[1] This word is generally taken to represent in O. Eng.
_gafolgecynd_, from _gafol_, payment, tribute, and _gecynd_, species,
kind, and originally to have meant tenure by payment of rent or
non-military services, cf. gafol-land, and thence to have been
applied to the particular custom attached to such tenure in Kent.
_Gafol_ apparently is derived from the Teutonic root seen in "to
give"; the Med. Lat. _gabulum, gablum_ gives the Fr. _gabelle_, tax.
GAVESTON, PIERS (d. 1312), earl of Cornwall, favourite of the English
king Edward II., was the son of a Gascon knight, and was brought up at
the court of Edward I. as companion to his son, the future king. Strong,
talented and ambitious, Gaveston gained great influence over young
Edward, and early in 1307 he was banished from England by the king; but
he returned after the death of Edward I. a few months later, and at once
became the chief adviser of Edward II. Made earl of Cornwall, he
received both lands and money from the king, and added to his wealth and
position by marrying Edward's niece, Margaret, daughter of Gilbert de
Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295). He was regent of the kingdom during
the king's short absence in France in 1308, and took a very prominent
part at Edward's coronation in February of this year. These proceedings
aroused the anger and jealousy of the barons, and their wrath was
diminished neither by Gaveston's superior skill at the tournament, nor
by his haughty and arrogant behaviour to themselves. They demanded his
banishment; and the king, forced to assent, sent his favourite to
Ireland as lieutenant, where he remained for about a year. Returning to
England in July 1309, Edward persuaded some of the barons to sanction
this proceeding; but as Gaveston was more insolent than ever the old
jealousies soon broke out afresh. In 1311 the king was forced to agree
to the election of the "ordainers," and the ordinances they drew up
provided _inter alia_ for the perpetual banishment of his favourite.
Gaveston then retired to Flanders, but returned secretly to England at
the end of 1311. Soon he was publicly restored by Edward, and the barons
had taken up arms. Deserted by the king he surrendered to Aymer de
Valence, earl of Pembroke (d. 1324), at Scarborough in May 1312, and was
taken to Deddington in Oxfordshire, where he was seized by Guy de
Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1315). Conveyed to Warwick castle he was
beheaded on Blacklow Hill near Warwick on the 19th of June 1312.
Gaveston, whose body was buried in 1315 at King's Langley, left an only
daughter.
See W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, vol. ii. (Oxford, 1896); and
_Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II._, edited by W.
Stubbs. Rolls series (London, 1882-1883).
GAVOTTE (a French word adopted from the Provençal _gavoto_), properly
the dance of the Gavots or natives of Gap, a district in the Upper Alps,
in the old province of Dauphiné. It is a dance of a brisk and lively
character, somewhat resembling the minuet, but quicker and less stately
(see DANCE); hence also the use of this name for a corresponding form of
musical composition.
GAWAIN (Fr. _Walwain (Brut), Gauvain, Gaugain_; Lat. _Walganus_,
_Walwanus_; Dutch, _Walwein_, Welsh, _Gwalchmei_), son of King Loth of
Orkney, and nephew to Arthur on his mother's side, the most famous hero
of Arthurian romance. The first mention of his name is in a passage of
William of Malmesbury, recording the discovery of his tomb in the
province of Ros in Wales. He is there described as "_Walwen qui fuit
haud degener Arturis ex sorore nepos_." Here he is said to have reigned
over Galloway; and there is certainly some connexion, the character of
which is now not easy to determine, between the two. In the later
_Historia_ of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and its French translation by Wace,
Gawain plays an important and "pseudo-historic" rôle. On the receipt by
Arthur of the insulting message of the Roman emperor, demanding tribute,
it is he who is despatched as ambassador to the enemy's camp, where his
arrogant and insulting behaviour brings about the outbreak of
hostilities. On receipt of the tidings of Mordred's treachery, Gawain
accompanies Arthur to England, and is slain in the battle which ensues
on their landing. Wace, however, evidently knew more of Gawain than he
has included in his translation, for he speaks of him as
Li quens Walwains
Qui tant fu preudom de ses mains (11. 9057-58).
and later on says
Prous fu et de mult grant mesure,
D'orgoil et de forfait n'ot qure
Plus vaut faire qu'il ne dist
Et plus doner qu'il ne pramist (10. 106-109).
