VOLUME XII SLICE III Gordon, Lord George to Grasses (continued 3)
Reading edition
The West Gothic kingdom lasted much longer, and came much nearer to establishing itself as a national power in the lands which it took in. But the difference of race and faith between the Arian Goths and the Catholic Romans of Gaul and Spain influenced the history of the West Gothic kingdom for a long time. The Arian Goths ruled over Catholic subjects, and were surrounded by Catholic neighbours. The Franks were Catholics from their first conversion; the Suevi became Catholics much earlier than the Goths. The African conquests of Belisarius gave the Goths of Spain, instead of the Arian Vandals, another Catholic neighbour in the form of the restored Roman power. The Catholics everywhere preferred either Roman, Suevian or Frankish rule to that of the heretical Goths; even the unconquerable mountaineers of Cantabria seem for a while to have received a Frankish governor. In some other mountain districts the Roman inhabitants long maintained their independence, and in 534 a large part of the south of Spain, including the great cities of Cadiz, Cordova, Seville and New Carthage, was, with the good will of its Roman inhabitants, reunited to the Empire, which kept some points on the coast as late as 624. That is to say, the same work which the Empire was carrying on in Italy against the East Goths was at the same moment carried on in Spain against the West Goths. But in Italy the whole land was for a while won back, and the Gothic power passed away for ever. In Spain the Gothic power outlived the Roman power, but it outlived it only by itself becoming in some measure Roman. The greatest period of the Gothic power as such was in the reign of Leovigild (568-586). He reunited the Gaulish and Spanish parts of the kingdom which had been parted for a moment; he united the Suevian dominion to his own; he overcame some of the independent districts, and won back part of the recovered Roman province in southern Spain. He further established the power of the crown over the Gothic nobles, who were beginning to grow into territorial lords. The next reign, that of his son Recared (586-601), was marked by a change which took away the great hindrance which had thus far stood in the way of any national union between Goths and Romans. The king and the greater part of the Gothic people embraced the Catholic faith. A vast degree of influence now fell into the hands of the Catholic bishops; the two nations began to unite; the Goths were gradually romanized and the Gothic language began to go out of use. In short, the Romance nation and the Romance speech of Spain began to be formed. The Goths supplied the Teutonic infusion into the Roman mass. The kingdom, however, still remained a Gothic kingdom. “Gothic,” not “Roman” or “Spanish,” is its formal title; only a single late instance of the use of the formula “regnum Hispaniae” is known. In the first half of the 7th century that name became for the first time geographically applicable by the conquest of the still Roman coast of southern Spain. The Empire was then engaged in the great struggle with the Avars and Persians, and, now that the Gothic kings were Catholic, the great objection to their rule on the part of the Roman inhabitants was taken away. The Gothic nobility still remained a distinct class, and held, along with the Catholic prelacy, the right of choosing the king. Union with the Catholic Church was accompanied by the introduction of the ecclesiastical ceremony of anointing, a change decidedly favourable to elective rule. The growth of those later ideas which tended again to favour the hereditary doctrine had not time to grow up in Spain before the Mahommedan conquest (711). The West Gothic crown therefore remained elective till the end. The modern Spanish nation is the growth of the long struggle with the Mussulmans; but it has a direct connexion with the West Gothic kingdom. We see at once that the Goths hold altogether a different place in Spanish memory from that which they hold in Italian memory. In Italy the Goth was but a momentary invader and ruler; the Teutonic element in Italy comes from other sources. In Spain the Goth supplies an important element in the modern nation. And that element has been neither forgotten nor despised. Part of the unconquered region of northern Spain, the land of Asturia, kept for a while the name of Gothia, as did the Gothic possessions in Gaul and in Crim. The name of the people who played so great a part in all southern Europe, and who actually ruled over so large a part of it has now wholly passed away; but it is in Spain that its historical impress is to be looked for.
Of Gothic literature in the Gothic language we have the Bible of Ulfilas, and some other religious writings and fragments (see Gothic Language below). Of Gothic legislation in Latin we have the edict of Theodoric of the year 500, edited by F. Bluhme in the Monumenta Germaniae historica; and the books of Variae of Cassiodorus may pass as a collection of the state papers of Theodoric and his immediate successors. Among the West Goths written laws had already been put forth by Euric. The second Alaric (484-507) put forth a Breviarium of Roman law for his Roman subjects; but the great collection of West Gothic laws dates from the later days of the monarchy, being put forth by King Recceswinth about 654. This code gave occasion to some well-known comments by Montesquieu and Gibbon, and has been discussed by Savigny (Geschichte des römischen Rechts, ii. 65) and various other writers. They are printed in the Monumenta Germaniae, leges, tome i. (1902). Of special Gothic histories, besides that of Jordanes, already so often quoted, there is the Gothic history of Isidore, archbishop of Seville, a special source of the history of the West Gothic kings down to Svinthala (621-631). But all the Latin and Greek writers contemporary with the days of Gothic predominance make their constant contributions. Not for special facts, but for a general estimate, no writer is more instructive than Salvian of Marseilles in the 5th century, whose work De Gubernatione Dei is full of passages contrasting the vices of the Romans with the virtues of the barbarians, especially of the Goths. In all such pictures we must allow a good deal for exaggeration both ways, but there must be a ground-work of truth. The chief virtues which the Catholic presbyter praises in the Arian Goths are their chastity, their piety according to their own creed, their tolerance towards the Catholics under their rule, and their general good treatment of their Roman subjects. He even ventures to hope that such good people may be saved, notwithstanding their heresy. All this must have had some groundwork of truth in the 5th century, but it is not very wonderful if the later West Goths of Spain had a good deal fallen away from the doubtless somewhat ideal picture of Salvian.
(E. A. F.)
There is now an extensive literature on the Goths, and among the principal works may be mentioned: T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders (Oxford, 1880-1899); J. Aschbach, Geschichte der Westgoten (Frankfort, 1827); F. Dahn, Die Könige der Germanen (1861-1899); E. von Wietersheim, Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (1880-1881); R. Pallmann, Die Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (Gotha, 1863-1864); B. Rappaport, Die Einfälle der Goten in das römische Reich (Leipzig, 1899), and K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme (Munich, 1837). Other works which may be consulted are: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury (1896-1900); H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity (1867); J. B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire (1889); P. Villari, Le Invasioni barbariche in Italia (Milan, 1901); and F. Martroye, L’Occident à l’époque byzantine: Goths et Vandales (Paris, 1903). There is a popular history of the Goths by H. Bradley in the “Story of the Nations” series (London, 1888). For the laws see the Leges in Band I. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica, leges (1902). A. Helfferich, Entstehung und Geschichte des Westgotenrechts (Berlin, 1858); F. Bluhme, Zur Textkritik des Westgotenrechts (1872); F. Dahn, Lex Visigothorum. Westgotische Studien (Würzburg, 1874); C. Rinaudo, Leggi dei Visigote, studio (Turin, 1878); and K. Zeumer, “Geschichte der westgotischen Gesetzgebung” in the Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde. See also the article on Theodoric.
