The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 219

GOLDEN LEGEND, a collection of lives of saints and other tales, such as that of the "Seven Sleepers" and "St. George and the Dragon," made in the 13th century by Jacques de Voragine, a Dominican monk, to the glory especially of his brotherhood.

GOLDEN ROSE, a cl.u.s.ter of roses on a th.o.r.n.y stem, all of gold; perfumed, and blessed by the Pope on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and sent to a prince who has during the year shown most zeal for the Church.

GOLDONI, CARLO, the founder of Italian comedy, born at Venice; in his youth he studied medicine and subsequently law, but in 1732 appeared as a dramatist with his tragedy "Belisario"; moving from place to place as a strolling-player, he in 1736 returned to Venice, and finding his true vocation in comedy-writing, turned out a rapid succession of sparkling character plays after the manner of Moliere; in 1761 he went to Paris as a playwright to the Italian theatre; became Italian master to Louis XV.'s daughters, and subsequently was pensioned; his comedies displaced the burlesques and farces till then in vogue on the stage in Italy (1707-1793).

GOLDSCHMIDT, MADAME. See LIND, JENNY.

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, English man of letters, born at Pallas or Pallasmore, co. Longford, Ireland, and celebrated in English literature as the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield"; a born genius, but of careless ways, and could not be trained to any profession, either in the Church, in law, or in medicine, though more or less booked for all three in succession; set out on travel on the Continent without a penny, and supported himself by his flute and other unknown means; came to London, tried teaching, then literature, doing hack-work, his first work in that department being "An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe," which was succeeded by his "Citizen of the World"; became a member of the "Literary Club," and a.s.sociated with Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, and others; produced poems, "The Traveller" and the "Deserted Village," besides comedies, such as "She Stoops to Conquer"; lived extravagantly, and died in debt; wrote histories of Greece and Rome, and "Animated Nature"; was a charming writer (1728-1774).

GOLF, a game played with a bent club and a small ball on commons with short gra.s.s, in which the player who drives the ball into a succession of small holes in the ground, usually 18, with the fewest strokes, or who reckons up the most holes in the round by taking them with the fewest strokes, is the winner; an old popular Scotch game, and first introduced into English on Blackheath by James I., which has of late years been revived, and in connection with which clubs have established themselves far and wide over the globe, even at Bagdad.

GOLIATH, a Philistine giant of Gath slain by David with pebbles from a brook by a sling (1 Sam. xvii.).

GOMARISTS, a sect of Calvinists in Holland, so called from their leader Gomarus (1563-1641), a bitter enemy of ARMINIUS (q. v.).

GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE, French novelists, born, the former at Nancy, the latter at Paris; a habit of elaborate note-taking whilst on sketching tours first drew the brothers towards literature, and inoculated them with the habit of minute and accurate observation which gave value to their subsequent writings; their first real venture was a series of historical studies, designed to reproduce with every elaboration of detail French society in the later half of the 18th century, including a "History of French Society during the Revolution"; later they found their true province in the novel, and a series of striking works of fiction became the product of their joint labours, works which have influenced subsequent novelists not a little; "Les Hommes de Lettres" (1860) was the first of these, and "Madame Gervaisais"

(1869) is perhaps their best; their collaboration was broken in 1870 by the death of Jules; but Edmond still continued to write, and produced amongst other novels "La Fille elisa"; the "Journal" of the brothers appeared in 1888 in six vols. (Edmond, 1822-1888; Jules, 1830-1870).

GONDAR (4), a once populous city and the capital of AMHARA (q. v.), situated on a basaltic ridge in the Wogra Mountains, 23 m. N.

of Lake Tzana; there are ruins of an old castle, churches and mosques, and establishments for the training of Abyssinian priests.

GONERAL, an unnatural daughter of King Lear.

GONSALEZ, a Spanish hero of the 10th century, celebrated for his adventures, and whose life was twice saved by his wife.

GONZAGA, the name of a princely family from Germany, settled in Mantua, from which the dukes were descended who ruled the territory from 1328 to 1708.

