of La Trappe, and in 1696 was appointed abbot of that institution. His restless and troublesome temper, however, speedily compelled him to withdraw from it, and latterly his denunciation of the Bernardines in his "Histoire de la Reforme de l'ordre de Citeaux," brought him into disgrace; the book was prohibited, and its author consigned to an abbey in the diocese of Troyes, where he died about the middle of the century. Besides the work above mentioned and his "Apology for leaving La Trappe," he wrote a number of biographies, comprising St. Cyprian, Irenæus, Epiphanius, Rufinus, Abelard, and others.—W. B.
GERVAISE, Nicolas, a French ecclesiastic, born at Paris in 1662, spent four years of his early life as a missionary in Siam. After his return he held the curacy of Vannes in Brittany, and was provost of St. Martins at Tours. He had passed the age of sixty when he was consecrated bishop of Horren, and sailed on a mission to the West Indies, where he was murdered by the Carribees in 1729. A "History of Siam," a "Historical Description of Macassar," a "Life of St. Martin," and some other works were published by him.—W. B.
GERVASE of Canterbury, a diligent and judicious chronicler, who flourished during the second half of the twelfth century, was a monk of the priory of Christ's church, Canterbury. The earliest specimen which survives of his historical efforts was due to the burning of Canterbury cathedral in 1174, an event of which he was an eye-witness. It was naturally with a deep interest that he saw the conflagration, and watched the rebuilding of the magnificent structure, an operation completed so far in 1184, when he wrote his "Tractatus de combustione et reparatione Duobernensis ecclesiæ," of which an English translation, by Mr. Alfred John Dunkin, the Kentish archæologist, is published in the report of the proceedings of the British Archæological Association, at the first general meeting, held at Canterbury in the September of 1844. His other principal works are, a "Narrative of the dissensions between Archbishop Baldwin and the monks of Canterbury;" a "History of the Archbishops of Canterbury, to the accession of Hubert in 1193;" and a curious "Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard Cœur-de-Lion"—all of which are printed in Twisden's Decem Scriptores. Of the works of Gervase which survive in MS., the most interesting is the "Mappa Mundi," containing a topographical account of England, divided into counties, with a list of the episcopal sees and monasteries in each. All of Gervase of Canterbury's works are written in Latin.—F. E.
GERVASE of Tilbury, chronicler and miscellaneous writer, is supposed to have been born at the place from which he is called, but his biography is involved in considerable obscurity. He is said to have been a near relative of Henry II., and to have studied in France and Germany; certain it is, that through the patronage of the emperor, Otho IV., he was appointed marshal of the kingdom of Aries. It was to amuse the leisure of his imperial patron that he composed his best-known work, indeed the only one which can be ascribed to him with certainty, his "Otia Imperialia," dedicated to the Emperor Otho. Of this compendium of universal history and geography one book is devoted to the wonders of the world, and contains a good deal of legendary matter, of which Gervase appears to have been a diligent collector, and the presence of which lends the work considerable value as a contribution to the history of the popular superstitions of the middle ages. The "Otia Imperialia" is printed entire in Leibnitz' Scriptores Rerum Brunsviciensium. The curious and well-known Dialogus de Scaccarii has been ascribed to Gervase of Tilbury; but this authorship of it is denied by Madox, who printed the work in his History of the Exchequer. Madox's arguments have been deemed insufficient by Mr. Thomas Wright, who devotes to Gervase of Tilbury a section of his Biographia Britannica Literaria (Anglo-Norman period), where will be found an instructive account of this amusing writer, and some specimens of his style.—F. E.
GERVILLE, Charles-Alexis-Adrien Du Herrissier de, born at Gerville near Coutances in 1769; died in 1853. In the early days of the Revolution he emigrated, was enrolled in a foreign regiment, and we soon find him seeking to support himself as tutor in England. In 1801 he returned to France, where he gave himself up to the study of antiquities, chiefly those of Normandy. In politics Gerville was an ardent supporter of the elder house of Bourbon, and refused from the government of 1830 the cross of the legion of honour. He enjoyed a high reputability, and was member of many learned societies.—J. A., D.
