Allanite. On Giesecke's arrival at Hull in 1813 with another valuable collection of minerals and specimens in every branch of natural history, he learned the fate of his former cargo. He proceeded to Edinburgh, where he was received with distinction by Allan and others. The Royal Dublin Society were now about to establish a professorship of mineralogy distinct from chemistry, and Giesecke was elected in December, 1813, though the post was contested by some of the most distinguished men of the day. Before entering on his new duties, he visited Copenhagen to render an account of his mission to Frederic VI., from whose hand he received knighthood of the order of Dannebrog, and the appointment of chamberlain to the king. Sir Charles came to Dublin in January, 1814, commenced to arrange the celebrated Leskean cabinet belonging to the society, and also the Greenlandic museum formed of his valuable collections, including the new mineral named Gieseckite, which he brought with him, and generously presented to the society. He was also busy in learning the English language, so that in 1816 he was able to give his first course of lectures on the natural history of Greenland, which created the liveliest interest. Next followed a course of economical mineralogy. Next year the society despatched him on a tour to purchase every known mineral for the completion of the museum, having first presented him with a gold medal and a most complimentary address. He visited Copenhagen, Augsburg, and Vienna, where his lectures were attended by the Emperor Francis I. and the Empress Maria Louisa, the former of whom presented him with a gold snuff-box set with brilliants. He proceeded through the German states and Italy, honoured everywhere, being made borgrath, or councillor of mines, by Frederick William III. of Prussia, and being elected a member of the Royal Society of Copenhagen, St. Petersburg, and of almost every scientific society of Europe. In December, 1819, Sir Charles returned to Dublin with forty-two cases of minerals. He subsequently investigated the minerals of Ireland, and made valuable collections, which he presented to the society. Sir Charles continued to lecture on mineralogy and metallurgy with eminent success and popularity. At length his health, irreparably injured by long sufferings in arctic regions, began to fail visibly, and on the 5th March, 1833, he died suddenly. Sir Charles was never married. A fine picture of him by Raeburn was presented by Sir George Mackenzie to the Royal Dublin Society.—J. F. W.
GIESELER, Johann Karl Ludwig, an eminent church historian, was born at Petershagen, near Minden, March 3, 1793, and entered in his tenth year the orphan house of Halle. After completing his studies at the university of that city, he returned to the orphan house in the capacity of a teacher; but soon after joined the Prussian army as a volunteer in the war of independence which broke out in 1813. At the peace in 1815 he returned to his office at Halle, and was appointed in 1819 one of the ordinary professors of theology in the newly erected university of Bonn. Here he worked with great success for twelve years, when he was translated to a sphere of wider influence and usefulness in the university of Göttingen. He was several times pro-rector of that university; and in addition to the active part which he took in academic business, gave much of his time and attention to the orphan house and other charitable institutions of the city. He continued to labour in Göttingen till his death, which took place on the 8th of July, 1854. His numerous publications on church history exercised a powerful influence upon that department of theological science. His first work, a "Historico-Critical Essay on the Origin and Early History of the four Gospels," laid the foundation of his fame, and gave a deathblow to the theory of Eichhorn, which accounted for the verbal coincidences of the first three gospels, by supposing that they were all formed upon a common document of higher age, what he called the Ur-Evangelium, or original gospel. He contributed to the theological journals many learned papers upon questions connected with the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. But his principal work was his "Lehrbuch der Allgemeinen Kirchengeschichte," or Text-book of general church history, in six volumes, three of which were published after his death. It appeared contemporaneously with Neander's History of the Church, but is constructed upon a very different plan from that work, and owes its value and celebrity to very different attributes. Gieseler was a rationalist in his theology, and his history has none of the warm evangelical sympathy which breathes through every page of Neander's. Nor is he remarkable for any great power either of fluent narrative or of philosophical criticism. His strength lies in his thorough investigation and study of the sources of church history; in his acute and discriminating criticism of their historical validity and value; in the sure tact with which he seizes their chief substance; and in the copiousness and accuracy with which he exhibits the authorities upon which he relies for all the statements which he introduces into his text. Of all manuals for the use of students and original investigators, Gieseler's is acknowledged to be the most valuable in these respects. On the important subject of the rise of the catholic church, Gieseler is considered to be much more satisfactory than Neander; and peculiar value is also attached to his treatment of the mediæval history of the church, of the age immediately preceding the Reformation, and of the doctrinal development of the protestant churches from the Reformation down to the peace of Westphalia. A translation of the Text-book has been issued in Clarke's Foreign Library.—P. L.
GIFFEN or GIPHANIUS, Hubert van, a celebrated jurisconsult and philologist, was born at Buren in the then duchy of Guelders in 1534. He studied law at Louvain, Paris, and Orleans, where he took his degree as D.C.L., and founded the German library, which to this day forms a separate portion of the library of that town. After having travelled through Italy, he settled as a lecturer at Strasburg, whence, in 1577, he was called to a chair at Altdorf, and afterwards to Ingolstadt, on condition of embracing the Roman catholic faith. After having, during fifteen years, been an ornament to this university, he was appointed councillor to the Emperor Rodolph II. He died at Prague, July 26, 1604. As a jurist, Giffen was, in the words of Hallam, "the boast of Germany." His "Commentarius ad Institutiones;" his "Antinomiæ Juris Civilis;" and "Juris Feudalis;" his "Lecturæ Altorphinæ" and "Œconomia Juris," were highly important works in their time, and some of them are still held in just esteem. Giffen published excellent editions of Lucretius De Rerum Natura; of Homer, in Greek and Latin; and of the Politics of Aristotle.—K. E.
GIFFORD, Andrew, an eminent Baptist minister and antiquarian, was born at Tewkesbury, on the 17th of August, 1700; and was educated there for the dissenting ministry in the academy of Mr. Jones, author of the History of the Canon, famous for having produced among other eminent men, Archbishop Seeker, Bishop Butler, and Dr. Chandler. His father, Emanuel Gifford, was a Baptist minister at Tewkesbury, and baptized and admitted him to the church in 1723. In 1725 he began to preach at Nottingham, where he was very popular; and in 1730 he was invited to London, and was ordained pastor over the Baptist church assembling in Eagle Street. His piety and learning procured for him the warm friendship of Sir Richard Ellys, who made him his chaplain, and paid him an annual salary of fifty guineas—an office which he continued to fill till 1745. In addition to his duties as a minister, which he performed with exemplary diligence and fervour, he occupied himself with the study of antiquities, and brought together a valuable collection of curious books, manuscripts, coins, &c., and his eminence in this department procured for him in 1757, by the interest of the Lord-chancellor Hardwick, the appointment of assistant librarian to the British museum—a post which he continued to occupy along with his pastoral charge till his death in 1784. He retained to the last his popularity as a preacher, and for the last twenty-five years of his life preached a monthly lecture at the meeting in Little St. Helen's, in conjunction with several independent ministers. He published very little in his own name, but was a contributor to many literary undertakings. He bequeathed his books, manuscripts, and pictures to the Baptist academy of Bristol.—P. L.
GIFFORD, John, the assumed name of John Richards Green, born in 1758. While still a minor he contrived to dissipate a good fortune, and on attaining his majority had to fly from his creditors, and for greater security changed his name. He resided abroad from 1781 to 1788, when he retreated before the rising storm in France, and settled in England as a man of letters. He engaged in a pamphlet war with the revolutionary party at home, and wrote bitterly against Tom Paine and his friends, against Dr. Priestley, Price, and others. He further sought the favour of the government by publishing the British Critic, a monthly review, intended, as he says, to counteract the "political poison" of other works of the kind. In 1798 he
