Chapter 7

See R. S. Rait,Lord Gough(1903); and Sir W. Lee Warner,Lord Dalhousie(1904).

GOUGH, JOHN BARTHOLOMEW(1817-1886), American temperance orator, was born at Sandgate, Kent, England, on the 22nd of August 1817. He was educated by his mother, a schoolmistress, and at the age of twelve was sent to the United States to seek his fortune. He lived for two years with family friends on a farm in western New York, and then entered a book-bindery in New York City to learn the trade. There in 1833 his mother joined him, but after her death in 1835 he fell in with dissolute companions, and became a confirmed drunkard. He lost his position, and for several years supported himself as a ballad singer and story-teller in the cheap theatres and concert-halls of New York and other eastern cities. Even this means of livelihood was being closed to him, when in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1842 he was induced to sign a temperance pledge. After several lapses and a terrific struggle, he determined to devote his life to lecturing in behalf of temperance reform. Gifted with remarkable powers of pathos and of description, he was successful from the start, and was soon known and sought after throughout the entire country, his appeals, which were directly personal and emotional, being attended with extraordinary responses. He continued his work until the end of his life, made several tours of England, where his American success was repeated, and died at his work, being stricken with apoplexy on the lecture platform at Frankford, Pennsylvania, where he passed away two days later, on the 18th of February 1886. He published anAutobiography(1846);Orations(1854);Temperance Addresses(1870);Temperance Lectures(1879); andSunlight and Shadow, or Gleanings from My Life Work(1880).

GOUGH, RICHARD(1735-1809), English antiquary, was born in London on the 21st of October 1735. His father was a wealthy M.P. and director of the East India Company. Gough was a precocious child, and at twelve had translated from the French a history of the Bible, which his mother printed for private circulation. When fifteen he translated Abbé Fleury’s work on the Israelites; and at sixteen he published an elaborate work entitledAtlas Renovatus, or Geography modernized. In 1752 he entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he began his work on British topography, published in 1768. Leaving Cambridge in 1756, he began a series of antiquarian excursions in various parts of Great Britain. In 1773 he began an edition in English of Camden’sBritannia, which appeared in 1789. Meantime he published, in 1786, the first volume of his splendid work, theSepulchral Monuments of Great Britain, applied to illustrate the history of families, manners, habits, and arts at the different periods from the Norman Conquest to the Seventeenth Century. This volume, which contained the first four centuries, was followed in 1796 by a second volume containing the 15th century, and an introduction to the second volume appeared in 1799. Gough was chosen a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1767, and from 1771 to 1791 he was its director. He was elected F.R.S. in 1775. He died at Enfield on the 20th of February 1809. His books and manuscripts relating to Anglo-Saxon and northern literature, all his collections in the department of British topography, and a large number of his drawings and engravings of other archaeological remains, were bequeathed to the university of Oxford.

Among the minor works of Gough areAn Account of the Bedford Missal(in MS.);A Catalogue of the Coins of Canute, King of Denmark(1777);History of Pleshy in Essex(1803);An Account of the Coins of the Seleucidae, Kings of Syria(1804); and “History of the Society of Antiquaries of London,” prefixed to theirArchaeologia.

GOUJET, CLAUDE PIERRE(1697-1767), French abbé and littérateur, was born in Paris on the 19th of October 1697. He studied at the College of the Jesuits, and at the Collège Mazarin, but he nevertheless became a strong Jansenist. In 1705 he assumed the ecclesiastical habit, in 1719 entered the order of Oratorians, and soon afterwards was named canon of St Jacques l’Hôpital. On account of his extreme Jansenist opinions he suffered considerable persecution from the Jesuits, and several of his works were suppressed at their instigation. In his latter years his health began to fail, and he lost his eyesight. Poverty compelled him to sell his library, a sacrifice which hastened his death, which took place at Paris on the 1st of February 1767.

He is the author ofSupplément au dictionnaire de Moréri(1735), and aNouveau Supplémentto a subsequent edition of the work; he collaborated inBibliothèque française, ou histoire littéraire de la France(18 vols., Paris, 1740-1759); and in theVies des saints(7 vols., 1730); he also wroteMémoires historiques et littéraires sur le collège royal de France(1758);Histoire des Inquisitions(Paris, 1752); and supervised an edition of Richelet’sDictionnaire, of which he has also given an abridgment. He helped the abbé Fabre in his continuation of Fleury’sHistoire ecclésiastique.SeeMémoires hist. et litt. de l’abbé Goujet(1767).

SeeMémoires hist. et litt. de l’abbé Goujet(1767).

