having fallen violently in love with Agnes, countess of Mansfeld, conceived the design of openly declaring himself a protestant, marrying the beautiful countess, secularizing the electorate, and proclaiming religious liberty to the whole of his subjects. In 1582 he began to carry out his bold but dangerous design by publishing an edict, giving freedom of worship to his protestant subjects; and in February, 1583, he was publicly married to Agnes. The bulk of his people supported him with their sympathy, but he was energetically opposed by the chapter and the municipality of Cologne. The states of the empire deposed him from the electorate; Gregory launched against him a bull of excommunication, and the chapter appointed a new archbishop in his room—his former rival, the Duke Ernest of Bavaria. These events took place in 1583, and warlike operations immediately followed, which issued in Gebhard's defeat and exile. He fled with his wife into Holland, and afterwards came to England, in hopes of inducing Queen Elizabeth to espouse his cause; but she limited the expression of her sympathy to a moderate present of money. Gebhard at last withdrew to Strasburg, where he died in 1601, and was buried in the cathedral of which he had in early life been made dean.—P. L.
GEBHARDI, Johann Ludwig Levin, a German historian, born at Brunswick in 1699; died in 1764. He received his early education in his native town, which he afterwards completed at Helmstädt and Jena. In 1723 he was appointed professor of logic and philosophy at Luneburg, and in 1746 he became professor of mathematics at the same place. About the latter date he was elected a member of the Royal Society in England. His historical works enjoy a high reputation. Amongst the chief of them are a "Historical and genealogical account of the Imperial and Royal Families in Europe," 1734; a "History of the Merovingian Kings," 1736; and a "History of the Electors of Brandenburg," 1762.—R. D., B.
GED, William, the inventor of the art of stereotyping. He was originally a goldsmith in Edinburgh, but having conceived the idea, in 1725, of substituting for movable types solid plates cast from them, he removed to London in 1729, and entered into partnership with William Fenner, and John and Thomas James, who applied to the university of Cambridge in 1730 for a patent, which was sealed to them in the following year, to print bibles and prayer-books according to this new method. After spending a large sum of money they were compelled to give up the lease in 1732, having finished only two prayerbooks. The partners then quarrelled, and Ged returned to Scotland in 1733 almost penniless. He there found a few friends desirous of seeing a specimen of his work, and he published an edition of Sallust in 1744; but he received no encouragement to make any further use of his invention. He died in indigence in October, 1749. A biographical memoir of Ged, by Nichols, was published in 1781, for the benefit of his daughter.—W. H. P. G.
GEDDES, Alexander, a celebrated rationalistic divine of the Roman catholic church, was born in 1737, in the parish of Ruthven in Banff, of catholic parents, who were very poor. Discovering superior talents, he was sent at fourteen to an obscure local seminary, from which he removed at twenty-one to the Scots college, Paris, where he studied Latin, Greek, and several modern languages. In 1764 he returned to Scotland, and officiated for some time as a priest in Dundee. Soon after he was appointed chaplain and tutor in the family of the earl of Traquair, after which he accepted a charge as parish priest in his native county. In 1779 he published "Select Satires of Horace" in English verse, with adaptation to present time and manners. This work attracted attention, brought him a profit of £100, and flattered him with hopes of literary success in a wider and more conspicuous sphere. In 1780 he removed to London, having before leaving Scotland obtained the degree of LL.D. from the university of Aberdeen. Arrived in the metropolis, he officiated occasionally as a priest, but devoted himself mainly to learned and literary pursuits, and finally withdrew himself in 1782 from his priestly functions, in order to prepare and publish a new version of the Bible for the use of the English catholics. Lord Petre allowed him a salary of £200. He had conceived the idea of such a work a good many years before, and in 1785 he published his prospectus of the work, in the preparation of which he received encouragement from Lowth and Kennicott. His plan included an exhibition of the various readings of the original texts, explanatory notes, and critical observations. The first volume appeared in 1792, the second in 1797. Of three hundred and forty-three subscribers, only a few were Roman catholics. His orthodoxy had fallen under suspicion, and the work, as soon as it apppeared, was attacked from various quarters, and was at length prohibited to the use of English catholics by a decree of the vicar apostolic. In 1800 he discovered his rationalistic unbelief without disguise, in a volume of "Critical Remarks on the Hebrew Scriptures, corresponding with a new translation of the Bible," in which he attacks the credit of Moses as a historian, legislator, and moralist, and compares his claims to supernatural intercourse to those of Numa and Lycurgus. His rationalism was so extreme that even Dr. Priestley "doubted if such a man as Geddes, who believed so little and conceded so much, could be a christian." He died February 26, 1802, and was buried at Paddington. His learning was extensive, and his writings very numerous; but many of them were upon trivial subjects, and of no value. Irritable in temper, dogmatic in tone, and rash in judgment, his erudition was ill-directed and applied, and the over-partial estimate formed of his merits by many of his contemporaries has not been supported by the judgment of a later age.—P. L.
