GAY DE VERNON, Leonard, a French ecclesiastic who figured in the revolutionary era, born at St. Leonard in Limousin in 1748; died at Vernon, near Limoges, in 1822. He was curé of a village in the neighbourhood of the latter town when the Revolution commenced. He was elected to the see of Haute Vienne in 1791. He sat in the legislative assembly and in the council of Five Hundred, always amongst the most ardent of the extreme democrats. From the year 1798 till his death he was frequently in trouble, both with politicians and with priests; and eventually he retired from public life. He was in exile at Brussels from 1816 till 1819.—J. S., G.
GAYOT DE PITAVAL, François, a French lawyer, born at Lyons in 1673; died at Paris in 1743. He commenced life as an abbé, then became a soldier, and finally an advocate. Not meeting, however, with much success in the practice of the law, he betook himself to literature. He published "Causes celèbres et intéressantes avec les jugements des cours souveraines qui les ont décidées;" "Bibliothèque des gens de cour;" and "Saillies d'esprit."—R. V. C.
GAYTON, Edmund, an English writer, born in London in 1609; died at Oxford, 12th December, 1666. Educated at the Merchant Taylors' school and at St. John's college, Oxford, he obtained a professorship in his college, from which, however, as a royalist, he was driven in 1647. He then went to the metropolis, and lived, according to Anthony Wood, "in a sharking condition," endeavouring to support himself and his wife by his pen. About 1659 he was imprisoned for debt in King's Bench prison, where he wrote his "Walk, Knaves, Walk," 1659. Shortly after the Restoration, reinstalled in his professorship, he settled finally at Oxford. He wrote several books of a humorous cast, and many songs. His best known work is his "Festivious Notes upon Don Quixote," 1654. His favourite nom de plume was De Speciosa Villa, but his "Wit Revived," 1660, bears the name of Asdryasdust Tossoffacan.—R. V. C.
GAZA, Theodore, a grammarian of the Greek empire, was born about the commencement of the fifteenth century at Thessalonica, whence he emigrated into Italy, about the year 1430. He was professor of Greek at Sienna in 1440; and afterwards occupied the same post at Ferrara, where he acquired so great a fame as a scholar, that he was invited to Rome by the pope, Nicholas V. He received such honour from the savans of the time while at Rome, that it is said they were in the habit of saluting his house with the greatest respect, whenever they passed it. After the death of the pope, Theodore went to Naples, but returned to Rome, and was appointed to a small benefice in Calabria, where he died in 1478. His knowledge of Latin and Greek was thought to be perfect. His Greek grammar, in four books, has been repeatedly reprinted, and was partially translated into Latin by Erasmus. Other scholars, also, have rendered portions of it into Latin, and have commentated upon it. One of these commentaries, published at Bucharest in 1768, comprises twelve hundred and ninety-eight folio pages, although it is confined to the fourth book alone; and notwithstanding this mass of notes, which one would have thought to be thoroughly exhaustive, we find, that as late as 1780, another commentary was published at Vienna on this same fourth book. Amongst others of his original works may be mentioned, a treatise on the Greek calendar, and a letter to Philelphus on the origin of the Turks. He translated from Greek into Latin the Natural History and the Problems of Aristotle, and the five Homilies of St. Augustine on the incomprehensible nature of God. It was the second of these translations which caused the quarrel with George of Trebizond, whose previous labours Theodore is said to have made use of, without any recognition. He translated from Latin into Greek, Cicero's De Senectute, and the Somnium Scipionis. His works are now almost forgotten, but must at one time have enjoyed a great reputation. The grammar for instance; the treatise on the Athenian calendar, the translations from Aristotle, Cicero, and Chrysostom have gone through many editions. Eulogies, too, in great number, have been pronounced upon Theodore by many eminent men, such as Politian, Erasmus, Xylander, Scaliger, and Melancthon. His knowledge of Greek and Latin is said to have been so admirable, that it was impossible to tell which of the two languages he wrote best.—W. H. W.
GAZÆUS. See Æneas.
GAZALI. See Al-Gazali.