Gothic Language.—Our knowledge of the Gothic language is derived almost entirely from the fragments of a translation of the Bible which is believed to have been made by the Arian bishop Wulfila or Ulfilas (d. 383) for the Goths who dwelt on the lower Danube. The MSS. which have come down to us and which date from the period of Ostrogothic rule in Italy (489-555) contain the Second Epistle to the Corinthians complete, together with more or less considerable fragments of the four Gospels and of all the other Pauline Epistles. The only remains of the Old Testament are three short fragments of Ezra and Nehemiah. There is also an incomplete commentary (skeireins) on St John’s Gospel, a fragment of a calendar, and two charters (from Naples and Arezzo, the latter now lost) which contain some Gothic sentences. All these texts are written in a special character, which is said to have been invented by Wulfila. It is based chiefly on the uncial Greek alphabet, from which indeed most of the letters are obviously derived, and several orthographical peculiarities, e.g. the use of ai for e and ei for ī reflect the Greek pronunciation of the period. Other letters, however, have been taken over from the Runic and Latin alphabets. Apart from the texts mentioned above, the only remains of the Gothic language are the proper names and occasional words which occur in Greek and Latin writings, together with some notes, including the Gothic alphabet, in a Salzburg MS. of the 10th century, and two short inscriptions on a torque and a spear-head, discovered at Buzeo (Walachia) and Kovel (Volhynia) respectively. The language itself, as might be expected from the date of Wulfila’s translation, is of a much more archaic type than that of any other Teutonic writings which we possess, except a few of the earliest Northern inscriptions. This may be seen, e.g. in the better preservation of final and unaccented syllables and in the retention of the dual and the middle (passive) voice in verbs. It would be quite erroneous, however, to regard the Gothic fragments as representing a type of language common to all Teutonic nations in the 4th century. Indeed the distinctive characteristics of the language are very marked, and there is good reason for believing that it differed considerably from the various northern and western languages, whereas the differences among the latter at this time were probably comparatively slight (see Teutonic Languages). On the other hand, it must not be supposed that the language of the Goths stood quite isolated. Procopius (Vand. i. 2) states distinctly that the Gothic language was spoken not only by the Ostrogoths and Visigoths but also by the Vandals and the Gepidae; and in the former case there is sufficient evidence, chiefly from proper names, to prove that his statement is not far from the truth. With regard to the Gepidae we have less information; but since the Goths, according to Jordanes (cap. 17), believed them to have been originally a branch of their own nation, it is highly probable that the two languages were at least closely related. Procopius elsewhere (Vand. i. 3; Goth. i. 1, iii. 2) speaks of the Rugii, Sciri and Alani as Gothic nations. The fact that the two former were sprung from the north-east of Germany renders it probable that they had Gothic affinities, while the Alani, though non-Teutonic in origin, may have become gothicized in the course of the migration period. Some modern writers have included in the same class the Burgundians, a nation which had apparently come from the basin of the Oder, but the evidence at our disposal on the whole hardly justifies the supposition that their language retained a close affinity with Gothic.
In the 4th and 5th centuries the Gothic language—using the term in its widest sense—must have spread over the greater part of Europe together with the north coast of Africa. It disappeared, however, with surprising rapidity. There is no evidence for its survival in Italy or Africa after the fall of the Ostrogothic and Vandal kingdoms, while in Spain it is doubtful whether the Visigoths retained their language until the Arabic conquest. In central Europe it may have lingered somewhat longer in view of the evidence of the Salzburg MS. mentioned above. Possibly the information there given was derived from southern Hungary or Transylvania where remains of the Gepidae were to be found shortly before the Magyar invasion (889). According to Walafridus Strabo (de Reb. Eccles. cap. 7) also Gothic was still used in his time (the 9th century) in some churches in the region of the lower Danube. Thenceforth the language seems to have survived only among the Goths (Goti Tetraxitae) of the Crimea, who are mentioned for the last time by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, an imperial envoy at Constantinople about the middle of the 16th century. He collected a number of words and phrases in use among them which show clearly that their language, though not unaffected by Iranian influence, was still essentially a form of Gothic.
See H. C. von der Gabelentz and J. Loebe, Ulfilas (Altenburg and Leipzig, 1836-1846); E. Bernhardt, Vulfila oder die gotische Bibel (Halle, 1875). For other works on the Gothic language see J. Wright, A Primer of the Gothic Language (Oxford, 1892), p. 143 f. To the references there given should be added: C. C. Uhlenbeck, Etymologisches Wörterbuch d. got. Sprache (Amsterdam, 2nd ed. 1901); F. Kluge, “Geschichte d. got. Sprache” in H. Paul’s Grundriss d. germ. Philologie (2nd ed., vol. i., Strassburg, 1897); W. Streitberg, Gotisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg, 1897); Th. von Grienberger, Beiträge zur Geschichte d. deutschen Sprache u. Literatur, xxi. 185 ff.; L. F. A. Wimmer, Die Runenschrift (Berlin, 1887), p. 61 ff.; G. Stephens, Handbook to the Runic Monuments (London, 1884), p. 203; F. Wrede, Über die Sprache der Wandalen (Strassburg, 1886). For further references see K. Zeuss, Die Deutschen, p. 432 f. (where earlier references to the Crimean Goths are also given); F. Kluge, op. cit., p. 515 ff.; and O. Bremer, ib. vol. iii., p. 822.
(H. M. C.)
1 Geschichte der Völkerwanderung (Gotha, 1863-1864).
GOTLAND, an island in the Baltic Sea belonging to Sweden, lying between 57° and 58° N., and having a length from S.S.W. to N.N.E. of 75 m., a breadth not exceeding 30 m., and an area of 1142 sq. m. The nearest point on the mainland is 50 m. from the westernmost point of the island. With the island Fårö, off the northern extremity, the Karlsöe, off the west coast, and Götska Sandö, 25 m. N. by E., Gotland forms the administrative district (län) of Gotland. The island is a level plateau of Silurian limestone, rising gently eastward, of an average height of 80 to 100 ft., with steep coasts fringed with tapering, free-standing columns of limestone (raukar). A few low isolated hills rise inland. The climate is temperate, and the soil, although in parts dry and sterile, is mostly fertile. Former marshy moors have been largely drained and cultivated. There are extensive sand-dunes in the north. As usual in a limestone formation, some of the streams have their courses partly below the surface, and caverns are not infrequent. Less than half the total area is under forest, the extent of which was formerly much greater. Barley, rye, wheat and oats are grown, especially the first, which is exported to the breweries on the mainland. The sugar-beet is also produced and exported, and there are beet-sugar works on the island. Sheep and cattle are kept; there is a government sheep farm at Roma, and the cattle may be noted as belonging principally to an old native breed, yellow and horned. Some lime-burning, cement-making and sea-fishing are carried on. The capital of the island is Visby, on the west coast. There are over 80 m. of railways. Lines run from Visby N.E. to Tingstäde and S. to Hofdhem, with branches from Roma to Klintehamn, a small watering-place on the west coast, and to Slitehamn on the east. Excepting along the coast the island has no scenic attraction, but it is of the highest archaeological interest. Nearly every village has its ruined church, and others occur where no villages remain. The shrunken walled town of Visby was one of the richest commercial centres of the Baltic from the 11th to the 14th century, and its prosperity was shared by the whole island. It retains ten churches besides the cathedral. The massive towers of the village churches are often detached, and doubtless served purposes of defence. The churches of Roma, Hemse, with remarkable mural paintings, Othen and Lärbo may be specially noted. Some contain fine stained glass, as at Dalhem near Visby. The natives of Gotland speak a dialect distinguished from that of any part of the Swedish mainland. Pop. of län (1900) 52,781.
