VOLUME XII SLICE III Gordon, Lord George to Grasses
Reading edition
Articles in This Slice
GORDON, LORD GEORGE GOZZOLI, BENOZZO
GORDON, SIR JOHN WATSON GRAAFF REINET
GORDON, LEON GRABBE, CHRISTIAN DIETRICH
GORDON, PATRICK GRABE, JOHN ERNEST
GORDON-CUMMING, ROUALEYN GEORGE GRACCHUS
GORE, CATHERINE GRACE FRANCES GRACE, WILLIAM GILBERT
GORE, CHARLES GRACE
GORE GRACES, THE
GOREE GRACIÁN Y MORALES, BALTASAR
GORGE GRACKLE
GÖRGEI, ARTHUR GRADISCA
GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO GRADO
GORGET GRADUAL
GORGIAS GRADUATE
GORGON, GORGONS GRADUATION
GORGONZOLA GRADUS
GORI GRAETZ, HEINRICH
GORILLA GRAEVIUS, JOHANN GEORG
GORINCHEM GRAF, ARTURO
GORING, GEORGE GORING GRAF, KARL HEINRICH
GORKI, MAXIM GRÄFE, ALBRECHT VON
GÖRLITZ GRAFE, HEINRICH
GÖRRES, JOHANN JOSEPH VON GRÄFE, KARL FERDINAND VON
GORSAS, ANTOINE JOSEPH GRAFFITO
GORST, SIR JOHN ELDON GRAFLY, CHARLES
GORTON, SAMUEL GRÄFRATH
GORTON GRAFT
GORTYNA GRAFTON, DUKES OF
GÖRTZ, GEORG HEINRICH VON GRAFTON, RICHARD
GÖRZ GRAFTON (New South Wales)
GÖRZ AND GRADISCA GRAFTON (Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
GOSCHEN, GEORGE JOACHIM GOSCHEN GRAFTON (West Virginia, U.S.A.)
GOS-HAWK GRAHAM, SIR GERALD
GOSHEN (Egypt) GRAHAM, SIR JAMES ROBERT GEORGE
GOSHEN (Indiana, U.S.A.) GRAHAM, SYLVESTER
GOSLAR GRAHAM, THOMAS
GOSLICKI, WAWRZYNIEC GRAHAME, JAMES
GOSLIN GRAHAM’S DYKE
GOSNOLD, BARTHOLOMEW GRAHAM’S TOWN
GOSPATRIC GRAIL, THE HOLY
GOSPEL GRAIN
GOSPORT GRAINS OF PARADISE
GOSS, SIR JOHN GRAIN TRADE
GOSSAMER GRAM
GOSSE, EDMUND GRAMMAR
GOSSE, PHILIP HENRY GRAMMICHELE
GOSSEC, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH GRAMMONT
GOSSIP GRAMONT, ANTOINE AGÉNOR ALFRED
GOSSNER, JOHANNES EVANGELISTA GRAMONT, PHILIBERT
GOSSON, STEPHEN GRAMOPHONE
GOT, FRANÇOIS JULES EDMOND GRAMPIANS, THE
GÖTA GRAMPOUND
GOTARZES GRAMPUS
GOTHA GRANADA, LUIS DE
GOTHAM, WISE MEN OF GRANADA (Nicaragua)
GOTHENBURG GRANADA (province of Spain)
GOTHIC GRANADA (town of Spain)
GÖTHITE GRANADILLA
GOTHS GRANARIES
GOTLAND GRANBY, JOHN MANNERS
GOTO ISLANDS GRAN CHACO
GOTTER, FRIEDRICH WILHELM GRAND ALLIANCE, WAR OF THE
GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG GRAND CANARY
GÖTTINGEN GRAND CANYON
GÖTTLING, CARL WILHELM GRAND-DUKE
GOTTSCHALK GRANDEE
GOTTSCHALL, RUDOLF VON GRAND FORKS (Canada)
GOTTSCHED, JOHANN CHRISTOPH GRAND FORKS (North Dakota, U.S.A.)
GÖTZ, JOHANN NIKOLAUS GRAND HAVEN
GOUACHE GRANDIER, URBAN
GOUDA GRAND ISLAND
GOUDIMEL, CLAUDE GRANDMONTINES
GOUFFIER GRAND RAPIDS
GOUGE, MARTIN GRAND RAPIDS
GOUGE GRANDSON
GOUGH, HUGH GOUGH GRANET, FRANÇOIS MARIUS
GOUGH, JOHN BARTHOLOMEW GRANGE
GOUGH, RICHARD GRANGEMOUTH
GOUJET, CLAUDE PIERRE GRANGER, JAMES
GOUJON, JEAN GRANITE
GOUJON, JEAN MARIE CLAUDE ALEXANDRE GRAN SASSO D’ITALIA
GOULBURN, EDWARD MEYRICK GRANT, SIR ALEXANDER
GOULBURN, HENRY GRANT, ANNE
GOULBURN GRANT, CHARLES
GOULD, AUGUSTUS ADDISON GRANT, SIR FRANCIS
GOULD, BENJAMIN APTHORP GRANT, GEORGE MONRO
GOULD, SIR FRANCIS CARRUTHERS GRANT, JAMES
GOULD, JAY GRANT, JAMES AUGUSTUS
GOUNOD, CHARLES FRANÇOIS GRANT, SIR JAMES HOPE
GOURD GRANT, SIR PATRICK
GOURGAUD, GASPAR GRANT, ROBERT
GOURKO, JOSEPH VLADIMIROVICH GRANT, ULYSSES SIMPSON
GOURMET GRANT
GOUROCK GRANTH
GOURVILLE, JEAN HERAULD GRANTHAM, THOMAS ROBINSON
GOUT GRANTHAM
GOUTHIÈRE, PIERRE GRANTLEY, FLETCHER NORTON
GOUVION SAINT-CYR, LAURENT GRANTOWN
GOVAN GRANULITE
GOVERNMENT GRANVELLA, ANTOINE PERRENOT
GOVERNOR GRANVILLE, GRANVILLE GEORGE LEVESON-GOWER
GOW, NIEL GRANVILLE, JOHN CARTERET
GOWER, JOHN GRANVILLE (Australia)
GOWER GRANVILLE (France)
GOWN GRANVILLE (Ohio, U.S.A.)
GOWRIE, JOHN RUTHVEN GRAPE
GOWRIE GRAPHICAL METHODS
GOYA GRAPHITE
GOYANNA GRAPTOLITES
GOYA Y LUCIENTES, FRANCISCO GRASLITZ
GOYÁZ GRASMERE
GOYEN, JAN JOSEPHSZOON VAN GRASS AND GRASSLAND
GOZLAN, LÉON GRASSE, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH PAUL
GOZO GRASSE
GOZZI, CARLO GRASSES
GOZZI, GASPARO
GORDON, LORD GEORGE (1751-1793), third and youngest son of Cosmo George, duke of Gordon, was born in London on the 26th of December 1751. After completing his education at Eton, he entered the navy, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant in 1772, but Lord Sandwich, then at the head of the admiralty, would not promise him the command of a ship, and he resigned his commission shortly before the beginning of the American War. In 1774 the pocket borough of Ludgershall was bought for him by General Fraser, whom he was opposing in Inverness-shire, in order to bribe him not to contest the county. He was considered flighty, and was not looked upon as being of any importance. In 1779 he organized, and made himself head of the Protestant associations, formed to secure the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act of 1778. On the 2nd of June 1780 he headed the mob which marched in procession from St George’s Fields to the Houses of Parliament in order to present the monster petition against the acts. After the mob reached Westminster a terrific riot ensued, which continued several days, during which the city was virtually at their mercy. At first indeed they dispersed after threatening to make a forcible entry into the House of Commons, but reassembled soon afterwards and destroyed several Roman Catholic chapels, pillaged the private dwellings of many Roman Catholics, set fire to Newgate and broke open all the other prisons, attacked the Bank of England and several other public buildings, and continued the work of violence and conflagration until the interference of the military, by whom no fewer than 450 persons were killed and wounded before the riots were quelled. For his share in instigating the riots Lord Gordon was apprehended on a charge of high treason; but, mainly through the skilful and eloquent defence of Erskine, he was acquitted on the ground that he had no treasonable intentions. His life was henceforth full of crack-brained schemes, political and financial. In 1786 he was excommunicated by the archbishop of Canterbury for refusing to bear witness in an ecclesiastical suit; and in 1787 he was convicted of libelling the queen of France, the French ambassador and the administration of justice in England. He was, however, permitted to withdraw from the court without bail, and made his escape to Holland; but on account of representations from the court of Versailles he was commanded to quit that country, and, returning to England, was apprehended, and in January 1788 was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Newgate, where he lived at his ease, giving dinners and dances. As he could not obtain securities for his good behaviour on the termination of his term of imprisonment, he was not allowed to leave Newgate, and there he died of delirious fever on the 1st of November 1793. Some time before his apprehension he had become a convert to Judaism, and had undergone the initiatory rite.
A serious defence of most of his eccentricities is undertaken in The Life of Lord George Gordon, with a Philosophical Review of his Political Conduct, by Robert Watson, M.D. (London, 1795). The best accounts of Lord George Gordon are to be found in the Annual Registers from 1780 to the year of his death.
GORDON, SIR JOHN WATSON (1788-1864), Scottish painter, was the eldest son of Captain Watson, R.N., a cadet of the family of Watson of Overmains, in the county of Berwick. He was born in Edinburgh in 1788, and was educated specially with a view to his joining the Royal Engineers. He entered as a student in the government school of design, under the management of the Board of Manufactures. His natural taste for art quickly developed itself, and his father was persuaded to allow him to adopt it as his profession. Captain Watson was himself a skilful draughtsman, and his brother George Watson, afterwards president of the Scottish Academy, stood high as a portrait painter, second only to Sir Henry Raeburn, who also was a friend of the family. In the year 1808 John sent to the exhibition of the Lyceum in Nicolson Street a subject from the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and continued for some years to exhibit fancy subjects; but, although freely and sweetly painted, they were altogether without the force and character which stamped his portrait pictures as the works of a master. After the death of Sir Henry Raeburn in 1823, he succeeded to much of his practice. He assumed in 1826 the name of Gordon. One of the earliest of his famous sitters was Sir Walter Scott, who sat for a first portrait in 1820. Then came J. G. Lockhart in 1821; Professor Wilson, 1822 and 1850, two portraits; Sir Archibald Alison, 1839; Dr Chalmers, 1844; a little later De Quincey, and Sir David Brewster, 1864. Among his most important works may be mentioned the earl of Dalhousie (1833), in the Archers’ Hall, Edinburgh; Sir Alexander Hope (1835), in the county buildings, Linlithgow; Lord President Hope, in the Parliament House; and Dr Chalmers. These, unlike his later works, are generally rich in colour. The full length of Dr Brunton (1844), and Dr Lee, the principal of the university (1846), both on the staircase of the college library, mark a modification of his style, which ultimately resolved itself into extreme simplicity, both of colour and treatment.
