Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/643

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GER
607
GER

and richer in sentiment, mostly subjective in character, combining simplicity and depth, the faith of a saint and the ardour of a seraph. Some of his finest hymns are translated by Catharine Winkworth in the Lyra Germanica, London, 1856. As a divine Gerhardt held fast by the Lutheran dogmas, and, with a peculiar idiosyncrasy, composed the driest of theses, and urged the hardest polemical assaults against the reformed or Calvinistic divines.—J. E.

GERICAULT, Jean Louis, a distinguished French painter, was born at Rouen in 1790, and became the pupil, first of Charles Vernet, then of the celebrated Guerin. His name appears first in the Louvre catalogues in 1812, his works being generally of a military character; but he painted also a few so called genre pictures. Gericault obtained two golden medals, one in 1812, and the other in 1819, when he exhibited his masterpiece, "A Scene from the Wreck of the Medusa." Guerin, Gericault's master, was of the school of David; but he was himself never engrossed by that singleness of purpose which characterizes the painters of this school, and he was the first to decidedly throw over the art of David, and is perhaps the greatest of the French painters yet represented in the Louvre, where his "Medusa Wreck" is now one of the principal attractions of the French portion of the gallery. The composition and execution are in the highest degree effective, though it may be wanting in colour as a work of pictorial art; but, for real dramatic effect, the colour is probably the most judicious that could have been adopted. S. W. Reynolds has engraved a mezzotint of this work, which is quite worthy of the picture. It is a triumph of the art, and shows better than anything else could the masterly chiaroscuro developed by the painter in this wonderful composition. Gericault died in 1824.—R. N. W.

GERING, Udalricus, by birth a German, was one of the three printers who were brought to Paris about the year 1470, by the prior of the Sorbonne. For a few years after his coming to the French capital, he laboured along with his companions Crantz and Friburger, and was afterwards associated with Maynyal and Remboldt. Gering acquired wealth, which he dispensed in a noble and liberal spirit. His charities were munificent, and at his death in 1510 he left valuable legacies to the colleges of Sorbonne and Montaigu, in the chapel of the latter of which he was buried.—J. B. J.

* GERLACH, Franz Dorotheus, a German philologist, was born in the duchy of Saxe-Gotha, July 18, 1793, and studied at Göttingen. In 1820 he was appointed to the chair of classical philology in the university of Basle, where he has gained a considerable reputation not only by his excellent editions of Sallust, the Germania of Tacitus, and Nonius Marcellus, but also by his historical writings—"Historische Studien," "Geschichte der Römer," and "Schweizerisches Museum für Historische Wissenschaften."—K. E.

GERLACH, Stephen, D.D., a German divine of the Lutheran persuasion, was born at Knitlingen in Suabia in 1546, and received his education at Tübingen. The reputation which he acquired in his university career procured his appointment as chaplain to the embassy which Maximilian sent to Constantinople in 1573; and on his return from his five years' residence in the Turkish capital, he published "A Journal of the Embassy," in which he embodied the results of his careful observation. The remainder of his life, which terminated in 1612, was spent at Tübingen, where he held the chair of theological professor, and the inspectorship of the university. Two or three volumes of theological disputations were written by him.—W. B.

* GERLACHE, Etienne Constantin de, president of the Belgian cour de cassation, was born at Luxemburg in 1785. He practised at the cour de cassation of Paris during the reign of Napoleon I. At the return of the Bourbons he settled at Liège, and, distinguishing himself as an able writer, was chosen a deputy to the second chamber of the states general, where in a short time he became one of the chief leaders of the opposition. At the revolution of 1830 he was named president of the congress, and in this capacity stood at the head of the deputation, which went to offer the crown of Belgium to Duke Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Two years after, on the reorganization of the Belgian code of law, he was nominated president of the cour de cassation. He is besides director of the Belgian Academy of Sciences, and president of the Historical Society. He has repeatedly been intrusted with political missions, among others to the conference of London in 1839.—F. M.