GAZI HASSAN. See Hassan.
GEBAUER, Georg Christian, a distinguished German lawyer and historian, was born in 1690 at Breslau, Silesia, and after studying at the universities of Altdorf and Leipsic, established himself at the latter place, and obtained in 1727 the professorship of feudal law. Seven years after he exchanged this post for a similar one at the university of Göttingen, holding the latter till his death, January 27, 1773. Besides a great number of valuable legal dissertations, Gebauer published a complete collection of the whole Corpus Juris of Germany.—F. M.
GEBELIN, A. Court de. See Court.
GEBER, one of the earliest of the Arabian writers on chemistry, who lived towards the close of the eighth century. His real name was Abou-Moussah-Djafar-Al-Sofi; but the place of his birth is uncertain. One writer asserts that he was a Sabæan of Harran in Mesopotamia; others represent him to have been born in Persia, and others in Spain, while Leo Africanus states him to have been a Greek, who apostatized to Mahomedanism. By Bacon he has been lauded as the "master of masters;" by Garden he is ranked as one of the twelve great geniuses of the world; and although few particulars are known as to the events of his life, still, what has come down to us entitles him to be considered as one of the patriarchs of chemistry. Golius, professor of languages at the university of Leyden, presented Geber's works in manuscript to the library of that town; he also translated and published them under the title of Lapis Philosophorum. They were afterwards translated into English by Richard Russell in 1678. Some other original manuscripts are in the libraries of Rome and Paris. The works of Geber consist of four parts, entitled—1st, "Of the Investigation or Search for Perfection." 2nd, "Of the Sum of Perfection, or of the Perfect Magistery." 3rd, "Of the Invention of Verity or Perfection." 4th, "Of Furnaces," followed by a recapitulation. The direction of his labours was to teach the method of making the philosopher's stone; and this is described with such clearness and distinctness that we are enabled to understand the substances he employed, the processes which he followed, and the greater number of the products he obtained. Geber's theory was, that all metals are compounds of mercury and sulphur; and he appears to have been acquainted with gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead, which he respectively distinguished by the names of Sol, Luna, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The two first, gold and silver, he called perfect metals; the others imperfect, the difference depending on the proportions in which the mercury and sulphur combined, and the amount of their impurities. Gold he describes as mercury mixed with a small quantity of pure red sulphur; silver, as mercury mixed with pure white sulphur; iron, as a compound of earthy mercury and earthy sulphur; and the other metals varying in a similar manner. Geber believed that all metals could be transmuted into gold or silver by altering the proportions of their constituents, mercury and sulphur. From his book on "Furnaces," it is evident that he was acquainted with the method of calcining or oxidizing metals; and he also understood the process of distillation and the purification of fluids by filtration, and of separating precipitates by the same means. The latter process he calls distillation by filtration. In the course of his writings he describes the following substances:—Common salt, potash, soda and its carbonate, saltpetre (which is first mentioned by him), salammoniac, alum, sulphate of iron, corrosive sublimate, and others. He was cognizant of the method of preparing nitric acid, which he designates as dissolving water, sulphuric acid, and aqua regia. Metallic arsenic appears also to have been known to him. Geber's descriptions, considering the times in which he wrote, are generally accurate; and he is entitled to the merit of having been the first to announce many important discoveries. The place and date of his death are unknown.—W. W. E. T.
GEBHARD, Elector and Archbishop of Cologne, was born 10th November, 1547, of the noble house of Truchsess of Waldenburg, and was induced by his cousin the Cardinal-bishop Otto of Augsburg, to devote himself to the church. He studied in the theological schools of Ingolstadt and Dillingen, and afterwards at Bruges, Bologna, and Rome. Before he was fifteen years old he was made a canon of Augsburg, and in 1577 was chosen archbishop and elector of Cologne by a majority of the chapter. His rival, Duke Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Hildesheim, protested against the election, and the Bavarian party in the chapter accused him of a leaning to protestantism; but Pope Gregory XIII. confirmed the election. The truth of the accusation, however, soon began to appear: and the young elector,
