508 



GORANI OOREE. 



every prospect of success. The C. anthelminticum is 

 considered an excellent vermifuge. 



GORANI, JOSEPH, count of, a political writer, 

 was born at Milan, in 1740. He was descended from 

 an ancient family. This learned and accomplished 

 scholar belonged to a literary club, called the Coffee 

 House, which carried on ji correspondence with Vol- 

 taire, Diderot, D'Alembert, and baron Holbach. 

 Under the title of the Coffee House, he published a 

 journal, in which political subjects were discussed. 

 The club generally assembled at the house of count 

 Verri, the author of Roman Nights. Among its mem- 

 bers were Lambertenghi. the al)be Paul Frisi, and the 

 marquis Beccaria, who here projected the plan of his 

 celebrated work on crimes and punishments. Joseph 

 Baretti attacked the journal in a periodical work, 

 Frusta Letteraria, or the Scourge. The club after- 

 wards advocated the French revolution. Gorani was 

 among the luost zealous. In the works of his more 

 mature years, on philosophy, political economy, and 

 public education, he breathes a democratic spirit. 

 The same is true of his Secret Memoirs of Italy 

 (Memoires secrets et critiques sur les Cours d y Italic, 

 3 vols., Paris, 1793) ; especially of his Memoirs of 

 Naples, and his Treatise upon Despotism, and his 

 Essay on the Science of Government. His love of 

 freedom and equal rights, and his desire for the abo- 

 lishment of the distinctions of birth, caused him to be 

 struck from the list of the Milanese nobility, and his 

 estates to be confiscated ; in return for which, the 

 national assembly conferred upon him the title of " a 

 French citizen." Gorani went to France in 1792, 

 and thence to Geneva in 1794. 



GORDIAN KNOT. See Alexander the Great, 

 and Gordius, 



GORDIUS, a peasant, was raised to the throne of 

 Phrygia. An insurrection having broken out, the 

 inhabitants consulted the oracle concerning a new 

 king. It designated him, whom, on their return, 

 they should meet, mounted on a chariot, going to the 

 temple of Jupiter. This was Gordius, who, to evince 

 his gratitude, consecrated his chariot to Jupiter, 

 and fastened the pole with so ingenious a knot, that 

 the oracle promised the dominion of the world to 

 him who should untie it. He built the capital, Gor- 

 ilium. When Alexander came to Gordium, and saw 

 the impossibility of untying the knot, he cut it with 

 his sword. 



GORDON, GEORGE, called, by courtesy, lord 

 George Gordon, was the son of Cosmo George, duke 

 of Gordon, in Scotland, and was born in 1750. He 

 entered when young into the navy, but left the ser- 

 vice during the American war. He then became a 

 member of the house of commons. His parliament- 

 ary conduct was marked by a certain degree of ec- 

 centricity, but he displayed no deficiency of talent, 

 often animadverting with great freedom on the minis- 

 ters and their opponents. At length, in 1780, a bill 

 having been introduced into the house for the relief 

 of Roman Catholics from certain penalties and disa- 

 bilities, he collected a mob, at the head of whom he 

 marched to the house of commons, to present a pe- 

 tition against the proposed measure. The dreadful 

 riot which ensued, and which was not suppressed till 

 after the destruction of many Catholic chapels and 

 dwellings, the prison of Newgate, and the house of 

 the chief justice, lord Mansfield, led to the arrest of 

 lord George Gordon, and his trial on the charge of 

 high treason ; but, no evidence being adduced of 

 treasonable design, he was acquitted. In May, 1786, 

 ne was excommunicated for refusing to come forward 

 as a witness in a court of law. He then published a 

 Letter from Lord G. Gordon to the Attorney-Gene- 

 ral of England, in which the Motives of his Lord- 

 ship's public Conduct, from the beginning of 1780 



to the present Time, are vindicated (1787, 8vo). In 

 the beginning of 1788, having been twice convicted 

 of litelling the French ambassador, the queen of 

 France, and the criminal justice of his country, he 

 retired to Holland, but he was arrested, sent home, 

 and committed to Newgate, where he passed the 

 remainder of his life. He died, Nov. 1, 1793, dis- 

 turbed in his last moments by the knowledge that he 

 could not be buried among the Jews, of whose reli- 

 gion he had become a zealous professor during his 

 imprisonment. 



GORDON, WILLIAM, D.D., an historian of the 

 American war, was born in England, where he be- 

 came a clergyman, first at Ipswich, afterwards at 

 Wapping. He emigrated to America, in 1770, and, 

 July 6, 1772, was ordained minister of a church in 

 Roxbury, Massachusetts. During the revolutionary 

 war, he was warmly attached to the American cause, 

 and for some time was chaplain to the provincial 

 congress of the colony in which he lived. After 

 peace had been made, he returned to his native 

 country, and published his History of the United 

 States of America (London, 1788). He died in Eng- 

 land, on the 19th of October, 1807, having survived 

 the complete extinction of his mental faculties. 



GORE, CHRISTOPHER, a governor of the state of 

 Massachusetts, was born in Boston, in 1758, and 

 was the son of a respectable mechanic, who acquired 

 a considerable fortune by his industry. He was 

 graduated at Harvard university, in 1776, when he 

 commenced the study of the law, and soon acquired 

 a lucrative practice. Before he had attained the 

 age of thirty, he was elected by the citizens of Bos- 

 ton, witli Hancock and Samuel Adams , to the con- 

 vention of the state, which adopted the federal con- 

 stitution. In 1789, he was appointed by president 

 Washington the first United States' attorney for the 

 district of Massachusetts ; the duties of which office, 

 difficult as they were at that period of distraction and 

 trouble, he continued to discharge with firmness and 

 ability, until 1796, when he was appointed, by the 

 president, colleague of the celebrated William Pink- 

 ney, in the commission under the fourth article of 

 Jay's treaty, to settle the American claims upon 

 England for spoliations. In this situation, he evinced 

 his wonted energy and talent, and recovered property 

 to a very great amount for his fellow citizens. When 

 Rufus King, at that period American minister at 

 London, and the intimate friend of Mr Gore, re- 

 turned to America in 1803, he left him charge d'af- 

 faires. In 1804, he returned home, and was twice 

 elected to the senate of the state from the county of 

 Suffolk, and then to the house of representatives from 

 Boston. In 1809, he was chosen governor of Mas- 

 sachusetts, but retained this dignity only for one 

 year. In 1814, he was called to the senate of the 

 Union, by the appointment of governor Strong, dur- 

 ing a recess of the legislature. The appointment 

 was ratified by the legislature at their ensuing meet- 

 ing. He served in this capacity for three years, and 

 then withdrew into a retirement, in which he ended 

 his life, March, 1, 1827, in the sixty-ninth year of 

 his age. Mr Gore possessed a clear, sound mind, 

 with a firm and decided, yet liberal spirit. He was 

 an excellent classical scholar, and was well versed in 

 general literature. His manners were finished and 

 graceful, and his person uncommonly fine. 



GOREE; a seaport, on an island of the same 

 name, situated near the east coast, on a canal which 

 communicates with the Meuse ; formerly a place of 

 considerable trade ; but the harbour is now choked 

 up with sand, though the road is still good; six 

 miles west of Helvoetsluys ; population, 694. 



G OREE ; a small island, or rather rock, belong- 

 ing to France, on the coast of Africa, a little more 