During the last twenty years of his life he painted many distinguished Englishmen who came to Edinburgh to sit to him. And it is significant that David Cox, the landscape painter, on being presented with his portrait, subscribed for by many friends, chose to go to Edinburgh to have it executed by Watson Gordon, although he neither knew the painter personally nor had ever before visited the country. Among the portraits painted during this period, in what may be termed his third style, are De Quincey, in the National Portrait Gallery, London; General Sir Thomas Macdougall Brisbane, in the Royal Society; the prince of Wales, Lord Macaulay, Sir M. Packington, Lord Murray, Lord Cockburn, Lord Rutherford and Sir John Shaw Lefevre, in the Scottish National Gallery. These latter pictures are mostly clear and grey, sometimes showing little or no positive colour, the flesh itself being very grey, and the handling extremely masterly, though never obtruding its cleverness. He was very successful in rendering acute observant character. A good example of his last style, showing pearly flesh-painting freely handled, yet highly finished, is his head of Sir John Shaw Lefevre.
John Watson Gordon was one of the earlier members of the Royal Scottish Academy, and was elected its president in 1850; he was at the same time appointed limner for Scotland to the queen, and received the honour of knighthood. Since 1841 he had been an associate of the Royal Academy, and in 1851 he was elected a royal academician. He died on the 1st of June 1864.
GORDON, LEON, originally Judah Loeb Ben Asher (1831-1892), Russian-Jewish poet and novelist (Hebrew), was born at Wilna in 1831 and died at St Petersburg in 1892. He took a leading part in the modern revival of the Hebrew language and culture. His satires did much to rouse the Russian Jews to a new sense of the reality of life, and Gordon was the apostle of enlightenment in the Ghettos. His Hebrew style is classical and pure. His poems were collected in four volumes, Kol Shire Yehudah (St Petersburg, 1883-1884); his novels in Kol Kithbe Yehuda (Odessa, 1889).
For his works see Jewish Quarterly Review, xviii. 437 seq.
GORDON, PATRICK (1635-1699), Russian general, was descended from a Scottish family of Aberdeenshire, who possessed the small estate of Auchleuchries, and were connected with the house of Haddo. He was born in 1635, and after completing his education at the parish schools of Cruden and Ellon, entered, in his fifteenth year, the Jesuit college at Braunsberg, Prussia; but, as “his humour could not endure such a still and strict way of living,” he soon resolved to return home. He changed his mind, however, before re-embarking, and after journeying on foot in several parts of Germany, ultimately, in 1655, enlisted at Hamburg in the Swedish service. In the course of the next five years he served alternately with the Poles and Swedes as he was taken prisoner by either. In 1661, after further experience as a soldier of fortune, he took service in the Russian army under Alexis I., and in 1665 he was sent on a special mission to England. After his return he distinguished himself in several wars against the Turks and Tatars in southern Russia, and in recognition of his services he in 1678 was made major-general, in 1679 was appointed to the chief command at Kiev, and in 1683 was made lieutenant-general. He visited England in 1686, and in 1687 and 1689 took part as quartermaster-general in expeditions against the Crim Tatars in the Crimea, being made full general for his services, in spite of the denunciations of the Greek Church to which, as a heretic, he was exposed. On the breaking out of the revolution in Moscow in 1689, Gordon with the troops he commanded virtually decided events in favour of the tsar Peter I., and against the tsaritsa Sophia. He was therefore during the remainder of his life in high favour with the tsar, who confided to him the command of his capital during his absence from Russia, employed him in organizing his army according to the European system, and latterly raised him to the rank of general-in-chief. He died on the 29th of November 1699. The tsar, who had visited him frequently during his illness, was with him when he died, and with his own hands closed his eyes.
General Gordon left behind him a diary of his life, written in English. This is preserved in MS. in the archives of the Russian foreign office. A complete German translation, edited by Dr Maurice Possalt (Tagebuch des Generals Patrick Gordon) was published, the first volume at Moscow in 1849, the second at St Petersburg in 1851, and the third at St Petersburg in 1853; and Passages from the Diary of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries (1635-1699), was printed, under the editorship of Joseph Robertson, for the Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1859.
GORDON-CUMMING, ROUALEYN GEORGE (1820-1866), Scottish traveller and sportsman, known as the “lion hunter,” was born on the 15th of March 1820. He was the second son of Sir William G. Gordon-Cumming, 2nd baronet of Altyre and Gordonstown, Elginshire. From his early years he was distinguished by his passion for sport. He was educated at Eton, and at eighteen joined the East India Co.’s service as a cornet in the Madras Light Cavalry. The climate of India not suiting him, after two years’ experience he retired from the service and returned to Scotland. During his stay in the East he had laid the foundation of his collection of hunting trophies and specimens of natural history. In 1843 he joined the Cape Mounted Rifles, but for the sake of absolute freedom sold out at the end of the year and with an ox wagon and a few native followers set out for the interior. He hunted chiefly in Bechuanaland and the Limpopo valley, regions then swarming with big game. In 1848 he returned to England. The story of his remarkable exploits is vividly told in his book, Five Years of a Hunter’s Life in the Far Interior of South Africa (London, 1850, 3rd ed. 1851). Of this volume, received at first with incredulity by stay-at-home critics, David Livingstone, who furnished Gordon-Cumming with most of his native guides, wrote: “I have no hesitation in saying that Mr Cumming’s book conveys a truthful idea of South African hunting” (Missionary Travels, chap. vii.). His collection of hunting trophies was exhibited in London in 1851 at the Great Exhibition, and was illustrated by a lecture delivered by Gordon-Cumming. The collection, known as “The South Africa Museum,” was afterwards exhibited in various parts of the country. In 1858 Gordon-Cumming went to live at Fort Augustus on the Caledonian Canal, where the exhibition of his trophies attracted many visitors. He died there on the 24th of March 1866.
An abridgment of his book was published in 1856 under the title of The Lion Hunter of South Africa, and in this form was frequently reprinted, a new edition appearing in 1904.
GORE, CATHERINE GRACE FRANCES (1799-1861), English novelist and dramatist, the daughter of Charles Moody, a wine-merchant, was born in 1799 at East Retford, Nottinghamshire. In 1823 she was married to Captain Charles Gore; and, in the next year, she published her first work, Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour. Then followed, among others, the Lettre de Cachet (1827), The Reign of Terror (1827), Hungarian Tales (1829), Manners of the Day (1830), Mothers and Daughters (1831), and The Fair of May Fair (1832), Mrs Armytage (1836). Every succeeding year saw several volumes from her pen: The Cabinet Minister and The Courtier of the Days of Charles II., in 1839; Preferment in 1840. In 1841 Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, attracted considerable attention. Greville, or a Season in Paris appeared in the same year; then Ormington, or Cecil a Peer, Fascination, The Ambassador’s Wife; and in 1843 The Banker’s Wife. Mrs Gore continued to write, with unfailing fertility of invention, till her death on the 29th of January 1861. She also wrote some dramas of which the most successful was the School for Coquettes, produced at the Haymarket (1831). She was a woman of versatile talent, and set to music Burns’s “And ye shall walk in silk attire,” one of the most popular songs of her day. Her extraordinary literary industry is proved by the existence of more than seventy distinct works. Her best novels are Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb, and The Banker’s Wife. Cecil gives extremely vivid sketches of London fashionable life, and is full of happy epigrammatic touches. For the knowledge of London clubs displayed in it Mrs Gore was indebted to William Beckford, the author of Vathek. The Banker’s Wife is distinguished by some clever studies of character, especially in the persons of Mr Hamlyn, the cold calculating money-maker, and his warm-hearted country neighbour, Colonel Hamilton.
Mrs Gore’s novels had an immense temporary popularity; they were parodied by Thackeray in Punch, in his “Lords and Liveries by the author of Dukes and Déjeuners”; but, tedious as they are to present-day readers, they presented on the whole faithful pictures of the contemporary life and pursuits of the English upper classes.
GORE, CHARLES (1853- ), English divine, was born in 1853, the 3rd son of the Hon. Charles Alexander Gore, brother of the 4th earl of Arran. His mother was a daughter of the 4th earl of Bessborough. He was educated at Harrow and at Balliol College, Oxford, and was elected fellow of Trinity College in 1875. From 1880 to 1883 he was vice-principal of the theological college at Cuddesdon, and, when in 1884 Pusey House was founded at Oxford as a home for Dr Pusey’s library and a centre for the propagation of his principles, he was appointed principal, a position which he held until 1893. As principal of Pusey House Mr Gore exercised a wide influence over undergraduates and the younger clergy, and it was largely, if not mainly, under this influence that the “Oxford Movement” underwent a change which to the survivors of the old school of Tractarians seemed to involve a break with its basic principles. “Puseyism” had been in the highest degree conservative, basing itself on authority and tradition, and repudiating any compromise with the modern critical and liberalizing spirit. Mr Gore, starting from the same basis of faith and authority, soon found from his practical experience in dealing with the “doubts and difficulties” of the younger generation that this uncompromising attitude was untenable, and set himself the task of reconciling the principle of authority in religion with that of scientific authority by attempting to define the boundaries of their respective spheres of influence. To him the divine authority of the Catholic Church was an axiom, and in 1889 he published two works, the larger of which, The Church and the Ministry, is a learned vindication of the principle of Apostolic Succession in the episcopate against the Presbyterians and other Protestant bodies, while the second, Roman Catholic Claims, is a defence, couched in a more popular form, of the Anglican Church and Anglican orders against the attacks of the Romanists.
So far his published views had been in complete consonance with those of the older Tractarians. But in 1890 a great stir was created by the publication, under his editorship, of Lux Mundi, a series of essays by different writers, being an attempt “to succour a distressed faith by endeavouring to bring the Christian Creed into its right relation to the modern growth of knowledge, scientific, historic, critical; and to modern problems of politics and ethics.” Mr Gore himself contributed an essay on “The Holy Spirit and Inspiration.” The book, which ran through twelve editions in a little over a year, met with a somewhat mixed reception. Orthodox churchmen, Evangelical and Tractarian alike, were alarmed by views on the incarnate nature of Christ that seemed to them to impugn his Divinity, and by concessions to the Higher Criticism in the matter of the inspiration of Holy Scriptures which appeared to them to convert the “impregnable rock,” as Gladstone had called it, into a foundation of sand; sceptics, on the other hand, were not greatly impressed by a system of defence which seemed to draw an artificial line beyond which criticism was not to advance. None the less the book produced a profound effect, and that far beyond the borders of the English Church, and it is largely due to its influence, and to that of the school it represents, that the High Church movement developed thenceforth on “Modernist” rather than Tractarian lines.
