Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/123

 (, Anc. Marbles). He contributed to the letterpress of the ‘Antiquities of Ionia,’ issued by the society in 1797–1840. Gell was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society, a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin (1827?), and of the Institute of France (elected about 1833). In 1834 Gell gave up his house at Rome. In the middle of 1835 he became seriously ill, but was tended kindly by his great friend Craven. He died at his Naples villa on 4 Feb. 1836, apparently worn out by his long sufferings from the gout. He was buried in the English burial-ground at Naples. Gell was unmarried. By his will (printed in, ii. 500) he left his house and gardens at Naples to the English congregation there. His plate, carriage, &c., almost his only other property, he left to his servants. All his papers were bequeathed to Craven, his sole executor, who presented them to his (Craven's) Italian secretary Pasquini. The original drawings, nearly eight hundred in number, made by him during his travels through Spain, Italy, Syria, Dalmatia, the Ionian Islands, Greece, and European Turkey, were also left to Craven, and were bequeathed by him to the British Museum, where they were received in April 1852 (, Handbook to Departm. of Prints, 1876, p. 185).

Gell was described by Lady Blessington (, ii. 361) as ‘gentle, kind-hearted, and good-tempered,’ epithets which, judging from other testimonies, he seems to have deserved. He was extremely fond of society, and, according to Dr. Madden, delighted in ‘lionizing’ people, and was ‘always hankering after patricians.’ Bulwer Lytton (who visited him in 1833) found ‘something artificial and cold about him au fond,’ yet his urbane manners and companionableness made him very popular. Thomas Moore, who saw him in 1820, describes him (Memoirs, iii. 137) as ‘full of jokes,’ ‘still a coxcomb, but rather amusing.’ Others say that he had a real fund of wit, and when he died Lady Blessington said, ‘J'ai perdu en lui mon meilleur causeur.’ Gell had some acquaintance with Oriental languages, but is said not to have much cared for belles-lettres, nor was he a profound scholar. Written when Greece and even Italy were comparatively little known to English travellers and classical students, his works were for some time regarded as standard treatises, and much of the information they contain is still of value to the topographer and archæologist. Dr. Madden states (ii. 21) that ‘there are several busts’ of Gell, ‘none of them a good likeness.’ His portrait was painted (about 1831?) by Thomas Uwins, R.A., and came into the possession of Lady Blessington. A ‘small waxen profile’ of him was made at Rome about 1832 (, ii. 65, 66).



GELLIBRAND, HENRY (1597–1636), mathematician, born in the parish of St. Botolph, Aldersgate, London, 17 Nov. 1597, was the eldest son of Henry Gellibrand, M.A., fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford, and of St. Paul's Cray, Kent, who died 15 Aug. 1615. He became a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, in 1615, and took the two degrees in arts, B.A. 25 Nov. 1619, M.A. 26 May 1623. He took holy orders, and served for a time a curacy at Chiddingstone, Kent, but was led to devote himself entirely to mathematics by one of Sir Henry Savile's lectures. He settled at Oxford, and became a friend of [q. v.], on whose recommendation he was chosen professor of astronomy at Gresham College, 2 Jan. 1626–7. Briggs dying in 1630 he left his unfinished ‘Trigonometria Britannica’ to Gellibrand. Gellibrand held puritan meetings in his rooms, and encouraged his servant, William Beale, to publish an almanack for 1631, in which the popish saints were superseded by those in Foxe's ‘Book of Martyrs.’ Laud, then bishop of London, cited them both into the high commission court. They were acquitted on the ground that similar almanacks had been printed before, Laud alone dissenting, and this prosecution formed afterwards one of the articles exhibited against him at his own trial (, Canterburies Doome, 1646, p. 184). In 1632 Gellibrand completed Briggs's manuscript, and published it in 1633 as ‘Trigonometria Britannica: sive de doctrina Triangulorum libri duo. Quorum prior … ab … H. Briggio … posterior verò … ab H. Gellibrand … constructus,’ 2 pts. fol., Gouda, 1633. According to Ward, an English translation of Gellibrand's book was published in 1658 by John Newton as the second part of a folio with the same title. During 1633 he also contributed ‘An Appendix concerning Longitude’ to ‘The strange and dangerous Voyage of Captaine Thomas James,’ 4to, 1633, which has been frequently reprinted. Gellibrand died of fever 16 Feb. 1636, and was buried in the church of St. Peter the Poor, Broad Street, London. Works not