GOUJON, JEAN(c.1520-c.1566), French sculptor of the 16th century. Although some evidence has been offered in favour of the date 1520 (Archives de l’art français, iii. 350), the time and place of his birth are still uncertain. The first mention of his name occurs in the accounts of the church of St Maclou at Rouen in the year 1540, and in the following year he was employed at the cathedral of the same town, where he added to the tomb of Cardinal d’Amboise a statue of his nephew Georges, afterwards removed, and possibly carved portions of the tomb of Louis de Brezé, executed some time after 1545. On leaving Rouen, Goujon was employed by Pierre Lescot, the celebrated architect of the Louvre, on the restorations of St-Germain l’Auxerrois; the building accounts—some of which for the years 1542-1544 were discovered by M. de Laborde on a piece of parchment binding—specify as his work, not only the carvings of the pulpit (Louvre), but also a Notre Dame de Piété, now lost. In 1547 appeared Martin’s French translation of Vitruvius, the illustrations of which were due, the translator tells us in his “Dedication to the King,” to Goujon, “naguères architecte de Monseigneur le Connétable, et maintenant un des vôtres.” We learn from this statement not only that Goujon had been taken into the royal service on the accession of Henry II., but also that he had been previously employed under Bullant on the château of Écouen. Between 1547 and 1549 he was employed in the decoration of the Loggia ordered from Lescot for the entry of Henry II. into Paris, which took place on the 16th of June 1549. Lescot’s edifice was reconstructed at the end of the 18th century by Bernard Poyet into the Fontaine des Innocents, this being a considerable variation of the original design. At the Louvre, Goujon, under the direction of Lescot, executed the carvings of the south-west angle of the court, thereliefs of the Escalier Henri II., and the Tribune des Cariatides, for which he received 737 livres on the 5th of September 1550. Between 1548 and 1554 rose the château d’Anet, in the embellishment of which Goujon was associated with Philibert Delorme in the service of Diana of Poitiers. Unfortunately the building accounts of Anet have disappeared, but Goujon executed a vast number of other works of equal importance, destroyed or lost in the great Revolution. In 1555 his name appears again in the Louvre accounts, and continues to do so every succeeding year up to 1562, when all trace of him is lost. In the course of this year an attempt was made to turn out of the royal employment all those who were suspected of Huguenot tendencies. Goujon has always been claimed as a Reformer; it is consequently possible that he was one of the victims of this attack. We should therefore probably ascribe the work attributed to him in the Hôtel Carnavalet (in situ), together with much else executed in various parts of Paris—but now dispersed or destroyed—to a period intervening between the date of his dismissal from the Louvre and his death, which is computed to have taken place between 1564 and 1568, probably at Bologna. The researches of M. Tomaso Sandonnini (seeGazette des Beaux Arts, 2epériode, vol. xxxi.) have finally disposed of the supposition, long entertained, that Goujon died during the St Bartholomew massacre in 1572.

List of authentic works of Jean Goujon: Two marble columns supporting the organ of the church of St Maclou (Rouen) on right and left of porch on entering; left-hand gate of the church of St Maclou; bas-reliefs for decoration of screen of St Germain l’Auxerrois (now in Louvre); “Victory” over chimney-piece of Salle des Gardes at Écouen; altar at Chantilly; illustrations for Jean Martin’s translation of Vitruvius; bas-reliefs and sculptural decoration of Fontaine des Innocents; bas-reliefs adorning entrance of Hôtel Carnavalet, also series of satyrs’ heads on keystones of arcade of courtyard; fountain of Diana from Anet (now in Louvre); internal decoration of chapel at Anet; portico of Anet (now in courtyard of École des Beaux Arts); bust of Diane de Poiçtiers (now at Versailles); Tribune of Caryatides in the Louvre; decoration of “Escalier Henri II.,” Louvre; œils de bœuf and decoration of Henri II. façade, Louvre; groups for pediments of façade now placed over entrance to Egyptian and Assyrian collections, Louvre.

See A. A. Pottier,Œuvres de Goujon(1844); Reginald Lister,Jean Goujon(London, 1903).

GOUJON, JEAN MARIE CLAUDE ALEXANDRE(1766-1795), French publicist and statesman, was born at Bourg on the 13th of April 1766, the son of a postmaster. The boy went early to sea, and saw fighting when he was twelve years old; in 1790 he settled at Meudon, and began to make good his lack of education. As procureur-général-syndic of the department of Seine-et-Oise, in August, 1792, he had to supply the inhabitants with food, and fulfilled his difficult functions with energy and tact. In the Convention, which he entered on the death of Hérault de Séchelles, he took his seat on the benches of the Mountain. He conducted a mission to the armies of the Rhine and the Moselle with creditable moderation, and was a consistent advocate of peace within the republic. Nevertheless, he was a determined opponent of the counter-revolution, which he denounced in the Jacobin Club and from the Mountain after his recall to Paris, following on the revolution of the 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794). He was one of those who protested against the readmission of Louvet and other survivors of the Girondin party to the Convention in March 1795; and, when the populace invaded the legislature on the 1st Prairial (May 20, 1795) and compelled the deputies to legislate in accordance with their desires, he proposed the immediate establishment of a special commission which should assure the execution of the proposed changes and assume the functions of the various committees. The failure of the insurrection involved the fall of those deputies who had supported the demands of the populace. Before the close of the sitting, Goujon, with Romme, Duroi, Duquesnoy, Bourbotte, Soubrany and others were put under arrest by their colleagues, and on their way to the château of Taureau in Brittany had a narrow escape from a mob at Avranches. They were brought back to Paris for trial before a military commission on the 17th of June, and, though no proof of their complicity in organizing the insurrection could be found—they were, in fact, with the exception of Goujon and Bourbotte, strangers to one another—they were condemned. In accordance with a pre-arranged plan, they attempted suicide on the staircase leading from the court-room with a knife which Goujon had successfully concealed. Romme, Goujon and Duquesnoy succeeded, but the other three merely inflicted wounds which did not prevent their being taken immediately to the guillotine. With their deaths the Mountain ceased to exist as a party.