GONZALVO DI CORDOVA (the popular name of Gonzalo Hernandez y Aguilar), a renowned Spanish soldier, born at Montilla, near Cordova; he first became prominent in the wars with the Moors of Granada and with Portugal, and was rewarded with an estate and pensioned; in 1498 he so distinguished himself in a.s.sisting the king of Naples (Ferdinand II.) to drive out the French that he became known henceforth as _El Gran Capitan_, and was created Duke of San Angelo; subsequent heroic achievements in Naples, which won the kingdom for Spain (1503), roused a feeling of jealousy in the Spanish king, so that Gonzalvo was recalled and ill-requited for his great services (1453-1515).

GOOD FRIDAY, the Friday before Easter, held sacred from early times by the Church in commemoration of the crucifixion of Christ, observed originally with fasting and prayer.

GOOD REGENT, the REGENT MURRAY (q. v.).

GOOD TEMPLARS, a total abstinence fraternity organised in New York in 1851, which has lodges, subordinate, district, and grand, now all over the world; they exact a pledge of lifelong abstinence, and advocate the suppression of the vice by statute; there is a juvenile section pledged to abstinence from tobacco, gambling, and bad language, as well as drink.

GOODFELLOW, ROBIN, a merry domestic spirit, full of tricks and practical jokes, and a constant attendant upon the English fairy court.

GOODMAN OF BALLENGEICH, a name a.s.sumed by James V. of Scotland in his disguised perambulations about Edinburgh o' nights.

GOODSIR, JOHN, eminent Scotch anatomist, born at Anstruther; was trained at St. Andrews and Edinburgh, in which latter city he served an apprenticeship in dentistry; he settled in Anstruther and there wrote his noted essay on "Teeth"; in 1840 he became keeper of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and lecturer on Diseases of the Bone in 1842; four years later he succeeded Dr. Monro in the chair of Anatomy in Edinburgh University, which he adorned, having for some time previously acted as a.s.sistant (1814-1867).

GOODWIN SANDS, a famous sandbank stretching 10 m. along the E. coast of Kent, about 5 m. from the sh.o.r.e; with the flowing of the tidal current the hidden sands are apt to shift and change their outline, and when storms of great violence sweep over them, despite their being well marked by four lightships and nine buoys, they have often been the occasion of a long series of melancholy shipwrecks; the shoal forms a splendid breakwater for the Downs, an excellent anchorage, stretching between the Goodwins and the sh.o.r.e; they are supposed popularly to be the remnants of an estate which belonged to the great EARL OF G.o.dWIN (q. v.), but this supposition is a mere fable.

GOODY TWO SHOES, a character in a nursery story published in 1765, and supposed to have been written by Goldsmith when in straits.

GOODYEAR, CHARLES, the inventor of vulcanised rubber, born at New Haven, Connecticut; his career was a troubled one; he failed as an iron-founder, and when, after 10 years labour, amidst every disadvantage of poverty and privation, he in 1844 produced his new method of hardening rubber by means of sulphur, he became involved in a fresh series of troubles, as well as poverty, consequent on the infringement of his inventions; his patents latterly amounted to 60, and medals and honours, were awarded him both in London and Paris (1800-1860).

GOORKHAS or GURKHAS, a brave and powerful native race in Nepal claiming Hindu descent; in 1814 they were subdued by the British, and have since rendered valuable service to Britain in the Mutiny, in the Afghan and in the Sikh Wars; there are now ten regiments of Goorkhas.

GORDIAN KNOT, a knot by which the yoke was fastened to the beam of the chariot of Gordius (q. v.), and which no one could untie except the man who was destined to be the conqueror of Asia; Alexander the Great being ambitious to achieve this feat, tried hard to undo it, but failing, cut it with his sword and marched on to conquest.

GORDIa.n.u.s, the name of three Roman Emperors, father, son, and grandson. MARCUS ANTONIUS GORDIa.n.u.s, surnamed Africa.n.u.s, rose to be an aedile, consul twice, and subsequently became proconsul of Africa; on the deposition of the Emperor Maximinus in 238, he, then in his eightieth year, was proclaimed emperor, his son (_b_. A.D. 192) being a.s.sociated with him in the imperial office; grief at the death of his son, killed in battle, caused him to commit suicide a month after he had a.s.sumed the purple; he was a man of refined and generous nature. MARCUS ANTONIUS GORDIa.n.u.s, grandson of preceding, was early raised to the dignity of Caesar, and in 238 rose to the rank of Augustus; his most important achievement was his driving back of the Persians beyond the Euphrates and his relief of Antioch; he was a.s.sa.s.sinated in 244 by his own soldiers while preparing to cross the Euphrates.