GERMAIN, Sophie, a French female mathematician of great eminence, was born in Paris on the 1st of April, 1776; and died there on the 17th or 18th of June, 1831. She commenced the study of mathematics at the age of thirteen, and by degrees rose to the highest order amongst the cultivators of that science. Her most remarkable researches were directed to the theory of the internal equilibrium and motion of elastic solid bodies; and subsequent writers on that subject are much indebted to her. Her principal writings are—"Théorie des surfaces élastiques," Paris, 1821; "Récherches sur les surfaces élastiques," Paris, 1826; "Examen des principes qui peuvent conduire à la connaissance des lois de l'équilibre et du mouvement des solides élastiques."—W. J. M. R.

GERMAIN D'AUXERRE, St., was born in that city about the year 380. His parents, Rusticus and Germanilla, were of noble birth. After receiving the best education which the schools of Gaul could afford, he was sent to Rome to study law. Returning to his own country, he practised with great distinction as an advocate, and having passed into the civil service, he rose to the office of duke, or commander of the forces, in his native province, St. Amator, bishop of Auxerre, feeling himself to be dying, summoned all the people into the cathedral, and going up to Germain, he invested him with the religious habit, and told him that he was to be his successor. This was in 418. St. Amator died a few days afterwards, and Germain, though with extreme reluctance, submitted to be elected bishop. Immediately he broke altogether with the world, and commenced that life of penance and mortification which he inflicted on himself with unvarying rigour during the next thirty years. He endowed his cathedral with the ample estates which constituted his patrimony. In 430 he was sent by Pope Celestine into Britain to check the progress of Pelagianism. He was accompanied on this mission by St. Lupus, bishop of Troyes. Every reader of Bede will remember the striking account which he gives of the effects produced by St. Germain's apostolical eloquence in confuting and silencing the Pelagians, and also the well-known story of the "Alleluia" victory over the Saxons. In 446, attended by St. Severus, he paid a second visit to Britain. After his return to Gaul, he undertook to obtain from the Emperor Valentinian III. the pardon of the people of Bretagne, who had revolted. He accordingly travelled to Ravenna, where the emperor and his mother Placidia resided, and where he died on the 31st July, 448.—T. A.

GERMANICUS, Cæsar, the Elder, was born b.c. 15. On his father's premature death he assumed the name of Germanicus; and on Augustus' adoption of his uncle Tiberius in a.d. 4, was himself adopted as a son by the latter at the command of the emperor, and so received into the Julian house. The great glory of his life was his career in Germany from 14 to 17, in which he fully vindicated his own right to bear his father's title. Already, in 7-10, in Pannonia and Dalmatia, as quæstor, and as proconsul, in 11, in Germany, where the prestige of Rome had been recently tarnished by the annihilation in the valley between Osnabrück and Paderborn of Varus' legions, he had served with distinction under Tiberius, and had shared with him a triumph for the former successes. The news of Augustus' death, in 14, reached him while in Gaul. It was quickly brought to the legions in Pannonia, and on the Upper and Lower Rhine; and they at once took the opportunity to demand certain relaxations in the authority of the centurions, a diminution of the time of service, and an increase of pay. The former seem to have risen first, and they were with difficulty appeased by Drusus, Tiberius' own son. Their mutiny was quickly followed by that of the first, fifth, twentieth, and twenty-first legions (the Lower Rhine division). Germanicus immediately hurried to the camp, and pacified the tumult. A like danger in the quarters of the Upper Rhine army was warded off in a great measure by the private liberality of the general and his friends. Even then the pacification was dubious in the Lower Rhine army. But at length the plotters of the riots were massacred by their own fellows, and thus the general's fame for gentleness was not sullied; nay, it was even increased by his open sorrow on learning the promiscuous character of the vengeance. These internal disturbances were succeeded by a period of furious warfare against the natives. His mildness and equity seem to have been qualities displayed only among his own countrymen, for on the plea of the expediency of a policy of general hostility, much in the same spirit with Charlemagne in his Saxon campaigns, he proceeded to massacre the Marsi on the other side of