See J. Claretie,Les Derniers Montagnards, histoire de l’insurrection de Prairial an III d’après les documents(1867);Défense du représentant du peuple Goujon(Paris, no date), with the letters and a hymn written by Goujon during his imprisonment. For other documents see Maurice Tourneux (Paris, 1890, vol. i., pp. 422-425).

GOULBURN, EDWARD MEYRICK(1818-1897), English churchman, son of Mr Serjeant Goulburn, M.P., recorder of Leicester, and nephew of the Right Hon. Henry Goulburn, chancellor of the exchequer in the ministries of Sir Robert Peel and the duke of Wellington, was born in London on the 11th of February 1818, and was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1839 he became fellow and tutor of Merton, and in 1841 and 1843 was ordained deacon and priest respectively. For some years he held the living of Holywell, Oxford, and was chaplain to Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of the diocese. In 1849 he succeeded Tait as headmaster of Rugby, but in 1857 he resigned, and accepted the charge of Quebec Chapel, Marylebone. In 1858 he became a prebendary of St Paul’s, and in 1859 vicar of St John’s, Paddington. In 1866 he was made dean of Norwich, and in that office exercised a long and marked influence on church life. A strong Conservative and a churchman of traditional orthodoxy, he was a keen antagonist of “higher criticism” and of all forms of rationalism. HisThoughts on Personal Religion(1862) andThe Pursuit of Holinesswere well received; and he wrote theLife(1892) of his friend Dean Burgon, with whose doctrinal views he was substantially in agreement. He resigned the deanery in 1889, and died at Tunbridge Wells on the 3rd of May 1897.

SeeLifeby B. Compton (1899).

GOULBURN, HENRY(1784-1856), English statesman, was born in London on the 19th of March 1784 and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1808 he became member of parliament for Horsham; in 1810 he was appointed under-secretary for home affairs and two and a half years later he was made under-secretary for war and the colonies. Still retaining office in the Tory government he became a privy councillor in 1821, and just afterwards was appointed chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, a position which he held until April 1827. Here although frequently denounced as an Orangeman, his period of office was on the whole a successful one, and in 1823 he managed to pass the Irish Tithe Composition Bill. In January 1828 he was made chancellor of the exchequer under the duke of Wellington; like his leader he disliked Roman Catholic emancipation, which he voted against in 1828. In the domain of finance Goulburn’s chief achievements were to reduce the rate of interest on part of the national debt, and to allow any one to sell beer upon payment of a small annual fee, a complete change of policy with regard to the drink traffic. Leaving office with Wellington in November 1830, Goulburn was home secretary under Sir Robert Peel for four months in 1835, and when this statesman returned to office in September 1841 he became chancellor of the exchequer for the second time. Although Peel himself did some of the chancellor’s work, Goulburn was responsible for a further reduction in the rate of interest on the national debt, and he aided his chief in the struggle which ended in the repeal of the corn laws. With his colleagues he left office in June 1846. After representing Horsham in the House of Commons for over four years Goulburn was successively member for St Germans, for West Looe, and for the city of Armagh. In May 1831 he was elected for Cambridge University, and he retained this seat until his death on the 12th of January 1856at Betchworth House, Dorking. Goulburn was one of Peel’s firmest supporters and most intimate friends. His eldest son, Henry (1813-1843), was senior classic and second wrangler at Cambridge in 1835.

See S. Walpole,History of England(1878-1886).

GOULBURN,a city of Argyle county, New South Wales, Australia, 134 m. S.W. of Sydney by the Great Southern railway. Pop. (1901) 10,618. It lies in a productive agricultural district, at an altitude of 2129 ft., and is a place of great importance, being the chief depot of the inland trade of the southern part of the state. There are Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals. Manufactures of boots and shoes, flour and beer, and tanning are important. The municipality was created in 1859; and Goulburn became a city in 1864.

