Part 7

GOSS, SIR JOHN (1800-1880), English composer, was born at Fareham, Hampshire, on the 27th of December 1800. He was elected a chorister of the Chapel Royal in 1811, and in 1816, on the breaking of his voice, became a pupil of Attwood. A few early compositions, some for the theatre, exist, and some glees were published before 1825. He was appointed organist of St Luke's, Chelsea, in 1824, and in 1838 became organist of St Paul's in succession to Attwood; he kept the post until 1872, when he resigned and was knighted. His position in the London musical world of the time was an influential one, and he did much by his teaching and criticism to encourage the study and appreciation of good music. In 1876 he was given the degree of Mus.D. at Cambridge. Though his few orchestral works have very small importance, his church music includes some fine compositions, such as the anthems "O taste and see," "O Saviour of the world" and others. He was the last of the great English school of church composers who devoted themselves almost exclusively to church music; and in the history of the glee his is an honoured name, if only on account of his finest work in that form, the five-part glee, Ossian's "Hymn to the sun." He died at Brixton, London, on the 10th of May 1880.

GOSSAMER, a fine, thread like and filmy substance spun by small spiders, which is seen covering stubble fields and gorse bushes, and floating in the air in clear weather; especially in the autumn. By transference anything light, unsubstantial or flimsy is known as "gossamer." A thin gauzy material used for trimming and millinery, resembling the "chiffon" of to-day, was formerly known as gossamer; and in the early Victorian period it was a term used in the hat trade, for silk hats of very light weight.

The word is obscure in origin, it is found in numerous forms in English, and is apparently taken from _gose_, goose and _somere_, summer. The Germans have _Madchensommer_, maidens' summer, and _Altweibersommer_, old women's summer, as well as _Sommerfaden_, summer-threads, as equivalent to the English gossamer, the connexion apparently being that gossamer is seen most frequently in the warm days of late autumn (St Martin's summer) when geese are also in season. Another suggestion is that the word is a corruption of _gaze a Marie_ (gauze of Mary) through the legend that gossamer was originally the threads which fell away from the Virgin's shroud on her assumption.

GOSSE, EDMUND (1849- ), English poet and critic, was born in London on the 21st of September 1849, son of the zoologist P. H. Gosse. In 1867 he became an assistant in the department of printed books in the British Museum, where he remained until he became in 1875 translator to the Board of Trade. In 1904 he was appointed librarian to the House of Lords. In 1884-1890 he was Clark Lecturer in English literature at Trinity College, Cambridge. Himself a writer of literary verse of much grace, and master of a prose style admirably expressive of a wide and appreciative culture, he was conspicuous for his valuable work in bringing foreign literature home to English readers. _Northern Studies_ (1879), a collection of essays on the literature of Holland and Scandinavia, was the outcome of a prolonged visit to those countries, and was followed by later work in the same direction. He translated Ibsen's _Hedda Gabler_ (1891), and, with W. Archer, _The Master-Builder_ (1893), and in 1907 he wrote a life of Ibsen for the "Literary Lives" series. He also edited the English translation of the works of Bjornson. His services to Scandinavian letters were acknowledged in 1901, when he was made a knight of the Norwegian order of St Olaf of the first class. Mr Gosse's published volumes of verse include _On Viol and Flute_ (1873), _King Erik_ (1876), _New Poems_ (1879), _Firdausi in Exile_ (1885), _In Russet and Silver_ (1894), _Collected Poems_ (1896). _Hypolympia, or the Gods on the Island_ (1901), an "ironic phantasy," the scene of which is laid in the 20th century, though the personages are Greek gods, is written in prose, with some blank verse. His _Seventeenth Century Studies_ (1883), _Life of William Congreve_ (1888), _The Jacobean Poets_ (1894), _Life and Letters of Dr John Donne, Dean of St Paul's_ (1899), _Jeremy Taylor_ (1904, "English Men of Letters"), and _Life of Sir Thomas Browne_ (1905) form a very considerable body of critical work on the English 17th-century writers. He also wrote a life of Thomas Gray, whose works he edited (4 vols., 1884); _A History of Eighteenth Century Literature_ (1889); a _History of Modern English Literature_ (1897), and vols. iii. and iv. of an _Illustrated Record of English Literature_ (1903-1904) undertaken in connexion with Dr Richard Garnett. Mr Gosse was always a sympathetic student of the younger school of French and Belgian writers, some of his papers on the subject being collected as _French Profiles_ (1905). _Critical Kit-Kats_ (1896) contains an admirable criticism of J. M. de Heredia, reminiscences of Lord de Tabley and others. He edited Heinemann's series of "Literature of the World" and the same publisher's "International Library." To the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ he contributed numerous articles, and his services as chief literary adviser in the preparation of the 10th and 11th editions incidentally testify to the high position held by him in the contemporary world of letters. In 1905 he was entertained in Paris by the leading _litterateurs_ as a representative of English literary culture. In 1907 Mr Gosse published anonymously _Father and Son_, an intimate study of his own early family life. He married Ellen, daughter of Dr G. W. Epps, and had a son and two daughters.

