a single visit to his native country during the whole of his long residence in Italy, and this was in 1625-27. Claude tried his hand also at etching. Robert Dumesnil describes forty-two etchings by him. He rarely put his signature to his works, but he did occasionally add his name to them, and he usually adopted the Italian form of Claudio, and he wrote sometimes Claudius, but he had no rule. Dumesnil gives eighteen facsimiles and no two are alike. The etchings were made between 1630 and 1663; it was probably about 1630 that his first pictures were painted. He was in the habit of preserving sketches of his pictures, in a book which he called the "Book of Truth" (Libro di Verita); and on the backs of these sketches are sometimes written the dates of the pictures and the names of the purchasers. This collection he is said to have made in order to test the originality of his works, as during his lifetime even copies were made of his works and sold as originals. The original collection of drawings is now in the possession of the duke of Devonshire. It was engraved by Earlom for John Boydell under the title Liber Veritatis; or a collection of two hundred prints, after the original designs of Claude, &c., London, 1777, of which a copy was published at Rome in 1815, by Ludovico Caracciolo. Very many of Claude's pictures have been engraved.—(Sandrart; Baldinucci; Pascoli; D'Argenville, National Gallery Catalogue.)—R. N. W.
GELENIUS, Sigismund, a Bohemian writer, born at Prague in 1477. Descended from a good family, he travelled at an early age through Germany, France, and Italy, making himself master of the languages of those countries. On his return to Bohemia he visited Basle, and made the acquaintance of Erasmus, who recommended the publisher Frobenius to attach him, if possible, to his printing establishment. The latter followed this advice, and Gelenius remained in Basle till his death in 1554, toiling indefatigably at correcting the press. He also translated and edited many ancient authors. His principal work is a Lexicon in four languages, Greek, Latin, German, and Slavonic, and he wrote some valuable notes on the chief classic authors. He also translated Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Josephus, and several of the Greek fathers. As a writer he was correct in expression, but inaccurate in details.—R. D. B.
GELIMER, sixth and last king of the Vandals in Africa, in 530 dethroned his relative, Hilderic, whom, after three years' imprisonment, he murdered. But his authority was so insecure as to afford the ambitious Justinian a favourable opportunity for attacking the Vandals as the champion of Hilderic. Thirty-five thousand soldiers and sailors, and a fleet of six hundred ships, were despatched in 533 from Constantinople under the command of Belisarius, and the usurper was easily defeated at a battle near Carthage, which at once opened its gates to the conqueror. He finally lost at the battle of Bulla in 534, the kingdom founded in Africa in 439 by his great-grandfather Genseric. After enduring a protracted blockade in Mount Pappua, whither he had fled, Gelimer taken captive, graced the triumph of Belisarius in Constantinople. Upon doing homage to the emperor, an estate was assigned to him in Galatia, on which the rest of his life passed in obscurity. Various romantic incidents in the life of Gelimer are recorded by Gibbon.—R. V. C.
GELINEK, Joseph, a composer for the pianoforte of some eminence, was born at Selez in Bohemia in 1757, and died at Vienna, April 13, 1825. He studied music from his youth, and was a pupil of Segert, an organist of considerable talent at Prague. In 1783 he entered the seminary at Prague, and shortly afterwards was ordained a priest. When Mozart went to Prague to produce his opera of Don Giovanni he heard Gelinek improvise, and was so pleased with his talents that a friendship ensued between them which remained unbroken. Upon the recommendation of the great maestro, Gelinek entered the service of the Count Phillip Kinsky de Wohynicz as chaplain and pianoforte master, which service he afterwards exchanged for that of the Prince Joseph Kinsky. He remained with the prince thirteen years, during which time he wrote a large quantity of excellent pianoforte music, published at Vienna, including some variations upon themes by Mozart. The reputation of the composer gradually increased, and for a period of fifteen years he may be regarded as one of the most fashionable writers for his instrument.—E. F. R.