GORDIUS, a boor, the father of Midas (q. v.), who was proclaimed king of Phrygia because he happened, in response to the decree of an oracle, to be the first to ride into Gordium during a particular a.s.sembly of the people; he rode into the city on a waggon, to which the yoke was attached by the Gordian knot, and which he dedicated to Zeus.

GORDON, GENERAL CHARLES GEORGE, born at Woolwich, son of an artillery officer; entered the Royal Engineers; served in the Crimea as an officer in that department, and was, after the war, employed in defining the boundaries of Asiatic Turkey and Russia; being employed in 1860 on a mission to square up matters with the Chinese, on the settlement of the quarrel lent himself to the Emperor in the interest of good order, and it was through him that the Taiping Rebellion in 1863-64 was extinguished, whereby he earned the t.i.tle of "Chinese" Gordon; he returned to England in 1865, and was for the next six years engaged in completing the defences of the Thames at Gravesend; he was Vice-Consul of the delta of the Danube during 1871-73, at the end of which term he conducted an expedition into Africa under the Khedive of Egypt, and was in 1877 appointed governor of the Soudan, in which capacity, by the confidence his character inspired, he succeeded in settling no end of troubles and allaying lifelong feuds; he relinquished this post in 1880, and in 1884, the English Government having resolved to evacuate the Soudan, he was commissioned to superintend the operation; he started off at once, and arrived at Khartoum in February of that year, where, by the end of April, all communication between him and Cairo was cut off; an expedition was fitted out for his relief, but was too late in arriving, the place was stormed by the Arabs, and he with his comrades fell dead under a volley of Arab musketry, January 28; from the commencement to the close of his career he distinguished himself as a genuine Christian and a brave man (1833-1885).

GORDON, LORD GEORGE, Anti-Papal agitator, born in London, son of the Duke of Gordon; he adopted the navy as a profession, and rose to be lieutenant; entered Parliament, and soon made himself conspicuous by his indiscriminate attacks on both Whigs and Tories; gave a pa.s.sionate support to the London Protestant a.s.sociation formed for the purpose of bringing about the repeal of the Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation Bill of 1778; in 1780, as President of the a.s.sociation, took the leading part in the famous No Popery riots in London; was tried but acquitted, mainly through the eloquent defence of Erskine; subsequently he was excommunicated for contempt of court, and eventually, after endeavouring to escape prosecution for two treasonable pamphlets, was apprehended, and died in Newgate (1751-1793).

GORDON, SIR JOHN WATSON, a portrait-painter, born in Edinburgh; was a pupil of Raeburn's, and his successor as a painter of portraits; executed portraits of most of the eminent Scotchmen of his time, and among the number Sir Walter Scott, the Duke of Buccleuch, Lord c.o.c.kburn, Dr. Chalmers, and Professor Wilson (1788-1864).

GORE, CHARLES, canon of Westminster, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, is an exponent of High Church tenets; the editor of _Lux Mundi_, and the author of the Bampton Lecture for 1891, on "The Incarnation of the Son of G.o.d"; _b_. 1853.

GoRGEI, ARTHUR, a Hungarian patriot; at the age of 27 entered the army, and designed to devote himself to the study of chemistry and the administration of his estate; but on the outbreak of the Revolution in 1848 he joined the revolutionists; crushed the Croatians at Ozora; at the head of a patriot army faced the Austrians under Windischgratz on the western frontier, and despite a temporary repulse, succeeded in a.s.serting the supremacy of the Hungarian cause in a series of victories; Russian a.s.sistance accorded to Austria, however, changed the fortune of war; Kossuth resigned, and Gorgei became dictator; but hopeless of success, he immediately negotiated a peace with the Russians; in 1851 he published a vindication of his policy and surrender, and in 1885 was exonerated by his compatriots from the charges of treachery brought against him by Kossuth; _b_. 1818.