GOSSE, PHILIP HENRY (1810-1888), English naturalist, was born at Worcester on the 6th of April 1810, his father, Thomas Gosse (1765-1844) being a miniature painter. In his youth the family settled at Poole, where Gosse's turn for natural history was noticed and encouraged by his aunt, Mrs Bell, the mother of the zoologist, Thomas Bell (1792-1880). He had, however, little opportunity for developing it until, in 1827, he found himself clerk in a whaler's office at Carbonear, in Newfoundland, where he beguiled the tedium of his life by observations, chiefly with the microscope. After a brief and unsuccessful interlude of farming in Canada, during which he wrote an unpublished work on the entomology of Newfoundland, he travelled in the United States, was received and noticed by men of science, was employed as a teacher for some time in Alabama, and returned to England in 1839. His _Canadian Naturalist_ (1840), written on the voyage home, was followed in 1843 by his _Introduction to Zoology_. His first widely popular book was _The Ocean_ (1844). In 1844 Gosse, who had meanwhile been teaching in London, was sent by the British Museum to collect specimens of natural history in Jamaica. He spent nearly two years on that island, and after his return published his _Birds of Jamaica_ (1847) and his _Naturalist's Sojourn in Jamaica_ (1851). He also wrote about this time several zoological works for the S.P.C.K., and laboured to such an extent as to impair his health. While recovering at Ilfracombe, he was attracted by the forms of marine life so abundant on that shore, and in 1853 published _A Naturalist's Rambles on the Devonshire Coast_, accompanied by a description of the marine aquarium invented by him, by means of which he succeeded in preserving zoophytes and other marine animals of the humbler grades alive and in good condition away from the sea. This arrangement was more fully set forth and illustrated in his _Aquarium_ (1854), succeeded in 1855-1856 by _A Manual of Marine Zoology_, in two volumes, illustrated by nearly 700 wood engravings after the author's drawings. A volume on the marine fauna of Tenby succeeded in 1856. In June of the same year he was elected F.R.S. Gosse, who was a most careful observer, but who lacked the philosophical spirit, was now tempted to essay work of a more ambitious order, publishing in 1857 two books, _Life_ and _Omphalos_, embodying his speculations on the appearance of life on the earth, which he considered to have been instantaneous, at least as regarded its higher forms. His views met with no favour from scientific men, and he returned to the field of observation, which he was better qualified to cultivate. Taking up his residence at St Marychurch, in South Devon, he produced from 1858 to 1860 his standard work on sea-anemones, the _Actinologia Britannica_. _The Romance of Natural History_ and other popular works followed. In 1865 he abandoned authorship, and chiefly devoted himself to the cultivation of orchids. Study of the Rotifera, however, also engaged his attention, and his results were embodied in a monograph by Dr C. T. Hudson (1886). He died at St Marychurch on the 23rd of August 1888.

_His life was written by his son, Edmund Gosse._

GOSSEC, FRANCOIS JOSEPH (1734-1829), French musical composer, son of a small farmer, was born at the village of Vergnies, in Belgian Hainaut, and showing early a taste for music became a choir-boy at Antwerp. He went to Paris in 1751 and was taken up by Rameau. He became conductor of a private band kept by La Popeliniere, a wealthy amateur, and gradually determined to do something to revive the study of instrumental music in France. He had his own first symphony performed in 1754, and as conductor to the Prince de Conde's orchestra he produced several operas and other compositions of his own. He imposed his influence upon French music with remarkable success, founded the Concert des Amateurs in 1770, organized the Ecole de Chant in 1784, was conductor of the band of the Garde Nationale at the Revolution, and was appointed (with Mehul and Cherubini) inspector of the Conservatoire de Musique when this institution was created in 1795. He was an original member of the Institute and a chevalier of the legion of honour. Outside France he was but little known, and his own numerous compositions, sacred and secular, were thrown into the shade by those of men of greater genius; but he has a place in history as the inspirer of others, and as having powerfully stimulated the revival of instrumental music. He died at Passy on the 16th of February 1829.

