1744. He was educated among the jesuits, and at seventeen years of age was employed in teaching rhetoric at Blois; his health failed and he was obliged to give up this occupation. He was a relative of the celebrated Ninon L'Enclos, and on his going to Paris was received by her, the scandal of the day said, on the footing of a lover. She was then eighty, but this only made the matter more spoken of. In 1701 he obtained through her interest valuable ecclesiastical preferment. The abbé now figured as a litterateur; published essays on the Olympic games and the Odes of Pindar in the Transactions of the Academy of Inscriptions, and became a member of the French Academy. He translated Quintilian and Pausanias—both very inaccurately. His other works, scattered through different journals, were collected by the Abbé D'Olivet after his death. The volume is not without interest.—J. A., D.
GEE, Joshua, a writer on mercantile subjects, whose personal history, so far as it is known, is comprised in the statement that he was an eminent merchant in London in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. The "British Merchant," a work which appeared in numbers twice a week in 1713, and which was afterwards collected and reprinted in 3 vols. 8vo, 1721, and again in 1742, afforded Gee, among other merchants, an opportunity of abusing the commercial treaty with France proposed after the peace of Utrecht, and also of recording the condition of many branches of the commerce of the period. Gee is better known, however, by an independent work entitled "The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered," 8vo, London, 1729 or 1730; reprinted in 1767. This work is not without interest for the economist, and to the historian of trade it is of great value. It is divided into thirty-four chapters; the general principles of trade are discussed in detail, and the commerce of England with every part of the world described. The author is a strenuous advocate for protection, by which he benevolently hopes to enrich the poor of England as England with her open marts is enriching the poor of foreign nations.—J. S., G.
* GEEFS, Guillaume, the most distinguished living Belgian sculptor, was born at Antwerp, September 10, 1806. The son of a baker, his earliest artistic essays are said to have been in cutting moulds for his father's confectionary wares. His first lessons were obtained in the schools of design in his native city. Having there distinguished himself, and shown a marked aptitude for sculpture, he eventually received a small exhibition (about £16) from the government, in order to proceed to Paris for the completion of his studies. He entered the studio of the elder Ramey, and remained in the French capital till 1830, when he returned to Belgium, and settled in Brussels. To the Exhibition of that year he sent his first composition, "A Young Herdsman strewing Flowers on a Tomb." This work, executed in Paris, was French in sentiment and style; but it was admired, and secured the artist a position. A more favourable opportunity for distinguishing himself, however, speedily offered. It was resolved to raise national memorials to those who fell in the revolution of 1830. In a public competition commissions for three of these works fell to the share of Geefs. The chief was that to the "Victims of the Revolution," in the Place des Martyrs at Brussels, a vast work which afforded the sculptor ample opportunity for the display of his imagination and his skill. Geefs was recognized by these works as the first monumental sculptor of his country. Among subsequent efforts in this line, the most celebrated are his colossal statue of the painter Rubens in the Place Vert, Antwerp; that of Grétry at Liége; of Charlemagne at Maestricht; the monument to Madame Malibran de Beriot in the cemetery at Laeken; the mausoleum of Count Cornet of Ways-Ruard; that of the late queen of the Belgians; and the exquisite sarcophagus of St. Hubert in the church of St. Hubert at Ardennes. Of living persons Geefs has executed a much-admired marble statue of Leopold for the vestibule of the Palais National; busts of the prince consort of England; the prince and princess de Ligne; M. Fetis, &c. But M. Geefs has also executed many strictly poetical and imaginative works, as the "Lion in Love," which attracted much attention at the Great Exhibition of 1851; "Genevieve of Brabant with her Child and a Deer;" "Francesca da Rimini;" a "Fisherman's Daughter;" "Sleeping Children," in the collection of her majesty at Osborne; "Paul and Virginia;" "Religion;" "Prayer;" "Melancholy," and a large number more. He has also carved several works in wood for the cathedral of Liége. The style of M. Geefs is distinguished by originality, delicacy, and poetic feeling; in character rather picturesque than classical; the forms are well cast and well modelled; the flesh is soft and nicely rounded; the chiselling neat and finished. Casts of some of his works are in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. M. Geefs is premier sculptor to the king; an officer of the order of Leopold, chevalier of the legion of honour, and member of the fine arts academies of his own and several other countries.—His wife, Fanny Geefs, has acquired celebrity as a painter of genre and portraits.—J. T—e.