GOULD, AUGUSTUS ADDISON(1805-1866), American conchologist, was born at New Ipswich, New Hampshire, on the 23rd of April 1805, graduated at Harvard College in 1825, and took his degree of doctor of medicine in 1830. Thrown from boyhood on his own exertions, it was only by industry, perseverance and self-denial that he obtained the means to pursue his studies. Establishing himself in Boston, he devoted himself to the practice of medicine, and finally rose to high professional rank and social position. He became president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and was employed in editing the vital statistics of the state. As a conchologist his reputation is world-wide, and he was one of the pioneers of the science in America. His writings fill many pages of the publications of the Boston Society of Natural History (see vol. xi. p. 197 for a list) and other periodicals. He published with L. Agassiz thePrinciples of Zoology(2nd ed. 1851); he edited theTerrestrial and Air-breathing Mollusks(1851-1855) of Amos Binney (1803-1847); he translated Lamarck’sGenera of Shells. The two most important monuments to his scientific work, however, areMollusca and Shells(vol. xii., 1852) of the United States exploring expedition (1838-1842) under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1833), published by the government, and theReport on the Invertebratapublished by order of the legislature of Massachusetts in 1841. A second edition of the latter work was authorized in 1865, and published in 1870 after the author’s death, which took place at Boston on the 15th of September 1866. Gould was a corresponding member of all the prominent American scientific societies, and of many of those of Europe, including the London Royal Society.

GOULD, BENJAMIN APTHORP(1824-1896), American astronomer, a son of Benjamin Apthorp Gould (1787-1859), principal of the Boston Latin school, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, on the 27th of September 1824. Having graduated at Harvard College in 1844, he studied mathematics and astronomy under C. F. Gauss at Göttingen, and returned to America in 1848. From 1852 to 1867 he was in charge of the longitude department of the United States coast survey; he developed and organized the service, was one of the first to determine longitudes by telegraphic means, and employed the Atlantic cable in 1866 to establish longitude-relations between Europe and America. TheAstronomical Journalwas founded by Gould in 1849; and its publication, suspended in 1861, was resumed by him in 1885. From 1855 to 1859 he acted as director of the Dudley observatory at Albany, New York; and published in 1859 a discussion of the places and proper motions of circumpolar stars to be used as standards by the United States coast survey. Appointed in 1862 actuary to the United States sanitary commission, he issued in 1869 an important volume ofMilitary and Anthropological Statistics. He fitted up in 1864 a private observatory at Cambridge, Mass.; but undertook in 1868, on behalf of the Argentine republic, to organize a national observatory at Cordoba; began to observe there with four assistants in 1870, and completed in 1874 hisUranometria Argentina(published 1879) for which he received in 1883 the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. This was followed by a zone-catalogue of 73,160 stars (1884), and a general catalogue (1885) compiled from meridian observations of 32,448 stars. Gould’s measurements of L. M. Rutherfurd’s photographs of the Pleiades in 1866 entitle him to rank as a pioneer in the use of the camera as an instrument of precision; and he secured at Cordoba 1400 negatives of southern star-clusters, the reduction of which occupied the closing years of his life. He returned in 1885 to his home at Cambridge, where he died on the 26th of November 1896.

SeeAstronomical Journal, No. 389;Observatory, xx. 70 (same notice abridged);Science(Dec. 18, 1896, S. C. Chandler);Astrophysical Journal, v. 50;Monthly Notices Roy. Astr. Society, lvii. 218.

GOULD, SIR FRANCIS CARRUTHERS(1844- ), English caricaturist and politician, was born in Barnstaple on the 2nd of December 1844. Although in early youth he showed great love of drawing, he began life in a bank and then joined the London Stock Exchange, where he constantly sketched the members and illustrated important events in the financial world; many of these drawings were reproduced by lithography and published for private circulation. In 1879 he began the regular illustration of the Christmas numbers ofTruth, and in 1887 he became a contributor to thePall Mall Gazette, transferring his allegiance to theWestminster Gazetteon its foundation and subsequently acting as assistant editor. Among his independent publications areWho killed Cock Robin?(1897),Tales told in the Zoo(1900), two volumes ofFroissart’s Modern Chronicles, told and pictured by F. C. Gould(1902 and 1903), andPicture Politics—a periodical reprint of hisWestminster Gazettecartoons, one of the most noteworthy implements of political warfare in the armoury of the Liberal party. Frequently grafting his ideas on to subjects taken freely fromUncle Remus,Alice in Wonderland, and the works of Dickens and Shakespeare, Sir F. C. Gould used these literary vehicles with extraordinary dexterity and point, but with a satire that was not unkind and with a vigour from which bitterness, virulence and cynicism were notably absent. He was knighted in 1906.

