.^77 
G L P 
done in his Life of that pontiff; though inanotlier work 
he fpeaks of hint with contempt. Clement VII. treated 
him with more liberality, adigning him apartments in his 
palace, together with tlie abbacy of St. Antony in Co¬ 
mo. At the difaftrous faVk of Rome in 1537, he lod 
not only’a quantity of wrought filver, biit the manufeript 
of his Hillory, of which fome books were never reco¬ 
vered. As a recompence, lie was railed in the enfuing 
year to tlie bifliopric of Nocera. Through the favour 
of the emperors Charles V. Francis I. and other fove- 
rcigns and perfons of difHnClion, he acquired confidera- 
ble opulence. He built a very elegant villa on tlie 
margin of the lake of Como, in a delightful fituation, 
in which w'as a mufeum, rich in cuiiofities, cfpecially 
the portraits of eminent men. There he palfed much 
of his time in learned leifure ; but it vvas not till 1549 
that he finally quitted Rome. In the next year he went 
to p>ay a vifit to the grand-duke Cofmo at Florence, 
where he died in December 1553. His remains were in¬ 
terred in the cathedral of St. Lorenzo, under a marble 
monument, with an infeription in a high Ilyle of eulogy. 
As an hiftorian and biographer, Giovio has been mure 
praifed for the elegance of his fiyle, and the variety 
and livelLoefs of his narrative, than for liis veracity and 
impartiality. He is charged with having fet his pen to 
fale, and having difiributed applaufe and cenfure ac¬ 
cording to the diftates of private intereft. His own 
confidential letters avow in fome mealure the piinciple 
of, at lealf, colouring adtions and charatfters according 
to favour; and he was accufiomed to fay that he had 
two pens, one of gold, the other of iron. Yet he fre¬ 
quently attefis his impartiality, and, as a proof of it, 
mentions that he was accufed equally by the French 
and the Imperialifts as being devoted to the oppolite 
party. Perhaps, in the general narration he may be 
worthy of credit, though his reprefentation of particu¬ 
lars may often be falfe and diftorted. As he wrote con¬ 
cerning the perfons and tranfacfions of his own times, 
though he had more temptations' to infidelity, yet he 
had more checks. His great work is a Hillory, in forty- 
five books, commencing from the war of Naples under 
Charles Vlll. and coming down to 1547; but of this, 
fix books are wanting, from the fifth to the eleventh, 
and fix more, from the nineteenth to the twenty-fourth. 
The firfi: edition was printed at Florence in 1550. He 
wrote alfo the Lives of twelve Vifeonti lords of Milan ; 
the eulogies of men celebrated in arms and letters; de- 
feriptions of Great Britain, of Mufeovy, and of the 
lake of Como; and commentaries on Tiirkilh affairs. 
All thefe works are in Latin, wdiich he wrote with great 
fluency. In the fame language he wrote a treatile, De 
PiJ'cihvs Romanis. In Italian he has left a number of 
Letters; and Ragionamento fopra i Motti & Dijcgni d'Anne 
e d’Amore, 
Benedetto Giovio, elder brotherofthepreceding, 
who paired a retired life at Como, was a man of letters, 
and left feveral works in manulcript, of which the Hil- 
tory of his native place was printed at Venice in 1629. 
Paulo Giovio the Younger, alfo bifliop of No¬ 
cera, who was, prefent at the council of Trent, and dif- 
tinguiffied himfelf in Latin poetry, was grand-nepdiew 
to the firft Paul. 
To GIP, V. a. To take out the entrails of herrings. 
GIP'PING, a river of England, in the county of Suf¬ 
folk, which joins the Orvvell, and falls with it into the 
Stour. 
GIP'SOUS, or Gy psou s, Made of plaffer. See 
Gyps u_m . 
GIP'SY, f. [Corrupted from Egyptian ; for when 
they firff appeared in Europe, they declared, and per¬ 
haps truly, that they were driven from their own coun¬ 
try by the cruelty of their enemies. They are now 
more or lefs mingled with all nations.] The name is 
now applied to any vagabond who pretends to foretell 
futurity, commonly by palmiftry or phyfiognomy ; 
VoL. VIH. No, 537. 
