Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/264

 symphony, one of the most popular of double chants, in spite of all that can be said against the proceeding from an artistic standpoint. No original work was produced by Goss except the anthem ‘Blessed is the man’ (1842), until the profound impression created by his pathetic ‘If we believe that Jesus died,’ written, at Dean Milman's request, for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852, incited him anew to composition. In 1854 ‘Praise the Lord, O my soul,’ was written for the bicentenary Festival of the Sons of the Clergy; and in 1856, on the death of Knyvett, Goss was appointed composer to the Chapel Royal. In the next thirteen years he composed some twenty-four anthems, besides services, &c. Some of these, as for instance ‘The Wilderness,’ ‘O taste and see,’ and ‘O Saviour of the World,’ hold a permanent place in English church music.

In 1872 signs of failing health were perceptible. At the public thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, 27 Feb., he officiated at the organ, and his own ‘Te Deum’ and an anthem, ‘The Lord is my strength,’ both composed for the occasion, were performed. Soon afterwards he resigned his appointment and received the honour of knighthood. On 17 April a banquet was given in his honour at the Albion Tavern, Aldersgate Street, and was attended by most of the distinguished musicians of the day. In 1876 he was given the degree of Mus.D. at Cambridge. He died at his residence, Lambeth Road, Brixton Rise, 10 May, and was buried 15 May 1880 in Kensal Green cemetery. In 1886 a tablet was erected to his memory in the crypt of St. Paul's by his pupils and friends; beneath a bas-relief by Mr. Hamo Thornycroft, R.A., is the opening of his ‘If we believe,’ the anthem sung at Goss's funeral service in the cathedral. Goss married, in 1821, Lucy Emma, daughter of William Nerd; she died at Streatham on 15 Feb. 1895, aged 95.

The best of Goss's works are distinguished by much grace and sweetness, underlying which is a solid foundation of theoretic and contrapuntal science. It is difficult to resist the assumption that at least some part of this happy combination was inherited, through Attwood, from Mozart. Goss was the last of the illustrious line of English composers who confined themselves almost entirely to ecclesiastical music.

The style of his organ-playing dated from a time when the art of pedal playing had not been brought to perfection; as a teacher he was remarkably successful, and as a man was distinguished for amiability and gentleness, as well as for deep religious feeling.



GOSSE, EMILY (1806–1857), religious writer, was born on 9 Nov. 1806 in London. Her parents, William and Hannah Bowes of Boston, Mass., were on both sides of old New England families. In 1848 she became the first wife of [q. v.] Mrs. Gosse, besides publishing two small volumes of devotional verse and a prose work on education, entitled ‘Abraham and his Children,’ 1855, was the author of a series of extremely popular religious tracts. In conjunction with her husband, she published, without the name of either author, in 1853, a volume of sketches in North Devon entitled ‘Seaside Pleasures.’ She was a woman of somewhat unusual acquirements, a fair Greek and a good Hebrew scholar, and one of the earliest of the modern ‘workers in the East End.’ She died in London on 9 Feb. 1857, after a very painful illness. Two memoirs of Mrs. Gosse were published in book form, one by her husband, the other by Anna Shipton, entitled ‘Tell Jesus,’ 1858, a slightly sensational collection of ‘Recollections of Emily Gosse,’ which has passed through innumerable editions.



GOSSE, PHILIP HENRY (1810–1888), zoologist, was born at Worcester on 6 April 1810. His father, Thomas Gosse (1765–1844), was a miniature-painter of very considerable skill, and a persistent but entirely unsuccessful writer of prose and verse. The future naturalist was the second of a family of four children. In July 1810 the parents removed to Coventry, and the next year to Leicester, finally settling in 1812 at Poole in Dorsetshire, whence the father periodically started on his miniature-painting perambulations from town to town. As the boy grew up in this quaint maritime port, his special gifts were noticed by his aunt, Mrs. Bell, the mother of Professor (1792–1880) [q. v.], herself a woman of scientific attainments then very unusual. She encouraged him to collect sea-anemones in the harbour, and gave him his earliest rough instruction in the metamorphoses of insects. In 1823, having attended a day-school at Poole for five years, he was sent to the grammar school at Blandford, where he remained until 1825. In June of that year he was placed in a counting-house at Poole. The reading of various books, but of Byron's &lsquo;Lara&rsquo; in particular, now stirred up in him a strong literary ambition, and in &lsquo;The Youth's