GOULD, JAY(1836-1892), American financier, was born in Roxbury, Delaware county, New York, on the 27th of May 1836. He was brought up on his father’s farm, studied at Hobart Academy, and though he left school in his sixteenth year, devoted himself assiduously thereafter to private study, chiefly of mathematics and surveying, at the same time keeping books for a blacksmith for his board. For a short time he worked for his father in the hardware business; in 1852-1856 he worked as a surveyor in preparing maps of Ulster, Albany and Delaware counties in New York, of Lake and Geauga counties in Ohio, and of Oakland county in Michigan, and of a projected railway line between Newburgh and Syracuse, N.Y. An ardent anti-renter in his boyhood and youth, he wroteA History of Delaware County and the Border Wars of New York, containing a Sketch of the Early Settlements in the County, and A History of the Late Anti-Rent Difficulties in Delaware(Roxbury, 1856). He then engaged in the lumber and tanning business in western New York, and in banking at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. In 1863 he married Miss Helen Day Miller, and through her father, Daniel S. Miller, he was appointed manager of the Rensselaer & Saratoga railway, which he bought up when it was in a very bad condition, and skilfully reorganized; in the same way he bought and reorganized the Rutland & Washington railway, from which he ultimately realized a large profit. In 1859 he removed to New York City, where he became a broker in railway stocks, and in 1868 he was elected president of the Erie railway, of which by shrewd strategy he and James Fisk, Jr. (q.v.), had gained control in July of that year. The management of the road under his control, and especially the sale of $5,000,000 of fraudulent stock in 1868-1870, led to litigation begun by English bondholders, and Gould was forced out of the company in March 1872 and compelled to restore securities valued at about $7,500,000. It was during his control of the Erie that he and Fisk entered into a league with the Tweed Ring, they admitted Tweed to the directorate of the Erie, and Tweed in turn arranged favourable legislation for them at Albany. With Tweed, Gould was cartooned by Nast in 1869. In October 1871 Gould was the chief bondsman of Tweed when the latter was held in $1,000,000 bail. With Fisk in August 1869 he began to buy gold in a daringattempt to “corner” the market, his hope being that, with the advance in price of gold, wheat would advance to such a price that western farmers would sell, and there would be a consequent great movement of breadstuffs from West to East, which would result in increased freight business for the Erie road. His speculations in gold, during which he attempted through President Grant’s brother-in-law, A. H. Corbin, to influence the president and his secretary General Horace Porter, culminated in the panic of “Black Friday,” on the 24th of September 1869, when the price of gold fell from 162 to 135.

Gould gained control of the Union Pacific, from which in 1883 he withdrew after realizing a large profit. Buying up the stock of the Missouri Pacific he built up, by means of consolidations, reorganizations, and the construction of branch lines, the “Gould System” of railways in the south-western states. In 1880 he was in virtual control of 10,000 miles of railway, about one-ninth of the railway mileage of the United States at that time. Besides, he obtained a controlling interest in the Western Union Telegraph Company, and after 1881 in the elevated railways in New York City, and was intimately connected with many of the largest railway financial operations in the United States for the twenty years following 1868. He died of consumption and of mental strain on the 2nd of December 1892, his fortune at that time being estimated at $72,000,000; all of this he left to his own family.

His eldest son,George Jay Gould(b. 1864), was prominent also as an owner and manager of railways, and became president of the Little Rock & Fort Smith railway (1888), the St Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern railway (1893), the International & Great Northern railway (1893), the Missouri Pacific railway (1893), the Texas & Pacific railway (1893), and the Manhattan Railway Company (1892); he was also vice-president and director of the Western Union Telegraph Company. It was under his control that the Wabash system became transcontinental and secured an Atlantic port at Baltimore; and it was he who brought about a friendly alliance between the Gould and the Rockefeller interests.

The eldest daughter,Helen Miller Gould(b. 1868), became widely known as a philanthropist, and particularly for her generous gifts to American army hospitals in the war with Spain in 1898 and for her many contributions to New York University, to which she gave $250,000 for a library in 1895 and $100,000 for a Hall of Fame in 1900.

GOUNOD, CHARLES FRANÇOIS(1818-1893), French composer, was born in Paris on the 17th of June 1818, the son of F. L. Gounod, a talented painter. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1836, studied under Reicha, Halévy and Lesueur, and won the “Grand Prix de Rome” in 1839. While residing in the Eternal City he devoted much of his time to the study of sacred music, notably to the works of Palestrina and Bach. In 1843 he went to Vienna, where a “requiem” of his composition was performed. On his return to Paris he tried in vain to find a publisher for some songs he had written in Rome. Having become organist to the chapel of the “Missions Étrangères,” he turned his thoughts and mind to religious music. At that time he even contemplated the idea of entering into holy orders. His thoughts were, however, turned to more mundane matters when, through the intervention of Madame Viardot, the celebrated singer, he received a commission to compose an opera on a text by Émile Augier for the Académie Nationale de Musique.Sapho, the work in question, was produced in 1851, and if its success was not very great, it at least sufficed to bring the composer’s name to the fore. Some critics appeared to consider this work as evidence of a fresh departure in the style of dramatic music, and Adolphe Adam, the composer, who was also a musical critic, attributed to Gounod the wish to revive the system of musical declamation invented by Gluck. The fact was thatSaphodiffered in some respects from the operatic works of the period, and was to a certain extent in advance of the times. When it was revived at the Paris Opéra in 1884, several additions were made by the composer to the original score, not altogether to its advantage, andSaphoonce more failed to attract the public. Gounod’s second dramatic attempt was again in connexion with a classical subject, and consisted in some choruses written forUlysse, a tragedy by Ponsard, played at the Théâtre Français in 1852, when the orchestra was conducted by Offenbach. The composer’s next opera,La Nonne sanglante, given at the Paris Opéra in 1854, was a failure.

