the fleet; on the 30th of July he was off the north coast of Newfoundland; on the 3rd of August he arrived off the present St John’s, and selected this site as the centre of his operations; on the 5th of August he began the plantation of the first English colony in North America. Proceeding southwards with three vessels, exploring and prospecting, he lost the largest near Cape Breton (29th of August); immediately after (31st of August) he started to return to England with the “Golden Hind” and the “Squirrel,” of forty and ten tons respectively. Obstinately refusing to leave the “frigate” and sail in his “great ship,” he shared the former’s fate in a tempest off the Azores. “Monday the 9th of September,” reports Hayes, the captain of the “Hind,” “the frigate was near cast away,. . . .yet at that time recovered; and, giving forth signs of joy, the general, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out unto us in the ‘Hind,’ ‘We are as near to heaven by sea as by land.’. . . . The same Monday night, about twelve, the frigate being ahead of us in the ‘Golden Hind,’ suddenly her lights were out, ... in that moment the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.”
See Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (1599), vol. iii. pp. 135-181; Gilbert’s Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia, published by George Gascoigne in 1576, with additions, probably without Gilbert’s authority; Hooker’s Supplement to Holinshed’s Irish Chronicle; Roger Williams, The Actions of the Low Countries (1618); State Papers, Domestic (1577–1583); Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses; North British Review, No. 45; Fox Bourne’s English Seamen under the Tudors; Carlos Slafter, Sir H. Gylberte and his Enterprise (Boston, 1903), with all important documents. Gilbert’s interesting writings on the need of a university for London, anticipating in many ways not only the modern London University but also the British Museum library and its compulsory sustenance through the provisions of the Copyright Act, have been printed by Furnivall (Queen Elizabeth’s Achademy) in the Early English Text Society Publications, extra series, No. viii.
GILBERT, JOHN (1810–1889), American actor, whose real
name was Gibbs, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the
27th of February 1810, and made his first appearance there
as Jaffier in Venice Preserved. He soon found that his true vein
was in comedy, particularly in old-men parts. When in London
in 1847 he was well received both by press and public, and played
with Macready. He was the leading actor at Wallack’s from
1861–1888. He died on the 17th of June 1889.
See William Winter’s Life of John Gilbert (New York, 1890).
GILBERT, SIR JOHN (1817–1897), English painter and
illustrator, one of the eight children of George Felix Gilbert,
a member of a Derbyshire family, was born at Blackheath on
the 21st of July 1817. He went to school there, and even in
childhood displayed an extraordinary fondness for drawing and
painting. Nevertheless, his father’s lack of means compelled
him to accept employment for the boy in the office of Messrs
Dickson & Bell, estate agents, in Charlotte Row, London.
Yielding, however, to his natural bent, his parents agreed that
he should take up art in his own way, which included but little
advice from others, his only teacher being Haydon’s pupil, George
Lance, the fruit painter. This artist gave him brief instructions
in the use of colour. In 1836 Gilbert appeared in public for
the first time. This was at the gallery of the Society of British
Artists, where he sent drawings, the subjects of which were
characteristic, being “The Arrest of Lord Hastings,” from
Shakespeare, and “Abbot Boniface,” from The Monastery of
Scott. “Inez de Castro” was in the same gallery in the next
year; it was the first of a long series of works in the same
medium, representing similar themes, and was accompanied,
from 1837, by a still greater number of works in oil which were
exhibited at the British Institution. These included “Don
Quixote giving advice to Sancho Panza,” 1841; “Brunette
and Phillis,” from The Spectator, 1844; “The King’s Artillery
at Marston Moor,” 1860; and “Don Quixote comes back for
the last time to his Home and Family,” 1867. In that year the
Institution was finally closed. Gilbert exhibited at the Royal
Academy from 1838, beginning with the “Portrait of a Gentleman,”
and continuing, except between 1851 and 1867, till his