See the _Lives_ by P. Hedouin (1852) and E. G. J. Gregoir (1878).

GOSSIP (from the O.E. _godsibb_, i.e. God, and _sib_, akin, standing in relation to), originally a god-parent, i.e. one who by taking a sponsor's vows at a baptism stands in a spiritual relationship to the child baptized. The common modern meaning is of light personal or social conversation, or, with an invidious sense, of idle tale-bearing. "Gossip" was early used with the sense of a friend or acquaintance, either of the parent of the child baptized or of the other god-parents, and thus came to be used, with little reference to the position of sponsor, for women friends of the mother present at a birth; the transition of meaning to an idle chatterer or talker for talking's sake is easy. The application to the idle talk of such persons does not appear to be an early one.

GOSSNER, JOHANNES EVANGELISTA (1773-1858), German divine and philanthropist, was born at Hausen near Augsburg on the 14th of December 1773, and educated at the university of Dillingen. Here like Martin Boos and others he came under the spell of the Evangelical movement promoted by Johann Michael Sailer, the professor of pastoral theology. After taking priest's orders, Gossner held livings at Dirlewang (1804-1811) and Munich (1811-1817), but his evangelical tendencies brought about his dismissal and in 1826 he formally left the Roman Catholic for the Protestant communion. As minister of the Bethlehem church in Berlin (1829-1846) he was conspicuous not only for practical and effective preaching, but for the founding of schools, asylums and missionary agencies. He died on the 20th of March 1858.

_Lives_ by Bethmann-Hollweg (Berlin, 1858) and H. Dalton (Berlin, 1878).

GOSSON, STEPHEN (1554-1624), English satirist, was baptized at St George's, Canterbury, on the 17th of April 1554. He entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1572, and on leaving the university in 1576 he went to London. In 1598 Francis Meres in his _Palladis Tamia_ mentions him with Sidney, Spenser, Abraham Fraunce and others among the "best for pastorall," but no pastorals of his are extant. He is said to have been an actor, and by his own confession he wrote plays, for he speaks of _Catilines Conspiracies_ as a "Pig of mine own Sowe." To this play and some others, on account of their moral intention, he extends indulgence in the general condemnation of stage plays contained in his _Schoole of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Caterpillars of the Commonwealth_ (1579). The euphuistic style of this pamphlet and its ostentatious display of learning were in the taste of the time, and do not necessarily imply insincerity. Gosson justified his attack by considerations of the disorder which the love of melodrama and of vulgar comedy was introducing into the social life of London. It was not only by extremists like Gosson that these abuses were recognized. Spenser, in his _Teares of the Muses_ (1591), laments the same evils, although only in general terms. The tract was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, who seems not unnaturally to have resented being connected with a pamphlet which opened with a comprehensive denunciation of poets, for Spenser, writing to Gabriel Harvey (Oct. 16, 1579) of the dedication, says the author "was for hys labor scorned." He dedicated, however, a second tract, _The Ephemerides of Phialo ... and A Short Apologie of the Schoole of Abuse_, to Sidney on Oct. 28th, 1579. Gosson's abuse of poets seems to have had a large share in inducing Sidney to write his _Apologie for Poetrie_, which probably dates from 1581. After the publication of the _Schoole of Abuse_ Gosson retired into the country, where he acted as tutor to the sons of a gentleman (_Plays Confuted_. "To the Reader," 1582). Anthony a Wood places this earlier and assigns the termination of his tutorship indirectly to his animosity against the stage, which apparently wearied his patron of his company. The publication of his polemic provoked many retorts, the most formidable of which was Thomas Lodge's _Defence of Playes_ (1580). The players themselves retaliated by reviving Gosson's own plays. Gosson replied to his various opponents in 1582 by his _Playes Confuted in Five Actions_, dedicated to Sir Francis Walsingham. Meanwhile he had taken orders, was made lecturer of the parish church at Stepney (1585), and was presented by the queen to the rectory of Great Wigborough, Essex, which he exchanged in 1600 for St Botolph's, Bishopsgate. He died on the 13th of February 1624. _Pleasant Quippes for Upstart New-fangled Gentlewomen_ (1595), a coarse satiric poem, is also ascribed to Gosson.