Goethe’sFausthad for years exercised a strong fascination over Gounod, and he at last determined to turn it to operatic account. The performance at a Paris theatre of a drama on the same subject delayed the production of his opera for a time. In the meanwhile he wrote in a few months the music for an operatic version of Molière’s comedy,Le Médecin malgré lui, which was produced at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1858. Berlioz well described this charming little work when he wrote of it, “Everything is pretty, piquant, fluent, in this ‘opéra comique’; there is nothing superfluous and nothing wanting.” The first performance ofFausttook place at the Théâtre Lyrique on the 19th of March 1859. Goethe’s masterpiece had already been utilized for operatic purposes by various composers, the most celebrated of whom was Spohr. The subject had also inspired Schumann, Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, to mention only a few, and the enormous success of Gounod’s opera did not deter Boito from writing hisMefistofele.Faustis without doubt the most popular French opera of the second half of the 19th century. Its success has been universal, and nowhere has it achieved greater vogue than in the land of Goethe. For years it remained the recognized type of modern French opera. At the time of its production in Paris it was scarcely appreciated according to its merits. Its style was too novel, and its luscious harmonies did not altogether suit the palates of those dilettanti who still looked upon Rossini as the incarnation of music. Times have indeed changed, and French composers have followed the road opened by Gounod, and have further developed the form of the lyrical drama, adopting the theories of Wagner in a manner suitable to their national temperament. Although in its original versionFaustcontained spoken dialogue, and was divided into set pieces according to custom, yet it differed greatly from the operas of the past. Gounod had not studied the works of German masters such as Mendelssohn and Schumann in vain, and although his own style is eminently Gallic, yet it cannot be denied that much of its charm emanates from a certain poetic sentimentality which seems to have a Teutonic origin. Certainly no music such as his had previously been produced by any French composer. Auber was a gay trifler, scattering his bright effusions with absoluteinsouciance, teeming with melodious ideas, but lacking depth. Berlioz, a musical Titan, wrestled against fate with a superhuman energy, and, Jove-like, subjugated his hearers with his thunderbolts. It was, however, reserved for Gounod to introducela note tendre, to sing the tender passion in accents soft and languorous. The musical language employed inFaustwas new and fascinating, and it was soon to be adopted by many other French composers, certain of its idioms thereby becoming hackneyed. Gounod’s opera was given in London in 1863, when its success, at first doubtful, became enormous, and it was heard concurrently at Covent Garden and Her Majesty’s theatres. Since then it has never lost its popularity.

Although the success ofFaustin Paris was at first not so great as might have been expected, yet it gradually increased and set the seal on Gounod’s fame. The fortunate composer now experienced no difficulty in finding an outlet for his works, and the succeeding decade is a specially important one in his career. The opera from his pen which came after Faust wasPhilémon et Baucis, a setting of the mythological tale in which the composer followed the traditions of the Opéra Comique, employing spoken dialogue, while not abdicating the individuality of his own style. This work was produced at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1860. It has repeatedly been heard in London.La Reine de Saba, a four-act opera, produced at the Grand Opéra on the 28th of February 1862, was altogether a far more ambitious work. For some reason it did not meetwith success, although the score contains some of Gounod’s choicest inspirations, notably the well-known air, “Lend me your aid.”La Reine de Sabawas adapted for the English stage under the name ofIrene. The non-success of this work proved a great disappointment to Gounod, who, however, set to work again, and this time with better results,Mireille, the fruit of his labours, being given for the first time at the Théâtre Lyrique on the 19th of March 1864. Founded upon theMireioof the Provençal poet Mistral,Mireillecontains much charming and characteristic music. The libretto seems to have militated against its success, and although several revivals have taken place and various modifications and alterations have been made in the score, yetMireillehas never enjoyed a very great vogue. Certain portions of this opera have, however, been popularized in the concert-room.La Colombe, a little opera in two acts without pretension, deserves mention here. It was originally heard at Baden in 1860, and subsequently at the Opéra Comique. A suavely melodiousentr’actefrom this little work has survived and been repeatedly performed.

Animated with the desire to give a pendant to hisFaust, Gounod now sought for inspiration from Shakespeare, and turned his attention toRomeo and Juliet. Here, indeed, was a subject particularly well calculated to appeal to a composer who had so eminently qualified himself to be considered the musician of the tender passion. The operatic version of the Shakespearean tragedy was produced at the Théâtre Lyrique on the 27th of April 1867. It is generally considered as being the composer’s second best opera. Some people have even placed it on the same level asFaust, but this verdict has not found general acceptance. Gounod himself is stated to have expressed his opinion of the relative value of the two operas enigmatically by saying, “Faustis the oldest, but I was younger;Roméois the youngest, but I was older.” The luscious strains wedded to the love scenes, if at times somewhat cloying, are generally in accord with the situations, often irresistibly fascinating, while always absolutely individual. The success ofRoméoin Paris was great from the outset, and eventually this work was transferred to the Grand Opéra, after having for some time formed part of the répertoire of the Opéra Comique. In London it was not until the part of Romeo was sung by Jean de Reszke that this opera obtained any real hold upon the English public.

