nature of the general laws which rule the material universe. In astronomy, having cautiously adopted the theory of Copernicus, he wrote his life, together with that of Tycho, and helped to diffuse a right understanding of his system. Gassendi's temper was singularly equable; his private character notably modest and dignified. He lived after his death in the hearts of his countrymen, and a statue was raised to the fearless thinker and pious ecclesiastic at the foot of the mountains near which he laboured. His writings, which are in Latin, fill six folio volumes, and have been twice collected and edited—once by Montmart and Sorbier at Lyons in 1658, and again at Florence in 1728. More ample particulars of his life and labours will be found in Sorbier's general preface to his edition of the Opera Omnia; in Brucker's Histor. Crit. Philos.; and De Gerando's Histoire Comparée des Systêmes de Philosophie.—J. E. T.
GASSICOURT. See Cadet.
GASSION, Jean de, Marshal of France, was born at Pau, 20th August, 1609, and died at Arras, 2nd October, 1647. A Huguenot by birth, his earliest services were under the duc de Rohan in Guyenne and Languedoc; but at the age of twenty-two he volunteered into the army of Gustavus Adolphus, and in that most admirable school prepared himself for future command. After the death of Gustavus, De Gassion returned to France in 1633, and served with distinction in the war against Spain. On the eve of the memorable battle of Rocroy in 1643, he was the only confidant of the young D'Enghien (afterwards prince de Condé) with whom, however, his frank and independent spirit subsequently embroiled him. In the same year he obtained a marshal's baton, and took the command of an army, at the head of which he entered Gravelines, Courtray, Dunkirk, and other towns. In 1647 he was besieging Lens, when, observing that some of his soldiers hesitated to attack the enemy behind a palisade, he led them on in person, and received a mortal wound in the head. Removed to Arras, he expired there five days afterwards, a capable soldier and an honest man. De Gassion never married, and was wont to say, in a rough, careless fashion—"Je ne fais pas assez de cas de la vie pour en faire part à quelqu'un!"—W. J. P.
* GASSIOT, John Peter, a merchant of London, and a distinguished cultivator of physical science, was born in London on the 2nd of April, 1797. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1840, and has for many years been a very active member of the council of the British Association for the advancement of Science. His physical researches have had reference chiefly to the phenomena of electricity, and their relations to those of light, heat, and chemical action, and have led to results of great importance, especially with reference to the production of high electrical tension with the galvanic battery, and the luminous appearances presented by the electric discharge. They have been published from time to time in the Philosophical Transactions since 1839, and in the reports of the British Association since 1850. Some of his papers relate to experiments with a water-battery, containing the extraordinary number of three thousand five hundred and twenty voltaic elements.—R.
GASSNER, Johann Joseph, a celebrated exorcist, was born at Bratz in the Vorarlberg, 20th August, 1727. He studied theology in the jesuit colleges of Innspruck and Prague, and in 1758 became parish priest of Klösterle, in the canton of the Grisons. Here he had laboured quietly for fifteen years, when rumours began to spread of the cures which he was effecting by the laying on of hands and the ceremonies of exorcism. Soon patients began to resort to him from all quarters, at first about fifty or sixty at a time, but ere long as many as five or six hundred; and to enable him to carry assistance to those who were too weak to bear a journey to Klösterle, he was allowed by the bishop to visit many towns in the surrounding country, and to go as far as Constance on the same errand. The bishop of Constance, suspecting fraud, subjected him to an examination; but Gassner was able to satisfy him of the entire honesty of his proceedings, of his doctrinal orthodoxy, and that all he did was to make use of the powers of exorcism given him in his ordination as a priest of Rome. Purely natural diseases he did not pretend to be able to heal, but only such as were the result, in his judgment, of diabolic agency, of which cases were more numerous, he believed, than was generally supposed. Whether diseases were purely natural, or the result of supernatural possession, he professed to be able to judge by certain symptoms of the patient while under his hands. In 1774 and 1775 he was allowed to practise his art in Ellwangen, Gulzbach, and Regensburg; and multitudes continued to flock to him from all parts of Germany and Switzerland, and even from France. These proceedings raised a great outcry against him, on the part not only of protestants, but also of enlightened members of his own church, who maintained that there was nothing of a supernatural character either in the diseases which he treated or in the cures, but resolved the whole effects which he produced into the action of natural powers and causes in the exorcist and the exorcised. This opinion at length prevailed in the public mind, and the bishops were obliged to put a stop to Gassner's proceedings. The archbishop of Regensburg gave him a pastoral charge in his diocese, and Gassner retired into obscurity, where he died in 1779. He endeavoured to defend his practice, in a small work published at Augsburg in 1775; and at least the facts connected with his singular career must always have a value, as bearing upon some of the still obscure and unexplained mysteries of the human constitution and life. A life of him, with an appendix of facts and remarkable cases, extracted from official documents, appeared at Augsburg in 1775.—P. L.