In 1891 Mr Gore was chosen to deliver the Bampton lectures before the university, and chose for his subject the Incarnation. In these lectures he developed the doctrine, the enunciation of which in Lux Mundi had caused so much heart-searching. This is an attempt to explain how it came that Christ, though incarnate God, could be in error, e.g. in his citations from the Old Testament. The orthodox explanation was based on the principle of accommodation (q.v.). This, however, ignored the difficulty that if Christ during his sojourn on earth was not subject to human limitations, especially of knowledge, he was not a man as other men, and therefore not subject to their trials and temptations. This difficulty Gore sought to meet through the doctrine of the κένωσις. Ever since the Pauline epistles had been received into the canon theologians had, from various points of view, attempted to explain what St Paul meant when he wrote of Christ (2 Phil. ii. 7) that “he emptied himself and took upon him the form of a servant” (ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δουλοῦ λαβῶν). According to Mr Gore this means that Christ, on his incarnation, became subject to all human limitations, and had, so far as his life on earth was concerned, stripped himself of all the attributes of the Godhead, including the Divine omniscience, the Divine nature being, as it were, hidden under the human.1
Lux Mundi and the Bampton lectures led to a situation of some tension which was relieved when in 1893 Dr Gore resigned his principalship and became vicar of Radley, a small parish near Oxford. In 1894 he became canon of Westminster. Here he gained commanding influence as a preacher and in 1898 was appointed one of the court chaplains. In 1902 he succeeded J. J. S. Perowne as bishop of Worcester and in 1905 was installed bishop of Birmingham, a new see the creation of which had been mainly due to his efforts. While adhering rigidly to his views on the divine institution of episcopacy as essential to the Christian Church, Dr Gore from the first cultivated friendly relations with the ministers of other denominations, and advocated co-operation with them in all matters when agreement was possible. In social questions he became one of the leaders of the considerable group of High Churchmen known, somewhat loosely, as Christian Socialists. He worked actively against the sweating system, pleaded for European intervention in Macedonia, and was a keen supporter of the Licensing Bill of 1908. In 1892 he founded the clerical fraternity known as the Community of the Resurrection. Its members are priests, who are bound by the obligation of celibacy, live under a common rule and with a common purse. Their work is pastoral, evangelistic, literary and educational. In 1898 the House of the Resurrection at Mirfield, near Huddersfield, became the centre of the community; in 1903 a college for training candidates for orders was established there, and in the same year a branch house, for missionary work, was set up in Johannesburg in South Africa.
Dr Gore’s works include The Incarnation (Bampton Lectures, 1891), The Creed of the Christian (1895), The Body of Christ (1901), The New Theology and the Old Religion (1908), and expositions of The Sermon on the Mount (1896), Ephesians (1898), and Romans (1899), while in 1910 he published Orders and Unity.
1 Cf. the Lutheran theologian Ernst Sartorius in his Lehre von der heiligen Liebe (1844), Lehre ii. pp. 21 et seq.: “the Son of God veils his all-seeing eye and descends into human darkness and as child of man opens his eye as the gradually growing light of the world of humanity, until at the right hand of the Father he allows it to shine forth in all its glory.” See Loofs, Art. “Kenosis” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 1901), x. 247.
GORE. (1) (O. Eng. gor, dung or filth), a word formerly used in the sense of dirt, but now confined to blood that has thickened after being shed. (2) (O. Eng. gára, probably connected with gare, an old word for “spear”), something of triangular shape, resembling therefore a spear-head. The word is used for a tapering strip of land, in the “common or open field” system of agriculture, where from the shape of the land the acre or half-acre strips could not be portioned out in straight divisions. Similarly “gore” is used in the United States, especially in Maine and Vermont, for a strip of land left out in surveying when divisions are made and boundaries marked. The triangular sections of material used in forming the covering of a balloon or an umbrella are also called “gores,” and in dressmaking the term is used for a triangular piece of material inserted in a dress to adjust the difference in widths. To gore, i.e. to stab or pierce with any sharp instrument, but more particularly used of piercing with the horns of a bull, is probably directly connected with gare, a spear.
GOREE, an island off the west coast of Africa, forming part of the French colony of Senegal. It lies at the entrance of the large natural harbour formed by the peninsula of Cape Verde. The island, some 900 yds. long by 330 broad, and 3 m. distant from the nearest point of the mainland, is mostly barren rock. The greater part of its surface is occupied by a town, formerly a thriving commercial entrepôt and a strong military post. Until 1906 it was a free port. With the rise of Dakar (q.v.), c. 1860, on the adjacent coast, Goree lost its trade and its inhabitants, mostly Jolofs, had dwindled in 1905 to about 1500. Its healthy climate, however, makes it useful as a sanatorium. The streets are narrow, and the houses, mainly built of dark-red stone, are flat-roofed. The castle of St Michael, the governor’s residence, the hospital and barracks, testify to the former importance of the town. Within the castle is an artesian well, the only water-supply, save that collected in rain tanks, on the island. Goree was first occupied by the Dutch, who took possession of it early in the 17th century and called it Goeree or Goedereede, in memory of the island on their own coast now united with Overflakkee. Its native name is Bir, i.e. a belly, in allusion to its shape. It was captured by the English under Commodore (afterwards Admiral Sir Robert) Holmes in 1663, but retaken in the following year by de Ruyter. The Dutch were finally expelled in 1677 by the French under Admiral d’Estrées. Goree subsequently fell again into the hands of the English, but was definitely occupied by France in 1817 (see Senegal: History).
GORGE, strictly the French word for the throat considered externally. Hence it is applied in falconry to a hawk’s crop, and thus, with the sense of something greedy or ravenous, to food given to a hawk and to the contents of a hawk’s crop or stomach. It is from this sense that the expression of a person’s “gorge rising at” anything in the sense of loathing or disgust is derived. “Gorge,” from analogy with “throat,” is used with the meaning of a narrow opening as of a ravine or valley between hills; in fortification, of the neck of an outwork or bastion; and in architecture, of the narrow part of a Roman Doric column, between the echinus and the astragal. From “gorge” also comes a diminutive “gorget,” a portion of a woman’s costume in the middle ages, being a close form of wimple covering the neck and upper part of the breast, and also that part of the body armour covering the neck and collarbone (see Gorget). The word “gorgeous,” of splendid or magnificent appearance, comes from the O. Fr. gorgias, with the same meaning, and has very doubtfully been connected with gorge, a ruffle or neck-covering, of a supposed elaborate kind.
GÖRGEI, ARTHUR (1818- ), Hungarian soldier, was born at Toporcz, in Upper Hungary, on the 30th of January 1818. He came of a Saxon noble family who were converts to Protestantism. In 1837 he entered the Bodyguard of Hungarian Nobles at Vienna, where he combined military service with a course of study at the university. In 1845, on the death of his father, he retired from the army and devoted himself to the study of chemistry at Prague, after which he retired to the family estates in Hungary. On the outbreak of the revolutionary War of 1848, Görgei offered his sword to the Hungarian government. Entering the Honvéd army with the rank of captain, he was employed in the purchase of arms, and soon became major and commandant of the national guards north of the Theiss. Whilst he was engaged in preventing the Croatian army from crossing the Danube, at the island of Csepel, below Pest, the wealthy Hungarian magnate Count Eugene Zichy fell into his hands, and Görgei caused him to be arraigned before a court-martial on a charge of treason and immediately hanged. After various successes over the Croatian forces, of which the most remarkable was that at Ozora, where 10,000 prisoners fell into his hands, Görgei was appointed commander of the army of the Upper Danube, but, on the advance of Prince Windischgrätz across the Leitha, he resolved to fall back, and in spite of the remonstrances of Kossuth he held to his resolution and retreated upon Waitzen. Here, irritated by what he considered undue interference with his plans, he issued (January 5th, 1849) a proclamation throwing the blame for the recent want of success upon the government, thus virtually revolting against their authority. Görgei retired to the Hungarian Erzgebirge and conducted operations on his own initiative. Meanwhile the supreme command had been conferred upon the Pole Dembinski, but the latter fought without success the battle of Kapolna, at which action Görgei’s corps arrived too late to take an effective part, and some time after this the command was again conferred upon Görgei. The campaign in the spring of 1849 was brilliantly conducted by him, and in a series of engagements, he defeated Windischgrätz. In April he won the victories of Gödöllö Izaszeg and Nagy Sarló, relieved Komorn, and again won a battle at Acs or Waitzen. Had he followed up his successes by taking the offensive against the Austrian frontier, he might perhaps have dictated terms in the Austrian capital itself. As it was, he contented himself with reducing Ofen, the Hungarian capital, in which he desired to re-establish the diet, and after effecting this capture he remained inactive for some weeks. Meanwhile, at a diet held at Debreczin, Kossuth had formally proposed the dethronement of the Habsburg dynasty and Hungary had been proclaimed a republic. Görgei had refused the field-marshal’s bâton offered him by Kossuth and was by no means in sympathy with the new régime. However, he accepted the portfolio of minister of war, while retaining the command of the troops in the field. The Russians had now intervened in the struggle and made common cause with the Austrians; the allies were advancing into Hungary on all sides, and Görgei was defeated by Haynau at Pered (20th-21st of June). Kossuth, perceiving the impossibility of continuing the struggle and being unwilling himself to make terms, resigned his position as dictator, and was succeeded by Görgei, who meanwhile had been fighting hard against the various columns of the enemy. Görgei, convinced that he could not break through the enemy’s lines, surrendered, with his army of 20,000 infantry and 2000 cavalry, to the Russian general Rüdiger at Vilagos. Görgei was not court-marshaled, as were his generals, but kept in confinement at Klagenfurt, where he lived, chiefly employed in chemical work, until 1867, when he was pardoned and returned to Hungary. The surrender, and particularly the fact that his life was spared while his generals and many of his officers and men were hanged or shot, led, perhaps naturally, to his being accused of treason by public opinion of his countrymen. After his release he played no further part in public life. Even in 1885 an attempt which was made by a large number of his old comrades to rehabilitate him was not favourably received in Hungary. After some years’ work as a railway engineer he retired to Visegrád, where he lived thenceforward in retreat. (See also Hungary: History.)
General Görgei wrote a justification of his operations (Mein Leben und Wirken in Ungarn 1848-1859, Leipzig, 1852), an anonymous paper under the title Was verdanken wir der Revolution? (1875), and a reply to Kossuth’s charges (signed “Joh. Demár”) in Budapesti Szemle, 1881, 25-26. Amongst those who wrote in his favour were Captain Stephan Görgei (1848 és 1849 böl, Budapest, 1885), and Colonel Aschermann (Ein offenes Wort in der Sache des Honvéd-Generals Arthur Görgei, Klausenburg, 1867).
