its ferocity when wounded. Mr Bates, like Mr Winwood Reade, refused to credit du Chaillu’s account of his having killed gorillas, and stated that the only instance he knew of one of these animals being slain by a European was an old male (now in Mr Walter Rothschild’s museum at Tring) shot by the German trader Paschen in the Yaunde district, of which an illustrated account was published in 1901. Mr E. J. Corns states, however, that two European traders, apparently in the “’eighties” of the 19th century, were in the habit of surrounding and capturing these animals as occasion offered.1Fully adult gorillas have never been seen alive in captivity—and perhaps never will be, as the creature is ferocious and morose to a degree. So long ago as the year 1855, when the species was known to zoologists only by its skeleton, a gorilla was actually living in England. This animal, a young female, came from the Gabun, and was kept for some months in Wombwell’s travelling menagerie, where it was treated as a pet. On its death, the body was sent to Mr Charles Waterton, of Walton Hall, by whom the skin was mounted in a grotesque manner, and the skeleton given to the Leeds museum. Apparently, however, it was not till several years later that the skin was recognized by Mr A. D. Bartlett as that of a gorilla; the animal having probably been regarded by its owner as a chimpanzee. A young male was purchased by the Zoological Society in October 1887, from Mr Cross, the Liverpool dealer in animals. At the time of arrival it was supposed to be about three years old, and stood 2½ ft. high. A second, a male, supposed to be rather older, was acquired in March 1896, having been brought to Liverpool from the French Congo. It is described as having been thoroughly healthy at the date of its arrival, and of an amiable and tractable disposition. Neither survived long. Two others were received in the Zoological Society’s menagerie in 1904, and another was housed there for a short time in the following year, while a fifth was received in 1906. Falkenstein’s gorilla, exhibited at the Westminster aquarium under the name of pongo, and afterwards at the Berlin aquarium, survived for eighteen months. “Pussi,” the gorilla of the Breslau Zoological Gardens, holds a record for longevity, with over seven years of menagerie life. Writing in 1903 Mr W. T. Hornaday stated that but one live gorilla, and that a tiny infant, had ever landed in the United States; and it lived only five days after arrival.

(R. L.*)

1In 1905 the Rev. Geo. Grenfell reported that he had that summer shot a gorilla in the Bwela country, east of the Mongala affluent of the Congo.

1In 1905 the Rev. Geo. Grenfell reported that he had that summer shot a gorilla in the Bwela country, east of the Mongala affluent of the Congo.

GORINCHEM, orGorcum, a fortified town of Holland in the province of south Holland, on the right bank of the Merwede at the confluence of the Linge, 16 m. by rail W. of Dordrecht. It is connected by the Zederik and Merwede canals with Amsterdam, and steamers ply hence in every direction. Pop. (1900) 11,987. Gorinchem possesses several interesting old houses, and overlooking the river are some fortified gateways of the 17th century. The principal buildings are the old church of St Vincent, containing the monuments of the lords of Arkel; the town hall, a prison, custom-house, barracks and a military hospital. The charitable and benevolent institutions are numerous, and there are also a library and several learned associations. Gorinchem possesses a good harbour, and besides working in gold and silver, carries on a considerable trade in grain, hemp, cheese, potatoes, cattle and fish, the salmon fishery being noted. Woerkum, or Woudrichem, a little below the town on the left bank of the Merwede, is famous for its quaint old buildings, which are decorated with mosaics.

