IS2 



GERYON 



GESSNER 



the Deutsche Zeitung in Heidelberg, and next year 

 was elected a member of the National Assembly by 

 a district of Prussian Saxony. After the failure of 

 the national democratic party in Germany, Ger- 

 vinus returned disheartened to his literary pursuits, 

 one of the fruits of which was his great work on 

 Shakespeare (4 vols. 1849-52; 4th ed. 1872; Eng. 

 trans, new ed. 1875), which may be regarded as on 

 the whole the most important German contribution 

 to Shakespearian criticism. The analyses of the 

 characters show insight, learning, and much in- 

 genuity ; but the critic strains the interpretation 

 in order to bring Shakespeare into harmony with 

 his theory of him as the absolute and perfect 

 dramatist. The book has been called in Germany 

 the 'bulwark of Shakespearomania. ' A later work 

 was the Geschic.hte des 19ten Jahrhunderts (8 vols. 

 1856-66). Gervinus died at Heidelberg, 18th March 

 1871. See Briefwechsel zwischen J. und W. Grimm, 

 Dahlmann, und Gervinus (ed. by Ippel, 1885). 



Geryoil, a fabulous three-headed being, possess- 

 ing herds of splendid oxen, and said to be the son 

 of a king of Hesperia. He figures in the story 

 of Hercules. 



Gesaiigbiicher. See article HYMN in Vol. VI. 



Gesenius, FRIEDRICH HEINRICH WILHELM, 

 one of the greatest of German orientalists and 

 biblical scholars, was born at Nordhausen, 3d 

 February 1786, studied at Helmstedt and Gottingen, 

 and at Halle in 1810 became extraordinary, in 1811 

 ordinary, professor of Theology. Here he lectured 

 for more than thirty years, broken only by the 

 closing of the university during the war of libera- 

 tion (1813-14), and by lengthened visits to France 

 and England in 1820, to England and Holland in 

 1835. Among his pupils were Von Bohlen, Hoff- 

 mann, Hupfeld, Rodiger, Tuch, Vatke, and Benfey. 

 He died October 23, 1842. His first great work was 

 his Hebrdisches u. Chalddisches nandworterbuch 

 (1810-12 ; 10th ed. revised by Miihlau and Volck, 

 1886 ; Eng. trans, by Tregelles, 1846-52 ). Hi* Hebr. 

 Elementarbuch, consisting of the Hebrdische Gram- 

 matik (1813; 24th ed. by Kautzsch, 1885) and the 

 Hebrdisches Lesebuch (1814; llth ed. by Heiligstedt, 

 1873), has contributed enormously to the know- 

 ledge of the Hebrew language, not only in Germany, 

 but through translations also in England and 

 America. Later works are his Kritische Gesch. 

 d. Hebr. Sprache u. Schrift (1815), De Pentateuchi 

 Samaritani Origine, Indole, et Auctoritate (1815), 

 Grammatisch - kritisches Lehrgebdude d. Hebr. 

 Sprache (1817), and a new translation of and com- 

 mentary on Isaiah (1820-21). His greatest work is the 

 monumental Thesaurus philolomco-criticus Linguae 

 Hebraicce et Chaldaicce veteris Testamenti, of which 

 the first part was published in 1829, but which was 

 completed only in 1858 by Professor Rodiger. 

 Many of the results of the rationalising method of 

 interpreting the Old Testament, which characterises 

 all the works of Gesenius, have been unable to 

 stand the test of progressive modern biblical science. 

 He has certainly been surpassed by Ewald in in- 

 eight into the genius of the Hebrew language, and 

 its bearing on the interpretation of Hebrew life and 

 thought, as well as in all that qualifies the critic 

 for a true historical, sesthetical, and religious appre- 

 ciation of the literature preserved to us in the Old 

 Testament. Yet his intense devotion to his favourite 

 studies, and the advance which he made beyond all 

 his predecessors in the establishment of more certain 

 principles of Hebrew philology, undoubtedly entitle 

 him to be regarded as having constituted a new 

 epoch in the scientific study of the Old Testament. 