See also A. G. Horn, Görgei, Oberkommandant d. ung. Armee (Leipzig, 1850); Kinety, Görgei’s Life and Work in Hungary (London, 1853); Szinyei, in Magyár Irók (iii. 1378), Hentaller, Görgei as a Statesman (Hungarian); Elemár, Görgei in 1848-1849 (Hungarian, Budapest, 1886).
GORGES, SIR FERDINANDO (c. 1566-1647), English colonial pioneer in America and the founder of Maine, was born in Somersetshire, England, probably in 1566. From youth both a soldier and a sailor, he was a prisoner in Spain at the age of twenty-one, having been captured by a ship of the Spanish Armada. In 1589 he was in command of a small body of troops fighting for Henry IV. of France, and after distinguishing himself at the siege of Rouen was knighted there in 1591. In 1596 he was commissioned captain and keeper of the castle and fort at Plymouth and captain of St Nicholas Isle; in 1597 he accompanied Essex on the expedition to the Azores; in 1599 assisted him in the attempt to suppress the Tyrone rebellion in Ireland, and in 1600 was implicated in Essex’s own attempt at rebellion in London. In 1603, on the accession of James I., he was suspended from his post at Plymouth, but was restored in the same year and continued to serve as “governor of the forts and island of Plymouth” until 1629, when, his garrison having been without pay for three and a half years, his fort a ruin, and all his applications for aid having been ignored, he resigned. About 1605 he began to be greatly interested in the New World; in 1606 he became a member of the Plymouth Company, and he laboured zealously for the founding of the Popham colony at the mouth of the Sagadahoc (now the Kennebec) river in 1607. For several years following the failure of that enterprise in 1608 he continued to fit out ships for fishing, trading and exploring, with colonization as the chief end in view. He was largely instrumental in procuring the new charter of 1620 for the Plymouth Company, and was at all times of its existence perhaps the most influential member of that body. He was the recipient, either solely or jointly, of several grants of territory from it, for one of which he received in 1639 the royal charter of Maine (see Maine). In 1635 he sought to be appointed governor-general of all New England, but the English Civil War—in which he espoused the royal cause—prevented him from ever actually holding that office. A short time before his death at Long Ashton in 1647 he wrote his Briefe Narration of the Originall Undertakings of the Advancement of Plantations into the Parts of America. He was an advocate, especially late in life, of the feudal type of colony.
See J. P. Baxter (ed.), Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (3 vols., Boston, 1890; in the Prince Society Publications), the first volume of which is a memoir of Gorges, and the other volumes contain a reprint of the Briefe Narration, Gorges’s letters, and other documentary material.
GORGET (O. Fr. gorgete, dim. of gorge, throat), the name applied after about 1480 to the collar-piece of a suit of armour. It was generally formed of small overlapping rings of plate, and attached either to the body armour or to the armet. It was worn in the 16th and 17th centuries with the half-armour, with the plain cuirass, and even occasionally without any body armour at all. During these times it gradually became a distinctive badge for officers, and as such it survived in several armies—in the form of a small metal plate affixed to the front of the collar of the uniform coat—until after the Napoleonic wars. In the German army to-day a gorget-plate of this sort is the distinctive mark of military police, while the former officer’s gorget is represented in British uniforms by the red patches or tabs worn on the collar by staff officers and by the white patches of the midshipmen in the Royal Navy.
GORGIAS (c. 483-375 B.C.), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. In 427 he was sent by his fellow-citizens at the head of an embassy to ask Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. He subsequently settled in Athens, and supported himself by the practice of oratory and by teaching rhetoric. He died at Larissa in Thessaly. His chief claim to recognition consists in the fact that he transplanted rhetoric to Greece, and contributed to the diffusion of the Attic dialect as the language of literary prose. He was the author of a lost work On Nature or the Non-existent (Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος ἦ περὶ φύσεως, fragments edited by M. C. Valeton, 1876), the substance of which may be gathered from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, and also from the treatise (ascribed to Theophrastus) De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia. Gorgias is the central figure in the Platonic dialogue Gorgias. The genuineness of two rhetorical exercises (The Encomium of Helen and The Defence of Palamedes, edited with Antiphon by F. Blass in the Teubner series, 1881), which have come down under his name, is disputed.
For his philosophical opinions see Sophists and Scepticism. See also Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Eng. trans. vol. i. bk. iii. chap. vii.; Jebb’s Attic Orators, introd. to vol. i. (1893); F. Blass, Die attische Beredsamkeit, i. (1887); and article Rhetoric.
GORGON, GORGONS (Gr. Γοργώ, Γοργόνες, the “terrible,” or, according to some, the “loud-roaring”), a figure or figures in Greek mythology. Homer speaks of only one Gorgon, whose head is represented in the Iliad (v. 741) as fixed in the centre of the aegis of Zeus. In the Odyssey (xi. 633) she is a monster of the under-world. Hesiod increases the number of Gorgons to three—Stheno (the mighty), Euryale (the far-springer) and Medusa (the queen), and makes them the daughters of the sea-god Phorcys and of Keto. Their home is on the farthest side of the western ocean; according to later authorities, in Libya (Hesiod, Theog. 274; Herodotus ii. 91; Pausanias ii. 21). The Attic tradition, reproduced in Euripides (Ion 1002), regarded the Gorgon as a monster, produced by Gaea to aid her sons the giants against the gods and slain by Athena (the passage is a locus classicus on the aegis of Athena).
The Gorgons are represented as winged creatures, having the form of young women; their hair consists of snakes; they are round-faced, flat-nosed, with tongues lolling out and large projecting teeth. Sometimes they have wings of gold, brazen claws and the tusks of boars. Medusa was the only one of the three who was mortal; hence Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head. From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus, her two sons by Poseidon. The head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield; according to another account, Perseus buried it in the market-place of Argos. The hideously grotesque original type of the Gorgoneion, as the Gorgon’s head was called, was placed on the walls of cities, and on shields and breastplates to terrify an enemy (cf. the hideous faces on Chinese soldiers’ shields), and used generally as an amulet, a protection against the evil eye. Heracles is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa’s hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and given it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack (Apollodorus ii. 7. 3). According to Roscher, it was supposed, when exposed to view, to bring on a storm, which put the enemy to flight. Frazer (Golden Bough, i. 378) gives examples of the superstition that cut hair caused storms. According to the later idea of Medusa as a beautiful maiden, whose hair had been changed into snakes by Athena, the head was represented in works of art with a wonderfully handsome face, wrapped in the calm repose of death. The Rondanini Medusa at Munich is a famous specimen of this conception. Various accounts of the Gorgons were given by later ancient writers. According to Diod. Sic. (iii. 54. 55) they were female warriors living near Lake Tritonis in Libya, whose queen was Medusa; according to Alexander of Myndus, quoted in Athenaeus (v. p. 221), they were terrible wild animals whose mere look turned men to stone. Pliny (Nat. Hist. vi. 36 [31]) describes them as savage women, whose persons were covered with hair, which gave rise to the story of their snaky hair and girdle. Modern authorities have explained them as the personification of the waves of the sea or of the barren, unproductive coast of Libya; or as the awful darkness of the storm-cloud, which comes from the west and is scattered by the sun-god Perseus. More recent is the explanation of anthropologists that Medusa, whose virtue is really in her head, is derived from the ritual mask common to primitive cults.
See Jane E. Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903); W. H. Roscher, Die Gorgonen und Verwandtes (1879); J. Six, De Gorgone (1885), on the types of the Gorgon’s head; articles by Roscher and Furtwängler in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, by G. Glotz in Daremberg and Saglio’s Dictionnaire des antiquités, and by R. Gädechens in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie; N. G. Polites (Ὁ περὶ τῶν Γοργόνων μῦθος παρὰ τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ λαῷ, 1878) gives an account of the Gorgons, and of the various superstitions connected with them, from the modern Greek point of view, which regards them as malevolent spirits of the sea.
GORGONZOLA, a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Milan, from which it is 11 m. E.N.E. by steam tramway. Pop. (1901) 5134. It is the centre of the district in which is produced the well-known Gorgonzola cheese.
GORI, a town of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Tiflis and 49 m. by rail N.W. of the city of Tiflis, on the river Kura; altitude, 2010 ft. Pop. (1897) 10,457. The surrounding country is very picturesque. Gori has a high school for girls, and a school for Russian and Tatar teachers. At one time celebrated for its silk and cotton stuffs, it is now famous for corn, reputed the best in Georgia, and the wine is also esteemed. The climate is excellent, delightfully cool in summer, owing to the refreshing breezes from the mountains, though these are, however, at times disagreeable in winter. Gori was founded (1123) by the Georgian king David II., the Renovater, for the Armenians who fled their country on the Persian invasion. The earliest remains of the fortress are Byzantine; it was thoroughly restored in 1634-1658, but destroyed by Nadir Shah of Persia in the 18th century. There is a church constructed in the 17th century by Capuchin missionaries from Rome. Five miles east of Gori is the remarkable rock-cut town of Uplis-tsykhe, which was a fortress in the time of Alexander the Great of Macedon, and an inhabited city in the reign of the Georgian king Bagrat III. (980-1014).