* GERVINUS, Georg Gottfried, an eminent German historian, was born at Darmstadt, May 20, 1805; and was bred to the mercantile profession. He abandoned this uncongenial pursuit, however, and turned to the study of history, which he began in 1826 under Schlosser at Heidelberg. After having travelled for some time in Italy, he was appointed professor-extraordinary at Heidelberg in 1835, and in the following year, was called to the chair of history and literature at Göttingen. When, however, in 1837, he signed the celebrated protest of the Seven Professors against the constitution announced by King Ernest Augustus, he was dismissed and banished the kingdom. He returned to Heidelberg, where he has since devoted himself to literary pursuits. In 1847 he originated the Deutsche Zeitung, which under his editorship did great service to the national cause. In 1848 he was chosen a member of the Frankfort national assembly, where he sided with the centrum or constitutional party, but from which he seceded as early as August of the same year. In 1850 he was sent to London by the provisional government of Schleswig-Holstein on a diplomatic mission, in which, however, he did not succeed. In his public conduct as well as in his writings, Gervinus has always sustained the character of a true patriot, an enlightened politician, and a faithful and loyal defender of constitutional liberty. His voice has been heard at every turn of politics in Germany; and not a few times has he drawn upon himself the animadversion of governments. On account of his "Introduction to the History of the Nineteenth Century" an action was brought against him; he was, however, acquitted. His three most important works are—his "History of German Poetry;" his "Shakspeare;" and his "History of the Nineteenth Century." In these works, he has struck out a new vein in political and literary history; he has taken his subjects out of the hands of chroniclers and commentators, and raised them to the dignity and interest of philosophical narration. To him both political and literary history are organic structures. The great charm of his history of the present century consists, according to a distinguished American critic, in its not being written in the interest of any one party, but in the interest of mankind. It excels by a brilliant combination of research and philosophy, a matchless style, and a world-wide range of thought and political views.—K. E.
GESENIUS, Friedrich Heinrich Wilhelm, the great reviver of Hebrew philology, was born at Nordhausen, on the 3rd of February, 1785. After leaving the gymnasium of his native town, he studied at the universities of Helmstädt and Göttingen. In the latter university he became a private teacher, and afterwards a repetant in 1806, and remained in it for about three years. He used to relate that one of his first students of Hebrew was Neander. Various circumstances, along with the influence of Eichhorn, had determined him to the study of Hebrew and the interpretation of the Old Testament—a field of labour which he never forsook during the many years of a laborious and uneventful life. In 1809 he was elected professor in the gymnasium of Heiligenstadt in Westphalia. The following year he was translated to Halle, and there, in 1811, installed ordinary professor of theology, an office which he held till his death on the 23rd of October, 1842. Göttingen offered him Eichhorn's chair, but he would not quit Halle. In 1820, along with his colleague Thilo, he visited Paris and Oxford for the purposes of learned research. In 1827 he was raised to the dignity of Consistorialrath. For thirty-two years he taught each returning session a numerous class of students. Such was his popularity, that while his first class numbered only ten, for many years his prelections were annually attended by above four hundred students from all the countries of Europe and from America, and to them he lectured on Genesis or the Psalms, on archæology, or on Introduction to the Old Testament. The mind of Gesenius was eminently practical, and not given to abstract theorizing or useless speculation. Lamenting the low state of Hebrew study, he saw that its revival necessitated a new and improved method of treating the language. He felt that the departments of the grammar and lexicon must be distinctly separated—that attention must be paid to the sources of lexicography—that the primary significations of the roots must be carefully investigated, and the derivation and successive meanings historically traced and logically deduced; no little light being got, not only from the cognate or Syro-Arabian tongues, but also from the analogies of the great Indo-Germanic family of languages. Accordingly, in 1810-12, and at the age of twenty-