GEDDES, Andrew, a portrait painter of some reputation, was born at Edinburgh in 1789, and was educated at the high school there. He commenced his career in the excise office, of which his father, Mr. David Geddes, was an auditor. The occupation of a clerk of excise had little attraction for the younger Geddes, who had a decided taste for art, in which he was encouraged by his friend, the late Lord Eldin, who gave him free access to his collections of pictures and drawings. After his father's death Geddes accordingly left the excise office and went by the advice of Lord Eldin to London, where he entered the schools of the Royal Academy and acquired the friendship of Wilkie, who, though so young a man, was then rapidly establishing a great name in the metropolis. In 1810 Geddes returned to Edinburgh and commenced practice as a portrait painter, but he generally spent a portion of each year in London, and thus acquired a connection in both capitals. In 1814 he visited Paris, and in 1828 he made a tour in Italy, where he spent upwards of two years. He returned to London in 1831, and in 1832 was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. He died in London, May 5, 1844. He excelled in small full-length portraits; but he painted also landscapes and a few historical pieces. The national gallery possesses a small conversation piece by him, called "Dull Reading"—a wife has read her husband to sleep; the figures are portraits of Terry the actor and his wife, the sister of Patrick Nasmyth.—R. N. W.
GEDDES, James, a Scottish lawyer and man of letters, was born in Tweeddale about the year 1710. He was educated at the university of Edinburgh, where he made extraordinary progress in the classics, in philosophy, and especially in mathematics, which he studied under the celebrated Colin Maclaurin. Having been admitted to the bar, he acquired considerable reputation as a lawyer, and created high expectations. But he was prematurely cut off by consumption in 1748. He was the author of an "Essay on the Composition and Manner of Writing of the Ancients, particularly Plato," 8vo, Glasgow.—J. T.
GEDDES, Michael, chancellor of the diocese of Sarum towards the end of the seventeenth century, author of several church histories, and of some polemical works, was a native of Scotland, and educated at Edinburgh. In 1678-88 he was chaplain to the English factory at Lisbon, where his labours were at length interdicted by the inquisition. On his return to England he was made an LL.D. of Oxford, and chancellor of Sarum. Southey makes frequent reference to the works of this learned divine.—J. S., G.
GEDIKE, Friedrich, a German schoolmaster, born in 1755 at Boberow in Brandenburg, where his father was a clergyman in very poor circumstances. He was admitted into the orphan house at Boberow, where he made rapid progress in learning, and in 1771 he proceeded to Frankfort to study theology. In 1779 he was promoted to the rectorship of the royal gymnasium at Berlin, where he displayed great talent in the difficult art of instructing youth. In 1791 he became D.D. and was made assistant-director of the ecclesiastical court. He was also chosen a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was appointed to superintend the French gymnasium at Berlin. He died in 1803. His works are wholly scholastic. He edited many of the Greek and Latin classics, and his books of elementary instruction were much esteemed in his day.—R. D. B.
GEDOYN, Nicolas, born at Orleans in 1667; died in