GORILLA (or Pongo), the largest of the man-like apes, and a native of West Africa from the Congo to Cameroon, whence it extends eastwards across the continent to German East Africa. Many naturalists regard the gorilla as best included in the same genus as the chimpanzee, in which case it should be known as Anthropopithecus gorilla, but by others it is regarded as the representative of a genus by itself, when its title will be Gorilla savagei, or G. gorilla. That there are local forms of gorilla is quite certain: but whether any of these are entitled to rank as distinct species may be a matter of opinion. It was long supposed that the apes encountered on an island off the west coast of Africa by Hanno, the Carthaginian, were gorillas, but in the opinion of some of those best qualified to judge, it is probable that the creatures in question were really baboons. The first real account of the gorilla appears to be the one given by an English sailor, Andrew Battel, who spent some time in the wilds of West Africa during and about the year 1590; his account being presented in Purchas’s Pilgrimage, published in the year 1613. From this it appears that Battel was familiar with both the chimpanzee and the gorilla, the former of which he terms engeco and the latter pongo—names which ought apparently to be adopted for these two species in place of those now in use. Between Battel’s time and 1846 nothing appears to have been heard of the gorilla or pongo, but in that year a missionary at the Gabun accidentally discovered a skull of the huge ape; and in 1847 a sketch of that specimen, together with two others, came into the hands of Sir R. Owen, by whom the name Gorilla savagei was proposed for the new ape in 1848. Dr Thomas Savage, a missionary at the Gabun, who sent Owen information with regard to the original skull, had, however, himself proposed the name Troglodytes gorilla in 1847. The first complete skeleton of a gorilla sent to Europe was received at the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1851, and the first complete skin appears to have reached the British Museum in 1858. Paul B. du Chaillu’s account (1861) of his journeys in the Gabun region popularized the knowledge of the existence of the gorilla. Male gorillas largely exceed the females in size, and attain a height of from 5½ ft. to 6½ ft., or perhaps even more. Some of the features distinguishing the gorilla from the mere gorilla-like chimpanzees will be found mentioned in the article Primates. Among them are the small ears, elongated head, the presence of a deep groove alongside the nostrils, the small size of the thumb, and the great length of the arm, which reaches half-way down the shin-bone (tibia) in the erect posture. In old males the eyes are overhung by a beetling penthouse of bone, the hinder half of the middle line of the skull bears a wall-like bony ridge for the attachment of the powerful jaw-muscles, and the tusks, or canines, are of monstrous size, recalling those of a carnivorous animal. The general colour is blackish, with a more or less marked grey or brownish tinge on the hair of the shoulders, and sometimes of chestnut on the head. Mr G. L. Bates (in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1905, vol. i.) states that gorillas only leave the depths of the forest to enter the outlying clearings in the neighbourhood of human settlements when they are attracted by some special fruit or succulent plant; the favourite being the fruit of the “mejom,” a tall cane-like plant (perhaps a kind of Amomum) which grows abundantly on deserted clearings. At one isolated village the natives, who were unarmed, reported that they not unfrequently saw and heard the gorillas, which broke down the stalks of the plantains in the rear of the habitations to tear out and eat the tender heart. On the old clearings of another village Mr Bates himself, although he did not see a gorilla, saw the fresh tracks of these great apes and the torn stems and discarded fruit rinds of the “mejoms,” as well as the broken stalks of the latter, which had been used for beds. On another occasion he came across the bed of an old gorilla which had been used only the night before, as was proved by a negro woman, who on the previous evening had heard the animal breaking and treading down the stalks to form its couch. According to native report, the gorillas sleep on these beds, which are of sufficient thickness to raise them a foot or two above the ground, in a sitting posture, with the head inclined forwards on the breast. In the first case Mr Bates states that the tracks and beds indicated the presence of three or four gorillas, some of which were small. This account does not by any means accord with one given by von Koppenfels, in which it is stated that while the old male gorilla sleeps in a sitting posture at the base of a tree-trunk (no mention being made of a bed), the female and young ones pass the night in a nest in the tree several yards above the ground, made by bending the boughs together and covering them with twigs and moss. Mr Bates’s account, as being based on actual inspection of the beds, is probably the more trustworthy. Even when asleep and snoring, gorillas are difficult to approach, since they awake at the slightest rustle, and an attempt to surround the one heard making his bed by the woman resulted in failure. Most gorillas killed by natives are believed by Mr Bates to have been encountered suddenly in the daytime on the ground or in low trees in the outlying clearings. Many natives, even if armed, refuse, however, to molest an adult male gorilla, on account of its ferocity when wounded. Mr Bates, like Mr Winwood Reade, refused to credit du Chaillu’s account of his having killed gorillas, and stated that the only instance he knew of one of these animals being slain by a European was an old male (now in Mr Walter Rothschild’s museum at Tring) shot by the German trader Paschen in the Yaunde district, of which an illustrated account was published in 1901. Mr E. J. Corns states, however, that two European traders, apparently in the “’eighties” of the 19th century, were in the habit of surrounding and capturing these animals as occasion offered.1 Fully adult gorillas have never been seen alive in captivity—and perhaps never will be, as the creature is ferocious and morose to a degree. So long ago as the year 1855, when the species was known to zoologists only by its skeleton, a gorilla was actually living in England. This animal, a young female, came from the Gabun, and was kept for some months in Wombwell’s travelling menagerie, where it was treated as a pet. On its death, the body was sent to Mr Charles Waterton, of Walton Hall, by whom the skin was mounted in a grotesque manner, and the skeleton given to the Leeds museum. Apparently, however, it was not till several years later that the skin was recognized by Mr A. D. Bartlett as that of a gorilla; the animal having probably been regarded by its owner as a chimpanzee. A young male was purchased by the Zoological Society in October 1887, from Mr Cross, the Liverpool dealer in animals. At the time of arrival it was supposed to be about three years old, and stood 2½ ft. high. A second, a male, supposed to be rather older, was acquired in March 1896, having been brought to Liverpool from the French Congo. It is described as having been thoroughly healthy at the date of its arrival, and of an amiable and tractable disposition. Neither survived long. Two others were received in the Zoological Society’s menagerie in 1904, and another was housed there for a short time in the following year, while a fifth was received in 1906. Falkenstein’s gorilla, exhibited at the Westminster aquarium under the name of pongo, and afterwards at the Berlin aquarium, survived for eighteen months. “Pussi,” the gorilla of the Breslau Zoological Gardens, holds a record for longevity, with over seven years of menagerie life. Writing in 1903 Mr W. T. Hornaday stated that but one live gorilla, and that a tiny infant, had ever landed in the United States; and it lived only five days after arrival.
(R. L.*)
1 In 1905 the Rev. Geo. Grenfell reported that he had that summer shot a gorilla in the Bwela country, east of the Mongala affluent of the Congo.
GORINCHEM, or Gorcum, a fortified town of Holland in the province of south Holland, on the right bank of the Merwede at the confluence of the Linge, 16 m. by rail W. of Dordrecht. It is connected by the Zederik and Merwede canals with Amsterdam, and steamers ply hence in every direction. Pop. (1900) 11,987. Gorinchem possesses several interesting old houses, and overlooking the river are some fortified gateways of the 17th century. The principal buildings are the old church of St Vincent, containing the monuments of the lords of Arkel; the town hall, a prison, custom-house, barracks and a military hospital. The charitable and benevolent institutions are numerous, and there are also a library and several learned associations. Gorinchem possesses a good harbour, and besides working in gold and silver, carries on a considerable trade in grain, hemp, cheese, potatoes, cattle and fish, the salmon fishery being noted. Woerkum, or Woudrichem, a little below the town on the left bank of the Merwede, is famous for its quaint old buildings, which are decorated with mosaics.
GORING, GEORGE GORING, Lord (1608-1657), English Royalist soldier, son of George Goring, earl of Norwich, was born on the 14th of July 1608. He soon became famous at court for his prodigality and dissolute manners. His father-in-law, Richard Boyle, earl of Cork, procured for him a post in the Dutch army with the rank of colonel. He was permanently lamed by a wound received at Breda in 1637, and returned to England early in 1639, when he was made governor of Portsmouth. He served in the Scottish war, and already had a considerable reputation when he was concerned in the “Army Plot.” Officers of the army stationed at York proposed to petition the king and parliament for the maintenance of the royal authority. A second party was in favour of more violent measures, and Goring, in the hope of being appointed lieutenant-general, proposed to march the army on London and overawe the parliament during Strafford’s trial. This proposition being rejected by his fellow officers, he betrayed the proceedings to Mountjoy Blount, earl of Newport, who passed on the information indirectly to Pym in April. Colonel Goring was thereupon called on to give evidence before the Commons, who commended him for his services to the Commonwealth. This betrayal of his comrades induced confidence in the minds of the parliamentary leaders, who sent him back to his Portsmouth command. Nevertheless he declared for the king in August. He surrendered Portsmouth to the parliament in September 1642 and went to Holland to recruit for the Royalist army, returning to England in December. Appointed to a cavalry command by the earl of Newcastle, he defeated Fairfax at Seacroft Moor near Leeds in March 1643, but in May he was taken prisoner at Wakefield on the capture of the town by Fairfax. In April 1644 he effected an exchange. At Marston Moor he commanded the Royalist left, and charged with great success, but, allowing his troopers to disperse in search of plunder, was routed by Cromwell at the close of the battle. In November 1644, on his father’s elevation to the earldom of Norwich, he became Lord Goring. The parliamentary authorities, however, refused to recognize the creation of the earldom, and continued to speak of the father as Lord Goring and the son as General Goring. In August he had been dispatched by Prince Rupert, who recognized his ability, to join Charles in the south, and in spite of his dissolute and insubordinate character he was appointed to supersede Henry, Lord Wilmot, as lieut.-general of the Royalist horse (see Great Rebellion). He secured some successes in the west, and in January 1645 advanced through Hampshire and occupied Farnham; but want of money compelled him to retreat to Salisbury and thence to Exeter. The excesses committed by his troops seriously injured the Royalist cause, and his exactions made his name hated throughout the west. He had himself prepared to besiege Taunton in March, yet when in the next month he was desired by Prince Charles, who was at Bristol, to send reinforcements to Sir Richard Grenville for the siege of Taunton, he obeyed the order only with ill-humour. Later in the month he was summoned with his troops to the relief of the king at Oxford. Lord Goring had long been intriguing for an independent command, and he now secured from the king what was practically supreme authority in the west. It was alleged by the earl of Newport that he was willing to transfer his allegiance once more to the parliament. It is not likely that he meditated open treason, but he was culpably negligent and occupied with private ambitions and jealousies. He was still engaged in desultory operations against Taunton when the main campaign of 1645 opened. For the part taken by Goring’s army in the operations of the Naseby campaign see Great Rebellion. After the decisive defeat of the king, the army of Fairfax marched into the west and defeated Goring in a disastrous fight at Langport on the 10th of July. He made no further serious resistance to the parliamentary general, but wasted his time in frivolous amusements, and in November he obtained leave to quit his disorganized forces and retire to France on the ground of health. His father’s services secured him the command of some English regiments in the Spanish service. He died at Madrid in July or August 1657. Clarendon gives him a very unpleasing character, declaring that “Goring ... would, without hesitation, have broken any trust, or done any act of treachery to have satisfied an ordinary passion or appetite; and in truth wanted nothing but industry (for he had wit, and courage, and understanding and ambition, uncontrolled by any fear of God or man) to have been as eminent and successful in the highest attempt of wickedness as any man in the age he lived in or before. Of all his qualifications dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled, that men were not ordinarily ashamed, or out of countenance, with being deceived but twice by him.”
See the life by C. H. Firth in the Dictionary of National Biography; Dugdale’s Baronage, where there are some doubtful stories of his life in Spain; the Clarendon State Papers; Clarendon’s History of the Great Rebellion; and S. R. Gardiner’s History of the Great Civil War.
