Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/648

GES and monographs, especially on subjects of medicine and natural history, some of which were published after his death. His life has been written by Josias Simler, 1566; by C. C. Schmiedel in his edition of the "Opera Botanica;" and by Hanhart, Winterthur, 1824.—K. E.  GESNER,, was born at Zurich on 28th March, 1709, and died on 28th March, 1790. He belonged to the family of the famous Conrad Gesner. He studied anatomy and surgery in the school of Esslinger. His fondness for natural history showed itself very early. He made excursions, for the prosecution of natural science, to the mountains of Switzerland. He also spent some time at Leyden following the prelections of Boerhaave, and visited Paris, making the acquaintance of Jussieu. In 1728 he received the degree of doctor of medicine, and he subsequently lectured at Zurich on anatomy and natural history. He assisted Haller in his History of the Plants of Switzerland. He was chosen professor of botany at St. Petersburg, but the state of his health prevented him from accepting the office. In 1733 he became professor of mathematics at Zurich. In 1757 he founded the Physical Society of Zurich; and this town owes to him also the formation of its botanic garden. He wrote various dissertations on physical and natural sciences, such as on the parts of vegetation and fructification, on a botanical thermoscope, on cold, on the principles of natural philosophy, on the motions and powers of the body, and on the plants of scripture.—J. H. B.  GESNER,, a celebrated German humanist, was born at Roth, near Nuremberg, April 9, 1691; and studied at Jena. As early as 1715 he became professor and librarian at Weimar; in 1728 he was appointed headmaster of the gymnasium at Anspach; two years later of the renowned Thomas-school at Leipsic, and in 1734, professor and librarian at Göttingen, where he died, August 4, 1761. He edited the Latin Thesaurus by Faber, and continued it in his "Novus linguæ et eruditionis Romanæ Thesaurus;" he published editions of the Scriptores De Re Rustica, and the Letters of Pliny, and wrote many Latin opuscula and letters.—K. E.  GESSNER,, known alike as a poet and a painter, was born at Zurich, April 1, 1730. Designed by his father for business, the taste of the youth rebelled; and, thrown on his own resources, he sought the means of subsistence at Berlin, and afterwards at Hamburg, by the painting of landscapes. Returning to Zurich, he adopted landscape painting as a profession, but devoted his spare hours to poetry. In each calling he acquired sufficient eminence to secure permanent fame. As a poet, he formed himself, as he tells us, on Theocritus; and his celebrated "Idyllen," 1758, and "Daphnis," 1754, are somewhat tame imitations of the pastorals of his great master. "The Death of Abel" (Tod Abels) is in a higher strain, and acquired vast popularity. It belongs to a class of poetry that died with the century which gave it birth; yet if it be wanting in strength, it contains many passages of great tenderness and pathos. He wrote several other poetical, or semipoetical pieces. He also published "Letters on Landscape Painting" (Briefe über die Landschaftmalerei), 1772. A collected edition of his poems appeared in 4 vols. 8vo, in 1762; and his miscellanies and correspondence were printed after his death. Gessner's paintings were in spirit much like his poems. He studied nature, but formed his style on the earlier masters of the art—Claude and Poussin on the one hand, and the Flemish painters on the other. His ideal landscapes, though most admired in his own day, are least valued now. Most of them are executed in body colours. His etchings are superior to his paintings. They are graceful in style, and carefully executed; but, like all his works, their delicacy borders on feebleness. Many of them illustrate his writings. Gessner died at Zurich, March 2, 1788. He was a man of singularly amiable character and simple habits, and was universally popular with his countrymen and the many foreigners who visited him.—J. T—e.  