After having so successfully sought for inspiration from Molière, Goethe and Shakespeare, Gounod now turned to another famous dramatist, and selected Pierre Corneille’sPolyeucteas the subject of his next opera. Some years were, however, to elapse before this work was given to the public. The Franco-German War had broken out, and Gounod was compelled to take refuge in London, where he composed the “biblical elegy”Galliafor the inauguration of the Royal Albert Hall. During his stay in London Gounod composed a great deal and wrote a number of songs to English words, many of which have attained an enduring popularity, such as “Maid of Athens,” “There is a green hill far away,” “Oh that we two were maying,” “The fountain mingles with the river.” His sojourn in London was not altogether pleasant, as he was embroiled in lawsuits with publishers. On Gounod’s return to Paris he hurriedly set to music an operatic version of Alfred de Vigny’sCinq-Mars, which was given at the Opéra Comique on the 5th of April 1877 (and in London in 1900), without obtaining much success.Polyeucte, his much-cherished work, appeared at the Grand Opéra the following year on the 7th of October, and did not meet with a better fate. Neither was Gounod more fortunate withLe Tribut de Zamora, his last opera, which, given on the same stage in 1881, speedily vanished, never to reappear. In his later dramatic works he had, unfortunately, made no attempt to keep up with the times, preferring to revert to old-fashioned methods.

The genius of the great composer was, however, destined to assert itself in another field—that of sacred music. His friend Camille Saint-Saëns, in a volume entitledPortraits et Souvenirs, writes:

Gounod did not cease all his life to write for the church, to accumulate masses and motetts; but it was at the commencement of his career, in theMesse de Sainte Cécile, and at the end, in the oratoriosThe Redemption and Mors et vita, that he rose highest.

Saint-Saëns, indeed, has formulated the opinion that the three above-mentioned works will survive all the master’s operas. Among the many masses composed by Gounod at the outset of his career, the best is theMesse de Sainte Cécile, written in 1855. He also wrote theMesse du Sacré Cœur(1876) and theMesse à la mémoire de Jeanne d’Arc(1887). This last work offers certain peculiarities, being written for solos, chorus, organ, eight trumpets, three trombones, and harps. In style it has a certain affinity with Palestrina.The Redemption, which seems to have acquired a permanent footing in Great Britain, was produced at the Birmingham Festival of 1882. It was styled a sacred trilogy, and was dedicated to Queen Victoria. The score is prefixed by a commentary written by the composer, in which the scope of the oratorio is explained. It cannot be said that Gounod has altogether risen to the magnitude of his task. The music ofThe Redemptionbears the unmistakable imprint of the composer’s hand, and contains many beautiful thoughts, but the work in its entirety is not exempt from monotony.Mors et vita, a sacred trilogy dedicated to Pope Leo XIII., was also produced for the first time in Birmingham at the Festival of 1885. This work is divided into three parts, “Mors,” “Judicium,” “Vita.” The first consists of a Requiem, the second depicts the Judgment, the third Eternal Life. Although quite equal, if not superior toThe Redemption,Mors et vitahas not obtained similar success.

Gounod was a great worker, an indefatigable writer, and it would occupy too much space to attempt even an incomplete catalogue of his compositions. Besides the works already mentioned may be named two symphonies which were played during the ’fifties, but have long since fallen into neglect. Symphonic music was not Gounod’s forte, and the French master evidently recognized the fact, for he made no further attempts in this style. The incidental music he wrote to the dramasLes Deux ReinesandJeanne d’Arcmust not be forgotten. He also attempted to set Molière’s comedy,Georges Dandin, to music, keeping to the original prose. This work has never been brought out. Gounod composed a large number of songs, many of which are very beautiful. One of the vocal pieces that have contributed most to his popularity is the celebratedMeditation on the First Prelude of Bach, more widely known as theAve Maria. The idea of fitting a melody to the Prelude of Bach was original, and it must be admitted that in this case the experiment was successful.

Gounod died at St Cloud on the 18th of October 1893. His influence on French music was immense, though during the last years of the 19th century it was rather counterbalanced by that of Wagner. Whatever may be the verdict of posterity, it is unlikely that the quality of individuality will be denied to Gounod. To be the composer ofFaustis alone a sufficient title to lasting fame.

(A. He.)

1-5. Various forms of bottle gourd,Lagenaria vulgaris.

