Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/388

 friend the priest Willimar at Arbon, and there continued his preaching to the Suevi and Alemanni. Desiring probably to establish a separate centre for mission work, he retired to the forest and built a cell on the river Steinach. There he was soon joined by twelve others, and their little cluster of huts was the origin of the famous monastery of St. Gall. The story of his casting out an evil spirit from the only daughter of Gunzo, duke of the Suevi, who was betrothed to Sigebert, king of the Austrasians, must be rejected with all the incidents consequent on it, for it is impossible to find a Sigebert to whom it can refer (, an. 614, No. 30). When Columban was dying in 615 he sent Gall his pastoral staff, probably as a token of affection, not as a sign that any prohibition was removed. Gall was summoned to Constance in 616 to take part in the election of a bishop, and went thither with his two deacons, John and Magnoald. He was unanimously elected to the bishopric, but declined it, and persuaded the assembly to accept John. The sermon which he preached at John's consecration is still extant. On the death of Eustace, abbot of Luxeuil, in 625, Gall was elected to succeed him, but refused the office. In 645 he was persuaded by Willibald to visit Arbon, and while there fell sick of a fever, of which he died after fourteen days' illness on 16 Oct. He was buried at Arbon. The day of his death is usually the day of his commemoration, but 20 Feb. has also been appropriated to his memory. Although no materials exist for an exact estimate of the results of his work, it would not be too much to refer to him the evangelisation of the country between the Alps, the Aar, and the Lech. The new Bollandists propose as the chronology of his life that he was born in 554, ordained priest 584, followed Columban 590, built his cell 614, and died 627 (Acta SS. 7 Oct. ii. 881). The sermon preached at John's consecration is his only extant work. It is in Latin, and is printed by Canisius (Lect. Antiq. i. 785 sq., ed. Basnage). Dempster, who makes St. Gall a native of Albanic Scotland, attributes various works to him (Hist. Eccl. Gent. Scot. i. 299–301). The letter to Desiderius attributed to him by Tanner (Bibl. Brit. p. 307) appears to belong to Gallus, bishop of Clermont, consecrated 650 (, ii. 439).



GALL, RICHARD (1776–1801), Scottish poet, the son of a notary, was born at Linkhouse, near Dunbar, in December 1776. Having attended the parish school of Haddington, he was apprenticed at the age of eleven to his maternal uncle, a carpenter and builder. He afterwards became a printer's apprentice in Edinburgh, and there he gave his leisure to study. He then became travelling clerk to a Mr. Ramsay, in whose employment he remained till his death, 10 May 1801. His powers attracted considerable attention during his lifetime, and he enjoyed the friendship of Burns and Thomas Campbell. Several of his songs were set to music, and became popular. Two of these, ‘The Farewell to Ayrshire,’ and ‘Now bank and brae are clad in green,’ were falsely assigned to Burns; the former was sent by Gall to Johnson's ‘Scots Poetical Museum,’ with Burns's name prefixed, and the latter appeared in Cromek's ‘Reliques of Burns.’ An edition of Gall's ‘Poems and Songs’ was published at Edinburgh in 1819.



GALLAGHER, JAMES (d. 1751), bishop, was a member of the Ulster sept of O'Galchobhair, anglicised Gallagher. He entered the priesthood of the Roman catholic church, and was, at Drogheda, in November 1725 consecrated bishop of Raphoe, Donegal. In 1735 he published at Dublin seventeen ‘Irish Sermons, in an easy and familiar style, on useful and necessary subjects, in English characters, as being the more familiar to the generality of our Irish clergy.’ In his preface the author mentioned that he had composed those discourses principally for the use of his fellow-labourers, to be preached to their respective flocks, as his repeated troubles debarred him ‘of the comfort of delivering them in person.’ He added: ‘I have made them in an easy and familiar style, and of purpose omitted cramp expressions which be obscure to both the preacher and hearer. Nay, instead of such, I have sometimes made use of words borrowed from the English which practice and daily conversation have intermixed with our language.’ By propaganda in May 1737 Gallagher was translated from the bishopric of Raphoe to that of Kildare, and in the same year he was appointed administrator of the diocese of Leighlin. In