360 



Till-: STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



coming from Roman writers to which were added 

 moralizing paragraphs and sometimes other religious 

 and mystical tales. 



Gib'bie, Goose. A half-witted boy in Scott's "Old 

 Mortality." 



Gib'bie, Sir. A simple-hearted, fine character in 

 George Macdonald's novel by the same name. 



(.hint Despair. Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. 

 A giant who is the owner of Doubting Castle, ami who. 

 finding Christian and Hopeful asleep upon his grounds, 

 takes them prisoners, and thruMs them into a dungeon. 

 Giant Grim. A giant who seeks to stop the march of 

 the pilgrims to the Celestial City, but is slain in a duel 

 l>y Mr. Great-heart, their guide. Giant Slay-good. 

 A giant slain in a duel by Mr. Great-heart. 



Gil Bias. The title of a famous romance by LeSage, 

 and the name of its hero. The tale is full of adventures 

 and CJil Bias .is represented as squire to a lady and 

 brought up by his uncle, canon Gil Peres. Gil Bias 

 went to Dr. Godinez's school of Oviedo and gained the 

 name of being a great scholar. He had fair abilities 

 and good inclinations, but was easily led astray by his 

 vanity, full of wit and humor, but lax in his morals. 

 Duped at first, he afterwards played the same devices 

 on others. As he grew in years, his conduct improved, 

 and when his fortune was made he became an honest man. 



Gil'pin, John. A citizen of London, and "a train- 

 band captain," whose adventures are related in Cow- 

 per's humorous poem, "John Gilpin's Ride." After 

 being married twenty years his wife proposed a holidav, 

 they agreed to make a family party, and dine at the Bell, 

 at Edmonton. Mrs. Gilpin, her sister, and four children 

 went in the chaise, ana Gilpin promised to follow on 

 horseback. The horse being fresh, began to trot, and 

 then to gallop, and John a bad rider grasped the mane 

 with both his hands. On went the horse, off flew John 

 Gilpin's cloak, together with his hat and wig. He flew 

 through Edmonton, and never stopped till he reached 

 Ware, when his friend the calender, furnished him with 

 another hat and wig, and Gilpin galloped back again, 

 till the horse stopped at his house in London. 



Glaucus. A fisherman of Boeo'tia who has become 

 the fisherman's patron deity. 



Glaucus, son of Hippolytus. Being smothered in 

 a tub of honey, he was restored to life by Escula'pios. 



Glo'ri-a'na. In Spenser's "Faery Queen," the 

 "greatest glorious queen of Faery land." 



Gloss. In Biblical criticism, an explanation of purely 

 verbal difficulties of the text, to the exclusion of those 

 which arise from doctrinal, historical, ritual, or cere- 

 monial sources. From an early period, these verbal 

 difficulties were the object of attention, and the writers 

 who devoted themselves to the elucidation were called 

 " glossatores, " and their works "glossaria." 



Glumdal'ca. Tom Thumb, Fielding. Queen of 

 the giants, captive in the court of King Arthur. 



Glum-dal'ditch. Gulliver's Travels, Swift. A 

 girl nine years old "and only forty feet high." Being 

 such a "little thing," the charge of Gullk-er was com- 

 mitted to her during his sojourn in Brobdingnag. 



Glumms. Peter Wilkins, Robert Pullock. The 

 male population of the imaginary country Nosmnbds- 

 greutt, visited by Peter Wilkins. Both males and 

 females had wings which served both for flying and for 

 clothes. 



Gnome. (1) A pithy and sententious saying com-, 

 monly in verse, embodying some moral sentiment or 

 precept. The gnome belongs to the same generic 

 class with the proverb: but it differs from a proverb 

 in wanting the common and popular acceptance. The 

 use of gnomes prevailed among all the early nations, 

 especially the Orientals, and the literatures of most 

 countries abound with them. In the Bible, the book of 

 Proverbs, part of Ecclesiastes, and still more the apocry- 

 phal book of Ecclesiasticus, present numberless illustra- 

 tions of the highest form of this composition. (2) In 

 ancient times the name gnome represented one of the 

 classes of imaginary beings which are supposed to be 

 the presiding spirits in the mysterious operations of 

 nature in the mineral and vegetable world. 



Gob'bo, Launcelot. A clown in Shakespere's 

 "Merchant of Venice." He left the service of Shylock 

 the Jew for that of Bassa'nio a Christian. Launcelot 

 Gobbo is one of the famous clowns of Shakespere. 



Gob'bo, Old. Father to Launcelot Gobbo in "Mer- 

 chant of Venice." He was stone blind. 



Go'blins and Bogles. Familiar demons of popular 

 superstition, a spirit which lurks about houses. It is 

 also called hobgoolin. Goblin is used in a serious sense 

 by Shakespere in "Hamlet," where the ghost is supposed 

 to be a "spirit of health or goblin damned." 