The _Schoole of Abuse and Apologie_ were edited (1868) by Prof. E. Arber in his _English Reprints_. Two poems of Gosson's are included.

GOT, FRANCOIS JULES EDMOND (1822-1901), French actor, was born at Lignerolles on the 1st of October 1822, and entered the Conservatoire in 1841, winning the second prize for comedy that year and the first in 1842. After a year of military service he made his debut at the Comedie Francaise on the 17th of July 1844, as Alexis in _Les Heritiers_ and Mascarelles in _Les Precieuses ridicules_. He was immediately admitted _pensionnaire_, and became _societaire_ in 1850. By special permission of the emperor in 1866 he played at the Odeon in Emile Augier's _Contagion_. His golden jubilee at the Theatre Francais was celebrated in 1894, and he made his final appearance the year after. Got was a fine representative of the grand style of French acting, and was much admired in England as well as in Paris. He wrote the libretto of the opera _Francois Villon_ (1857) and also of _L'Esclave_ (1874). In 1881 he was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honour.

GOTA, a river of Sweden, draining the great Lake Vener. The name, however, is more familiar in its application to the canal which affords communication between Gothenburg and Stockholm. The river flows out of the southern extremity of the lake almost due south to the Cattegat, which it enters by two arms enclosing the island of Hisingen, the eastern forming the harbour and bearing the heavy sea-traffic of the port of Gothenburg. The Gota river is 50 m. in length, and is navigable for large vessels, a series of locks surmounting the famous falls of Trollhattan (q.v.). Passing the abrupt wooded Halleberg and Hunneberg (royal shooting preserves) Lake Vener is reached at Venersborg. Several important ports lie on the north, east and south shores (see VENER). From Sjotorp, midway on the eastern shore, the western Gota canal leads S.E. to Karlsborg. Its course necessitates over twenty locks to raise it from the Vener level (144 ft.) to its extreme height of 300 ft., and lower it over the subsequent fall through the small lakes Viken and Botten to Lake Vetter (q.v.; 289 ft.), which the route crosses to Motala. The eastern canal continues eastward from this point, and a descent is followed through five locks to Lake Boren, after which the canal, carried still at a considerable elevation, overlooks a rich and beautiful plain. The picturesque Lake Roxen with its ruined castle of Stjernarp is next traversed. At Norsholm a branch canal connects Lake Glan to the north, giving access to the important manufacturing centre of Norrkoping. Passing Lake Asplangen, the canal follows a cut through steep rocks, and then resumes an elevated course to the old town of Soderkoping, after which the Baltic is reached at Mem. Vessels plying to Stockholm run N.E. among the coastal island-fringe (_skargard_), and then follow the Sodertelge canal into Lake Malar. The whole distance from Gothenburg to Stockholm is about 360 m., and the voyage takes about 2-1/2 days. The length of artificial work on the Gota canal proper is 54 m., and there are 58 locks. The scenery is not such as will bear adverse weather conditions; that of the western canal is without any interest save in the remarkable engineering work. The idea of a canal dates from 1516, but the construction was organized by Baron von Platten and engineered by Thomas Telford in 1810-1832. The falls of Trollhattan had already been locked successfully in 1800.