Gotland was subject to Sweden before 890, and in 1030 was christianized by St Olaf, king of Norway, when returning from his exile at Kiev. He dedicated the first church in the island to St Peter at Visby. At that time Visby had long been one of the most important trading towns in the Baltic, and the chief distributing centre of the oriental commerce which came to Europe along the rivers of Russia. In the early years of the Hanseatic League, or about the middle of the 13th century, it became the chief depôt for the produce of the eastern Baltic countries, including, in a commercial sense, its daughter colony (11th century or earlier) of Novgorod the Great. Although Visby was an independent member of the Hanseatic League, the influence of Lübeck was paramount in the city, and half its governing body were men of German descent. Indeed, Björkander endeavours to prove that the city was a German (Hanseatic) foundation, dating principally from the middle of the 12th century. However that may be, the importance of Visby in the sea trade of the North is conclusively attested by the famous code of maritime law which bears its name. This Waterrecht dat de Kooplüde en de Schippers gemakt hebben to Visby (“sea-law which the merchants and seamen have made at Visby”) was a compilation based upon the Lübeck code, the Oléron code and the Amsterdam code, and was first printed in Low German in 1505, but in all probability had its origin about 1240, or not much later (see Sea Laws). By the middle of the the city was so great that, according to an old ballad, “the Gotlanders weighed out gold with stone weights and played with the choicest jewels. The swine ate out of silver troughs, and the women spun with distaffs of gold.” This fabled wealth was too strong a temptation for the energetic Valdemar Atterdag of Denmark. In 1361 he invaded the island, routed the defenders of Visby under the city walls (a monolithic cross marks the burial-place of the islanders who fell) and plundered the city. From this blow it never recovered, its decay being, however, materially helped by the fact that for the greater part of the next 150 years it was the stronghold of successive freebooters or sea-rovers—first, of the Hanseatic privateers called Vitalienbrödre or Viktualienbrüder, who made it their stronghold during the last eight years of the 14th century; then of the Teutonic Knights, whose Grand Master drove out the “Victuals Brothers,” and kept the island until it was redeemed by Queen Margaret. There too Erik XIII. (the Pomeranian), after being driven out of Denmark by his own subjects, established himself in 1437, and for a dozen years waged piracy upon Danes and Swedes alike. After him came Olaf and Ivar Thott, two Danish lords, who down to the year 1487 terrorized the seas from their pirates’ stronghold of Visby. Lastly, the Danish admiral Sören Norrby, the last supporter of Christian I. of Denmark, when his master’s cause was lost, waged a guerrilla war upon the Danish merchant ships and others from the same convenient base. But this led to an expedition by the men of Lübeck, who partly destroyed Visby in 1525. By the peace of Stettin (1570) Gotland was confirmed to the Danish crown, to which it had been given by Queen Margaret. But at the peace of Brömsebro in 1645 it was at length restored to Sweden, to which it has since belonged, except for the three years 1676-1679, when it was forcibly occupied by the Danes, and a few weeks in 1808, when the Russians landed a force.
The extreme wealth of the Gotlanders naturally fostered a spirit of independence, and their relations with Sweden were curious. The island at one period paid an annual tribute of 60 marks of silver to Sweden, but it was clearly recognized that it was paid by the desire of the Gotlanders, and not enforced by Sweden. The pope recognized their independence, and it was by their own free will that they came under the spiritual charge of the bishop of Linköping. Their local government was republican in form, and a popular assembly is indicated in the written Gotland Law, which dates not later than the middle of the 13th century. Sweden had no rights of objection to the measures adopted by this body, and there was no Swedish judge or other official in the island. Visby had a system of government and rights independent of, and in some measure opposed to, that of the rest of the island. It seems clear that there were at one time two separate corporations, for the native Gotlanders and the foreign traders respectively, and that these were subsequently fused. The rights and status of native Gotlanders were not enjoyed by foreigners as a whole—even intermarriage was illegal—but Germans, on account of their commercial pre-eminence in the island, were excepted.
See C. H. Bergman, Gotland’s geografi och historia (Stockholm, 1898) and Gotländska skildringar och minnen (Visby, 1902); A. T. Snöbohm, Gotlands land och folk (Visby, 1897 et seq.); W. Moler, Bidrag till en Gotländsk bibliografi (Stockholm, 1890); Hans Hildebrand, Visby och dess Minnesmärken (Stockholm, 1892 et seq.); A. Björkander, Till Visby Stads Aeldsta Historia (1898), where most of the literature dealing with the subject is mentioned; but some of the author’s arguments require criticism. For local government and rights see K. Hegel, Städter und Gilden im Mittelalter (book iii. ch. iii., Leipzig, 1891).
GOTO ISLANDS [Goto Retto, Gotto], a group of islands belonging to Japan, lying west of Kiushiu, in 33° N., 129° E. The southern of the two principal islands, Fukae-shima, measures 17 m. by 13½; the northern, Nakaori-shima, measures 23 m. by 7½. These islands lie almost in the direct route of steamers plying between Nagasaki and Shanghai, and are distant some 50 m. from Nagasaki. Some dome-shaped hills command the old castle-town of Fukae. The islands are highly cultivated; deer and other game abound, and trout are plentiful in the mountain streams. A majority of the inhabitants are Christians.
GOTTER, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1746-1797), German poet and dramatist, was born on the 3rd of September 1746, at Gotha. After the completion of his university career at Göttingen, he was appointed second director of the Archive of his native town, and subsequently went to Wetzlar, the seat of the imperial law courts, as secretary to the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha legation. In 1768 he returned to Gotha as tutor to two young noblemen, and here, together with H. C. Boie, he founded the famous Göttinger Musenalmanach. In 1770 he was once more in Wetzlar, where he belonged to Goethe’s circle of acquaintances. Four years later he took up his permanent abode in Gotha, where he died on the 18th of March 1797. Gotter was the chief representative of French taste in the German literary life of his time. His own poetry is elegant and polished, and in great measure free from the trivialities of the Anacreontic lyric of the earlier generation of imitators of French literature; but he was lacking in the imaginative depth that characterizes the German poetic temperament. His plays, of which Merope (1774), an adaptation in admirable blank verse of the tragedies of Maffei and Voltaire, and Medea (1775), a melodrame, are best known, were mostly based on French originals and had considerable influence in counteracting the formlessness and irregularity of the Sturm und Drang drama.
Gutter’s collected Gedichte appeared in 2 vols. in 1787 and 1788; a third volume (1802) contains his Literarischer Nachlass. See B. Litzmann, Schröder und Gotter (1887), and R. Schlösser, F. W. Gotter, sein Leben und seine Werke (1894).
GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG, one of the chief German poets of the middle ages. The dates of his birth and death are alike unknown, but he was the contemporary of Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, and his epic Tristan was written about the year 1210. In all probability he did not belong to the nobility, as he is entitled Meister, never Herr, by his contemporaries; his poem—the only work that can with any certainty be attributed to him—bears witness to a learned education. The story of Tristan had been evolved from its shadowy Celtic origins by the French trouvères of the early 12th century, and had already found its way into Germany before the close of that century, in the crude, unpolished version of Eilhart von Oberge. It was Gottfried, however, who gave it its final form. His version is based not on that of Chrétien de Troyes, but on that of a trouvère Thomas, who seems to have been more popular with contemporaries. A comparison of the German epic with the French original is, however, impossible, as Chrétien’s Tristan is entirely lost, and of Thomas’s only a few fragments have come down to us. The story centres in the fatal voyage which Tristan, a vassal to the court of his uncle King Marke of Kurnewal (Cornwall), makes to Ireland to bring back Isolde as the king’s bride. On the return voyage Tristan and Isolde drink by mistake a love potion, which binds them irrevocably to each other. The epic resolves itself into a series of love intrigues in which the two lovers ingeniously outwit the trusting king. They are ultimately discovered, and Tristan flees to Normandy where he marries another Isolde—“Isolde with the white hands”—without being able to forget the blond Isolde of Ireland. At this point Gottfried’s narrative breaks off and to learn the close of the story we have to turn to two minor poets of the time, Ulrich von Türheim and Heinrich von Freiberg—the latter much the superior—who have supplied the conclusion. After further love adventures Tristan is fatally wounded by a poisoned spear in Normandy; the “blond Isolde,” as the only person who has power to cure him, is summoned from Cornwall. The ship that brings her is to bear a white sail if she is on board, a black one if not. Tristan’s wife, however, deceives him, announcing that the sail is black, and when Isolde arrives, she finds her lover dead. Marke at last learns the truth concerning the love potion, and has the two lovers buried side by side in Kurnewal.
It is difficult to form an estimate of Gottfried’s independence of his French source; but it seems clear that he followed closely the narrative of events he found in Thomas. He has, however, introduced into the story an astounding fineness of psychological motive, which, to judge from a general comparison of the Arthurian epic in both lands, is German rather than French; he has spiritualized and deepened the narrative; he has, above all, depicted with a variety and insight, unusual in medieval literature, the effects of an overpowering passion. Yet, glowing and seductive as Gottfried’s love-scenes are, they are never for a moment disfigured by frivolous hints or innuendo; the tragedy is unrolled with an earnestness that admits of no touch of humour, and also, it may be added, with a freedom from moralizing which was easier to attain in the 13th than in later centuries. The mastery of style is no less conspicuous. Gottfried had learned his best lessons from Hartmann von Aue, but he was a more original and daring artificer of rhymes and rhythms than that master; he delighted in the sheer music of words, and indulged in antitheses and allegorical conceits to an extent that proved fatal to his imitators. As far as beauty of expression is concerned, Gottfried’s Tristan is the masterpiece of the German court epic.
Gottfried’s Tristan has been frequently edited: by H. F. Massman (Leipzig, 1843); by R. Bechstein (2 vols., 3rd ed., Leipzig,1890-1891); by W. Golther (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1889); by K. Marold (1906). Translations into modern German have been made by H. Kurz (Stuttgart, 1844); by K. Simrock (Leipzig, 1855); and, best of all, by W. Hertz (Stuttgart, 1877). There is also an abbreviated English translation by Jessie L. Weston (London, 1899). The continuation of Ulrich von Türheim will be found in Massman’s edition; that by Heinrich von Freiberg has been separately edited by R. Bechstein (Leipzig, 1877). See also R. Heinzel, “Gottfrieds von Strassburg Tristan und seine Quelle” in the Zeit. für deut. Alt. xiv. (1869), pp. 272 ff.; W. Golther, Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 1887); F. Piquet, L’Originalité de Gottfried de Strasbourg dans son poème de Tristan et Isolde (Lille, 1905). K. Immermann (q.v.) has written an epic of Tristan und Isolde (1840), R. Wagner (q.v.) a musical drama (1865). Cp. R. Bechstein, Tristan und Isolde in der deutschen Dichtung der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1877).
GÖTTINGEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hanover, pleasantly situated at the west foot of the Hainberg (1200 ft.), in the broad and fertile valley of the Leine, 67 m. S. from Hanover, on the railway to Cassel. Pop. (1875) 17,057, (1905) 34,030. It is traversed by the Leine canal, which separates the Altstadt from the Neustadt and from Masch, and is surrounded by ramparts, which are planted with lime-trees and form an agreeable promenade. The streets in the older part of the town are for the most part crooked and narrow, but the newer portions are spaciously and regularly built. Apart from the Protestant churches of St John, with twin towers, and of St James, with a high tower (290 ft.), the medieval town hall, built in the 14th century and restored in 1880, and the numerous university buildings, Göttingen possesses few structures of any public importance. There are several thriving industries, including, besides the various branches of the publishing trade, the manufacture of cloth and woollens and of mathematical and other scientific instruments.
The university, the famous Georgia Augusta, founded by George II. in 1734 and opened in 1737, rapidly attained a leading position, and in 1823 its students numbered 1547. Political disturbances, in which both professors and students were implicated, lowered the attendance to 860 in 1834. The expulsion in 1837 of the famous seven professors—Die Göttinger Sieben—viz. the Germanist, Wilhelm Eduard Albrecht (1800-1876); the historian, Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann (1785-1860); the orientalist, Georg Heinrich August Ewald (1803-1875); the historian, Georg Gottfried Gervinus (1805-1875); the physicist, Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804-1891); and the philologists, the brothers Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (1785-1863), and Wilhelm Karl Grimm (1786-1859),—for protesting against the revocation by King Ernest Augustus of Hanover of the liberal constitution of 1833, further reduced the prosperity of the university. The events of 1848, on the other hand, told somewhat in its favour; and, since the annexation of Hanover in 1866, it has been carefully fostered by the Prussian government. In 1903 its teaching staff numbered 121 and its students 1529. The main university building lies on the Wilhelmsplatz, and, adjoining, is the famous library of 500,000 vols, and 5300 MSS., the richest collection of modern literature in Germany. There is a good chemical laboratory as well as adequate zoological, ethnographical and mineralogical collections, the most remarkable being Blumenbach’s famous collection of skulls in the anatomical institute. There are also a celebrated observatory, long under the direction of Wilhelm Klinkerfues (1827-1884), a botanical garden, an agricultural institute and various hospitals, all connected with the university. Of the scientific societies the most noted is the Royal Society of Sciences (Königliche Sozietät der Wissenschaften) founded by Albrecht von Haller, which is divided into three classes, the physical, the mathematical and the historical-philological. It numbers about 80 members and publishes the well-known Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen. There are monuments in the town to the mathematicians K. F. Gauss and W. E. Weber, and also to the poet G. A. Bürger.
The earliest mention of a village of Goding or Gutingi occurs in documents of about 950 A.D. The place received municipal rights from the German king Otto IV. about 1210, and from 1286 to 1463 it was the seat of the princely house of Brunswick-Göttingen. During the 14th century it held a high place among the towns of the Hanseatic League. In 1531 it joined the Reformation movement, and in the following century it suffered considerably in the Thirty Years’ War, being taken by Tilly in 1626, after a siege of 25 days, and recaptured by the Saxons in 1632. After a century of decay, it was anew brought into importance by the establishment of its university; and a marked increase in its industrial and commercial prosperity has again taken place in recent years. Towards the end of the 18th century Göttingen was the centre of a society of young poets of the Sturm und Drang period of German literature, known as the Göttingen Dichterbund or Hainbund (see Germany: Literature).
