149 



GORGIAS. 



GOSLICKI, LAURENTIUS. 



150 



chief was again conferred on General Qorgei. The Austrians after- 

 wards suffered a series of defeats. Gorgei's advanced guard under 

 Damjanics stormed Waitzen, while he himself won the battle of Nagy- 

 Sarlo, and relieved the garrison of Komorn. On the 14th of April 

 Hungary was declared an independent state, a measure to which 

 Gorgei was decidedly opposed. A provisional government was formed, 

 Kossuth was named Governor of Hungary, and Gorgei was appointed 

 minister of war, the duties of which office were executed by deputy, 

 first by Damjanics and afterwarde by Klapka. Meantime Gorgei 

 publicly announced his opposition to the provisional government, and 

 thwarted many of theirj measure?. He however at their request 

 besieged Buda, and took it by storm on the 21st of May, after which 

 the neat of the provisional government was transferred from Debreczin 

 to Pesth. A series of disasters soon afterwards attended the Hunga- 

 rians. At the request of the Austrian government, a Russian army, 

 under Prince Paskiewitch, began to cross the Carpathian Mountains 

 and enter Hungary, while the Austrian armies, now under the com- 

 mand-in-chief of Field-Marshal Haynau, advanced towards Buda and 

 Komorn. The Hungarian troops were defeated before Komorn, and 

 Gorgei was wounded, but the main body made good its retreat to 

 Waitzen, where Gorgei, after a few days, when the state of his wound 

 permitted, joined the troops, while Klapka remained with the garrison 

 in the fortress of Komorn. Gorgei's retreat with his army, closely 

 pursued by the Russians, through the Carpathian Mountains, and 

 then southwards by Debreczin and Gros-Wardein to Arad, occupying 

 from the 22nd of July to the 9th of August, is considered by military 

 authorities to have been a masterly series of strategetic operations. 

 The Hungarian army in the south had been beaten by Haynau, and 

 retreated till its shattered remains united with the troops under 

 Gorgei before Arad. On the llth of August Kossuth, by proclama- 

 tion, resigned his governorship, and created Gorgei dictator. On the 

 17th of August, 1849, the Hungarian army, 24,000 strong, and with 

 150 guns, laid down their arms at Vilagos to the Russian general 

 Rudiger. Gorgei also sent orders to General Klapka to surrender the 

 fortress of Komorn. This however Klapka refused to do, and after- 

 wards obtained honourable terms of capitulation. On the 29th of 

 August Gorgei received a letter from Haynau communicating the 

 pardon of the Emperor of Austria, and appointing Carintbia as hia 

 place of residence. He has since resided at Klageufurt, and has pub- 

 lished 'Mein Lebcn und Wirken in Ungarn in den Jahren 1848 und 

 1849, von Arthur Gorgei,' 8vo., Leipzig, 1852, which was soon after- 

 ward' translated into English under the title of 'My Life and 

 Acts in Hungary in the yean 1848 and 1849,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 

 1852. 



OO'RGIAS, of Lcontini, in Sicily, celebrated among contemporaries 

 as a statesman, sophist, and orator, belongs to the most brilliant period 

 of the literary activity of Greece, and has been immortalised by the 

 Dialogue of Plato which bears his name. The dates of hia birth and 

 death an alike uncertain, but he is said to have been older than 

 Antiphon, the orator, who was born in 330 B.C., and the number of 

 his years far outran the ordinary length of human existence, in the 

 different statements ranging between 100 and 109. Whatever may 

 have been the speculative errors of Gorgias, bis long life was remark- 

 able for an undeviating practice of virtue and temperance, which 

 secured to his last days the full possession of his faculties, and im- 

 parted cheerfulness and resignation to the hour of death. 



According to Eusebius, Gorgias nourished in the 86th Olympiad, 

 and went to Athens (Olyiup. 88, 2, or ac. 427) to seek assistance for 

 his native city, whose independence was menaced by its powerful 

 neighbour Syracuse. In thU mission he justified the opinion which 

 his townsmen bad formed of his talents for business and political 

 sagacity, and upon its successful termination withdrew from public 

 life and returned to Athens, which, as the centre of the mental activity 

 of Greece, offered a grand field for the display of his intellectual 

 powers and acquirements. He did not however take up bis residence 

 permanently in that city, but divide 1 his time between it and Larissa 

 in Thesaaly , where he Is said to have died shortly before or after the 

 death of Socrates. 



To the 8 tth Olymp. is assigned the publication of his philosophical 

 work entitled ' Of the Non-being, or of Nature," in which, according 

 to the extracts from it in the pseudo-Aristotelian work 'Do Xeno- 

 phane, Zennne, et Gorgia,' and in Sextus Empiricus, he proposes to 

 show, 1st, that absolutely nothing subsists ; 2nd, that even if anything 

 subsists, it cannot be known ; and 3rd, that even if aught subsists and 

 can be known, it cannot be expressed and communicated to others. 

 Hi- pretended proof of the first position is nothing less than a subtle 

 play with the dialectic of the EleaUc, as carried out to its extreme 

 comequences by Zeno and Melissos. There much more of originality 

 In the arguments which he advances to support the other two : thus, 

 in respect to the second, he urged that if being is conceivable, every 

 conception must be an entity, and the non-being inconceivable ; while, 

 in the third case, be showed that as language is distinct from its 

 object, it is difficult either to express accurately our perceptions or 

 adequately to convey them to others. Now, however sophistical may 

 have be.-n the purpose for which all this was advanced, still it is no 

 slight merit to have been the first to establish the distinction between 

 conception and its object, and between the word as tha sign of thought 

 and thought itself. By thus awakening attention to the difference 



between the subject and the object of cognition, he contributed largely 

 to the advancement of philosophy. 