GEEFS, Jean-Joseph, brother of Guillaume Geefs, born at Antwerp in 1808, was also a sculptor of decided ability, though less original than his brother. "Adonis departing for the Chase," exhibited in 1833, was his earliest work. The colossal statue of Godfrey of Bouillon in the Great Exhibition of 1851 was perhaps his most popular production. A statue of "Thierry Martens" for the town of Alost; "Baldwin of Constantinople;" "The Arts and Sciences rendering homage to Charles van Hulthem," and numerous other monumental and poetical works, have proceeded from his chisel. Several of his works, both statues and relievi, were executed for English patrons. He died at Brussels in May, 1860.—Another brother, Aloys Geefs, also a sculptor, who executed some of the bassi-relievi on the elder Geefs' monument of Rubens, died in 1841, before he could fulfil the promise of his early works.—J. T—e.
* GEEL, Jacob, a distinguished Dutch philologist, was born at Amsterdam in 1789. In 1823 he was appointed assistant, and ten years later, principal librarian at Leyden, the duties of which office he has discharged to the benefit of the learned of all nations. He published valuable editions of Theocritus, the Phœnissæ of Euripides, &c., and wrote a "Historia Critica Sophistarum Græcorum," 1825; and a "Catalogus Codicum MSS., qui inde ab anno 1741 Bibliothecæ Lugduni Batavorum accesserunt," 1852.—K. E.
GEER, Carl von, Baron and Hof-marskal, a celebrated Swedish entomologist, and member of the Swedish Academy, born in 1720. He was educated at Utrecht and at Upsal under Linnæus. He was the author of "Memoires pour servir à l'histoire des Insectes," Stockholm, 1752-78, a work which, in its time, enjoyed an equal celebrity with that of Reaumur, and may be considered as its continuation. He died in 1778.—M. H.
GEHLEN, Adolf Ferdinand, a chemist, born about 1775 at Bütow in Pomerania. The son of an apothecary, he followed his father's profession, first in Königsberg and afterwards in Berlin. In 1803 he commenced to edit the Neues Allgem. Journ. der Chimie, published at Berlin, and in subsequent years conducted other scientific journals. A degree was conferred upon him by the university of Halle in 1806, when he obtained a chemical appointment. His researches are numerous, and comprise, among others, investigations of certain ethers and of formic acid; also some of the earliest experiments on the chemical action of light. He died in Munich, July 15, 1815, from the effects of arseniuretted hydrogen, with which gas he had been experimenting.—J. A. W.
* GEIBEL, Emanuel, a distinguished German poet, was born at Lubeck, Oct. 18, 1815, and studied at Bonn and Berlin, at which latter place he enjoyed the friendship of Chamisso, Gaudy, and other distinguished literary men. In 1838 he became domestic tutor to Prince Kantakazi, the Russian ambassador at Athens, and there found ample opportunity to enlarge his knowledge of classical antiquity. Two years later he returned to Germany, published his "Poems," and soon after was granted a pension by the king of Prussia. In 1852 he was appointed to the chair of æsthetics in the university of Munich, where he speedily acquired the favour of the king of Bavaria. His poems are distinguished by great tenderness of feeling and simplicity of expression. He has also attempted epic and dramatic poetry in "König Sigurd's Brautfahrt," "König Roderich," and "Brunhild," but not with equal success.—K. E.
* GEIGER, Abraham, a Jewish rabbi and an oriental scholar of much repute, resident at Breslau. He was born at Frankfort-on-the-Maine in 1810, and educated at Heidelberg and Bonn. At the latter place he wrote his celebrated prize essay on the question—"What has Mahomet adopted from Judaism?" He has been for some years actively engaged in an effort to reform the exclusive system of Judaism, laying down the principle, that whilst all essential forms of the Jewish religion should be preserved intact, its members should conform as much as possible to the existing habits of life. The majority of enlightened Jews are gradually adopting his views,