The English Arthurian poems regard him as the type and model of
chivalrous courtesy, "the fine father of nurture," and as Professor
Maynadier has well remarked, "previous to the appearance of Malory's
compilation it was Gawain rather than Arthur, who was the typical
English hero." It is thus rather surprising to find that in the earliest
preserved MSS. of Arthurian romance, i.e. in the poems of Chrétien de
Troyes, Gawain, though generally placed first in the list of knights, is
by no means the hero _par excellence_. The latter part of the _Perceval_
is indeed devoted to the recital of his adventures at the _Chastel
Merveilleus_, but of none of Chrétien's poems is he the protagonist. The
anonymous author of the _Chevalier à l'epée_ indeed makes this apparent
neglect of Gawain a ground of reproach against Chrétien. At the same
time the majority of the short episodic poems connected with the cycle
have Gawain for their hero. In the earlier form of the prose romances,
e.g. in the _Merlin_ proper, Gawain is a dominant personality, his feats
rivalling in importance those ascribed to Arthur, but in the later forms
such as the _Merlin_ continuations, the _Tristan_, and the final
_Lancelot_ compilation, his character and position have undergone a
complete change, he is represented as cruel, cowardly and treacherous,
and of indifferent moral character. Most unfortunately our English
version of the romances, Malory's _Morte Arthur_, being derived from
these later forms (though his treatment of Gawain is by no means
uniformly consistent), this unfavourable aspect is that under which the
hero has become known to the modern reader. Tennyson, who only knew the
Arthurian story through the medium of Malory, has, by exaggeration,
largely contributed to this misunderstanding. Morris, in _The Defence of
Guinevere_, speaks of "gloomy Gawain"; perhaps the most absurdly
misleading epithet which could possibly have been applied to the "gay,
gratious, and gude" knight of early English tradition.
The truth appears to be that Gawain, the Celtic and mythic origin of
whose character was frankly admitted by the late M. Gaston Paris,
belongs to the very earliest stage of Arthurian tradition, long
antedating the crystallization of such tradition into literary form. He
was certainly known in Italy at a very early date; Professor Rajna has
found the names of Arthur and Gawain in charters of the early 12th
century, the bearers of those names being then grown to manhood; and
Gawain is figured in the architrave of the north doorway of Modena
cathedral, a 12th-century building. Recent discoveries have made it
practically certain that there existed, prior to the extant romances, a
collection of short episodic poems, devoted to the glorification of
Arthur's famous nephew and his immediate kin (his brother Ghaeris, or
Gareth, and his son Guinglain), the authorship of which was attributed
to a Welshman, Bleheris; fragments of this collection have been
preserved to us alike in the first continuation of Chrétien de Troyes
_Perceval_, due to Wauchier de Denain, and in our vernacular _Gawain_
poems. Among these "Bleheris" poems was one dealing with Gawain's
adventures at the Grail castle, where the Grail is represented as
non-Christian, and presents features strongly reminiscent of the ancient
Nature mysteries. There is good ground for believing that as Grail
quester and winner, Gawain preceded alike Perceval and Galahad, and that
the solution of the mysterious Grail problem is to be sought rather in
the tales connected with the older hero than in those devoted to the
glorification of the younger knights. The explanation of the very
perplexing changes which the character of Gawain has undergone appears
to lie in a misunderstanding of the original sources of that character.
Whether or no Gawain was a sun-hero, and he certainly possessed some of
the features--we are constantly told how his strength waxed with the
waxing of the sun till noontide, and then gradually decreased; he owned
a steed known by a definite name le Gringalet; and a light-giving sword,
Escalibur (which, as a rule, is represented as belonging to Gawain, not
to Arthur)--all traits of a sun-hero--he certainly has much in common
with the primitive Irish hero Cuchullin. The famous head-cutting
challenge, so admirably told in _Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knighte_, was
originally connected with the Irish champion. Nor was the lady of
Gawain's love a mortal maiden, but the queen of the other-world. In
Irish tradition the other-world is often represented as an island,
inhabited by women only; and it is this "Isle of Maidens" that Gawain
visits in _Diu Crone_; returning therefrom dowered with the gift of
eternal youth. The Chastel Merveilleus adventure, related at length by
Chrétien and Wolfram is undoubtedly such an "other-world" story. It
seems probable that it was this connexion which won for Gawain the title
of the "Maidens' Knight," a title for which no satisfactory explanation
is ever given. When the source of the name was forgotten its meaning was
not unnaturally misinterpreted, and gained for Gawain the reputation of
a facile morality, which was exaggerated by the pious compilers of the
later Grail romances into persistent and aggravated wrong-doing; at the
same time it is to be noted that Gawain is never like Tristan and
Lancelot, the hero of an illicit connexion maintained under
circumstances of falsehood and treachery. Gawain, however, belonged to
the pre-Christian stage of Grail tradition, and it is not surprising
that writers, bent on spiritual edification, found him somewhat of a
stumbling-block. Chaucer, when he spoke of Gawain coming "again out of
faërie," spoke better than he knew; the home of that very gallant and
courteous knight is indeed Fairy-land, and the true Gawain-tradition is
informed with fairy glamour and grace.