death to exhibit there many of his best and more ambitious
works. These included such capital instances as “Holbein
painting the Portrait of Anne Boleyn,” “Don Quixote’s first
Interview with the Duke and Duchess,” 1842, “Charlemagne
visiting the Schools,” 1846. “Touchstone and the Shepherd,”
and “Rembrandt,” a very fine piece, were both there in 1867;
and in 1873 “Naseby,” one of his finest and most picturesque
designs, was also at the Royal Academy. Gilbert was elected
A.R.A. 29th January 1872, and R.A. 29th June 1876. Besides
these mostly large and powerful works, the artist’s true arena
of display was undoubtedly the gallery of the Old Water Colour
Society, to which from 1852, when he was elected an Associate
exhibitor, till he died forty-five years later, he contributed not
fewer than 270 drawings, most of them admirable because of the
largeness of their style, massive coloration, broad chiaroscuro,
and the surpassing vigour of their designs. These qualities
induced the leading critics to claim for him opportunities for
painting mural pictures of great historic themes as decorations of
national buildings. “The Trumpeter,” “The Standard-Bearer,”
“Richard II. resigning his Crown” (now at Liverpool), “The
Drug Bazaar at Constantinople,” “The Merchant of Venice”
and “The Turkish Water-Carrier” are but examples of that
wealth of art which added to the attractions of the gallery in
Pall Mall. There Gilbert was elected a full Member in 1855,
and president of the Society in 1871, shortly after which he was
knighted. As an illustrator of books, magazines and periodicals
of every kind he was most prolific. To the success of the
Illustrated London News his designs lent powerful aid, and he
was eminently serviceable in illustrating the Shakespeare of Mr
Howard Staunton. He died on the 6th of October 1897. (F. G. S.)
GILBERT, SIR JOSEPH HENRY (1817–1901); English
chemist, was born at Hull on the 1st of August 1817. He
studied chemistry first at Glasgow under Thomas Thomson;
then at University College, London, in the laboratory of A. T.
Thomson (1778–1849), the professor of medical jurisprudence,
also attending Thomas Graham’s lectures; and finally at Giessen
under Liebig. On his return to England from Germany he
acted for a year or so as assistant to his old master A. T. Thomson
at University College, and in 1843, after spending a short time in
the study of calico dyeing and printing near Manchester, accepted
the directorship of the chemical laboratory at the famous
experimental station established by Sir J. B. Lawes at
Rothamsted, near St Albans, for the systematic and scientific
study of agriculture. This position he held for fifty-eight years,
until his death on the 23rd of December 1901. The work which
he carried out during that long period in collaboration with
Lawes was of a most comprehensive character, involving the
application of many branches of science, such as chemistry,
meteorology, botany, animal and vegetable physiology, and
geology; and its influence in improving the methods of practical
agriculture extended all over the civilized world. Gilbert was
chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1860, and in 1867 was
awarded a royal medal jointly with Lawes. In 1880 he presided
over the Chemical Section of the British Association at its
meeting at Swansea, and in 1882 he was president of the London
Chemical Society, of which he had been a member almost from
its foundation in 1841. For six years from 1884 he filled the
Sibthorpian chair of rural economy at Oxford, and he was also
an honorary professor at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester.
He was knighted in 1893, the year in which the jubilee
of the Rothamsted experiments was celebrated.
GILBERT, MARIE DOLORES ELIZA ROSANNA [“Lola Montez”] (1818–1861), dancer and adventuress, the daughter of a British army officer, was born at Limerick, Ireland, in 1818. Her father dying in India when she was seven years old, and her mother marrying again, the child was sent to Europe to be educated, subsequently joining her mother at Bath. In 1837 she made a runaway match with a Captain James of the Indian army, and accompanied him to India. In 1842 she returned to England, and shortly afterwards her husband obtained a decree nisi for divorce. She then studied dancing, making an unsuccessful first appearance at Her Majesty’s theatre, London, in 1843, billed as “Lola Montez, Spanish dancer.” Subsequently