See Freusdorff, Göttingen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart (Göttingen, 1887); the Urkundenbuch der Stadt Göttingen, edited by G. Schmidt, A. Hasselblatt and G. Kästner; Unger, Göttingen und die Georgia Augusta (1861); and Göttinger Professoren (Gotha, 1872); and O. Mejer, Kulturgeschichtliche Bilder aus Göttingen (1889).
GÖTTLING, CARL WILHELM (1793-1869), German classical scholar, was born at Jena on the 19th of January 1793. He studied at the universities of Jena and Berlin, took part in the war against France in 1814, and finally settled down in 1822 as professor at the university of his native town, where he continued to reside till his death on the 20th of January 1869. In his early years Göttling devoted himself to German literature, and published two works on the Nibelungen: Über das Geschichtliche im Nibelungenliede (1814) and Nibelungen und Gibelinen (1817). The greater part of his life, however, was devoted to the study of classical literature, especially the elucidation of Greek authors. The contents of his Gesammelte Abhandlungen aus dem klassischen Altertum (1851-1863) and Opuscula Academica (published in 1869 after his death) sufficiently indicate the varied nature of his studies. He edited the Τέχνη (grammatical manual) of Theodosius of Alexandria (1822), Aristotle’s Politics (1824), and Economics (1830) and Hesiod (1831; 3rd ed. by J. Flach, 1878). Mention may also be made of his Allgemeine Lehre vom Accent der griechischen Sprache (1835), enlarged from a smaller work, which was translated into English (1831) as the Elements of Greek Accentuation; and of his Correspondence with Goethe (published 1880).
See memoirs by C. Nipperdey, his colleague at Jena (1869), G. Lothholz (Stargard, 1876), K. Fischer (preface to the Opuscula Academica), and C. Bursian in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, ix.
GOTTSCHALK [Godescalus, Gottescale], (c. 808-867 ?), German theologian, was born near Mainz, and was devoted (oblatus) from infancy by his parents,—his father was a Saxon, Count Bern,—to the monastic life. He was trained at the monastery of Fulda, then under the abbot Hrabanus Maurus, and became the friend of Walafrid Strabo and Loup of Ferrières. In June 829, at the synod of Mainz, on the pretext that he had been unduly constrained by his abbot, he sought and obtained his liberty, withdrew first to Corbie, where he met Ratramnus, and then to the monastery of Orbais in the diocese of Soissons. There he studied St Augustine, with the result that he became an enthusiastic believer in the doctrine of absolute predestination, in one point going beyond his master—Gottschalk believing in a predestination to condemnation as well as in a predestination to salvation, while Augustine had contented himself with the doctrine of preterition as complementary to the doctrine of election. Between 835 and 840 Gottschalk was ordained priest, without the knowledge of his bishop, by Rigbold, chorepiscopus of Reims. Before 840, deserting his monastery, he went to Italy, preached there his doctrine of double predestination, and entered into relations with Notting, bishop of Verona, and Eberhard, count of Friuli. Driven from Italy through the influence of Hrabanus Maurus, now archbishop of Mainz, who wrote two violent letters to Notting and Eberhard, he travelled through Dalmatia, Pannonia and Norica, but continued preaching and writing. In October 848 he presented to the synod at Mainz a profession of faith and a refutation of the ideas expressed by Hrabanus Maurus in his letter to Notting. He was convicted, however, of heresy, beaten, obliged to swear that he would never again enter the territory of Louis the German, and handed over to Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, who sent him back to his monastery at Orbais. The next year at a provincial council at Quierzy, presided over by Charles the Bald, he attempted to justify his ideas, but was again condemned as a heretic and disturber of the public peace, was degraded from the priesthood, whipped, obliged to burn his declaration of faith, and shut up in the monastery of Hautvilliers. There Hincmar tried again to induce him to retract. Gottschalk however continued to defend his doctrine, writing to his friends and to the most eminent theologians of France and Germany. A great controversy resulted. Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, Wenilo of Sens, Ratramnus of Corbie, Loup of Ferrières and Florus of Lyons wrote in his favour. Hincmar wrote De praedestinatione and De una non trina deitate against his views, but gained little aid from Johannes Scotus Erigena, whom he had called in as an authority. The question was discussed at the councils of Kiersy (853), of Valence (855) and of Savonnières (859). Finally the pope Nicolas I. took up the case, and summoned Hincmar to the council of Metz (863). Hincmar either could not or would not appear, but declared that Gottschalk might go to defend himself before the pope. Nothing came of this, however, and when Hincmar learned that Gottschalk had fallen ill, he forbade him the sacraments or burial in consecrated ground unless he would recant. This Gottschalk refused to do. He died on the 30th of October between 866 and 870.
Gottschalk was a vigorous and original thinker, but also of a violent temperament, incapable of discipline or moderation in his ideas as in his conduct. He was less an innovator than a reactionary. Of his many works we have only the two professions of faith (cf. Migne, Patrologia Latina, cxxi. c. 347 et seq.), and some poems, edited by L. Traube in Monumenta Germaniae historica: Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini (t. iii. 707-738). Some fragments of his theological treatises have been preserved in the writings of Hincmar, Erigena, Ratramnus and Loup of Ferrières.
From the 17th century, when the Jansenists exalted Gottschalk, much has been written on him. Mention may be made of two recent studies, F. Picavet, “Les Discussions sur la liberté au temps de Gottschalk, de Raban Maur, d’Hincmar, et de Jean Scot,” in Comptes rendus de l’acad. des sciences morales et politiques (Paris, 1896); and A. Freystedt, “Studien zu Gottschalks Leben und Lehre,” in Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte (1897), vol. xviii.
GOTTSCHALL, RUDOLF VON (1823-1909), German man of letters, was born at Breslau on the 30th of September 1823, the son of a Prussian artillery officer. He received his early education at the gymnasia in Mainz and Coburg, and subsequently at Rastenburg in East Prussia. In 1841 he entered the university of Königsberg as a student of law, but, in consequence of his pronounced liberal opinions, was expelled. The academic authorities at Breslau and Leipzig were not more tolerant towards the young fire-eater, and it was only in Berlin that he eventually found himself free to prosecute his studies. During this period of unrest he issued Lieder der Gegenwart (1842) and Zensurflüchtlinge (1843)—the poetical fruits of his political enthusiasm. He completed his studies in Berlin, took the degree of doctor juris in Königsberg, and endeavoured to obtain there the venia legendi. His political views again stood in the way, and forsaking the legal career, Gottschall now devoted himself entirely to literature. He met with immediate success, and beginning as dramaturge in Königsberg with Der Blinde von Alcala (1846) and Lord Byron in Italien (1847) proceeded to Hamburg where he occupied a similar position. In 1852 he married Marie, baroness von Seherr-Thoss, and for the next few years lived in Silesia. In 1862 he took over the editorship of a Posen newspaper, but in 1864 removed to Leipzig. Gottschall was raised, in 1877, by the king of Prussia to the hereditary nobility with the prefix “von,” having been previously made a Geheimer Hofrat by the grand duke of Weimar. Down to 1887 Gottschall edited the Brockhaus’sche Blätter für litterarische Unterhaltung and the monthly periodical Unsere Zeit. He died at Leipzig on the 21st of March 1909.