GELL, Sir William, an archæologist of note, was born in 1777, of an old family belonging to the English squirearchy. Educated at Cambridge, he is said to have been despatched on a mission to the Ionian islands early in the present century, and to have been knighted on his return from it in 1803. His first publication was the "Topography of Troy," published in 1803, and which, if Lord Byron is to be believed, was founded on a very hasty exploration of the Troad. This work was followed in 1807 by his "Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca," in which he sought to establish the identity of the Homeric Ithaca in the modern Theaki; and in 1810, by the "Itinerary of Greece, with a commentary on Pausanias and Strabo," &c. The two last-named books formed the subject of one of the few review-articles (in the Monthly Review) of Lord Byron, who has also commemorated their author in a line of the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers—
" I leave topography to classic Gell."
In 1814, when Queen Caroline, then princess of Wales, left England to proceed to Brunswick, via Milan, she was attended by Sir William Gell as one of her chamberlains. Not long afterwards he quitted her service, on account of his liability to attacks of gout, as he alleged, when examined as a witness on her behalf before the house of lords in 1820. With the exception of the visit to England occasioned by the queen's trial. Sir William Gell after 1814 resided in Italy, either at Rome or Naples, in both of which cities he had residences, and was a conspicuous member of their Anglo-Italian society. His "Itinerary of the Morea" appeared in 1817, and in the same year was commenced the publication of the most prominent of his large, elaborate, expensive, and abundantly-illustrated contributions to archeology, his "Pompeiana, the topography, edifices, and ornaments of Pompeii," in preparing which he was assisted by Mr. J. P. Gandy. In 1823 was published his "Narrative of a Journey in the Morea," and in 1834, near the close of his life, his valuable "Topography of Rome," a second edition of which was issued in 1846. Sir William was for many years afflicted with gout and rheumatism, the tortures of which he bore with gaiety; and almost to the last he delighted in ciceroneing English visitors of distinction over the classic ground which he knew so well. One of these was Sir Walter Scott, notes of whose visits to Naples and Rome, in the closing year of the great novelist's life, from the pen of Gell, have been printed by Mr. Lockhart in his Life of Scott. Sir William Gell died at Naples on February 4, 1836. There are copious and interesting notices of him in vol. ii. of Mr. R. R. Madden's Literary Life and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington.—F. E.
GELLERT, Christian Fürchtegott, an eminent German poet and moralist, was born at Haynichen, Saxony, July 4, 1715, and died at Leipsic, December 13, 1769. The son of an honest clergyman, whose only wealth was in his thirteen children, Gellert had to struggle with difficulties from his earliest years. After completing his education at the renowned gymnasium of Meissen and the university of Leipsic, where he devoted himself to the study of theology, he became domestic tutor to the family of a nobleman near Dresden, and in 1745 settled as a lecturer at Leipsic. Here he began his literary career under the auspices of Professor Gottsched, but by degrees turned away from his school, and even joined his antagonists in the Bremische Beiträge. Gellert's best work are his "Fables," which still take rank with the best to be met with in the whole compass of German literature. His sacred songs unite the language and fervour of piety with the beauties of poetry, and are sung to this day in protestant Germany. His pastorals and comedies, however; his novels (in the Richardson vein); his didactic poems and letters are now all but forgotten. Gellert also translated some of the novels of Richardson, whom he greatly revered as a moralist. In 1751 he was appointed professor-extraordinary; an ordinary professorship which was offered him in 1761 he declined. Gellert, as an author, enjoyed an unprecedented popularity, which was largely mingled with veneration for his character. An unknown benefactor granted him a pension; Prince Henry of Prussia, on passing through Leipsic, presented him with his charger; he had even an audience of Frederick the Great, and was allowed to recite some of his fables in presence of that monarch. His lectures on poetry, elocution, and moral philosophy, attracted great crowds; but the best lecture he ever read and the best moral he taught, was his blameless life. His mind was of feminine purity, and his behaviour modest to bashfulness. He never married, and led a sickly and melancholy life.—(See Life by J. A. Cramer, 1774, and by Döring, 1833.)—K. E.