GOTARZES, or GOTERZES, king of Parthia (c. A.D. 42-51). In an inscription at the foot of the rock of Behistun[1] he is called [Greek: Gotarzes Geopothros], i.e. "son of Gew," and seems to be designated as "satrap of satrap." This inscription therefore probably dates from the reign of Artabanus II. (A.D. 10-40), to whose family Gotarzes must have belonged. From a very barbarous coin of Gotarzes with the inscription [Greek: Basileos basileon Arsanoz uos kekaloumenos Artabavou Gotepzes] (Wroth, _Catalogue of the Coins of Parthia_, p. 165; _Numism_. _Chron._, 1900, p. 95; the earlier readings of this inscription are wrong), which must be translated "king of kings Arsakes, named son of Artabanos, Gotarzes," it appears that he was adopted by Artabanus. When the troublesome reign of Artabanus II. ended in A.D. 39 or 40, he was succeeded by Vardanes, probably his son; but against him in 41 rose Gotarzes (the dates are fixed by the coins). He soon made himself detested by his cruelty--among many other murders he even slew his brother Artabanus and his whole family (Tac. _Ann._ xi. 8)--and Vardanes regained the throne in 42; Gotarzes fled to Hyrcania and gathered an army from the Dahan nomads. The war between the two kings was at last ended by a treaty, as both were afraid of the conspiracies of their nobles. Gotarzes returned to Hyrcania. But when Vardanes was assassinated in 45, Gotarzes was acknowledged in the whole empire (Tac. _Ann._ xi. 9 ff.; Joseph. _Antiq._ xx. 3, 4, where Gotarzes is called Kotardes). He now takes on his coins the usual Parthian titles, "king of kings Arsaces the benefactor, the just, the illustrious (_Epiphanes_), the friend of the Greeks (_Philhellen_)," without mentioning his proper name. The discontent excited by his cruelty and luxury induced the hostile party to apply to the emperor Claudius and fetch from Rome an Arsacid prince Meherdates (i.e. Mithradates), who lived there as hostage. He crossed the Euphrates in 49, but was beaten and taken prisoner by Gotarzes, who cut off his ears (Tac. _Ann._ xii. 10 ff.). Soon after Gotarzes died, according to Tacitus, of an illness; Josephus says that he was murdered. His last coin is dated from June 51.

An earlier "Arsakes with the name Gotarzes," mentioned on some astronomical tablets from Babylon (Strassmaier in _Zeitschr. fur Assyriologie_, vi. 216; Mahler in _Wiener Zeitschr. fur Kunde des Morgenlands_, xv. 63 ff.), appears to have reigned for some time in Babylonia about 87 B.C. (Ed. M.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Rawlinson, _Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc._ ix. 114; Flandin and Coste, _La Perse ancienne_, i. tab. 19; Dittenberger, _Orientis Graeci inscr._ 431.

GOTHA, a town of Germany, alternately with Coburg the residence of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in a pleasant situation on the Leine canal, 6 m. N. of the slope of the Thuringian forest, 17 m. W. from Erfurt, on the railway to Bebra-Cassel. Pop. (1905) 36,906. It consists of an old inner town and encircling suburbs, and is dominated by the castle of Friedenstein, lying on the Schlossberg at an elevation of 1100 ft. With the exception of those in the older portion of the town, the streets are handsome and spacious, and the beautiful gardens and promenades between the suburbs and the castle add greatly to the town's attractiveness. To the south of the castle there is an extensive and finely adorned park. To the north-west of the town the Galberg--on which there is a public pleasure garden--and to the south-west the Seeberg rise to a height of over 1300 ft. and afford extensive views. The castle of Friedenstein, begun by Ernest the Pious, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in 1643 and completed in 1654, occupies the site of the old fortress of Grimmenstein. It is a huge square building flanked with two wings, having towers rising to the height of about 140 ft. It contains the ducal cabinet of coins and the ducal library of nearly 200,000 volumes, among which are several rare editions and about 6900 manuscripts. The picture gallery, the cabinet of engravings, the natural history museum, the Chinese museum, and the cabinet of art, which includes a collection of Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman and German antiquities, are now included in the new museum, completed in 1878, which stands on a terrace to the south of the castle. The principal other public buildings are the church of St Margaret with a beautiful portal and a lofty tower, founded in the 12th century, twice burnt down, and rebuilt in its present form in 1652; the church of the Augustinian convent, with an altar-piece by the painter Simon Jacobs; the theatre; the fire insurance bank and the life insurance bank; the ducal palace, in the Italian villa style, with a winter garden and picture gallery; the buildings of the ducal legislature; the hospital; the old town-hall, dating from the 11th century; the old residence of the painter Lucas Cranach, now used as a girls' school; the ducal stable; and the Friedrichsthal palace, now used as public offices. The educational establishments include a gymnasium (founded in 1524, one of the most famous in Germany), two training schools for teachers, conservatoires of music and several scientific institutions. Gotha is remarkable for its insurance societies and for the support it has given to cremation. The crematorium was long regarded as a model for such establishments.