6. Giant gourd,Cucurbita maxima.

GOURD,a name given to various plants of the orderCucurbitaceae, especially those belonging to the genusCucurbita, monoecious trailing herbs of annual duration, with long succulent stems furnished with tendrils, and large, rough, palmately-lobed leaves; the flowers are generally large and of a bright yellow or orange colour, the barren ones with the stamens united; the fertile are followed by the large succulent fruit that gives the gourds their chief economic value. Many varieties ofCucurbitaare under cultivation in tropical and temperate climates, especially in southern Asia; but it is extremely difficult to refer them to definite specific groups, on account of the facility with which they hybridize; while it is very doubtful whether any of the original forms now exist in the wild state. Charles Naudin, who made a careful and interesting series of observations upon this genus, came to the conclusion that all varieties known in European gardens might be referred to six original species; probably three, or at most four, have furnished the edible kinds in ordinary cultivation. Adopting the specificnames usually given to the more familiar forms, the most important of the gourds, from an economic point of view, is perhapsC. maxima, thePotiron Jauneof the French, the red and yellow gourd of British gardeners (fig. 6), the spheroidal fruit of which is remarkable for its enormous size: the colour of the somewhat rough rind varies from white to bright yellow, while in some kinds it remains green; the fleshy interior is of a deep yellow or orange tint. This valuable gourd is grown extensively in southern Asia and Europe. In Turkey and Asia Minor it yields, at some periods of the year, an important article of diet to the people; immense quantities are sold in the markets of Constantinople, where in the winter the heaps of one variety with a white rind are described as resembling mounds of snowballs. The yellow kind attains occasionally a weight of upwards of 240 ℔. It grows well in Central Europe and the United States, while in the south of England it will produce its gigantic fruit in perfection in hot summers. The yellow flesh of this gourd and its numerous varieties yields a considerable amount of nutriment, and is the more valuable as the fruit can be kept, even in warm climates, for a long time. In France and in the East it is much used in soups and ragouts, while simply boiled it forms a substitute for other table vegetables; the taste has been compared to that of a young carrot. In some countries the larger kinds are employed as cattle food. The seeds yield by expression a large quantity of a bland oil, which is used for the same purposes as that of the poppy and olive. The “mammoth” gourds of English and American gardeners (known in America as squashes) belong to this species. The pumpkin (summer squash of America) isCucurbita Pepo. Some of the varieties ofC. maximaand Pepo contain a considerable quantity of sugar, amounting in the sweetest kinds to 4 or 5%, and in the hot plains of Hungary efforts have been made to make use of them as a commercial source of sugar. The young shoots of both these large gourds may be given to cattle, and admit of being eaten as a green vegetable when boiled. The vegetable marrow is a variety (ovifera) ofC. Pepo. Many smaller gourds are cultivated in India and other hot climates, and some have been introduced into English gardens, rather for the beauty of their fruit and foliage than for their esculent qualities. Among these isC. Pepovar.aurantia, the orange gourd, bearing a spheroidal fruit, like a large orange in form and colour; in Britain it is generally too bitter to be palatable, though applied to culinary purposes in Turkey and the Levant.C. Pepovar.pyriformisand var.verrucosa, the warted gourds, are likewise occasionally eaten, especially in the immature state; andC. moschata(musk melon) is very extensively cultivated throughout India by the natives, the yellow flesh being cooked and eaten.

The bottle-gourds are placed in a separate genus,Lagenaria, chiefly differing fromCucurbitain the anthers being free instead of adherent. The bottle-gourd properly so-called,L. vulgaris, is a climbing plant with downy, heart-shaped leaves and beautiful white flowers: the remarkable fruit (figs. 1-5) first begins to grow in the form of an elongated cylinder, but gradually widens towards the extremity, until, when ripe, it resembles a flask with a narrow neck and large rounded bulb; it sometimes attains a length of 7 ft. When ripe, the pulp is removed from the neck, and the interior cleared by leaving water standing in it; the woody rind that remains is used as a bottle: or the lower part is cut off and cleared out, forming a basin-like vessel applied to the same domestic purposes as the calabash (Crescentia) of the West Indies: the smaller varieties, divided lengthwise, form spoons. The ripe fruit is apt to be bitter and cathartic, but while immature it is eaten by the Arabs and Turks. When about the size of a small cucumber, it is stuffed with rice and minced meat, flavoured with pepper, onions, &c., and then boiled, forming a favourite dish with Eastern epicures. The elongated snake-gourds of India and China (Trichosanthes) are used in curries and stews.

All the true gourds have a tendency to secrete the cathartic principlecolocynthin, and in many varieties ofCucurbitaand the allied genera it is often elaborated to such an extent as to render them unwholesome, or even poisonous. The seeds of several species therefore possess some anthelmintic properties; those of the common pumpkin are frequently administered in America as a vermifuge.

The cultivation of gourds began far beyond the dawn of history, and the esculent species have become so modified by culture that the original plants from which they have descended can no longer be traced. The abundance of varieties in India would seem to indicate that part of Asia as the birthplace of the present edible forms; but some appear to have been cultivated in all the hotter regions of that continent, and in North Africa, from the earliest ages, while the Romans were familiar with at least certain kinds ofCucurbita, and with the bottle-gourd.Cucurbita Pepo, the source of many of the American forms, is probably a native of that continent.

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