GWYNN GYMNASIUM. 



597 



modern Greece, and their political and civil consti- 

 tution. Guys also made himself known as a poet, 

 by his Seasons, on the occasion of his journey to 

 Naples, which was received with much applause. 

 On the publication of his Voyage de la Grece, Vol- 

 taire addressed some very flattering verses to him, 

 and the Greeks conferred on him the privileges of 

 an Athenian citizen. Guys died at Zante, in 1799, 

 at the age of seventy-nine, as he was collecting ma- 

 terials for the third edition of his travels in Greece. 

 His son, Pierre Alphonse, was appointed secretary 

 of the French embassy to Constantinople, to Vienna, 

 and to Lisbon ; afterwards consul in Sardinia ; then 

 at Tripoli in Africa ; and, finally, at Tripoli in Syria, 

 where he died in 1812. He published letters on the 

 Turks, in which he treats of the rise and decay of their 

 power. He was also the author of the comedy La 

 Maison de Moliere, in four acts, altered from Goldoni. 

 GWYNN, ELEANOR, better known by the name of 

 Nell, the celebrated mistress of king Charles II., 

 was at first an orange girl of the meanest descrip- 

 tion, in the play-house. In the first part of her life, 

 she gained her bread by singing from tavern to 

 tavern, and gradually advanced to the rank of a po- 

 pular actress at the theatre royal. She is represented 

 as handsome, but low of stature. She was mistress, 

 successively, to Hart, Lacy, and Buckhurst, before 

 she became the favourite of the king. It is said 

 that, in her elevation, she showed her gratitude to 

 Dryden, who had patronised her in her poverty; 

 and, unlike the other mistresses, she was faithful to 

 her royal lover. From her are sprung the dukes of 

 St Alban's. She died in 1687. 



GYGES ; a favourite of the Lydian king Can- 

 daules, who, to convince him of the beauty of his 

 queen, showed her to him naked. The queen was 

 so incensed at this shameful act, that she ordered 

 Gyges either to murder the king, ascend his vacant 

 throne, and become her busband, or to atone for his 

 curiosity by death. After having laboured in vain 

 to shake the resolution of the queen, he chose the 

 former part of the alternative, murdered Candaules, 

 and was established on the throne in consequence of 

 tlie response of the Delphian oracle. This is the 

 story as related by Herodotus. There is a fable of 

 a magic ring, which Gyges found in a cavern when a 

 herdsman, and which had the power of rendering its 

 possessor invisible, whenever he turned the stone in- 

 wards. By the aid of this ring, he enjoyed the 

 embraces of the queen and assassinated the king. 

 To have the ring of Gyges was afterwards used pro- 

 verbially, sometimes of fickle, sometimes of wicked 

 and artful, and sometimes of prosperous people, who 

 obtain all they want. 



GYMNASIUM ; the name given by the Spartans 

 to the public building where the young men, naked 

 (hence the name, from yu^voj, naked), exercised 

 themselves in leaping, running, throwing the discus 

 and spear, wrestling, and pugilism, or in the pen- 

 tathlon (quinquertium) so called. This Spartan in- 

 stitution was imitated in most of the cities of Greece, 

 and in Rome under the Caesars. Its objects, how- 

 ever, did not remain confined merely to corporeal 

 exercises, but were extended also to the exercise of 

 the mind; for here philosophers, rhetoricians, and 

 teachers of other branches of knowledge, delivered 

 their lectures. In Athens, there were five gymnasia, 

 and among them the Academy, the Lycaeum, and 

 the Cynosarge. In the first, Plato taught ; in the 

 second, Aristotle; and in the third, Antisthenes. 

 They were, at first, only open level places, surround- 

 ed by a wall, and partitioned off for the different 

 games. Rows of planetrees were planted for the 

 purpose of shade, which were afterwards changed 

 into colonnades with numerous divisions. The gym- 



nasia, at last, were composed of a number of con- 

 nected buildings, spacious enough to admit many 

 thousands. Vitruvius has given an exact description 

 of the arrangement of them in his work on architec- 

 ture (5,11.). Some gymnasia contained more, and 

 some fewer apartments ; and all were furnished with 

 a multitude of decorations. Here were found the 

 statues and altars of Mercury and Hercules, to whom 

 the gymnasia were dedicated ; sometimes, also, the 

 statue of Theseus, the inventor of the art of wrest- 

 ling ; statues of heroes and celebrated men ; paint- 

 ings and bass-reliefs, representing subjects connected 

 with religion and history. The Hermes figures (see 

 Hermes) were among the most common ornaments 

 of gymnasia. Here was assembled every thing that 

 could improve the youth in the arts of peace and of 

 war ; every thing that could elevate and raise their 

 minds ; and, while these institutions flourished, the 

 arts and sciences also flourished, and the state pros- 

 pered. The governor of a gymnasium was called 

 the gymnasiarch. Sometimes such a gymnasium was 

 styled palaestra, which was, properly, only the part 

 where the athletae, destined for the public exhibi- 

 tions, exercised themselves. Ignara is of opinion, 

 that a distinction was made between the gymnasium 

 and palaestra, at the time when the philosophers and 

 others commenced their lectures here ; that the latter 

 was designed to promote physical, and the former 

 mental education simply. In the latter sense, the 

 high schools in Germany, where young men are fitted 

 for the universities, have been called gymnasia, in 

 modern times. In Rome, during the republic, there 

 were no buildings which could be compared with the 

 Greek gymnasia. Under the Caesars, the public 

 baths bore some resemblance to them ; and the gym- 

 nasia may be said to have expired with the thermae. 

 See Gymnastics. 



Gymnasia, German. From the time of the revival 

 of learning, when almost all knowledge was derived 

 through the Latin and Greek, and certainly no 

 existing literature could be compared to that con. 

 tained in these two languages, the study of them 

 obtained such possession of the schools, that it has, 

 ever since, influenced the studies of youth in Europe, 

 and particularly in Germany, to such a degree, that 

 it is very difficult to restore the proper balance in 

 schools of the higher kind. The gymnasia, the 

 name of these schools in Germany (derived from the 

 ancient term), taught Latin and Greek, and the 

 branches connected with antiquity, almost to the ex- 

 clusion of other sciences. But, in modern times, 

 when the natural sciences have made such distinguish- 

 ed progress, and rich stores have accumulated in many 

 modern literatures, and the importance of mathema- 

 tics has been increased, the faults of this arrangement 

 have become obvious,and some authorities, particular- 

 ly in Prussia, have already established institutions, in 

 which history, mathematics, natural philosophy, and 

 modern languages may be learned without Latin. 

 In the gymnasia themselves, more time is allotted to 

 these branches than formerly. The gymnasia of 

 Prussia probably carry the scholar farther than any 

 institutions of a similar kind elsewhere. No limits 

 are fixed for the stay of the scholar in each class ; 

 every year an examination for the next class takes 

 place, to which every scholar is admitted. Classes 

 are generally divided into two sections, and a scholar 

 cannot be promoted from the lower into the higher 

 without an examination. The last examination, to 

 show whether the pupils are fit to enter the univer- 

 sity, is very severe : for three days they have to write 

 exercises, on questions proposed to them, in history, 

 the Latin and Greek languages, mathematics, besides 

 themes in German, and in at least one foreign modern 

 language, alone, shut up in a room, without books ; 