See _Syr Gawayne_, the English poems relative to that hero, edited by
Sir Frederick Madden for the Bannatyne Club, 1839 (out of print and
difficult to procure); _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. xxx.;
introduction and summary of episodic "Gawain" poems by Gaston Paris;
_The Legend of Sir Gawain_, by Jessie L. Weston, Grimm Library, vol.
vii.; _The Legend of Sir Perceval_, by Jessie L. Weston, Grimm
Library, vol. xvii.; "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," "Sir Gawain at
the Grail Castle" and "Sir Gawain and the Lady of Lys," vols. i., vi
and vii. of _Arthurian Romances_ (Nutt).
GAWLER, a town of Gawler county, South Australia, on the Para river, 24¾
m. by rail N.E. of Adelaide. It is one of the most thriving places in
the colony, being the centre of a large wheat-growing district; it has
also engineering works, foundries, flour-mills, breweries and saw-mills,
while gold, silver, copper and lead are found in the neighbouring hills.
The inhabitants of the town and its extensive suburbs number about 7000;
though the population of the town itself in 1901 was 1996.
GAY, JOHN (1685-1732), English poet, was baptized on the 16th of
September 1685 at Barnstaple, where his family had long been settled. He
was educated at the grammar school of the town under Robert Luck, who
had published some Latin and English poems. On leaving school he was
apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Dr
Johnson, "of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation,"
he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he spent some time with his uncle,
the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then
returned to London, and though no details are available for his
biography until the publication of _Wine_ in 1708, the account he gives
in _Rural Sports_ (1713), of years wasted in attending on courtiers who
were profuse in promises never kept, may account for his occupations.
Among his early literary friends were Aaron Hill and Eustace Budgell. In
_The Present State of Wit_ (1711) Gay attempted to give an account of
"all our periodical papers, whether monthly, weekly or diurnal." He
especially praised the _Tatler_ and the _Spectator_, and Swift, who knew
nothing of the authorship of the pamphlet, suspected it to be inspired
by Steele and Addison. To Lintot's _Miscellany_ (1712) Gay contributed
"An Epistle to Bernard Lintot," containing some lines in praise of Pope,
and a version of the story of Arachne from the sixth book of the
_Metamorphoses_ of Ovid. In the same year he was received into the
household of the duchess of Monmouth as secretary, a connexion which
was, however, broken before June 1714.
The dedication of his _Rural Sports_ (1713) to Pope was the beginning of
a lasting friendship. Gay could have no pretensions to rivalry with
Pope, who seems never to have tired of helping his friend. In 1713 he
produced a comedy, _The Wife of Bath_, which was acted only three
nights, and _The Fan_, one of his least successful poems; and in 1714
_The Shepherd's Week_, a series of six pastorals drawn from English
rustic life. Pope had urged him to undertake this last task in order to
ridicule the Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised
by the _Guardian_, to the neglect of Pope's claims as the first pastoral
writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay's pastorals
completely achieved this object, but his ludicrous pictures of the
English swains and their loves were found to be abundantly entertaining
on their own account. Gay had just been appointed secretary to the
British ambassador to the court of Hanover through the influence of
Jonathan Swift, when the death of Queen Anne three months later put an
end to all his hopes of official employment. In 1715, probably with some
help from Pope, he produced _What d'ye call it?_ a dramatic skit on
contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Otway's _Venice
Preserved_. It left the public so ignorant of its real meaning that
Lewis Theobald and Benjamin Griffin (1680-1740) published a _Complete
Key to what d'ye call it_ by way of explanation. In 1716 appeared his
_Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London_, a poem in three
books, for which he acknowledged having received several hints from
Swift. It contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of
that period. In January 1717 he produced the comedy of _Three Hours
after Marriage_, which was grossly indecent without being amusing, and
was a complete failure. There is no doubt that in this piece he had
assistance from Pope and Arbuthnot, but they were glad enough to have it
assumed that Gay was the sole author.
Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published _Poems on Several
Occasions_ by subscription, realizing £1000 or more. In that year James
Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock.
Gay, disregarding the prudent advice of Pope and other of his friends,
invested his all in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end, he lost
everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. As a
matter of fact Gay had always been a spoilt child, who expected
everything to be done for him. His friends did not fail him at this
juncture. He had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards earl of Bath,
in the third earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at
Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the third earl of Queensberry.
He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness
from Congreve and Arbuthnot. In 1724 he produced a tragedy called _The
Captives_. In 1727 he wrote for Prince William, afterwards duke of
Cumberland, his famous _Fifty-one Fables in Verse_, for which he
naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in
them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He
was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who
was still a child. He refused this offer, which all his friends seem to
have regarded, for no very obvious reason, as an indignity. As the
_Fables_ were written for the amusement of one royal child, there would
appear to have been a measure of reason in giving him a sinecure in the
service of another. His friends thought him unjustly neglected by the
court, but he had already received (1722) a sinecure as lottery
commissioner with a salary of £150 a year, and from 1722 to 1729 he had
lodgings in the palace at Whitehall. He had never rendered any special
services to the court.