Gottschall’s prolific literary productions cover the fields of poetry, novel-writing and literary criticism. Among his volumes of lyric poetry are Sebastopol (1856), Janus (1873), Bunte Blüten (1891). Among his epics, Carlo Zeno (1854), Maja (1864), dealing with an episode in the Indian Mutiny, and Merlins Wanderungen (1887). The comedy Pitt und Fox (1854), first produced on the stage in Breslau, was never surpassed by the other lighter pieces of the author, among which may be mentioned Die Welt des Schwindels and Der Spion von Rheinsberg. The tragedies, Mazeppa, Catharine Howard, Amy Robsart and Der Götze von Venedig, were very successful; and the historical novels, Im Banne des schwarzen Adlers (1875; 4th ed., 1884), Die Erbschaft des Blutes (1881), Die Tochter Rübezahls (1889), and Verkümmerte Existenzen (1892), enjoyed a high degree of popularity. As a critic and historian of literature Gottschall has also done excellent work. His Die deutsche Nationalliteratur des 19. Jahrhunderts (1855; 7th ed., 1901-1902), and Poetik (1858; 6th ed., 1903) command the respect of all students of literature.
Gottschall’s collected Dramatische Werke appeared in 12 vols. in 1880 (2nd ed., 1884); he has also, in recent years, published many volumes of collected essays and criticisms. See his autobiography, Aus meiner Jugend (1898).
GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH (1700-1766), German author and critic, was born on the 2nd of February 1700, at Judithenkirch near Königsberg, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. He studied philosophy and history at the university of his native town, but immediately on taking the degree of Magister in 1723, fled to Leipzig in order to evade impressment in the Prussian military service. Here he enjoyed the protection of J. B. Mencke (1674-1732), who, under the name of “Philander von der Linde,” was a well-known poet and also president of the Deutschübende poetische Gesellschaft in Leipzig. Of this society Gottsched was elected “Senior” in 1726, and in the next year reorganized it under the title of the Deutsche Gesellschaft. In 1730 he was appointed extraordinary professor of poetry, and, in 1734, ordinary professor of logic and metaphysics in the university. He died at Leipzig on the 12th of December 1766.
Gottsched’s chief work was his Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst für die Deutschen (1730), the first systematic treatise in German on the art of poetry from the standpoint of Boileau. His Ausführliche Redekunst (1728) and his Grundlegung einer deutschen Sprachkunst (1748) were of importance for the development of German style and the purification of the language. He wrote several plays, of which Der sterbende Cato (1732), an adaptation of Addison’s tragedy and a French play on the same theme, was long popular on the stage. In his Deutsche Schaubühne (6 vols., 1740-1745), which contained mainly translations from the French, he provided the German stage with a classical repertory, and his bibliography of the German drama, Nötiger Vorrat zur Geschichte der deutschen dramatischen Dichtkunst (1757-1765), is still valuable. He was also the editor of several journals devoted to literary criticism. As a critic, Gottsched insisted on German literature being subordinated to the laws of French classicism; he enunciated rules by which the playwright must be bound, and abolished bombast and buffoonery from the serious stage. While such reforms obviously afforded a healthy corrective to the extravagance and want of taste which were rampant in the German literature of the time, Gottsched went too far. In 1740 he came into conflict with the Swiss writers Johann Jakob Bodmer (q.v.) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701-1776), who, under the influence of Addison and contemporary Italian critics, demanded that the poetic imagination should not be hampered by artificial rules; they pointed to the great English poets, and especially to Milton. Gottsched, although not blind to the beauties of the English writers, clung the more tenaciously to his principle that poetry must be the product of rules, and, in the fierce controversy which for a time raged between Leipzig and Zürich, he was inevitably defeated. His influence speedily declined, and before his death his name became proverbial for pedantic folly.
His wife, Luise Adelgunde Victorie, née Kulmus (1713-1762), in some respects her husband’s intellectual superior, was an author of some reputation. She wrote several popular comedies, of which Das Testament is the best, and translated the Spectator (9 vols., 1730-1743), Pope’s Rape of the Lock (1744) and other English and French works. After her death her husband edited her Sämtliche kleinere Gedichte with a memoir (1763).
See T. W. Danzel, Gottsched und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1848); J. Crüger, Gottsched, Bodmer, und Breitinger (with selections from their writings) (Stuttgart, 1884); F. Servaes, Die Poetik Gottscheds und der Schweizer (Strassburg, 1887); E. Wolff, Gottscheds Stellung im deutschen Bildungsleben (2 vols., Kiel, 1895-1897), and G. Waniek, Gottsched und die deutsche Literatur seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1897). On Frau Gottsched, see P. Schlenther, Frau Gottsched und die bürgerliche Komödie (Berlin, 1886).
GÖTZ, JOHANN NIKOLAUS (1721-1781), German poet, was born at Worms on the 9th of July 1721. He studied theology at Halle (1739-1742), where he became intimate with the poets Johann W. L. Gleim and Johann Peter Uz, acted for some years as military chaplain, and afterwards filled various other ecclesiastical offices. He died at Winterburg on the 4th of November 1781. The writings of Götz consist of a number of short lyrics and several translations, of which the best is a rendering of Anacreon. His original compositions are light, lively and sparkling, and are animated rather by French wit than by German depth of sentiment. The best known of his poems is Die Mädcheninsel, an elegy which met with the warm approval of Frederick the Great.
Götz’s Vermischte Gedichte were published with biography by K. W. Ramler (Mannheim, 1785; new ed., 1807), and a collection of his poems, dating from the years 1745-1765, has been edited by C. Schüddekopf in the Deutsche Literaturdenkmale des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (1893). See also Briefe von und an J. N. Götz, edited by C. Schüddekopf (1893).
GOUACHE, a French word adapted from the Ital. guazzo (probably in origin connected with “wash”), meaning literally a “ford,” but used also for a method of painting in opaque water-colour. The colours are mixed with or painted in a vehicle of gum or honey, and whereas in true water-colours the high lights are obtained by leaving blank the surface of the paper or other material used, or by allowing it to show through a translucent wash in “gouache,” these are obtained by white or other light colour. “Gouache” is frequently used in miniature painting.
GOUDA (or Ter Gouwe), a town of Holland, in the province of South Holland, on the north side of the Gouwe at its confluence with the Ysel, and a junction station 12½ m. by rail N.E. of Rotterdam. Pop. (1900) 22,303. Tramways connect it with Bodegraven (5½m. N.) on the old Rhine and with Oudewater (8 m. E.) on the Ysel; and there is a regular steamboat service in various directions, Amsterdam being reached by the canalized Gouwe; Aar, Drecht and Amstel. The town of Gouda is laid out in a fine open manner and, like other Dutch towns, is intersected by numerous canals. On its outskirts pleasant walks and fine trees have replaced the old fortifications. The Groote Markt is the largest market-square in Holland. Among the numerous churches belonging to various denominations, the first place must be given to the Groote Kerk of St John. It was founded in 1485, but rebuilt after a fire in 1552, and is remarkable for its dimensions (345 ft. long and 150 ft. broad), for a large and celebrated organ, and a splendid series of over forty stained-glass windows presented by cities and princes and executed by various well-known artists, including the brothers Dirk (d. c. 1577) and Wouter (d. c. 1590) Crabeth, between the years 1555 and 1603 (see Explanation of the Famous and Renowned Glass Works, &c., Gouda, 1876, reprinted from an older volume, 1718). Other noteworthy buildings are the Gothic town hall, founded in 1449 and rebuilt in 1690, and the weigh-house, built by Pieter Post of Haarlem (1608-1669) and adorned with a fine relief by Barth. Eggers (d. c. 1690). The museum of antiquities (1874) contains an exquisite chalice of the year 1425 and some pictures and portraits by Wouter Crabeth the younger, Corn. Ketel (a native of Gouda, 1548-1616) and Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680). Other buildings are the orphanage, the hospital, a house of correction for women and a music hall.