GORKI, MAXIM (1868- ), the pen-name of the Russian novelist Alexei Maximovich Pyeshkov, who was born at Nizhni-Novgorod on the 26th of March 1868. His father was a dyer, but he lost both his parents in childhood, and in his ninth year was sent to assist in a boot-shop. We find him afterwards in a variety of callings, but devouring books of all sorts greedily, whenever they fell into his hands. He ran away from the boot-shop and went to help a land-surveyor. He was then a cook on board a steamer and afterwards a gardener. In his fifteenth year he tried to enter a school at Kazan, but was obliged to betake himself again to his drudgery. He became a baker, than hawked about kvas, and helped the barefooted tramps and labourers at the docks. From these he drew some of his most striking pictures, and learned to give sketches of humble life generally with the fidelity of a Defoe. After a long course of drudgery he had the good fortune to obtain the place of secretary to a barrister at Nizhni-Novgorod. This was the turning-point of his fortunes, as he found a sympathetic master who helped him. He also became acquainted with the novelist Korolenko, who assisted him in his literary efforts. His first story was Makar Chudra, which was published in the journal Kavkaz. He contributed to many periodicals and finally attracted attention by his tale called Chelkash, which appeared in Russkoe Bogatsvo (“Russian wealth”). This was followed by a series of tales in which he drew with extraordinary vigour the life of the bosniaki, or tramps. He has sometimes described other classes of society, tradesmen and the educated classes, but not with equal success. There are some vigorous pictures, however, of the trading class in his Foma Gordeyev. But his favourite type is the rebel, the man in revolt against society, and him he describes from personal knowledge, and enlists our sympathies with him. We get such a type completely in Konovalov. Gorki is always preaching that we must have ideals—something better than everyday life, and this view is brought out in his play At the Lowest Depths, which had great success at Moscow, but was coldly received at St Petersburg.
For a good criticism of Gorki see Ideas and Realities in Russian Literature, by Prince Kropotkin. Many of his works have been translated into English.
GÖRLITZ, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the left bank of the Neisse, 62 m. E. from Dresden on the railway to Breslau, and at the junction of lines to Berlin, Zittau and Halle. Pop. (1885) 55,702, (1905) 80,931. The Neisse at this point is crossed by a railway bridge 1650 ft. long and 120 ft. high, with 32 arches. Görlitz is one of the handsomest, and, owing to the extensive forests of 70,000 acres, which are the property of the municipality, one of the wealthiest towns in Germany. It is surrounded by beautiful walks and fine gardens, and although its old walls and towers have now been demolished, many of its ancient buildings remain to form a picturesque contrast with the signs of modern industry. From the hill called Landskrone, about 1500 ft. high, an extensive prospect is obtained of the surrounding country. The principal buildings are the fine Gothic church of St Peter and St Paul, dating from the 15th century, with two stately towers, a famous organ and a very heavy bell; the Frauen Kirche, erected about the end of the 15th century, and possessing a fine portal and choir in pierced work; the Kloster Kirche, restored in 1868, with handsome choir stalls and a carved altar dating from 1383; and the Roman Catholic church, founded in 1853, in the Roman style of architecture, with beautiful glass windows and oil-paintings. The old town hall (Rathaus) contains a very valuable library, having at its entrance a fine flight of steps. There is also a new town hall which was erected in 1904-1906. Other buildings are: the old bastion, named Kaisertrutz, now used as a guardhouse and armoury; the gymnasium buildings in the Gothic style erected in 1851; the Ruhmeshalle with the Kaiser Friedrich museum, the house of the estates of the province (Ständehaus), two theatres and the barracks. Near the town is the chapel of the Holy Cross, where there is a model of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem made during the 15th century. In the public park there is a bust of Schiller, a monument to Alexander von Humboldt, and a statue of the mystic Jakob Böhme (1575-1624); a monument has been erected in the town in commemoration of the war of 1870-71, and also one to the emperor William I. and a statue of Prince Frederick Charles. In connexion with the natural history society there is a valuable museum, and the scientific institute possesses a large library and a rich collection of antiquities, coins and articles of virtu. Görlitz, next to Breslau, is the largest and most flourishing commercial town of Silesia, and is also regarded as classic ground for the study of German Renaissance architecture. Besides cloth, which forms its staple article of commerce, it has manufactories of various linen and woollen wares, machines, railway wagons, glass, sago, tobacco, leather, chemicals and tiles.
Görlitz existed as a village from a very early period, and at the beginning of the 12th century received civic rights. It was then known as Drebenau, but on being rebuilt after its destruction by fire in 1131 it received the name of Zgorzelice. About the end of the 12th century it was strongly fortified, and for a short time it was the capital of a duchy of Görlitz. It was several times besieged and taken during the Thirty Years’ War, and it also suffered considerably in the Seven Years’ War. In the battle which took place near it between the Austrians and Prussians on the 7th of September 1757, Hans Karl von Winterfeldt, the general of Frederick the Great, was slain. In 1815 the town, with the greater part of Upper Lusatia, came into the possession of Prussia.
See Neumann, Geschichte von Görlitz (1850).
GÖRRES, JOHANN JOSEPH VON (1776-1848), German writer, was born on the 25th of January 1776, at Coblenz. His father was a man of moderate means, who sent his son to a Latin college under the direction of the Roman Catholic clergy. The sympathies of the young Görres were from the first strongly with the French Revolution, and the dissoluteness and irreligion of the French exiles in the Rhineland confirmed him in his hatred of princes. He harangued the revolutionary clubs, and insisted on the unity of interests which should ally all civilized states to one another. He then commenced a republican journal called Das rote Blatt, and afterwards Rübezahl, in which he strongly condemned the administration of the Rhenish provinces by France.
After the peace of Campo Formio (1797) there was some hope that the Rhenish provinces would be constituted into an independent republic. In 1799 the provinces sent an embassy, of which Görres was a member, to Paris to put their case before the directory. The embassy reached Paris on the 20th of November 1799; two days before this Napoleon had assumed the supreme direction of affairs. After much delay the embassy was received by him; but the only answer they obtained was “that they might rely on perfect justice, and that the French government would never lose sight of their wants.” Görres on his return published a tract called Resultate meiner Sendung nach Paris, in which he reviewed the history of the French Revolution. During the thirteen years of Napoleon’s dominion Görres lived a retired life, devoting himself chiefly to art or science. In 1801 he married Catherine de Lasaulx, and was for some years teacher at a secondary school in Coblenz; in 1806 he moved to Heidelberg, where he lectured at the university. As a leading member of the Heidelberg Romantic group, he edited together with K. Brentano and L. von Arnim the famous Zeitung für Einsiedler (subsequently re-named Tröst-Einsamkeit), and in 1807 he published Die teutschen Volksbücher. He returned to Coblenz in 1808, and again found occupation as a teacher in a secondary school, supported by civic funds. He now studied Persian, and in two years published a Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt, which was followed ten years later by Das Heldenbuch von Iran, a translation of part of the Shahnama, the epic of Firdousi. In 1813 he actively took up the cause of national independence, and in the following year founded Der rheinische Merkur. The intense earnestness of the paper, the bold outspokenness of its hostility to Napoleon, and its fiery eloquence secured for it almost instantly a position and influence unique in the history of German newspapers. Napoleon himself called it la cinquième puissance. The ideal it insisted on was a united Germany, with a representative government, but under an emperor after the fashion of other days,—for Görres now abandoned his early advocacy of republicanism. When Napoleon was at Elba, Görres wrote an imaginary proclamation issued by him to the people, the intense irony of which was so well veiled that many Frenchmen mistook it for an original utterance of the emperor. He inveighed bitterly against the second peace of Paris (1815), declaring that Alsace and Lorraine should have been demanded back from France.
Stein was glad enough to use the Merkur at the time of the meeting of the congress of Vienna as a vehicle for giving expression to his hopes. But Hardenberg, in May 1815, warned Görres to remember that he was not to arouse hostility against France, but only against Bonaparte. There was also in the Merkur an antipathy to Prussia, a continual expression of the desire that an Austrian prince should assume the imperial title, and also a tendency to pronounced liberalism—all of which made it most distasteful to Hardenberg, and to his master King Frederick William III. Görres disregarded warnings sent to him by the censorship and continued the paper in all its fierceness. Accordingly it was suppressed early in 1816, at the instance of the Prussian government; and soon after Görres was dismissed from his post as teacher at Coblenz. From this time his writings were his sole means of support, and he became a most diligent political pamphleteer. In the wild excitement which followed Kotzebue’s assassination, the reactionary decrees of Carlsbad were framed, and these were the subject of Görres’s celebrated pamphlet Teutschland und die Revolution (1820). In this work he reviewed the circumstances which had led to the murder of Kotzebue, and, while expressing all possible horror at the deed itself, he urged that it was impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures. The success of the work was very marked, despite its ponderous style. It was suppressed by the Prussian government, and orders were issued for the arrest of Görres and the seizure of his papers. He escaped to Strassburg, and thence went to Switzerland. Two more political tracts, Europa und die Revolution (1821) and In Sachen der Rheinprovinzen und in eigener Angelegenheit (1822), also deserve mention.
In Görres’s pamphlet Die heilige Allianz und die Völker auf dem Kongress zu Verona he asserted that the princes had met together to crush the liberties of the people, and that the people must look elsewhere for help. The “elsewhere” was to Rome; and from this time Görres became a vehement Ultramontane writer. He was summoned to Munich by King Ludwig of Bavaria as Professor of History in the university, and there his writing enjoyed very great popularity. His Christliche Mystik (1836-1842) gave a series of biographies of the saints, together with an exposition of Roman Catholic mysticism. But his most celebrated ultramontane work was a polemical one. Its occasion was the deposition and imprisonment by the Prussian government of the archbishop Clement Wenceslaus, in consequence of the refusal of that prelate to sanction in certain instances the marriages of Protestants and Roman Catholics. Görres in his Athanasius (1837) fiercely upheld the power of the church, although the liberals of later date who have claimed Görres as one of their own school deny that he ever insisted on the absolute supremacy of Rome. Athanasius went through several editions, and originated a long and bitter controversy. In the Historisch-politische Blätter, a Munich journal, Görres and his son Guido (1805-1852) continually upheld the claims of the church. Görres received from the king the order of merit for his services. He died on the 29th of January 1848.
Görres’s Gesammelte Schriften (only his political writings) appeared in six volumes (1854-1860), to which three volumes of Gesammelte Briefe were subsequently added (1858-1874). Cp. J. Galland, Joseph von Görres (1876, 2nd ed. 1877); J. N. Sepp, Görres und seine Zeitgenossen (1877), and by the same author, Görres, in the series Geisteshelden (1896). A Görres-Gesellschaft was founded in 1876.
