486 



GLOW-WORM GLUCK. 



stock, Worcester, and some other parts of England. , 

 I.arsre quantities of cotton gloves are manufactured j 

 at Nottingham and Leicester ; and the greater part I 

 of the woollen gloves is made in Wales, Scotland, 

 and the north of England. An immense number of 

 gloves are made in France : they are distinguished 

 for neatness and elegance, as the English for durabi- 

 lity. Danish ladies' gloves are very famous. We 

 have reason to suppose that gloves were used by the 

 Persians, as Xenophon, in the Cyropeedia, mentions 

 that on one occasion Cyrus went without them. The 

 Wrecks and Romans used them, but only for certain 

 kinds of labour, as, for instance, in hedging. They 

 were called chirothecee and manicee. Manica pro- 

 perly signifies the sleeve, which was sometimes 

 united with a glove, or, more probably, was worn so 

 long that it could be used as a mitten. During the 

 midille ages, gloves were at first considered as a 

 mark of dignity ; archbishops, &c., wore them ; 

 knights also wore them in battle. Gloves play a 

 conspicuous part in many national customs and 

 usages, which originated in the age of chivalry. 

 Throwing the glove down before a person, amounted 

 to a challenge to single combat, which was accepted 

 by the person, before whom it was thrown, picking 

 up the glove and throwing down his own to be taken 

 up by the challenger. This ceremony had the force 

 of a mutual engagement to meet at an appointed 

 time and place. The delivery of a glove was also a 

 symbol of investiture. The council of Aix, in the 

 reign of Louis le Debonnaire, prohibited by an edict, 

 the monks wearing any gloves but of sheep skin. 

 But all the powers of the councils, popes, and car- 

 dinals, could not accomplish this object, and glove- 

 wearing by the monks and other ecclesiastics, is a 

 subject of frequent complaint by ascetics. The 

 council of Poictiers confined the use of "sandals, 

 rings, and gloves to bishops." At the coronation of 

 the kings of France, the ceremony of blessing the 

 glove was continued till lately, as is that of the 

 champion throwing the glove in the ring at the 

 coronation of the king of England. At the corona- 

 tion of George II., an unknown gentleman took up 

 the glove, as the champion of the pretender, accept- 

 ing thereby the challenge of the champion in defence 

 of the right of the house of Hanover to the throne. 

 The judges in England used to be prohibited wear- 

 ing gloves on the bench ; and it was only in case of 

 a maiden assize that the sheriffs were allowed to 

 present a judge with a pair of gloves. It was an old 

 English gambol to win a pair of gloves by kissing a 

 lady, who was caught asleep or sitting on the table 

 in company; and it was an ancient custom in France 

 and Germany, to forfeit the gloves if a person entered 

 the stables of a prince or peer, without previously 



E idling them off. These gloves were to be redeemed 

 y a fee to the grooms. In Germany, the men that 

 carry the bier at a funeral, receive a pair of gloves 

 and a lemon ; the clergyman also receives a pair of 

 gloves at a wedding ceremony. 



GLOW-WORM. This is the female of one of the 

 species of lampyris. The light is most frequently 

 observable early in the summer, when the animal is 

 in motion. It can be withdrawn or displayed, at 

 pleasure, by contracting or unfolding the body. 

 When crushed in the hand, this luminous substance 

 adheres to it, and continues to shine till it dries. 

 This extraordinary provision of nature is for the pur- 

 pose of attracting the male. The glow-worm is 

 apterous, or without wings. The male possesses 

 elytra which cover wings longer than the body. The 

 head and antenna? are black, the former concealed 

 by the broad plate of the thorax. The four last 

 rings of the abdomen, which emit the light, are not 

 so bright in the male as in the female, and are nearly 



destitute of that luminous quality which renders hei 

 so remarkable. 



GLUC1NA, or GLUCINE; the name of a very 

 rare earth, found only in three rare minerals, beryl 

 or emerald, euclase, and chrysoberyl. It is usually 

 procured from the beryl, in which it exists in the pro- 

 portion of fourteen per cent., combined with silex and 

 alumine. The process for obtaining it pure, is as 

 follows : The mineral is reduced to an exceedingly 

 fine powder, mingled with three times its weight of 

 carbonate of potash, and exposed to a strong heat for 

 half an hour. The fused mass is then dissolved in 

 dilute muriatic acid, and the solution evaporated to 

 perfect dryness, by which means the silex is rendered 

 perfectly insoluble. The alumine and glucine are 

 then redissolved in water acidulated with muriatic 

 acid, and thrown down together by pure ammonia. 

 The precipitate, after being well washed is macerat- 

 ed with a large excess of carbonate of ammonia, by 

 which glucine is dissolved ; and on boiling the filter- 

 ed liquid, carbonate of glucine subsides, which, on 

 being heated to redness, affords pure glucine. In 

 this condition, it is white, tasteless, without odour, and 

 quite insoluble in water. Specific gravity, 3. Vege- 

 table colours are not affected by it. It is supposed, 

 by analogy, to be the oxide of a metal, and its sup- 

 posed metallic base is called glucinum. The salts 

 which glucine forms with acids have a sweetish taste ; 

 hence its name from yXuxz/j, sweet. 



GLUCK (the chevalier CHRISTOPHER). This musi- 

 cal composer, to whom the opera is indebted for its 

 splendour and dramatic perfection, sprang from a re- 

 spectable family in the palatinate of Bavaria, where 

 he was born, in the village of Weissenwangen, on the 

 Bohemian border in the year 1714. His father was 

 master of the chase to the prince Lobkowitz. From 

 his earliest youth, he devoted himself to the study of 

 music, and discovered talents of a high order ; but it 

 was not till after his fortieth year that he gave his 

 immortal masterpieces to the world. Gluck studied 

 the elements of music in Prague, was singer in a choir 

 of that city, and soon became a skilful performer on 

 several instruments. In 1738, he visited Italy, and 

 studied composition under San Martini. His first 

 opera, Artaxerxes, was written and performed in 

 Milan, and another (Demetrius) in Venice, in 1748. 

 A third (The fall of the Giants), he composed for the 

 Italian opera in London, whither he went in the year 

 1745. During his residence there, the society of doc- 

 tor Arne and his wife, an excellent opera singer, had 

 a great influence on the simplicity of his productions. 

 This period was the most fruitful, in respect to the 

 number of his works. In the space of eighteen years, 

 he composed about forty-five operas ; but none of 

 these as yet exhibited that power and depth, which 

 he was to unfold in his later efforts. Gluck had hi- 

 therto followed the then fashionable style and taste 

 of the Italian opera. He was sensible of its defects, 

 and felt how little his music, as a whole, could lay 

 claim to real dramatic merit. The chief obstacle to 

 the attainment of true dramatic perfection by the 

 composer, was the empty and disconnected character 

 of the poetry. It was not till accident made him ac- 

 quainted with a man, who had the boldness and ener- 

 gy to strike out an independent path in the poetical 

 department, that Gluck was enabled to do the same 

 in the musical. This man was the Florentine Rariieri 

 di Calsabigi, with whom Gluck became acquainted at 

 Vienna, and who furnished him with a series of texts, 

 in which the unity of the whole and the necessary 

 connexion of the different parts, contrasted strongly 

 with the loose, disconnected airs, duets and dialogues 

 of former works, in which no attention had been 

 paid to dramatic unity, but every thing was sacrifi- 

 ced to momentary effect, or to the vanity i f a singer 