In these arguments however, and generally in his physical doctrines, 

 Gorgias deferred in some measure to the testimony of sense which the 

 stricter Eleatse rejected absolutely ns inadequate and contradictory : 

 on this account, although the usual statement which directly styles 

 him the disciple of Empedocles is erroneous, it is probable that he 

 drew from the writings of that philosopher his acquaintance with the 

 physiology of the Eleatic school. 



Subsequently it would appear that Gorgias devoted himself entirely 

 to the practice and teaching of rhetoric ; and in this career his pro- 

 fessional labours seem to have been attended both with honour and 

 with profit. According to Cicero (' De Orat', i. 22 ; iii. 32), he was the 

 first who engaged to deliver impromptu a public address upon any 

 given subject. These oratorical displays were characterised by the 

 poetical ornament and elegance of the language and the antithetical 

 structure of the sentence, rather than by the depth and vigour of the 

 thought ; and the coldness of his eloquence soon passed into a proverb 

 among the ancients. Besides some fragments, there are still extant 

 two entire orations, ascribed to Gorgias, entitled respectively ' The 

 Encomium of Helen,' and ' the Apology of Palamedes," two tasteless and 

 insipid compositions, which may however not be the works of Gorgias. 

 On this point consult FOBS (' De Gorgia Leontino Commentatio,' Halle, 

 1828), who denies their authenticity, which is maintained by Schon- 

 horn (' De Authentic Declamationum qua) Georgia: Leontini nomine 

 extant,' Breslau, 1826). 



GORTSCHAKOFF. There are three Russian princes, brothers, of 

 this name : two of them have distinguished themselves as military com- 

 manders, and one as a diplomatist. They are descended from a noble 

 family of great antiquity. 



* PRINCE PETER GORTSCHAKOTF was born about 1790. He was en- 

 gaged in the campaign against France in 1813-14, and was afterwards 

 employed in the Caucasus under General Yermoloff. In 1826 he was 

 appointed quarter-master-general of the army commanded by Wittgen- 

 stein, under whom, in the Russian war with Turkey, he commanded 

 a division of infantry, and signed the treaty of peace at Adrianople. 

 He was afterwards advanced to the rank of lieutenant-general, 

 and in 1839 was made governor of Eastern Siberia. In 1843 he was 

 promoted to the rank of general of infantry, and in 1851 retired from 

 service. 



* PRINCE MICHAEL GOHTSCHAKOFF was born in 1795. In 1828 he 

 served in the artillery of the Russian imperial guard, and was made 

 chief of the <5tat major of the corps under Rudsewich, and later under 

 Krassowski, and directed the operations of the sieges of Silistria and 

 Schumla in 1828-29. During the campaign in Poland in 1831, he 

 discharged the duties of chief of the dtat major under count Pahleu, 

 at the same time that he held the command in chief of the artillery. 

 He particularly distinguished himself at the battle of Ostrolenka and 

 at the taking of Warsaw. He was wounded at the battle of Grochow, 

 and was rewarded for his bravery with tha rank of lieutenant-general. 

 On the retirement of Count Toll he succeeded him as chief of the 

 general staff of the entire army, a situation which he still retains. In 

 1843 he was raised to the rank of general of artillery, and in 1846 was 

 appointed military governor of Warsaw. He commanded the Russian 

 armies which occupied the Danubian Principalities in 1853. On the 

 23rd of March 1854, the Russian army crossed the Danube at three 

 points at Galatz, under Liiders ; at Braila, under Gortsehakoff him- 

 self; and at Ismuil by a corps under Uschakoff. He conducted the 

 operations till he was superseded in April by Prince Paskiewitch, who 

 having been wounded before Silistria on the 8th of June, resigned the 

 command in chief to Prince Gortschakoff. In the month of July the 

 siege of Silistria was raised, and the Russian armies re-crossed the 

 Danube. In the month of August they quitted the Danubian Prin- 

 cipalities, and withdrew within the Russian frontier. In March 1855 

 he was appointed to succeed Prince Menschikoff in the command of 

 the Russian forces in the Crimea. He superintended the protracted 

 defence of Sebastopol, and with consummate skill secured the final 

 retreat of the Russian troops from the blazing ruins of the fortress. 



PRINCE ALEXANDER GORTSCDAKOFF was born in 1800. He was 

 educated for the career of diplomacy iu which he has been always 

 occupied. In 1824 ho became secretary to the Russian embassy in 

 London. In 1830 he was charg<5 d'affaires at Florence. In 1832 he 

 was appointed counsellor to tho Russian embassy at Vienna. In 1841 

 he was sent to Stuttgart as envoy extraordinary, and negociated the 

 marriage of the Grand-Duchess Olga with the Prince-Royal of Wur- 

 temberg. He remained at Stuttgart as Russian envoy to the German 

 diets, which were occasionally held, till he was recalled iu June 1854, 

 to receive special instructions from the Emperor Nicholas for tho 

 special mission to Vienna, with which he was charged in July 1S54. 

 He contiuued at Vienna occupied with the negociatious for peace 

 between Russia nnd the western powers till the confereuces finally 

 ceased in 1855. 



GOSLICKl, LAURENTIUS, a learned Pole, who lived iu the 16th 

 century. Having commenced his studies at Cracow, he continued 

 them at Padua, where he published his work ' De Optimo Senatore,' 

 which was printed at Venice, and published at London, 1733, 4to, 

 under the title of the 'Accomplished Senator Lnurentius Goslicki 

 Bi-shop of PosnauiaJ done into English by William Oldiswortb." The 



