against the Turkish rule, and had entered into confidential arrangements with the Rumanians, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians and Greeks, and more especially with Montenegro. But the execution of his plans was frustrated by his sudden resignation (at the end of 1867), and more especially by the assassination of Prince Michael a few months later (the 10th of June 1868). Although he was a Conservative in politics, and as such often in conflict with the leader of the Liberal movement, Yovan Ristich, he certainly was one of the ablest statesmen whom Servia had in the 19th century. (C. Mi.)
GARAT, DOMINIQUE JOSEPH (1749–1833), French writer and politician, was born at Bayonne on the 8th of September 1749. After receiving a good education under the direction of a relation who was a curé, and having been an advocate at Bordeaux, he came to Paris, where he obtained introductions to the most distinguished writers of the time, and became a contributor to the Encyclopédie méthodique and the Mercure de France. He gained considerable reputation by an éloge on Michel de L’Hôpital
in 1778, and was afterwards three times crowned by the Academy
for éloges on Suger, Montausier and Fontenelle. In 1785 he was
named professor of history at the Lycée, where his lectures
enjoyed an equal popularity with those of G. F. Laharpe on
literature. Being chosen a deputy to the states-general in 1789,
he rendered important service to the popular cause by his
narrative of the proceedings of the Assembly contributed to the
Journal de Paris. Possessing strongly optimist views, a mild
and irresolute character, and indefinite and changeable convictions,
he played a somewhat undignified part in the great
political events of the time, and became a pliant tool in carrying
out the designs of others. Danton had him named minister of
justice in 1792 , and in this capacity had entrusted to him what he
called the commission affreuse of communicating to Louis XVI.
his sentence of death. In 1793 he became minister of the interior.
In this capacity he proved himself quite inefficient. Though
himself uncorrupt, he winked at the most scandalous corruption
in his subordinates, and in spite of the admirably organized
detective service, which kept him accurately informed of every
movement in the capital, he entirely failed to maintain order,
which might easily have been done by a moderate display of
firmness. At last, disgusted with the excesses which he had been
unable to control, he resigned (August 15, 1793). On the 2nd of
October he was arrested for Girondist sympathies but soon
released, and he escaped further molestation owing to the
friendship of Barras and, more especially, of Robespierre, whose
literary amour-propre he had been careful to flatter. On the 9th
Thermidor, however, he took sides against Robespierre, and on
the 12th of September 1794 he was named by the Convention as a
member of the executive committee of public instruction. In
1798 he was appointed ambassador to Naples, and in the following
year he became member, then president, of the Council of the
Ancients. After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire he was
chosen a senator by Napoleon and created a count. During the
Hundred Days he was a member of the chamber of representatives. In 1803 he was chosen a member of the Institute of France but after the restoration of Louis XVIII. his name was, in 1816, deleted from the list of members. After the revolution of 1830 he was named a member of the new Academy of Moral and Political Science. He died at Ustaritz near Bayonne, April 25, 1833. His writings are characterized by elegance, grace and variety of style, and by the highest kind of rhetorical eloquence; but his grasp of his subject is superficial, and as his criticisms have no root in fixed and philosophical principles they are not unfrequently whimsical and inconsistent. He must not be confounded with his elder brother Dominique (1735–1799), who was also a deputy to the states-general.
The works of Garat include, besides those already mentioned, Considérations sur la Révolution Française (Paris, 1792); Mémoires sur la Révolution, ou exposé de ma conduite (1795); Mémoires sur la vie de M. Suard, sur ses écrits, et sur le XVIIIe siècle (1820); éloges on Joubert, Kléber and Desaix; several notices of distinguished persons; and a large number of articles in periodicals. Valuable materials for the history of Garat’s tenure of the ministry, notably the police reports of Dutard, are given in W. A. Schmidt’s Tableaux de la Révolution Française (3 vols., Leipzig, 1867–1870).
