[1] For an analysis of _Caleb Williams_ see the chapter on "Theorists
of Revolution" in Professor E. Dowden's _The French Revolution and
English Literature_ (1897).
GODWIN-AUSTEN, ROBERT ALFRED CLOYNE (1808-1884), English geologist, the
eldest son of Sir Henry E. Austen, was born on the 17th of March 1808.
He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, of which he became a fellow in
1830. He afterwards entered Lincoln's Inn. In 1833 he married the only
daughter and heiress of General Sir Henry T. Godwin, K.C.B., and he took
the additional name of Godwin by Royal licence in 1854. At Oxford as a
pupil of William Buckland he became deeply interested in geology, and
soon afterwards becoming acquainted with De la Beche, he was inspired by
that great master, and assisted him by making a geological map of the
neighbourhood of Newton Abbot, which was embodied in the Geological
Survey map. He also published an elaborate memoir "On the Geology of the
South-East of Devonshire" (_Trans. Geol. Soc._ ser. 2, vol. viii.). His
attention was next directed to the Cretaceous rocks of Surrey, his
home-county, his estates being situated at Chilworth and Shalford near
Guildford. Later he dealt with the superficial accumulations bordering
the English Channel, and with the erratic boulders of Selsea. In 1855 he
brought before the Geological Society of London his celebrated paper "On
the possible Extension of the Coal-Measures beneath the South-Eastern
part of England," in which he pointed out on well-considered theoretical
grounds the likelihood of coal-measures being some day reached in that
area. In this article he also advocated the freshwater origin of the Old
Red Sandstone, and discussed the relations of that formation, and of the
Devonian, to the Silurian and Carboniferous. He was elected F.R.S. in
1849, and in 1862 he was awarded the Wollaston medal by the Geological
Society of London, on which occasion he was styled by Sir R. I.
Murchison "pre-eminently the physical geographer of bygone periods." He
died at Shalford House near Guildford on the 25th of November 1884.
His son, Lieut-Colonel HENRY HAVERSHAM GODWIN-AUSTEN (b. 1834), entered
the army in 1851, and served for many years on the Trigonometrical
Survey of India, retiring in 1877. He gave much attention to geology,
but is more especially distinguished for his researches on the natural
history of India and as the author of _The Land and Freshwater Mollusca
of India_ (1882-1887).
GODWINE (d. 1053), son of Wulfnoth, earl of the West-Saxons, the leading
Englishman in the first half of the 11th century. His birth and origin
are utterly uncertain; but he rose to power early in Canute's reign and
was an earl in 1018. He received in marriage Gytha, a connexion of the
king's, and in 1020 became earl of the West-Saxons. On the death of
Canute in 1035 he joined with Queen Emma in supporting the claim of
Hardicanute, the son of Canute and Emma, to the crown of his father, in
opposition to Leofric and the northern party who supported Harold
Harefoot (see HARDICANUTE). While together they held Wessex for
Hardicanute, the aetheling Aelfred, son of Emma by her former husband
Aethelred II., landed in England in the hope of winning back his father's
crown; but falling into the hands of Godwine, he and his followers were
cruelly done to death. On the death of Hardicanute in 1042 Godwine was
foremost in promoting the election of Edward (the Confessor) to the
vacant throne. He was now the first man in the kingdom, though his power
was still balanced by that of the other great earls, Leofric of Mercia
and Siward of Northumberland. His sons Sweyn and Harold were promoted to
earldoms; and his daughter Eadgyth was married to the king (1045). His
policy was strongly national in opposition to the marked Normanizing
tendencies of the king. Between him and Edward's foreign favourites,
particularly Robert of Jumieges, there was deadly feud. The appointment
of Robert to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1051 marks the decline
of Godwine's power; and in the same year a series of outrages committed
by one of the king's foreign favourites led to a breach between the king
and the earl, which culminated in the exile of the latter with all his
family (see EDWARD THE CONFESSOR). But next year Godwine returned in
triumph; and at a great meeting held outside London he and his family
were restored to all their offices and possessions, and the archbishop
and many other Normans were banished. In the following year Godwine was
smitten with a fit at the king's table, and died three days later on the
15th of April 1053.