He certainly did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by
his next production, the _Beggars' Opera_, a lyrical drama produced on
the 29th of January 1728 by Rich, in which Sir Robert Walpole was
caricatured. This famous piece, which was said to have made "Rich gay
and Gay rich," was an innovation in many respects, and for a time it
drove Italian opera off the English stage. Under cover of the thieves
and highwaymen who figured in it was disguised a satire on society, for
Gay made it plain that in describing the moral code of his characters he
had in mind the corruptions of the governing class. Part of the success
of the _Beggars' Opera_ may have been due to the acting of Lavinia
Fenton, afterwards duchess of Bolton, in the part of Polly Peachum. The
play ran for sixty-two nights, though the representations, four of which
were "benefits" of the author, were not, as has sometimes been stated,
consecutive. Swift is said to have suggested the subject, and Pope and
Arbuthnot were constantly consulted while the work was in progress, but
Gay must be regarded as the sole author. He wrote a sequel, _Polly_, the
representation of which was forbidden by the lord chamberlain, no doubt
through the influence of Walpole. This act of "oppression" caused no
loss to Gay. It proved an excellent advertisement for _Polly_, which was
published by subscription in 1729, and brought its author more than
£1000. The duchess of Queensberry was dismissed from court for enlisting
subscribers in the palace. The duke of Queensberry gave him a home, and
the duchess continued her affectionate patronage until Gay's death,
which took place on the 4th of December 1732. He was buried in
Westminster Abbey. The epitaph on his tomb is by Pope, and is followed
by Gay's own mocking couplet:--
"Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, and now I know it."
_Acis and Galatea_, an English pastoral opera, the music of which was
written by Handel, was produced at the Haymarket in 1732. The profits of
his posthumous opera of _Achilles_ (1733), and a new volume of _Fables_
(1738) went to his two sisters, who inherited from him a fortune of
£6000. He left two other pieces, _The Distressed Wife_ (1743), a comedy,
and _The Rehearsal at Goatham_ (1754), a farce. The _Fables_, slight as
they may appear, cost him more labour than any of his other works. The
narratives are in nearly every case original, and are told in clear and
lively verse. The moral which rounds off each little story is never
strained. They are masterpieces in their kind, and the very numerous
editions of them prove their popularity. They have been translated into
Latin, French and Italian, Urdu and Bengali.
See his _Poetical Works_ (1893) in the Muses' Library, with an
introduction by Mr John Underhill; also Samuel Johnson's _Lives of the
Poets_, John Gay's _Singspiele_ (1898), edited by G. Sarrazin
(_Englische Textbibliothek II._); and an article by Austin Dobson in
vol. 21 of the _Dictionary of National Biography_; _Gay's Chair_
(1820), edited by Henry Lee, a fellow-townsman, contained a
biographical sketch by his nephew, the Rev. Joseph Baller.
GAY, MARIE FRANÇOISE SOPHIE (1776-1852), French author, was born in
Paris on the 1st of July 1776. Madame Gay was the daughter of M.
Nichault de la Valette and of Francesca Peretti, an Italian lady. In
1793 she was married to M. Liottier, an exchange broker, but she was
divorced from him in 1799, and shortly afterwards was married to M. Gay,
receiver-general of the department of the Roër or Ruhr. This union
brought her into intimate relations with many distinguished personages;
and her salon came to be frequented by all the distinguished
littérateurs, musicians, actors and painters of the time, whom she
attracted by her beauty, her vivacity and her many amiable qualities.
Her first literary production was a letter written in 1802 to the
_Journal de Paris_, in defence of Madame de Staël's novel, _Delphine_;
and in the same year she published anonymously her first novel _Laure
d'Estell_. _Léonie de Montbreuse_, which appeared in 1813, is considered
by Sainte-Beuve her best work; but _Anatole_ (1815), the romance of a
deaf-mute, has perhaps a higher reputation. Among her other works,
_Salons célèbres_ (2 vols., 1837) may be especially mentioned. Madame
Gay wrote several comedies and opera libretti which met with
considerable success. She was also an accomplished musician, and
composed both the words and music of a number of songs. She died in
Paris on the 5th of March 1852. For an account of her daughter, Delphine
Gay, Madame de Girardin, see GIRARDIN.
See her own _Souvenirs d'une vieille femme_ (1834); also Théophile
Gautier, _Portraits contemporains_; and Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du
lundi_, vol. vi.
GAY, WALTER (1856- ), American artist, was born at Hingham,
Massachusetts, on the 22nd of January 1856. In 1876 he became a pupil of
Léon Bonnat in Paris. He received an honourable mention in the Salon of
1885; a gold medal in 1888, and similar awards at Vienna (1894), Antwerp
(1895), Berlin (1896) and Munich (1897). He became an officer of the
Legion of Honour and a member of the Society of Secession, Munich. Works
by him are in the Luxembourg, the Tate Gallery (London), and the Boston
and Metropolitan (New York) Museums of Art. His compositions are mainly
figure subjects portraying French peasant life.