GARAT, PIERRE-JEAN (1764–1823), French singer, nephew of Dominique Joseph Garat, was born in Bordeaux on the 25th of April 1764. Gifted with a voice of exceptional timbre and compass he devoted himself, from an early age, to the cultivation of his musical talents. On account of his manifesting a distaste for the legal profession, for which his father wished him to study, he was deprived of his allowance, but through the patronage of a friend he obtained the office of secretary to Comte d’Artois, and was afterwards engaged to give musical lessons to the queen of France. At the beginning of the Revolution he accompanied Rode to England, where the two musicians appeared together in concerts. He returned to Paris in 1794. After the Revolution he became a professional singer, and on account of a song which he had composed in reference to the misfortunes of the royal family he was thrown into prison. On regaining his liberty he went to Hamburg, where he at once achieved extraordinary success; and by his subsequent appearances in Paris, and his visits to Italy, Spain, Germany and Russia, he made for himself a reputation as a singer unequalled by any other of his own time. He was a keen partisan of Gluck in opposition to Handel. On the institution of the Conservatoire de Musique he became its professor of singing. He also composed a number of songs, many of which have considerable merit. He died on the 1st of March 1823 in Paris.
GARAY, JÁNOS (1812–1853), Hungarian poet and author, was born on the 10th of October 1812, at Szegszárd, in the county of Tolna. From 1823 to 1828 he studied at Fünfkirchen, and subsequently, in 1829, at the university of Pest. In 1834 he brought out an heroic poem, in hexameters, under the title Csatár. After this he issued in quick succession various historical dramas, among which the most successful were Arbócz, Országh
Ilona and Báthori Erzsébet,—the first two published at Pest in 1837 and the last in 1840. Garay was an energetic journalist, and in 1838 he removed to Pressburg, where he edited the political journal Hirnök (Herald). He returned to Pest in 1839 , when he
was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 1842 he was admitted into the Kisfaludy Society, of which he became second secretary. Garay enriched Hungarian literature with numerous lyrical poems, ballads and tales. The first collection of his poems was published at Pest in 1843; and
his prose tales appeared in 1845, under the title of Tollrajzok (Sketches with the Pen). His historical ballads and legends, styled Arpádok (Pest, 1847, 2nd ed. 1848), showed him to be a master in the art of ballad-writing. Some of his lyrical poems also are excellent, as, for example, Balatoni Kagylók (Shells from the Balaton Lake) (Pest, 1848). His legend Bosnyák Zsófia
(Pest, 1847), and his poetical romance Frangepán Kristófné (Christopher Frangepan’s Wife) (Pest, 1846), gained the prize of the Kisfaludy Society. His last and most famous work was an historical poem in twelve cantos, with the title Szent László (Saint Ladislaus) (Eger, 1852, 2nd ed., Pest, 1853, 3rd ed. 1863). Garay was professor of Hungarian language and literature to the university of Pest in 1848–1849. After about four years’ illness he died on the 5th of November 1853, in great want. A collective edition of his poems was published at Pest the year after his death by F. Ney (2nd ed. 1860), and several of his poems were translated by Kertbeny.
See Garay János Összes költeményei (2nd ed., Pest, 1860); and Dichtungen von Johann Garay (2nd ed., Vienna, 1856).
GARBLE (a word derived from the Arab. gharbala, to sift, and related to ghirbal, a sieve; the Arabic words are of foreign origin, probably from the Lat. cribrum, a sieve), originally a medieval commercial term in the Mediterranean ports, meaning to sort out, or to sift merchandize, such as corn, spices, &c., in order to separate what was good from the refuse or waste; hence to select the best of anything for retention. Similarly a “garbler” was an official who was appointed to sort out, or test the work of those who had already sorted, the spices or drugs offered for sale in the London markets. In this original sense the word is now obsolete, but by inversion, or rather perversion, “garble” now means to sort out or select, chiefly from books or other literary works, or from public speeches, some portion which twists, mutilates, or renders ineffective the meaning of the author or speaker.