GORSAS, ANTOINE JOSEPH (1752-1793), French publicist and politician, was born at Limoges (Haute-Vienne) on the 24th of March 1752, the son of a shoemaker. He established himself as a private tutor in Paris, and presently set up a school for the army at Versailles, which was attended by commoners as well as nobles. In 1781 he was imprisoned for a short time in the Bicêtre on an accusation of corrupting the morals of his pupils, his real offence being the writing of satirical verse. These circumstances explain the violence of his anti-monarchical sentiment. At the opening of the states-general he began to publish the Courrier de Versailles à Paris et de Paris à Versailles, in which appeared on the 4th of October 1789 the account of the banquet of the royal bodyguard. Gorsas is said to have himself read it in public at the Palais Royal, and to have headed one of the columns that marched on Versailles. He then changed the name of his paper to the Courrier des quatre-vingt-trois départements, continuing his incendiary propaganda, which had no small share in provoking the popular insurrections of June and August 1792. During the September massacres he wrote in his paper that the prisons were the centre of an anti-national conspiracy and that the people exercised a just vengeance on the guilty. On the 10th of September 1792 he was elected to the Convention for the department of Seine-et-Oise, and on the 10th of January 1793 was elected one of its secretaries. He sat at first with the Mountain, but having been long associated with Roland and Brissot, his agreement with the Girondists became gradually more pronounced; during the trial of Louis XVI. he dissociated himself more and more from the principles of the Mountain, and he voted for the king’s detention during the war and subsequent banishment. A violent attack on Marat in the Courrier led to an armed raid on his printing establishment on the 9th of March 1793. The place was sacked, but Gorsas escaped the popular fury by flight. The facts being reported to the Convention, little sympathy was shown to Gorsas, and a resolution (which was evaded) was passed forbidding representatives to occupy themselves with journalism. On the 2nd of June he was ordered by the Convention to hold himself under arrest with other members of his party. He escaped to Normandy to join Buzot, and after the defeat of the Girondists at Pacy-sur-Eure he found shelter in Brittany. He was imprudent enough to return to Paris in the autumn, where he was arrested on the 6th of October and guillotined the next day.
See the Moniteur, No. 268 (1792), Nos. 20, 70 new series 18 (1793); M. Tourneux, Bibl. de l’hist. de Paris, 10,291 seq. (1894).
GORST, SIR JOHN ELDON (1835- ). English statesman, was born at Preston in 1835, the son of Edward Chaddock Gorst, who took the name of Lowndes on succeeding to the family estate in 1853. He graduated third wrangler from St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1857, and was admitted to a fellowship. After beginning to read for the bar in London, his father’s illness and death led to his sailing to New Zealand, where he married in 1860 Mary Elizabeth Moore. The Maoris had at that time set up a king of their own in the Waikato district and Gorst, who had made friends with the chief Tamihana (William Thomson), acted as an intermediary between the Maoris and the government. Sir George Grey made him inspector of schools, then resident magistrate, and eventually civil commissioner in Upper Waikato. Tamihana’s influence secured his safety in the Maori outbreak of 1863. In 1908 he published a volume of recollections, under the title of New Zealand Revisited: Recollections of the Days of my Youth. He then returned to England and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1865, becoming Q.C. in 1875. He stood unsuccessfully for Hastings in the Conservative interest in 1865, and next year entered parliament as member for the borough of Cambridge, but failed to secure re-election at the dissolution of 1868. After the Conservative defeat of that year he was entrusted by Disraeli with the reorganization of the party machinery, and in five years of hard work he paved the way for the Conservative success at the general election of 1874. At a bye-election in 1875 he re-entered parliament as member for Chatham, which he continued to represent until 1892. He joined Sir Henry Drummond-Wolff, Lord Randolph Churchill and Mr Arthur Balfour in the “Fourth Party,” and he became solicitor-general in the administration of 1885-1886 and was knighted. On the formation of the second Salisbury administration (1886) he became under-secretary for India and in 1891 financial secretary to the Treasury. At the general election of 1892 he became member for Cambridge University. He was deputy chairman of committees in the House of Commons from 1888 to 1891, and on the formation of the third Salisbury administration in 1895 he became vice-president of the committee of the council on education (until 1902). Sir John Gorst adhered to the principles of Tory democracy which he had advocated in the days of the fourth party, and continued to exhibit an active interest in the housing of the poor, the education and care of their children, and in social questions generally, both in parliament and in the press. But he was always exceedingly “independent” in his political action. He objected to Mr Chamberlain’s proposals for tariff reform, and lost his seat at Cambridge at the general election of 1906 to a tariff reformer. He then withdrew from the vice-chancellorship of the Primrose League, of which he had been one of the founders, on the ground that it no longer represented the policy of Lord Beaconsfield. In 1910 he contested Preston as a Liberal, but failed to secure election.
His elder son, Sir J. Eldon Gorst (b. 1861), was financial adviser to the Egyptian government from 1898 to 1904, when he became assistant under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. In 1907 he succeeded Lord Cromer as British agent and consul-general in Egypt.
An account of Sir John Gorst’s connexion with Lord Randolph Churchill will be found in the Fourth Party (1906), by his younger son, Harold E. Gorst.
GORTON, SAMUEL (c. 1600-1677), English sectary and founder of the American sect of Gortonites, was born about 1600 at Gorton, Lancashire. He was first apprenticed to a clothier in London, but, fearing persecution for his religious convictions, he sailed for Boston, Massachusetts, in 1636. Constantly involved in religious disputes, he fled in turn to Plymouth, and (in 1637-1638) to Aquidneck (Newport), where he was publicly whipped for insulting the clergy and magistrates. In 1643 he bought land from the Narraganset Indians at Shawomet—now Warwick—where he was joined by a number of his followers; but he quarrelled with the Indians and the authorities at Boston sent soldiers to arrest Gorton and six of his companions. He served a term of imprisonment for heresy at Charlestown, after which he was ejected from the colony. In England in 1646 he published the curious tract “Simplicities Defence against Seven Headed Policy” (reprinted in 1835), giving an account of his grievances against the Massachusetts government. In 1648 he returned to New England with a letter of protection from the earl of Warwick, and joining his former companions at Shawomet, which he named Warwick, in honour of the earl, he remained there till his death at the end of 1677. He is chiefly remembered as the founder of a small sect called the Gortonites, which survived till the end of the 18th century. They had a great contempt for the regular clergy and for all outward forms of religion, holding that the true believers partook of the perfection of God.
Among his quaint writings are: An Incorruptible Key composed of the CX. Psalms wherewith you may open the rest of the Scriptures (1647), and Saltmarsh returned from the Dead, with its sequel, An Antidote against the Common Plague of the World (1657). See L. G. Jones, Samuel Gorton: a forgotten Founder of our Liberties (Providence, 1896).
GORTON, an urban district in the Gorton parliamentary division of Lancashire, England, forming an eastern suburb of Manchester. Pop. (1901) 26,564. It is largely a manufacturing district, having cotton mills and iron, engineering and chemical works.
GORTYNA, or Gortyn, an important ancient city on the southern side of the island of Crete. It stood on the banks of the small river Lethaeus (Mitropolipotamo), about three hours distant from the sea, with which it communicated by means of its two harbours, Metallum and Lebena. It had temples of Apollo Pythius, Artemis and Zeus. Near the town was the famous fountain of Sauros, inclosed by fruit-bearing poplars; and not far from this was another spring, overhung by an evergreen plane tree which in popular belief marked the scene of the amours of Zeus and Europa. Gortyna was, next to Cnossus, the largest and most powerful city of Crete. The two cities combined to subdue the rest of the island; but when they had gained their object they quarrelled with each other, and the history of both towns is from this time little more than a record of their feuds. Neither plays a conspicuous part in the history of Greece. Under the Romans Gortyna became the metropolis of the island. Extensive ruins may still be seen at the modern village of Hagii Deka, and here was discovered the great inscription containing chapters of its ancient laws. Though partly ruinous, the church of St Titus is a very interesting monument of early Christian architecture, dating from about the 4th century.
See also Crete, and for a full account of the laws see Greek Law.
GÖRTZ, GEORG HEINRICH VON, Baron von Schlitz (1668-1719), Holstein statesman, was educated at Jena. He entered the Holstein-Gottorp service, and after the death of the duchess Hedwig Sophia, Charles XII.’s sister, became very influential during the minority of her son Duke Charles Frederick. His earlier policy aimed at strengthening Holstein-Gottorp at the expense of Denmark. With this object, during Charles XII.’s stay at Altranstädt (1706-1707), he tried to divert the king’s attention to the Holstein question, and six years later, when the Swedish commander, Magnus Stenbock, crossed the Elbe, Görtz rendered him as much assistance as was compatible with not openly breaking with Denmark, even going so far as to surrender the fortress of Tönning to the Swedes. Görtz next attempted to undermine the grand alliance against Sweden by negotiating with Russia, Prussia and Saxony for the purpose of isolating Denmark, or even of turning the arms of the allies against her, a task by no means impossible in view of the strained relations between Denmark and the tsar. The plan foundered, however, on the refusal of Charles XII. to save the rest of his German domains by ceding Stettin to Prussia. Another simultaneous plan of procuring the Swedish crown for Duke Charles Frederick also came to nought. Görtz first suggested the marriage between the duke of Holstein and the tsarevna Anne of Russia, and negotiations were begun in St Petersburg with that object. On the arrival of Charles XII. from Turkey at Stralsund, Görtz was the first to visit him, and emerged from his presence chief minister or “grand-vizier” as the Swedes preferred to call the bold and crafty satrap, whose absolute devotion to the Swedish king took no account of the intense wretchedness of the Swedish nation. Görtz, himself a man of uncommon audacity, seems to have been fascinated by the heroic element in Charles’s nature and was determined, if possible, to save him from his difficulties. He owed his extraordinary influence to the fact that he was the only one of Charles’s advisers who believed, or pretended to believe, that Sweden was still far from exhaustion, or at any rate had a sufficient reserve of power to give support to an energetic diplomacy—Charles’s own opinion, in fact. Görtz’s position, however, was highly peculiar. Ostensibly, he was only the Holstein minister at Charles’s court, in reality he was everything in Sweden except a Swedish subject—finance minister, plenipotentiary to foreign powers, factotum, and responsible to the king alone, though he had not a line of instructions. But he was just the man for a hero in extremities, and his whole course of procedure was, of necessity, revolutionary. His chief financial expedient was to debase, or rather ruin, the currency by issuing copper tokens redeemable in better times; but it was no fault of his that Charles XII., during his absence, flung upon the market too enormous an amount of this copper money for Görtz to deal with. By the end of 1718 it seemed as if Görtz’s system could not go on much longer, and the hatred of the Swedes towards him was so intense and universal that they blamed him for Charles XII.’s tyranny as well as for his own. Görtz hoped, however, to conclude peace with at least some of Sweden’s numerous enemies before the crash came and then, by means of fresh combinations, to restore Sweden to her rank as a great power. It must be admitted that, in pursuance of his “system,” Görtz displayed a genius for diplomacy which would have done honour to a Metternich or a Talleyrand. He desired peace with Russia first of all, and at the congress of Åland even obtained relatively favourable terms, only to have them rejected by his obstinately optimistic master. Simultaneously, Görtz was negotiating with Cardinal Alberoni and with the whigs in England; but all his ingenious combinations collapsed like a house of cards on the sudden death of Charles XII. The whole fury of the Swedish nation instantly fell upon Görtz. After a trial before a special commission which was a parody of justice—the accused was not permitted to have any legal assistance or the use of writing materials—he was condemned to decapitation and promptly executed. Perhaps Görtz deserved his fate for “unnecessarily making himself the tool of an unheard-of despotism,” but his death was certainly a judicial murder, and some historians even regard him as a political martyr.