GAYA, a city and district of British India, in the Patna division of
Bengal. The city is situated 85 m. S. of Patna by rail. Pop. (1901)
71,288. It consists of two distinct parts, adjoining each other; the
part containing the residences of the priests is Gaya proper; and the
other, which is the business quarter, is called Sahibganj. The civil
offices and residences of the European inhabitants are situated here.
Gaya derives its sanctity from incidents in the life of Buddha. But a
local legend also exists concerning a pagan monster of great sanctity,
named Gaya, who by long penance had become holy, so that all who saw or
touched him were saved from perdition. Yama, the lord of hell, appealed
to the gods, who induced Gaya to lie down in order that his body might
be a place of sacrifice; and once down, Yama placed a large stone on him
to keep him there. The tricked demon struggled violently, and, in order
to pacify him, Vishnu promised that the gods should take up their
permanent residence in him, and that any one who made a pilgrimage to
the spot where he lay should be delivered from the terrors of the Hindu
place of torment. This may possibly be a Brahmanic rendering of Buddha's
life and work. There are forty-five sacred spots (of which the temple of
Vishnupada is the chief) in and around the city, and these are visited
by thousands of pilgrims annually. During the Mutiny the large store of
treasure here was conveyed safely to Calcutta by Mr A. Money. The city
contains a government high school and an hospital, with a Lady Elgin
branch for women.
The DISTRICT OF GAYA comprises an area of 4712 sq. m. Generally
speaking, it consists of a level plain, with a ridge of prettily wooded
hills along the southern boundary, whence the country falls with a
gentle slope towards the Ganges. Rocky hills occasionally occur, either
detached or in groups, the loftiest being Maher hill about 12 m. S.E. of
Gaya city, with an elevation of 1620 ft. above sea-level. The eastern
part of the district is highly cultivated; the portions to the north and
west are less fertile; while in the south the country is thinly peopled
and consists of hills, the jungles on which are full of wild animals.
The principal river is the Son, which marks the boundary between Gaya
and Shahabad, navigable by small boats throughout the year, and by craft
of 20-tons burden in the rainy season. Other rivers are the Punpun,
Phalgu and Jamuna. Two branches of the Son canal system, the eastern
main canal and the Patna canal, intersect the district. In 1901 the
population was 2,059,933, showing a decrease of 3% in the decade. Among
the higher castes there is an unusually large proportion of Brahmans, a
circumstance due to the number of sacred places which the district
contains. The Gayawals, or priests in charge of the holy places, are
held in high esteem by the pilgrims; but they are not pure Brahmans, and
are looked down upon by those who are. They live an idle and dissolute
life, but are very wealthy, from contributions extorted from the
pilgrims. Buddh Gaya, about 6 m. S. of Gaya city, is one of the holiest
sites of Buddhism, as containing the tree under which Sakyamuni attained
enlightenment. In addition to many ruins and sculptures, there is a
temple restored by the government in 1881. Another place of religious
interest is a temple of great antiquity, which crowns the highest peak
of the Barabar hills, and at which a religious fair is held each
September, attended by 10,000 to 20,000 pilgrims. At the foot of the
hill are numerous rock caves excavated about 200 B.C. The opium poppy is
largely cultivated. There are a number of lac factories. Manufactures
consist of common brass utensils, black stone ornaments, pottery,
tussur-silk and cotton cloth. Formerly paper-making was an important
manufacture in the district, but it has entirely died out. The chief
exports are food grains, oil seeds, indigo, crude opium (sent to Patna
for manufacture), saltpetre, sugar, blankets, brass utensils, &c. The
imports are salt, piece goods, cotton, timber, bamboos, tobacco, lac,
iron, spices and fruits. The district is traversed by four branches of
the East Indian railway. In 1901 it suffered severely from the plague.
See _District Gazetteer_ (1906); Sir A. Cunningham, _Mahabodhi_
(1892).
GAYAL, a domesticated ox allied to the Gaur, but distinguished, among
other features, by the more conical and straighter horns, and the
straight line between them. Gayal are kept by the natives of the
hill-districts of Assam and parts of Tenasserim and Upper Burma.
Although it has received a distinct name, _Bos (Bibos) frontalis_, there
can be little doubt that the gayal is merely a domesticated breed of the
gaur, many gayal-skulls showing characters approximating to those of the
gaur.