Godwine appears to have had seven sons, three of whom--King Harold,
Gyrth and Leofwine--were killed at Hastings; two others, Wulfnoth and
Aelfgar, are of little importance; another was Earl Tostig (q.v.). The
eldest son was Sweyn, or Swegen (d. 1052), who was outlawed for seducing
Eadgifu abbess of Leominster. After fighting for the king of Denmark he
returned to England in 1049, when his murder of his cousin Beorn
compelled him to leave England for the second time. In 1050, however, he
regained his earldom, and in 1051 he shared his father's exile. To atone
for the murder of Beorn, Sweyn went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and on
the return journey he died on the 29th of September 1052, meeting his
death, according to one account, at the hands of the Saracens.
GODWIT, a word of unknown origin, the name commonly applied to a
marsh-bird in great repute, when fattened, for the table, and formerly
abundant in the fens of Norfolk, the Isle of Ely and Lincolnshire. In
Turner's days (1544) it was worth three times as much as a snipe, and at
the same period Belon said of it--"C'est vn Oyseau es delices des
Francoys." Casaubon, who Latinized its name "_Dei ingenium_"
(_Ephemerides_, 19th September 1611), was told by the "_ornithotrophaeus_"
he visited at Wisbech that in London it fetched twenty pence. Its fame as
a delicacy is perpetuated by many later writers, Ben Jonson among them,
and Pennant says that in his time (1766) it sold for half-a-crown or five
shillings. Under the name godwit two perfectly distinct species of British
birds were included, but that which seems to have been especially prized
is known to modern ornithologists as the black-tailed godwit, _Limosa
aegocephala_, formerly called, from its loud cry, a yarwhelp,[1] shrieker
or barker, in the districts it inhabited. The practice of netting this
bird in large numbers during the spring and summer, coupled with the
gradual reclamation of the fens, to which it resorted, has now rendered it
but a visitor in England; and it probably ceased from breeding regularly
in England in 1824 or thereabouts, though under favourable conditions it
may have occasionally laid its eggs for some thirty years later or more
(Stevenson, _Birds of Norfolk_, ii. 250). This godwit is a species of wide
range, reaching Iceland, where it is called _Jardraeka_ (= earth-raker),
in summer, and occurring numerously in India in winter. Its chief
breeding-quarters seem to extend from Holland eastwards to the south of
Russia. The second British species is that which is known as the
bar-tailed godwit, _L. lapponica_, and this seems to have never been more
than a bird of double passage in the United Kingdom, arriving in large
flocks on the south coast about the 12th of May, and, after staying a few
days, proceeding to the north-eastward. It is known to breed in Lapland,
but its eggs are of great rarity. Towards autumn the young visit the
English coasts, and a few of them remain, together with some of the other
species, in favourable situations throughout the winter. One of the local
names by which the bar-tailed godwit is known to the Norfolk gunners is
scamell, a word which, in the mouth of Caliban (_Tempest_, II. ii.), has
been the cause of much perplexity to Shakespearian critics.
The godwits belong to the group _Limicolae_, and are about as big as a
tame pigeon, but possess long legs, and a long bill with a slight upward
turn. It is believed that in the genus _Limosa_ the female is larger
than the male. While the winter plumage is of a sober greyish-brown, the
breeding-dress is marked by a predominance of bright bay or chestnut,
rendering the wearer a very beautiful object. The black-tailed godwit,
though varying a good deal in size, is constantly larger than the
bar-tailed, and especially longer in the legs. The species may be
further distinguished by the former having the proximal third of the
tail-quills pure white, and the distal two-thirds black, with a narrow
white margin, while the latter has the same feathers barred with black
and white alternately for nearly their whole length.
America possesses two species of the genus, the very large marbled
godwit or marlin, _L. fedoa_, easily recognized by its size and the buff
colour of its axillaries, and the smaller Hudsonian godwit, _L.
hudsonica_, which has its axillaries of a deep black. This last, though
less numerous than its congener, seems to range over the whole of the
continent, breeding in the extreme north, while it has been obtained
also in the Strait of Magellan and the Falkland Islands. The first seems
not to go farther southward than the Antilles and the Isthmus of
Panama.
From Asia, or at least its eastern part, two species have been
described. One of them, _L. melanuroides_, differs only from _L.
aegocephala_ in its smaller size, and is believed to breed in Amurland,
wintering in the islands of the Pacific, New Zealand and Australia. The
other, _L. uropygialis_, is closely allied to and often mistaken for _L.
lapponica_, from which it chiefly differs by having the rump barred like
the tail. This was found breeding in the extreme north of Siberia by Dr
von Middendorff, and ranges to Australia, whence it was, like the last,
first described by Gould. (A. N.)