 A fine sketch of his life was published at Berlin in 

 1843. 



Gesner. KONRAD VON, a Swiss naturalist, some- 



mes called the German Pliny, was born at Zurich, 



26th March 1516. All his life long he was passion- 

 ately devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, especi- 

 ally knowledge of the natural sciences. His early 

 studies, in medicine, natural history, and Greek 

 and Latin literature, were prosecuted at Zurich, 

 Strasburg, Bourges, and Paris. Returning home 

 in 1535, lie earned his living by teaching, until 

 in 1537 he was appointed professor of Greek at 

 Lausanne. This chair, however, he exchanged 

 four years later for that of Physics and Natural 

 History at Zurich, where he taught and practised 

 as a physician until his death, on 13th December 

 1565. He was also an indefatigable writer of 

 books, and in the course of his life published no 

 less than seventy-two works, besides leaving at his 

 death eighteen others in progress. His Bibiiotheca 

 Universalis (1545) contained the titles of all the 

 books then known in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, 

 unpublished as well as published, with criticisms 

 and summaries of each ; its second part, Pan- 

 dectarum sive Partitionum Universalium Libri 

 XXI., came out in 1548-49. His next under- 

 taking, by far the greatest of his literary works, 

 was the Historia A nimalium (1551-58). The first 

 book treats of viviparous quadrupeds, the second 

 of oviparous animals (tortoises, lizards, &c. ), the 

 third of birds, and the fourth of fishes and aquatic 

 animals. Two other books, never completed, were 

 to have contained the history of serpents and 

 insects. In this work, which will ever remain a 

 monument of his untiring industry, he aimed at 

 bringing together all that was known in his time 

 concerning every animal. But botany was prob- 

 ably the section of natural history with which he 

 had the greatest practical acquaintance. He had 

 collected more than five hundred plants unde- 

 scribed by the ancients, and was arranging the 

 results of his labours in this department for a third 

 magnum opus at the time of his death. He 

 appears to have been the first who made the great 

 step towards a scientific classification of dis- 

 tinguishing genera by the fructification. He also 

 wrote on other branches of science, as medicine, 

 mineralogy, and philology. See Hanhart's Gesner 

 (1824). JOH ANN MATTHIAS GESNER (1691-1761), 

 a distinguished classical scholar, editor, and educa- 

 tionist, published texts of Quintilian, Pliny, the 

 Scriptores Eei Rustical, and several chrestoniathies. 



Gesneraceae, a sub-order of Scrophulariaceae, 

 including about 700 species, mostly herbs, chiefly 

 of tropical America. They are frequently noted 

 for the beauty of their flowers, notably Gloxinia, 

 Achimenes, and other common inmates of our 

 greenhouses. Fieldia africana, however, yields 

 the so-called African Teak. Of the closely allied 

 Crescentiaceee, the Calabash Tree (q.v.) is of most 

 importance. 



Gessler, the name given to the tyrannical 

 governor in the story of William Tell (q.v.). 



Gessner, SALOMON, a German pastoral poet, 

 who also painted and engraved landscapes, was 

 born at Zurich, 1st April 1730. His life was spent 

 as a bookseller in his native town, where he died, 

 2d March 1788. In 1754 he published Daphnis, a 

 conventional bucolic, sentimental, sweetly insipid, 

 lifeless, and unreal. This was followed two years 

 later by a volume of Idyls and by Inkel und Yariko. 

 His Tod Abels (the Death of Abel), a species of 

 idyllic heroic prose poem, which was published in 

 1758, although the feeblest of his works, had the 

 greatest success, and helped to make its author's 

 name known throughout Europe. Gessner's land- 

 scape-paintings are all in the conventional classic 

 style. But his engravings are of real merit ; some 

 of them are said to be worthy of the first masters. 

 In 1772 he published a second volume of Idyls, and 

 a series of letters on landscape-painting. 