GAYANGOS Y ARCE, PASCUAL DE (1809-1897), Spanish scholar and
Orientalist, was born at Seville on the 21st of June 1809. At the age of
thirteen he was sent to be educated at Pont-le-Voy near Blois, and in
1828 began the study of Arabic under Silvestre de Sacy. After a visit to
England, where he married, he obtained a post in the Spanish treasury,
and was transferred to the foreign office as translator in 1833. In 1836
he returned to England, wrote extensively in English periodicals, and
translated Almakkari's _History of the Mahommedan Dynasties in Spain_
(1840-1843) for the Royal Asiatic Society. In England he also made the
acquaintance of Ticknor, to whom he was very serviceable. In 1843 he
returned to Spain as professor of Arabic at the university of Madrid,
which post he held until 1881, when he was made director of public
instruction. This office he resigned upon being elected senator for the
district of Huelva. His latter years were spent in cataloguing the
Spanish manuscripts in the British Museum; he had previously continued
Bergenroth's catalogue of the manuscripts relating to England in the
Simancas archives. His best-known original work is his dissertation on
Spanish romances of chivalry in Rivadeneyra's _Biblioteca de autores
españoles_. He died in London on the 4th of October 1897.
GAYARRÉ, CHARLES ÉTIENNE ARTHUR (1805-1895), American historian, was
born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on the 9th of January 1805. After
studying at the Collège d'Orléans he began, in 1826, to study law in
Philadelphia, and three years later was admitted to the bar. In 1830 he
was elected a member of the House of Representatives of Louisiana, in
1831 was appointed deputy attorney-general of his state, in 1833 became
presiding judge of the city court of New Orleans, and in 1834 was
elected as a Jackson Democrat to the United States Senate. On account of
ill-health, however, he immediately resigned without taking his seat,
and for the next eight years travelled in Europe and collected
historical material from the French and the Spanish archives. In
1844-1845 and in 1856-1857 he was again a member of the state House of
Representatives, and from 1845 to 1853 was secretary of state of
Louisiana. He supported the Southern Confederacy during the Civil War,
in which he lost a large fortune, and after its close lived chiefly by
his pen. He died in New Orleans on the 11th of February 1895. He is best
known as the historian of Louisiana. He wrote _Histoire de la Louisiane_
(1847); _Romance of the History of Louisiana_ (1848); _Louisiana: its
Colonial History and Romance_ (1851), reprinted in _A History of
Louisiana_; _History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination_ (1854);
_Philip II. of Spain_ (1866); and _A History of Louisiana_ (4 vols.,
1866), the last being a republication and continuation of his earlier
works in this field, the whole comprehending the history of Louisiana
from its earliest discovery to 1861. He wrote also several dramas and
romances, the best of the latter being _Fernando de Lemos_ (1872).
GAY-LUSSAC, JOSEPH LOUIS (1778-1850), French chemist and physicist, was
born at St Léonard, in the department of Haute Vienne, on the 6th of
December 1778. He was the elder son of Antoine Gay, _procureur du roi_
and judge at Pont-de-Noblac, who assumed the name Lussac from a small
property he had in the neighbourhood of St Léonard. Young Gay-Lussac
received his early education at home under the direction of the abbé
Bourdieux and other masters, and in 1794 was sent to Paris to prepare
for the École Polytechnique, into which he was admitted at the end of
1797 after a brilliant examination. Three years later he was transferred
to the École des Ponts et Chaussées, and shortly afterwards was assigned
to C.L. Berthollet, who wanted an able student to help in his
researches. The new assistant scarcely came up to expectations in
respect of confirming certain theoretical views of his master's by the
experiments set him to that end, and appears to have stated the
discrepancy without reserve; but Berthollet nevertheless quickly
recognized the ability displayed, and showed his appreciation not only
by desiring to be Gay-Lussac's "father in science," but also by making
him in 1807 an original member of the Société d'Arcueil. In 1802 he was
appointed demonstrator to A.F. Fourcroy at the École Polytechnique,
where subsequently (1809) he became professor of chemistry, and from
1808 to 1832 he was professor of physics at the Sorbonne, a post which
he only resigned for the chair of chemistry at the Jardin des Plantes.
In 1831 he was elected to represent Haute Vienne in the chamber of
deputies, and in 1839 he entered the chamber of peers. He died in Paris
on the 9th of May 1850.