See R. N. Bain, Charles XII. (London, 1895), and Scandinavia, chap. 12 (Cambridge, 1905); B. von Beskow, Freherre Georg Heinrich von Görtz (Stockholm, 1868).
(R. N. B.)
GÖRZ (Ital. Gorizia; Slovene, Gorica), the capital of the Austrian crownland of Görz and Gradisca, about 390 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop (1900) 25,432, two-thirds Italians, the remainder mostly Slovenes and Germans. It is picturesquely situated on the left bank of the Isonzo in a fertile valley, 35 m. N.N.W. of Trieste by rail. It is the seat of an archbishop and possesses an interesting cathedral, built in the 14th century and the richly decorated church of St Ignatius, built in the 17th century by the Jesuits. On an eminence, which dominates the town, is situated the old castle, formerly the seat of the counts of Görz, now partly used as barracks. Owing to the mildness of its climate Görz has become a favourite winter-resort, and has received the name of the Nice of Austria. Its mean annual temperature is 55° F.; while the mean winter temperature is 38.7° F. It is adorned with several pretty gardens with a luxuriant southern vegetation. On a height to the N. of the town is situated the Franciscan convent of Castagnavizza, in whose chapel lie the remains of Charles X. of France (d. 1836), the last Bourbon king, of the duke of Angoulême (d. 1844), his son, and of the duke of Chambord (d. 1883). Seven miles to the north of Görz is the Monte Santo (2275 ft.), a much-frequented place on which stands a pilgrimage church. The industries include cotton and silk weaving, sugar refining, brewing, the manufacture of leather and the making of rosoglio. There is also a considerable trade in wooden work, vegetables, early fruit and wine. Görz is mentioned for the first time at the beginning of the 11th century, and received its charter as a town in 1307. During the middle ages the greater part of its population was German.
GÖRZ AND GRADISCA, a county and crownland of Austria, bounded E. by Carniola, S. by Istria, the Triestine territory and the Adriatic, W. by Italy and N. by Carinthia. It has an area of 1140 sq. m. The coast line, though extending for 25 m., does not present any harbour of importance. It is fringed by alluvial deposits and lagoons, which are for the most part of very modern formation, for as late as the 4th or 5th centuries Aquileia was a great seaport. The harbour of Grado is the only one accessible to the larger kind of coasting craft. On all sides, except towards the south-west where it unites with the Friulian lowland, it is surrounded by mountains, and about four-sixths of its area is occupied by mountains and hills. From the Julian Alps, which traverse the province in the north, the country descends in successive terraces towards the sea, and may roughly be divided into the upper highlands, the lower highlands, the hilly district and the lowlands. The principal peaks in the Julian Alps are the Monte Canin (8469 ft.), the Manhart (8784 ft.), the Jalouc (8708 ft.), the Krn (7367 ft.), the Matajur (5386 ft.), and the highest peak in the whole range, the Triglav or Terglou (9394 ft.). The Julian Alps are crossed by the Predil Pass (3811 ft.), through which passes the principal road from Carinthia to the Coastland. The southern part of the province belongs to the Karst region, and here are situated the famous cascades and grottoes of Sankt Kanzian, where the river Reka begins its subterranean course. The principal river of the province is the Isonzo, which rises in the Triglav, and pursues a strange zigzag course for a distance of 78 m. before it reaches the Adriatic. At Görz the Isonzo is still 138 ft. above the sea, and it is navigable only in its lowest section, where it takes the name of the Sdobba. Its principal affluents are the Idria, the Wippach and the Torre with its tributary the Judrio, which forms for a short distance the boundary between Austria and Italy. Of special interest not only in itself but for the frequent allusions to it in classical literature is the Timavus or Timavo, which appears near Duino, and after a very short course flows into the Gulf of Trieste. In ancient times it appears, according to the well-known description of Virgil (Aen. i. 244) to have rushed from the mountain by nine separate mouths and with much noise and commotion, but at present it usually issues from only three mouths and flows quiet and still. It is strange enough, however, to see the river coming out full formed from the rock, and capable at its very source of bearing vessels on its bosom. According to a probable hypothesis it is a continuation of the above-mentioned river Reka, which is lost near Sankt Kanzian.
Agriculture, and specially viticulture, is the principal occupation of the population, and the vine is here planted not only in regular vineyards, but is introduced in long lines through the ordinary fields and carried up the hills in terraces locally called ronchi. The rearing of the silk-worm, especially in the lowlands, constitutes another great source of revenue, and furnishes the material for the only extensive industry of the country. The manufacture of silk is carried on at Görz, and in and around the village of Haidenschaft. Görz and Gradisca had in 1900 a population of 232,338, which is equivalent to 203 inhabitants per square mile. According to nationality about two-thirds were Slovenes, and the remainder Italians, with only about 2200 Germans. Almost the whole of the population (99.6%) belongs to the Roman Catholic Church. The local diet, of which the archbishop of Görz is a member ex-officio, is composed of 22 members, and the crownland sends 5 deputies to the Reichsrat at Vienna. For administrative purposes the province is divided into 4 districts and an autonomous municipality, Görz (pop. 25,432), the capital. Other principal places are Cormons (5824), Monfalcone (5536), Kirchheim (5699), Gradisca (3843) and Aquileia (2319).
Görz first appears distinctly in history about the close of the 10th century, as part of a district bestowed by the emperor Otto III. on John, patriarch of Aquileia. In the 11th century it became the seat of the Eppenstein family, who frequently bore the title of counts of Gorizia; and in the beginning of the 12th century the countship passed from them to the Lurngau family which continued to exist till the year 1500, and acquired possessions in Tirol, Carinthia, Friuli and Styria. On the death of Count Leonhard (12th April 1500) the fief reverted to the house of Habsburg. The countship of Gradisca was united with it in 1754. The province was occupied by the French in 1809, but reverted again to Austria in 1815. It formed a district of the administrative province of Trieste until 1861, when it became a separate crownland under its actual name.
GOSCHEN, GEORGE JOACHIM GOSCHEN, 1st Viscount (1831-1907), British statesman, son of William Henry Göschen, a London merchant of German extraction, was born in London on the 10th of August 1831. He was educated at Rugby under Dr Tait, and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a first-class in classics. He entered his father’s firm of Frühling & Göschen, of Austin Friars, in 1853, and three years later became a director of the Bank of England. His entry into public life took place in 1863, when he was returned without opposition as member for the city of London in the Liberal interest, and this was followed by his re-election, at the head of the poll, in the general election of 1865. In November of the same year he was appointed vice-president of the Board of Trade and paymaster-general, and in January 1866 he was made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, with a seat in the cabinet. When Mr Gladstone became prime minister in December 1868, Mr Goschen joined the cabinet as president of the Poor Law Board, and continued to hold that office until March 1871, when he succeeded Mr Childers as first lord of the admiralty. In 1874 he was elected lord rector of the university of Aberdeen. Being sent to Cairo in 1876 as delegate for the British holders of Egyptian bonds, in order to arrange for the conversion of the debt, he succeeded in effecting an agreement with the Khedive.
In 1878 his views upon the county franchise question prevented him from voting uniformly with his party, and he informed his constituents in the city that he would not stand again at the forthcoming general election. In 1880 he was elected for Ripon, and continued to represent that constituency until the general election of 1885, when he was returned for the Eastern Division of Edinburgh. Being opposed to the extension of the franchise, he was unable to join Mr Gladstone’s government in 1880; declining the post of viceroy of India, he accepted that of special ambassador to the Porte, and was successful in settling the Montenegrin and Greek frontier questions in 1880 and 1881. He was made an ecclesiastical commissioner in 1882, and when Sir Henry Brand was raised to the peerage in 1884, the speakership of the House of Commons was offered to him, but declined. During the parliament of 1880-1885 he frequently found himself unable to concur with his party, especially as regards the extension of the franchise and questions of foreign policy; and when Mr Gladstone adopted the policy of Home Rule for Ireland, Mr Goschen followed Lord Hartington (afterwards duke of Devonshire) and became one of the most active of the Liberal Unionists. His vigorous and eloquent opposition to Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill of 1886 brought him into greater public prominence than ever, but he failed to retain his seat for Edinburgh at the election in July of that year. On the resignation of Lord Randolph Churchill in December 1886, Mr Goschen, though a Liberal Unionist, accepted Lord Salisbury’s invitation to join his ministry, and became chancellor of the exchequer. Being defeated at Liverpool, 26th of January 1887, by seven votes, he was elected for St George’s, Hanover Square, on the 9th of February. His chancellorship of the exchequer during the ministry of 1886 to 1892 was rendered memorable by his successful conversion of the National Debt in 1888 (see National Debt). With that financial operation, under which the new 2¾% Consols became known as “Goschens,” his name will long be connected. Aberdeen University again conferred upon him the honour of the lord rectorship in 1888, and he received a similar honour from the University of Edinburgh in 1890. In the Unionist opposition of 1893 to 1895 Mr Goschen again took a vigorous part, his speeches both in and out of the House of Commons being remarkable for their eloquence and debating power. From 1895 to 1900 Mr Goschen was first lord of the admiralty, and in that office he earned the highest reputation for his business-like grasp of detail and his statesmanlike outlook on the naval policy of the country. He retired in 1900, and was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Goschen of Hawkhurst, Kent. Though retired from active politics he continued to take a great interest in public affairs; and when Mr Chamberlain started his tariff reform movement in 1903, Lord Goschen was one of the weightiest champions of free trade on the Unionist side. He died on the 7th of February 1907, being succeeded in the title by his son George Joachim (b. 1866), who was Conservative M.P. for East Grinstead from 1895 to 1900, and married a daughter of the 1st earl of Cranbrook.