GORING, GEORGE GORING,Lord(1608-1657), English Royalist soldier, son of George Goring, earl of Norwich, was born on the 14th of July 1608. He soon became famous at court for his prodigality and dissolute manners. His father-in-law, Richard Boyle, earl of Cork, procured for him a post in the Dutcharmy with the rank of colonel. He was permanently lamed by a wound received at Breda in 1637, and returned to England early in 1639, when he was made governor of Portsmouth. He served in the Scottish war, and already had a considerable reputation when he was concerned in the “Army Plot.” Officers of the army stationed at York proposed to petition the king and parliament for the maintenance of the royal authority. A second party was in favour of more violent measures, and Goring, in the hope of being appointed lieutenant-general, proposed to march the army on London and overawe the parliament during Strafford’s trial. This proposition being rejected by his fellow officers, he betrayed the proceedings to Mountjoy Blount, earl of Newport, who passed on the information indirectly to Pym in April. Colonel Goring was thereupon called on to give evidence before the Commons, who commended him for his services to the Commonwealth. This betrayal of his comrades induced confidence in the minds of the parliamentary leaders, who sent him back to his Portsmouth command. Nevertheless he declared for the king in August. He surrendered Portsmouth to the parliament in September 1642 and went to Holland to recruit for the Royalist army, returning to England in December. Appointed to a cavalry command by the earl of Newcastle, he defeated Fairfax at Seacroft Moor near Leeds in March 1643, but in May he was taken prisoner at Wakefield on the capture of the town by Fairfax. In April 1644 he effected an exchange. At Marston Moor he commanded the Royalist left, and charged with great success, but, allowing his troopers to disperse in search of plunder, was routed by Cromwell at the close of the battle. In November 1644, on his father’s elevation to the earldom of Norwich, he became Lord Goring. The parliamentary authorities, however, refused to recognize the creation of the earldom, and continued to speak of the father as Lord Goring and the son as General Goring. In August he had been dispatched by Prince Rupert, who recognized his ability, to join Charles in the south, and in spite of his dissolute and insubordinate character he was appointed to supersede Henry, Lord Wilmot, as lieut.-general of the Royalist horse (seeGreat Rebellion). He secured some successes in the west, and in January 1645 advanced through Hampshire and occupied Farnham; but want of money compelled him to retreat to Salisbury and thence to Exeter. The excesses committed by his troops seriously injured the Royalist cause, and his exactions made his name hated throughout the west. He had himself prepared to besiege Taunton in March, yet when in the next month he was desired by Prince Charles, who was at Bristol, to send reinforcements to Sir Richard Grenville for the siege of Taunton, he obeyed the order only with ill-humour. Later in the month he was summoned with his troops to the relief of the king at Oxford. Lord Goring had long been intriguing for an independent command, and he now secured from the king what was practically supreme authority in the west. It was alleged by the earl of Newport that he was willing to transfer his allegiance once more to the parliament. It is not likely that he meditated open treason, but he was culpably negligent and occupied with private ambitions and jealousies. He was still engaged in desultory operations against Taunton when the main campaign of 1645 opened. For the part taken by Goring’s army in the operations of the Naseby campaign seeGreat Rebellion. After the decisive defeat of the king, the army of Fairfax marched into the west and defeated Goring in a disastrous fight at Langport on the 10th of July. He made no further serious resistance to the parliamentary general, but wasted his time in frivolous amusements, and in November he obtained leave to quit his disorganized forces and retire to France on the ground of health. His father’s services secured him the command of some English regiments in the Spanish service. He died at Madrid in July or August 1657. Clarendon gives him a very unpleasing character, declaring that “Goring ... would, without hesitation, have broken any trust, or done any act of treachery to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite; and in truth wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt of wickedness as any man in the age he lived in or before. Of all his qualifications dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed, or out of countenance, with being deceived but twice by him.”

See the life by C. H. Firth in theDictionary of National Biography; Dugdale’sBaronage, where there are some doubtful stories of his life in Spain; theClarendon State Papers; Clarendon’sHistory of the Great Rebellion; and S. R. Gardiner’sHistory of the Great Civil War.

See the life by C. H. Firth in theDictionary of National Biography; Dugdale’sBaronage, where there are some doubtful stories of his life in Spain; theClarendon State Papers; Clarendon’sHistory of the Great Rebellion; and S. R. Gardiner’sHistory of the Great Civil War.

GORKI, MAXIM(1868-  ), the pen-name of the Russian novelist Alexei Maximovich Pyeshkov, who was born at Nizhni-Novgorod on the 26th of March 1868. His father was a dyer, but he lost both his parents in childhood, and in his ninth year was sent to assist in a boot-shop. We find him afterwards in a variety of callings, but devouring books of all sorts greedily, whenever they fell into his hands. He ran away from the boot-shop and went to help a land-surveyor. He was then a cook on board a steamer and afterwards a gardener. In his fifteenth year he tried to enter a school at Kazan, but was obliged to betake himself again to his drudgery. He became a baker, than hawked aboutkvas, and helped the barefooted tramps and labourers at the docks. From these he drew some of his most striking pictures, and learned to give sketches of humble life generally with the fidelity of a Defoe. After a long course of drudgery he had the good fortune to obtain the place of secretary to a barrister at Nizhni-Novgorod. This was the turning-point of his fortunes, as he found a sympathetic master who helped him. He also became acquainted with the novelist Korolenko, who assisted him in his literary efforts. His first story wasMakar Chudra, which was published in the journalKavkaz. He contributed to many periodicals and finally attracted attention by his tale calledChelkash, which appeared inRusskoe Bogatsvo(“Russian wealth”). This was followed by a series of tales in which he drew with extraordinary vigour the life of thebosniaki, or tramps. He has sometimes described other classes of society, tradesmen and the educated classes, but not with equal success. There are some vigorous pictures, however, of the trading class in hisFoma Gordeyev. But his favourite type is the rebel, the man in revolt against society, and him he describes from personal knowledge, and enlists our sympathies with him. We get such a type completely inKonovalov. Gorki is always preaching that we must have ideals—something better than everyday life, and this view is brought out in his playAt the Lowest Depths, which had great success at Moscow, but was coldly received at St Petersburg.


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