Gay-Lussac's earlier researches were mostly physical in character and
referred mainly to the properties of gases, vapour-tensions, hygrometry,
capillarity, &c. In his first memoir (_Ann. de Chimie_, 1802) he showed
that different gases are dilated in the same proportion when heated from
0° to 100° C. Apparently he did not know of Dalton's experiments on the
same point, which indeed were far from accurate; but in a note he
explained that "le cit. Charles avait remarqué depuis 15 ans la même
propriété dans ces gaz; mais n'ayant jamais publié ses résultats, c'est
par le plus grand hasard que je les ai connus." In consequence of his
candour in thus rescuing from oblivion the observation which his
fellow-citizen did not think worth publishing, his name is sometimes
dissociated from this law, which instead is known as that of Charles. In
1804 he had an opportunity of prosecuting his researches on air in
somewhat unusual conditions, for the French Academy, desirous of
securing some observations on the force of terrestrial magnetism at
great elevations above the earth, through Berthollet and J.E. Chaptal
obtained the use of the balloon which had been employed in Egypt, and
entrusted the task to him and J.B. Biot. In their first ascent from the
garden of the Conservatoire des Arts on the 24th of August 1804 an
altitude of 4000 metres (about 13,000 ft.) was attained. But this
elevation was not considered sufficient by Gay-Lussac, who therefore
made a second ascent by himself oh the 16th of September, when the
balloon rose 7016 metres (about 23,000 ft.) above sea-level. At this
height, with the thermometer marking 9½ degrees below freezing, he
remained for a considerable time, making observations not only on
magnetism, but also on the temperature and humidity of the air, and
collecting several samples of air at different heights. The magnetic
observations, though imperfect, led him to the conclusion that the
magnetic effect at all attainable elevations above the earth's surface
remains constant; and on analysing the samples of air he could find no
difference of composition at different heights. (For an account of both
ascents see _Journ. de phys._ for 1804.) On the 1st of October in the
same year, in conjunction with Alexander von Humboldt, he read a paper
on eudiometric analysis (_Ann. de Chim._, 1805), which contained the
germ of his most important generalization, the authors noting that when
oxygen and hydrogen combine together by volume, it is in the proportion
of one volume of the former to two volumes of the latter. But his law of
combination by volumes was not enunciated in its general form until
after his return from a scientific journey through Switzerland, Italy
and Germany, on which with Humboldt he started from Paris in March 1805.
This journey was interrupted in the spring of 1806 by the news of the
death of M.J. Brisson, and Gay-Lussac hurried back to Paris in the hope,
which was gratified, that he would be elected to the seat thus vacated
in the Academy. In 1807 an account of the magnetic observations made
during the tour with Humboldt was published in the first volume of the
_Mémoires d'Arcueil_, and the second volume, published in 1809,
contained the important memoir on gaseous combination (read to the
Société Philomathique on the last day of 1808), in which he pointed out
that gases combining with each other in volume do so in the simplest
proportions--1 to 1, 1 to 2, 1 to 3--and that the volume of the compound
formed bears a simple ratio to that of the constituents.
About this time Gay-Lussac's work, although he by no means entirely
abandoned physical questions, became of a more chemical character; and
in three instances it brought him into direct rivalry with Sir Humphry
Davy. In the first case Davy's preparation of potassium and sodium by
the electric current spurred on Gay-Lussac and his collaborator L.J.
Thénard, who had no battery at their disposal, to search for a chemical
method of obtaining those metals, and by the action of red-hot iron on
fused potash--a method of which Davy admitted the advantages--they
succeeded in 1808 in preparing potassium, going on to make a full study
of its properties and to use it, as Davy also did, for the reduction of
boron from boracic acid in 1809. The second concerned the nature of
"oxymuriatic acid" (chlorine). While admitting the possibility that it
was an elementary body, after many experiments they finally declared it
to be a compound (_Mém. d'Arcueil_, 1809). Davy, on the other hand,
could see no reason to suppose it contained oxygen, as they surmised,
and ultimately they had to accept his view of its elementary character.
The third case roused most feeling of all. Davy, passing through Paris
on his way to Italy at the end of 1813, obtained a few fragments of
iodine, which had been discovered by Bernard Courtois (1777-1838) in
1811, and after a brief examination by the aid of his limited portable
laboratory perceived its analogy to chlorine and inferred it to be an
element. Gay-Lussac, it is said, was nettled at the idea of a foreigner
making such a discovery in Paris, and vigorously took up the study of
the new substance, the result being the "Mémoire sur l'iode," which
appeared in the _Ann. de chim._ in 1814. He too saw its resemblance to
chlorine, and was obliged to agree with Davy's opinion as to its simple
nature, though not without some hesitation, due doubtless to his
previous declaration about chlorine. Davy on his side seems to have felt
that the French chemist was competing with him, not altogether fairly,
in trying to appropriate the honour of discovering the character of the
substance and of its compound, hydriodic acid.
In 1810 he published a paper which contains some classic experiments on
fermentation, a subject to which he returned in a second paper published
in 1815. At the same time he was working with Thénard at the improvement
of the methods of organic analysis, and by combustion with oxidizing
agents, first potassium chlorate and subsequently copper oxide, he
determined the composition of a number of organic substances. But his
last great piece of pure research was on prussic acid. In a note
published in 1811 he described the physical properties of this acid, but
he said nothing about its chemical composition till 1815, when he
described cyanogen as a compound radicle, prussic acid as a compound of
that radicle with hydrogen alone, and the prussiates (cyanides) as
compounds of the radicle with metals. The proof that prussic acid
contains hydrogen but no oxygen was a most important support to the
hydrogen-acid theory, and completed the downfall of Lavoisier's oxygen
theory; while the isolation of cyanogen was of equal importance for the
subsequent era of compound radicles in organic chemistry.
