GARRISON GAS. 



367 



with her a recommendation from the countess of 

 Stahremberg to the countess of Burlington, who ' 

 received her, on her obtaining an engagement at the I 

 opera, as an inmate of Burlington house, and ever 

 after treated her with maternal affection. While 

 under the protection of this noble family, made- 

 moiselle Violetto married Garrick, in June, 1749. 

 In 1751 and in 1763, she accompanied her husband 

 to the continent; and, in 1769, the journals of the 

 day speak highly of the grace and elegance displayed 

 by her at the ball of the Stratford jubilee. She died 

 Oct. 16, 1822. 



GARRISON; a body of men stationed in a for- 

 tress, city, village, intrenchment, &c., for the sake 

 of defending it. The rules by which the proper 

 form of a garrison is determined, differ. Some reckon, 

 for every five feet in circumference, one man, others, 

 for every bastion, 200 soldiers. Vauban assigns, if 

 the fortress is provided with ravelins, and a covered 

 way for every bastion, 500 or 600 men; for every 

 hornwork, or other large outwork, COO more ; for 

 every detached redoubt, 150 men ; for every detached 

 fort, 600 to SOO, according to its extent. The cavalry 

 is fixed by him in the proportion of one-tenth of the 

 infantry. 



GARTER, ORDER OF THE; a military order of 

 knighthood, instituted by king Edward III. It con- 

 sisted originally of twenty-six knights companions, 

 generally princes and peers, whereof the king of Eng- 

 land is the sovereign or chief. The number was 

 increased to thirty-two in 1786. The college of the 

 order is in the castle of Windsor, with the chapel of 

 St George, and the chapter house, erected by the 

 founder. The habit and ensign of the order are a 

 garter, mantle, cap, George, and collar. The garter, 

 mantle, and cap were assigned to the knights com- 

 panions by the founder, and the George and collar 

 by Henry VIII. The garter is worn on the left leg. 

 between the knee and the calf, and is enamelled with 

 this motto : Honi soit qui mat y pense (Evil to him 

 that evil thinks hereof.) The origin of the order is 

 variously related. " A vulgar story," says Hume, 

 " prevails, but is not supported by any ancient 

 authority, that, at a court ball, Edward's (III.) mis- 

 tress, commonly supposed to be the countess of Salis- 

 bury, dropped her garter ; and the king, taking it 

 up, observed some of the courtiers to smile, as if they 

 thought that he had not obtained this favour by acci- 

 dent; upon which he called out, lloni soit qui maly 

 pense. Other accounts, equally uncertain, are given. 



GARTH, SAMUEL, a physician and poet, was de- 

 scended from a respectable family in Yorkshire. He 

 received his academical education at Peter house, 

 Cambridge, where it is said he resided until he took 

 his degree of M. D. in 1691. He was admitted a 

 fellow of the college of physicians the next year, and 

 soon attained the first rank in his profession. A 

 division which arose among the medical profession, 

 on the establishment of a dispensary for the poor of 

 the metropolis, induced doctor Garth, who espoused 

 the measure, to compose his mock-heroic poem, The 

 Dispensary. It was published in 1699, and was 

 widely read and admired. In 1710, he addressed a 

 copy of verses to lord Godolphin, on his dismissal, and 

 displayed his attachment to the House of Hanover, 

 by an elegant Latin dedication of an intended version 

 of Lucretius to the elector, afterwards George I. On 

 the accession of the latter, he received the honour of 

 Knighthood, and was appointed physician in ordinary 

 to the king, and physician-general to the army. He 

 died in the height both of medical and literary repu- 

 tation, in June, 1718. He was a member of the 

 famous Kit-Kat club, and was deemed a latitudinarian 

 as to religion, which induced Pope, in allusion to his 

 .benevolence and kind-heartedness, to call him one 



who was " a good Christian without knowing himself 

 to be so." His Claremont, a complimentary poem on 

 the seat of the duke of Newcastle, is not without 

 merit. His occasional pieces are sprightly and ele- 

 gant. 



GARUMNA; the ancient name for Garonne, (q. v.) 

 GRAVE, CHRISTIAN; a German writer of the last 

 century, was born at Breslau, in 1742. Having lost 

 h : :S father, a dyer, while quite young, his mother paid 

 great attention to his education. After the death oi 

 Gellert (1769), Grave became professor extraordinary 

 in the philosophical faculty at Leipsic, and for several 

 years delivered lectures on mathematics, logic, &c. ; 

 but, a few years after, he was compelled, by the deli- 

 cate state of his health, to resign this office. He 

 returned to his native city, Breslau, in 1772. From 

 1770 to 1780, he became more and more known in 

 the philosophical world, partly by his translations of 

 Burke's Treatise on the Sublime and Beautiful, and 

 Ferguson's Moral Philosophy, &c., which he enriched 

 with his own observations, partly by his own philoso- 

 phical treatises, collected and published in 1779. 

 He was then encouraged by Frederic II. to make a 

 translation of Cicero's De Officiis, which appeared in 

 1783. In 1792, it had already passed through four 

 editions. In the latter years of his life, he suffered 

 much from hypochondria. His death took place in 

 December, 1798. Grave was a man of a very ami- 

 able character, susceptible of the enjoyments of 

 friendship and society. As a philosopher, he is 

 distinguished, not so much for profound researches 

 and new discoveries, or reforms, as by the agreeable 

 turn of his observations. His philosophy was prac- 

 tical or popular. Among the great number of his 

 works, his translations from the Greek and Latin, 

 the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, the Offices of 

 Cicero, with excellent remarks and commentaries, 

 and particularly his numerous translations of English 

 writers, are of great value. His style is clear and 

 correct. 



GAS is the name of every permanently elastic 

 aeriform substance. Gas is distinguished from steam, 

 or vapour, by this circumstance, that vapours are 

 raised from all fluids by heat, and are again conden- 

 sable by cold into the same fluid form ; but gases are 

 obtained from the substances containing them only 

 by chemical decomposition, whether this be sponta- 

 neous or artificial. All air was considered as a uni- 

 form, homogeneous substance, till about the middle 

 of the last century, when it was discovered that there 

 existed at least as great differences among aeriform 

 as among fluid substances. Accustomed, however, 

 to regard the atmosphere as the only air, philoso- 

 phers called these new forms of air gases, to distin- 

 guish them from it. This name had been already 

 introduced to the sciences by Van Helmont, and was 

 derived from the old German word giesch. Every 

 gas consists of some ponderable base, or substance, 

 which is maintained in its aeriform state by means of 

 heat or caloric ; thus, all gases possess common pro- 

 perties of elasticity, &c., which they derive from the 

 last substance ; and also each one its distinguishing 

 or peculiar characters, derived from the substance 

 constituting its base. Each kind of gas has also its 

 own peculiar and uniform specific gravity, or weight, 

 although they are all several hundred times lighter 

 than water. The density of all gases is, like that of 

 air, proportioned to the pressure to which they are 

 subjected ; and, like air, they expand with the ap- 

 plication of heat, and are rendered more dense by its 

 abstraction. All gases are susceptible of forming 

 various combinations with fluid and solid substances, 

 and these become fixed in a solid or fluid form. As 

 gases possess very many remarkable properties, and 

 play an important part in almost all chemical, and iu 