God Save the King. The national anthem of 

 Great Britain, and by adoption that of Prussia and the 



German states. Its words are apparently imitated 

 from the Domine Salvum of the Catholic Church service. 



Gold Bug, The. Found in Poe's most successful 

 tale, by same name. Scene laid on Sullivan's Island, 

 near Charleston, S. C., and the cipher made to concern 

 Captain Kidd's buried treasure. 



Golden Ix>gend, The. The title of an ecclesiastical 

 work in 177 sections, dating from the Thirteenth Cen- 

 tury, written by one James de Voragine, a Dominican 

 monk, and descriptive of the various saints' days in 

 the Roman Calendar. It is deserving of study as a, 

 literary monument of the period, and as illustrating the 

 religious habits and views of the Christians of that time. 



Gold of NMbelungen. The. Unlucky wealth. "To 

 have the gold of Nlbelunfen" is to have a posseion 

 which seems to bring a curse with it. Icelandic Kdda. 



Gon'eril. The oldest of the three daughters to King 

 Lear, in Shakespere's tragedy. Having received her 

 moiety of Lear's kingdom, the unnatural daughter first 

 abridged the old man's retinue, then gave him to under- 

 stand that his company was not wanted and sent him 

 out a despairing old man to seek refuge where he could 

 find it. Her name is proverbial for filial ingratitude. 



Gon-za'lo. An honest old counselor in Shakespere's 

 "Tempest," a true friend to Prospero. 



Goody Blake. A character in Wordsworth's poem 

 entitled "Goody Blake and Harry Gill." A farmer 

 forbids old Goody Blake to carry home a few sticks, 

 which she had picked up from his land, and in revenge 

 she invokes upon him the curse that he may "never 

 more be warm': and ever after " his teeth they chatter, 

 chatter still." 



Goody Two-Shoes. The name of a well-known 



j character in a nursery tale by Oliver Goldsmith. Goody 



Two-Shoes was a very poor child, whose delight at 



having a pair of shoes was unbounded. She called con- 



[ stant attention to her "two shoes" which gave her the 



name. 



Gordian Knot. A great difficulty. Gordius, a 

 peasant, chosen King of Phrygia, dedicated his wagon 

 to Jupiter, and fastened the yolce with a rope so ingeni- 

 ously that no one could untie it. Alexander was told 

 that "whoever undid the knot would become king" and 

 he cut the knot with his sword. 



Gra'ci-o'sa. A princess in an old and popular fairy 

 tale the object of the ill-will of a step-mother named 

 Grognon, whose malicious designs are perpetually 

 thwarted by Percinet, a fairy prinoe, who is in love with 

 Graciosa. 



Graal, Gral, or Greal (a word derived probably 

 from the old French, perhaps Celtic, "gre'al"). In the 

 legends and poetry of the Middle Ages, we find accounts 

 ! of the Holy Graal San Gre'al a miraculous chalice, 

 made of a single precious stone, sometimes said fcb be 

 an emerald, which possessed the power of preserving 

 chastity, prolonging life, and other wonderful properties. 

 It is fabled to have been preserved and carried to Eng- 

 land by Joseph of Arimathea. It remained there 

 many years, an object of pilgrimage and devotion, but 

 ] at length it disappeared, one of its keepers having 

 violated the condition of strict virtue in thought, word, 

 i and deed, which was imposed upon those who had charge 

 of it. The quest of this cup forms the most fertile 

 source of adventures to the knights of the Round Table. 

 The story of the Sangreal or Sangraal was first written 

 in verse by Troyes (end of the Tenth Century), thenc-e 

 into Latin, and finally turned into French prose by 

 order of Henry III. It commences with the genealogy 

 of our Saviour, and details the whole Gospel history: 

 but the prose romance begins with Joseph of Arimathea. 

 Its quest is continued in Percival, a romance of the 

 P'ifteenth Century. The legend of the graal was intro- 

 duced into German poetry in the Thirteenth Century 

 by Wolfram von Eschenbach, who took Guiot's tales 

 ! of Parcival and Titurel as the foundation of his poem, 

 but filled it with deep allegorical meanings. 



Grad'^rind. A hardware merchant in Dickens's 

 "Hard Times." He is a man of hard facts and culti- 

 vates the practical. His constant demand in conversa- 

 tion is for "facts." He allows nothing for the weak- 

 ness of human nature, and deals with men and women 

 as a mathematician with his figures. 



Grad'grind, Mrs. Wife of Thomas Gradgrind. 

 A little thin woman, always taking physic, without 

 I receiving from it any benefit. 



Grad grind, Tom. Son of the above, a sullen young 

 man, much loved by his sister. 



Grad'grind, Louise. A faithful daughter and sister. 



Gran'di-son, Sir Charles. .The hero of Richard- 

 son's novel "The History of Sir Charles Grandison." 

 I Designed to represent his ideal of a perfect hero a 

 j union of the good Christian and the perfect English 

 i gentleman. 