After this research Gay-Lussac's attention began to be distracted from
purely scientific investigation. He had now secured a leading if not the
foremost place among the chemists of the French capital, and the demand
for his services as adviser in technical problems and matters of
practical interest made great inroads on his available time. He had been
a member of the consultative committee on arts and manufactures since
1805; he was attached to the "administration des poudres et salpêtres"
in 1818, and in 1829 he received the lucrative post of assayer to the
mint. In these new fields he displayed the powers so conspicuous in his
scientific inquiries, and he was now to introduce and establish
scientific accuracy where previously there had been merely practical
approximations. His services to industry included his improvements in
the processes for the manufacture of sulphuric acid (1818) and oxalic
acid (1829); methods of estimating the amount of real alkali in potash
and soda by the volume of standard acid required for neutralization, and
for estimating the available chlorine in bleaching powder by a solution
of arsenious acid; directions for the use of the centesimal
alcoholometer published in 1824 and specially commended by the
Institute; and the elaboration of a method of assaying silver by a
standard solution of common salt, a volume on which was published in
1833. Among his research work of this period may be mentioned the
improvements in organic analysis and the investigation of fulminic acid
made with the help of Liebig, who gained the privilege of admission to
his private laboratory in 1823-1824.
Gay-Lussac was patient, persevering, accurate to punctiliousness,
perhaps a little cold and reserved, and not unaware of his great
ability. But he was also bold and energetic, not only in his work but
also in support and defence of his friends. His early childish
adventures, as told by Arago, herald the fearless aeronaut and the
undaunted investigator of volcanic eruptions (Vesuvius was in full
eruption when he visited it during his tour in 1805); and the endurance
he exhibited under the laboratory accidents that befell him shows the
power of will with which he would face the prospect of becoming blind
and useless for the prosecution of the science which was his very life,
and of which he was one of the most distinguished ornaments. Only at the
very end, when the disease from which he was suffering left him no hope,
did he complain with some bitterness of the hardship of leaving this
world where the many discoveries being made pointed to yet greater
discoveries to come.
The most complete list of Gay-Lussac's papers is contained in the
Royal Society's _Catalogue of Scientific Papers_, which enumerates
148, exclusive of others written jointly with Humboldt, Thénard,
Welter and Liebig. Many of them were published in the _Annales de
chimie_, which after it changed its title to _Annales de chimie et
physique_ he edited, with Arago, up to nearly the end of his life; but
some are to be found in the _Mémoires d'Arcueil_ and the _Comptes
rendus_, and in the _Recherches physiques et chimiques_, published
with Thénard in 1811.
GAZA, THEODORUS (c. 1400-1475), one of the Greek scholars who were the
leaders of the revival of learning in the 15th century, was born at
Thessalonica. On the capture of his native city by the Turks in 1430 he
fled to Italy. During a three years' residence in Mantua he rapidly
acquired a competent knowledge of Latin under the teaching of Vittorino
da Feltre, supporting himself meanwhile by giving lessons in Greek, and
by copying manuscripts of the ancient classics.[1] In 1447 he became
professor of Greek in the newly founded university of Ferrara, to which
students in great numbers from all parts of Italy were soon attracted by
his fame as a teacher. He had taken some part in the councils which were
held in Siena (1423), Ferrara (1438), and Florence (1439), with the
object of bringing about a reconciliation between the Greek and Latin
Churches; and in 1450, at the invitation of Pope Nicholas V., he went to
Rome, where he was for some years employed by his patron in making Latin
translations from Aristotle and other Greek authors. After the death of
Nicholas (1455), being unable to make a living at Rome, Gaza removed to
Naples, where he enjoyed the patronage of Alphonso the Magnanimous for
two years (1456-1458). Shortly afterwards he was appointed by Cardinal
Bessarion to a benefice in Calabria, where the later years of his life
were spent, and where he died about 1475. Gaza stood high in the opinion
of most of his learned contemporaries, but still higher in that of the
scholars of the succeeding generation. His Greek grammar (in four
books), written in Greek, first printed at Venice in 1495, and
afterwards partially translated by Erasmus in 1521, although in many
respects defective, especially in its syntax, was for a long time the
leading text-book. His translations into Latin were very numerous,
including the _Problemata_, _De partibus animalium_ and _De generatione
animalium_ of Aristotle; the _Historia plantarum_ of Theophrastus; the
_Problemata_ of Alexander Aphrodisias; the _De instruendis aciebus_ of
Aelian; the _De compositione verborum_ of Dionysius of Halicarnassus;
and some of the _Homilies_ of John Chrysostom. He also turned into Greek
Cicero's _De senectute_ and _Somnium Scipionis_--with much success, in
the opinion of Erasmus; with more elegance than exactitude, according to
the colder judgment of modern scholars. He was the author also of two
small treatises entitled _De mensibus_ and _De origine Turcarum_.
See G. Voigt, _Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Altertums_ (1893),
and article by C.F. Bähr in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine
Encyklopädie_. For a complete list of his works, see Fabricius,
_Bibliotheca Graeca_ (ed. Harles), x.