G I P 
I, near yon ffile, three fallow gipfics met; 
Upon my hand they caff a poring look. 
Bid me beware, and thrice their heads they fliook. Gay. 
A reproachful name for a dark complexion.—Laura, to 
her lady, was but a kitchen wench ; Dido a dowdy ; 
Cleopatra a gipfy-, Helen arid Hero hildings and har¬ 
lots. Shnkefpeare .—A name of flight reproach to a wo¬ 
man.—The widow play’d the gipjy, and fo did her con¬ 
fidant too, in pretending to believe her. VFJlrange. 
A Have I am to Clara’s eyes: 
The gipfy knows her power, and fifes. Prior. 
The wandering F.gyptians, or ftroiling gipfies, are 
faid to have made their firff appearance in Germany 
about the beginning of the fixteenth century. Hiffo- 
rians inform us, that when I'ultan Selim conquered 
Egypt in 1517, a large body of the natives refilled to 
fubmit to the Turkifli yoke, and revolted under Zin- 
ganeus ; whence the Turks call them to this day Zia- 
ganees ; but being at length furrounded and bamffied, 
they agreed to difperfe in fmall parties all over the 
world, where th.eir fuppofed fl-till in the knowledge of 
futurity gave them an univerfal reception among igno¬ 
rant and fiipeiTtitious perfons. In the courfe of a few 
years they gained Inch a number of profelytes, \\ lio 
imitated their language and complexion, and betook 
themfelves to the fame arts of chiromancy, that they 
became troublefome, and even formidable, to moff of 
the ffates of Europe. Hence they were expelled from 
France by an edirif, in 1560, and from Spain in 1591. 
And the government of England took the alarm much 
earlier: for in 1530 they are'deferibed by 22 Hen. VIII. 
c. 10. as “an outlandilh people calling themfelves 
Egyptians, ufmg no craft nor feat of merchandife, who 
have tome into this realm, and gone from (hire to lliire, 
and place to place, in great companies, and ufed great, 
lubtle, and crafty, means to deceive the peo}>le ; bear¬ 
ing them in hand, that they by palmiftry could tell 
men’s and women’s fortunes ; and fo many times by 
craft and fubtilty have deceived the people of their 
money, and alfo have committed many heinous felonies 
and robberies. Wherefore they are diretted to avoid 
the realm, and not to return under pain of imprifon- 
ment, and forfeiture of their goods and chattels ; and 
upon their trials for any felony which they may have 
committed, they fliall not be entitled to a jury de medie- 
tate linguce.'" And afterwards it is enabled, by ftatutes 
iff and 2d Ph. & Mary, c. 4. and 5th Eliz. c. 20. that 
if any fuch perfons lhall be imported into the kingdom, 
the importer lhall forfeit forty pounds. And if the 
Egyptians themfelves remain one month in the king¬ 
dom, or if any perfon being fourteen years old, whether 
natural-born fubjeCt or ftranger, which hath been feen 
or found in the fellowfliip of fuch Egyptians, or which 
hath difguifed him or herfelf like them, fliall remain in 
the fame one month at one or feveral times, it is felony^ 
without benefit of clergy. And fir Matthew Hale in¬ 
forms us, that at one Suffolk allizes, no lets than thir¬ 
teen perfons were executed upon tlvelc Ilatutes a fevv 
yO't^rs before the reftcration. But, to the honour of our 
national humanity, there are no inftances more modern 
than this of carrying thefe laws into piractice ; and the 
fanguinary adt was itfelf repealed by 23Geo. 111. c.54. 
It'is incredible to think how this regular Iwarm of 
banditti has Ipread itfelf over the face of the earth. 
They wander about in Afia, in the interior parts ot 
Africa, and, like iocufts, have over-run muff of the Eai- 
ropean nation^. In the reigns ot Henry Vlll. and queen 
Elizabeth, as we have leen, they were let tiji as a mark 
of general perfecution in England ; yet their numbers 
did not appear for a long- time to be much diiiiinilfied. 
Spain is luppofed to contain forty thouland of thefe 
vagrants. 'I'hey became lefs numerous in France in 
confequence of the ftrictnefs of the police. In Italy 
they abound, efpecially in the ffates of the church, on 
7 H accouiil 