GAST, John, D.D., was the son of a French protestant physician who took refuge in Ireland in 1684. John was born in Dublin, July 29, 1715, was educated by Dr. Lloyd, and graduated in Trinity college, Dublin, in 1735. Entering holy orders, he served as chaplain to the French congregation at Portarlington, whence he removed to a curé in Dublin, and opened a school. He was a man of considerable learning, and obtained great reputation by his "Rudiments of Grecian History," published in 1753, and his "History of Greece from Alexander of Macedon till the final subjection to the Roman Power," 1784. These works were highly recommended by the university. The degree of D.D. was conferred upon him free of expense—equivalent in the case of graduates of the college to an honorary degree—in recognition of his learning. He obtained other preferments, including the archdeaconry of Glendalough, and died in 1788.—J. F. W.
GASTAUD, François, a French controversial writer belonging to the congregation of the Oratory, was born at Aix in 1660, and died at Viviers in 1732. After preaching at Paris for some time with great success, he adopted the profession of an advocate, and was employed in suits against the jesuits, to whom he bore the enmity of a thorough jansenist. His works relate to the struggle in connection with which, both as a preacher and a barrister, he was chiefly known.—J. S., G.
GASTOLDI, Giovanni Giacomo, a distinguished musician, was born at Caravaggio about the middle of the sixteenth century. He held the post of chapel-master in the ducal church of Santa-Barbara at Mantua; and afterwards, about 1592, a similar situation at Milan. He published thirty musical works, the titles and dates of which may be seen in Walther's Musicalisches Lexicon, and Fetis' Biographie des Musiciens. His ballads, printed at Antwerp in 1590, under the title of "Balletti a cinque con i versi per cantare, sonare e ballare," &c., put the derivation of our word ballad out of all doubt, which originally meant a song, sung and danced to at the same time. The ballets and madrigals of Gastoldi are more spirited, graceful, and pleasing to modern ears than any of the works of his contemporaries. He is supposed to have died at the commencement of the seventeenth century.—E. F. R.
GASTON, the name of several viscounts of Bearn, of whom we notice Gaston IV., tenth viscount, the representative of a family which had exercised independent sovereignty from the middle of the tenth century. He was one of the leaders of the first crusade, and fought valiantly at Nicæa, 1097, Dorylæum, Antioch, 1098, and Jerusalem, 1099. Along with Tancrede, he humanely endeavoured to save the lives of those of the inhabitants of Jerusalem who, after the fall of the city, had taken refuge in the temple. He returned to Beam in 1101, and in 1114 went to the assistance of Alfonso I. of Arragon at the siege of Saragossa. This stronghold the Moors surrendered in 1118, in which year Gaston, in acknowledgment of his services, received the title of Lord of Saragossa. He had subsequently numerous encounters with the Moors, and met his death gloriously, October, 1130, in a struggle with overwhelming numbers.—Gaston VI., fifteenth viscount, born in 1171; died in 1215. In 1211 he took part with Raymond VI. against Pope Innocent III., who had anathematized the prince of Toulouse, and proclaimed a crusade against his subjects. In the struggle Raymond