In the time of the counts the wealth of Gouda was mainly derived from brewing and cloth-weaving; but at a later date the making of clay tobacco pipes became the staple trade, and, although this industry has somewhat declined, the churchwarden pipes of Gouda are still well known and largely manufactured. In winter-time it is considered a feat to skate hither from Rotterdam and elsewhere to buy such a pipe and return with it in one’s mouth without its being broken. The mud from the Ysel furnishes the material for large brick-works and potteries; there are also a celebrated manufactory of stearine candles, a yarn factory, an oil refinery and cigar factories. The transit and shipping trade is considerable, and as one of the principal markets of South Holland, the round, white Gouda cheeses are known throughout Europe. Boskoop, 5 m. N. by W. of Gouda on the Gouwe, is famous for its nursery gardens; and the little old-world town of Oudewater as the birthplace of the famous theologian Arminius in 1560. The town hall (1588) of Oudewater contains a picture by Dirk Stoop (d. 1686), commemorating the capture of the town by the Spaniards in 1575 and the subsequent sack and massacre.
GOUDIMEL, CLAUDE, musical composer of the 16th century, was born about 1510. The French and the Belgians claim him as their countryman. In all probability he was born at Besançon, for in his edition of the songs of Arcadelt, as well as in the mass of 1554, he calls himself “natif de Besançon” and “Claudius Godimellus Vescontinus.” This discountenances the theory of Ambros that he was born at Vaison near Avignon. As to his early education we know little or nothing, but the excellent Latin in which some of his letters were written proves that, in addition to his musical knowledge, he also acquired a good classical training. It is supposed that he was in Rome in 1540 at the head of a music-school, and that besides many other celebrated musicians, Palestrina was amongst his pupils. About the middle of the century he seems to have left Rome for Paris, where, in conjunction with Jean Duchemin, he published, in 1555, a musical setting of Horace’s Odes. Infinitely more important is another collection of vocal pieces, a setting of the celebrated French version of the Psalms by Marot and Beza published in 1565. It is written in four parts, the melody being assigned to the tenor. The invention of the melodies was long ascribed to Goudimel, but they have now definitely been proved to have originated in popular tunes found in the collections of this period. Some of these tunes are still used by the French Protestant Church. Others were adopted by the German Lutherans, a German imitation of the French versions of the Psalms in the same metres having been published at an early date. Although the French version of the Psalms was at first used by Catholics as well as Protestants, there is little doubt that Goudimel had embraced the new faith. In Michel Brenet’s Biographie (Annales franc-cuntoises, Besançon, 1898, P. Jacquin) it is established that in Metz, where he was living in 1565, Goudimel moved in Huguenot circles, and even figured as godfather to the daughter of the president of Senneton. Seven years later he fell a victim to religious fanaticism during the St Bartholomew massacres at Lyons from the 27th to the 28th of August 1572, his death, it is stated, being due to “les ennemis de la gloire de Dieu et quelques méchants envieux de l’honneur qu’il avait acquis.” Masses and motets belonging to his Roman period are found in the Vatican library, and in the archives of various churches in Rome; others were published. Thus the work entitled Missae tres a Claudio Goudimel praestantissimo musico auctore, nunc primum in lucem editae, contains one mass by the learned editor himself, the other two being by Claudius Sermisy and Jean Maillard respectively. Another collection, La Fleur des chansons des deux plus excellens musiciens de nostre temps, consists of part songs by Goudimel and Orlando di Lasso. Burney gives in his history a motet of Goudimel’s Domine quid multiplicati sunt.
GOUFFIER, the name of a great French family, which owned the estate of Bonnivet in Poitou from the 14th century. Guillaume Gouffier, chamberlain to Charles VII., was an inveterate enemy of Jacques Cœur, obtaining his condemnation and afterwards receiving his property (1491). He had a great number of children, several of whom played a part in history. Artus, seigneur de Boisy (c. 1475-1520) was entrusted with the education of the young count of Angoulême (Francis I.), and on the accession of this prince to the throne as Francis I. became grand master of the royal household, playing an important part in the government; to him was given the task of negotiating the treaty of Noyon in 1516; and shortly before his death the king raised the estates of Roanne and Boisy to the rank of a duchy, that of Roannais, in his favour. Adrien Gouffier (d. 1523) was bishop of Coutances and Albi, and grand almoner of France. Guillaume Gouffier, seigneur de Bonnivet, became admiral. of France (see Bonnivet). Claude Gouffier, son of Artus, was created comte de Maulevrier (1542) and marquis de Boisy (1564).
There were many branches of this family, the chief of them being the dukes of Roannais, the counts of Caravas, the lords of Crèvecœur and of Bonnivet, the marquises of Thois, of Brazeux, and of Espagny. The name of Gouffier was adopted in the 18th century by a branch of the house of Choiseul.
(M. P.*)
GOUGE, MARTIN (c. 1360-1444), surnamed de Charpaigne, French chancellor, was born at Bourges about 1360. A canon of Bourges, in 1402 he became treasurer to John, duke of Berri, and in 1406 bishop of Chartres. He was arrested by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, with the hapless Jean de Montaigu (1349-1409) in 1409, but was soon released and then banished. Attaching himself to the dauphin Louis, duke of Guienne, he became his chancellor, the king’s ambassador in Brittany, and a member of the grand council; and on the 13th of May 1415, he was transferred from the see of Chartres to that of Clermont-Ferrand. In May 1418, when the Burgundians re-entered Paris, he only escaped death at their hands by taking refuge in the Bastille. He then left Paris, but only to fall into the hands of his enemy, the duke de la Trémoille, who imprisoned him in the castle of Sully. Rescued by the dauphin Charles, he was appointed chancellor of France on the 3rd of February 1422. He endeavoured to reconcile Burgundy and France, was a party to the selection of Arthur, earl of Richmond, as constable, but had to resign his chancellorship in favour of Regnault of Chartres; first from March 25th to August 6th 1425, and again when La Trémoille had supplanted Richmond. After the fall of La Trémoille in 1433 he returned to court, and exercised a powerful influence over affairs of state almost till his death, which took place at the castle of Beaulieu (Puy-de-Dôme) on the 25th or 26th of November 1444.
See Hiver’s account in the Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Centre, p. 267 (1869); and the Nouvelle Biographie générale, vol. xxi.