GESUALDO,, Prince of Venosa, a principality of the kingdom of Naples, was born about the middle of the sixteenth century. He was the nephew of Cardinal Gesualdo, archbishop of Naples. The prince is distinguished as a musician, the instructions in which art he received from Pomponio Nenna. The first five books of his madrigals were published in parts in 1585, by Simon Molinaro, a musician and chapel-master of Genoa. In 1595 the madrigals of the prince of Venosa (six books) were published together by the same person. The pieces contained in this edition were upwards of a hundred in number. The writers of all countries give to this prince the character of being an extremely learned and ingenious musician. The Italian poet, Tassoni, in the tenth book of his Pensieri Diversi, 1620, observes—"We again may reckon among us moderns, James, king of Scotland, who not only composed many sacred pieces of vocal music, but also of himself invented a new kind of music, plaintive and melancholy, different from all other, in which he has been imitated by Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa, who, in our age, has improved music with new and admirable inventions." Ever since this passage was first publicly noticed by Lord Kaimes in his Sketches in 1774, and commented upon by Mr. Tytler in his Dissertation in 1779, it has been hailed as the most unanswerable proof which could be adduced of the ancient celebrity of the Scottish melodies, and it has ever and anon given rise to the most triumphant ebullitions of national congratulation. But we are inclined to think that the passage has been entirely misunderstood. Dr. Burney examined a portion of the works of the eminent dilettante, namely, six books of madrigals, and, after a very attentive perusal of them, he says—"I was utterly unable to discover the least similitude or imitation of Caledonian airs in any one of them, which, so far from Scots melodies, seem to contain no melodies at all; nor, when sacred, can we discover the least regularity of design, phraseology, system, or, indeed, anything remarkable in the madrigals, except unprincipled modulation, and the perpetual embarrassments and inexperience of an amateur in the arrangement and filling up of the parts." But, besides these six books of madrigals, Serassi, in his Life of Tasso, remarks that there were twenty-five others preserved in MS. in one of the principal libraries of Naples, so that the prince's imitation of the Scottish music may possibly be contained in these; and the doctor's reasoning upon that point, which proceeded on the assumption that Gesualdo had produced no more than the printed works which had fallen under his observation, is altogether inconclusive, and must fall to the ground. But has not Tassoni's real meaning been entirely misunderstood? He did not mean that Gesualdo had imitated the melodies of King James, but only, to use Burney's words, "that these princely dilettante were equally cultivators and inventors o music." Tassoni, it will be observed, is not here expatiating upon the history and progress of the art; he is enumerating, in a chapter of his work, entitled Musici Antichie Moderni, the illustrious persons in ancient and modern times by whom it has been cultivated and adorned; and it is in this way that he alludes to the prince of Venosa, who, contrary to the views of Burney, has been described by his own countrymen, and after them by Hawkins, as an author "admirable for fine contrivance, original harmony, and the sweetest modulation conceivable," as a fit parallel to James I. of Scotland, whom he considered to have invented the music of that country. This is the view of the subject advocated by Mr. Danney in his charming Preliminary Dissertation to the Skene Manuscript, 4to, 1838.—E. F. R.  GETA,, born about 190, was the younger son of the Emperor Severus by his second wife, Julia, whose mild and amiable disposition Geta seems to have inherited, while his elder brother Caracalla displayed the suspicious and cruel temper which clouded the character of their father. In 208 both the princes received the title of Augustus, and were nominally associated with Severus in the imperial dignity, which by his will they were to inherit jointly and equally after his death. But the antipathy and discord which had characterized their intercourse from childhood, gave little promise for the future; and it did not require the spirit of prophecy to anticipate, what their father is said to have predicted, that the younger would perish by the hand of the elder, and the elder by his own vices. After the death of Severus in Britain, they speedily abandoned the war in that country and returned to Rome, where they took up their residence in the palace; but each had his own separate apartments strictly sentinelled, and they met only in public surrounded by their guards. A partition of territory was also projected, and Geta was willing to fix his capital in the East; but their mother's affection for both opposed this desirable arrangement, and in 212 she saw her younger son assassinated by some of his brother's officers in her own apartments, where Caracalla had requested to meet with him on pretence of desiring a reconciliation.—W. B.  GETHIN,, the daughter of Sir George Norton of Abbotsleigh in Somersetshire, wife of Sir Richard Gethin of 