GOUGE (adopted from the Fr. gouge, derived from the Late Lat. gubia or gulbia, in Ducange gulbium, an implement ad hortum excolendum, and also instrumentum ferreum in usu fabrorum; according to the New English Dictionary the word is probably of Celtic origin, gylf, a beak, appearing in Welsh, and gilb, a boring tool, in Cornish), a tool of the chisel type with a curved blade, used for scooping a groove or channel in wood, stone, &c. (see Tool). A similar instrument is used in surgery for operations involving the excision of portions of bone. “Gouge” is also used as the name of a bookbinder’s tool, for impressing a curved line on the leather, and for the line so impressed. In mining, a “gouge” is the layer of soft rock or earth sometimes found in each side of a vein of coal or ore, which the miner can scoop out with his pick, and thus attack the vein more easily from the side. The verb “to gouge” is used in the sense of scooping or forcing out.
GOUGH, HUGH GOUGH, Viscount (1779-1869), British field-marshal, a descendant of Francis Gough who was made bishop of Limerick in 1626, was born at Woodstown, Limerick, on the 3rd of November 1779. Having obtained a commission in the army in August 1794, he served with the 78th Highlanders at the Cape of Good Hope, taking part in the capture of Cape Town and of the Dutch fleet in Saldanha Bay in 1796. His next service was in the West Indies, where, with the 87th (Royal Irish Fusiliers), he shared in the attack on Porto Rico, the capture of Surinam, and the brigand war in St Lucia. In 1809 he was called to take part in the Peninsular War, and, joining the army under Wellington, commanded his regiment as major in the operations before Oporto, by which the town was taken from the French. At Talavera he was severely wounded, and had his horse shot under him. For his conduct on this occasion he was afterwards promoted lieutenant-colonel, his commission, on the recommendation of Wellington, being antedated from the day of the duke’s despatch. He was thus the first officer who ever received brevet rank for services performed in the field at the head of a regiment. He was next engaged at the battle of Barrosa, at which his regiment captured a French eagle. At the defence of Tarifa the post of danger was assigned to him, and he compelled the enemy to raise the siege. At Vitoria, where Gough again distinguished himself, his regiment captured the baton of Marshal Jourdan. He was again severely wounded at Nivelle, and was soon after created a knight of St Charles by the king of Spain. At the close of the war he returned home and enjoyed a respite of some years from active service. He next took command of a regiment stationed in the south of Ireland, discharging at the same time the duties of a magistrate during a period of agitation. Gough was promoted major-general in 1830. Seven years later he was sent to India to take command of the Mysore division of the army. But not long after his arrival in India the difficulties which led to the first Chinese war made the presence of an energetic general on the scene indispensable, and Gough was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in China. This post he held during all the operations of the war; and by his great achievements and numerous victories in the face of immense difficulties, he at length enabled the English plenipotentiary, Sir H. Pottinger, to dictate peace on his own terms. After the conclusion of the treaty of Nanking in August 1842 the British forces were withdrawn; and before the close of the year Gough, who had been made a G.C.B, in the previous year for his services in the capture of the Canton forts, was created a baronet. In August 1843 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the British forces in India, and in December he took the command in person against the Mahrattas, and defeated them at Maharajpur, capturing more than fifty guns. In 1845 occurred the rupture with the Sikhs, who crossed the Sutlej in large numbers, and Sir Hugh Gough conducted the operations against them, being well supported by Lord Hardinge, the governor-general, who volunteered to serve under him. Successes in the hard-fought battles of Mudki and Ferozeshah were succeeded by the victory of Sobraon, and shortly afterwards the Sikhs sued for peace at Lahore. The services of Sir Hugh Gough were rewarded by his elevation to the peerage of the United Kingdom as Baron Gough (April 1846). The war broke out again in 1848, and again Lord Gough took the field; but the result of the battle of Chillianwalla being equivocal, he was superseded by the home authorities in favour of Sir Charles Napier; before the news of the supersession arrived Lord Gough had finally crushed the Sikhs in the battle of Gujarat (February 1849). His tactics during the Sikh wars were the subject of an embittered controversy (see Sikh Wars). Lord Gough now returned to England, was raised to a viscountcy, and for the third time received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament. A pension of £2000 per annum was granted to him by parliament, and an equal pension by the East India Company. He did not again see active service. In 1854 he was appointed colonel of the Royal Horse Guards, and two years later he was sent to the Crimea to invest Marshal Pélissier and other officers with the insignia of the Bath. Honours were multiplied upon him during his latter years. He was made a knight of St Patrick, being the first knight of the order who did not hold an Irish peerage, was sworn a privy councillor, was named a G.C.S.I., and in November 1862 was made field-marshal. He was twice married, and left children by both his wives. He died on the 2nd of March 1869.
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 an Autobiography (1846); Orations (1854); Temperance Addresses (1870); Temperance Lectures (1879); and Sunlight 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 entitled Atlas 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’s Britannia, which appeared in 1789. Meantime he published, in 1786, the first volume of his splendid work, the Sepulchral 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 are An 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 their Archaeologia.
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 of Supplément au dictionnaire de Moréri (1735), and a Nouveau Supplément to a subsequent edition of the work; he collaborated in Bibliothèque française, ou histoire littéraire de la France (18 vols., Paris, 1740-1759); and in the Vies des saints (7 vols., 1730); he also wrote Mémoires historiques et littéraires sur le collège royal de France (1758); Histoire des Inquisitions (Paris, 1752); and supervised an edition of Richelet’s Dictionnaire, of which he has also given an abridgment. He helped the abbé Fabre in his continuation of Fleury’s Histoire ecclésiastique.
See Mémoires 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, the reliefs 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 (see Gazette des Beaux Arts, 2e période, 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. His Thoughts on Personal Religion (1862) and The Pursuit of Holiness were well received; and he wrote the Life (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.
See Life by 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 1856 at 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 the Principles of Zoology (2nd ed. 1851); he edited the Terrestrial and Air-breathing Mollusks (1851-1855) of Amos Binney (1803-1847); he translated Lamarck’s Genera of Shells. The two most important monuments to his scientific work, however, are Mollusca and Shells (vol. xii., 1852) of the United States exploring expedition (1838-1842) under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1833), published by the government, and the Report on the Invertebrata published 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. The Astronomical Journal was 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 of Military 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 his Uranometria 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.
See Astronomical 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 of Truth, and in 1887 he became a contributor to the Pall Mall Gazette, transferring his allegiance to the Westminster Gazette on its foundation and subsequently acting as assistant editor. Among his independent publications are Who killed Cock Robin? (1897), Tales told in the Zoo (1900), two volumes of Froissart’s Modern Chronicles, told and pictured by F. C. Gould (1902 and 1903), and Picture Politics—a periodical reprint of his Westminster Gazette cartoons, 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 from Uncle 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 wrote A 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 daring attempt 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 that Sapho differed 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, and Sapho once 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 for Ulysse, 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’s Faust had 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 of Faust took 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 his Mefistofele. Faust is 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 version Faust contained 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 absolute insouciance, 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 introduce la note tendre, to sing the tender passion in accents soft and languorous. The musical language employed in Faust was 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 of Faust in 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 was Philémon 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 meet with success, although the score contains some of Gounod’s choicest inspirations, notably the well-known air, “Lend me your aid.” La Reine de Saba was adapted for the English stage under the name of Irene. 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 the Mireio of the Provençal poet Mistral, Mireille contains 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, yet Mireille has 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 melodious entr’acte from this little work has survived and been repeatedly performed.