GADSHILL 238 GAETA den, by which a tract of 45,000 square miles, now included in the S. part of" Arizona and New Mexico, was purchased by the United States from Mexico for the sum of $10,000,000. GADSHILL, a hill 3 miles N. W. of the Rochester, England, on the road to Gravesend. It is commemorated in Shakespeare's play, "Henry IV.," as the place where Falstaff had his encounter with the robbers and an inn at the place is called Falstaff' s Inn. It is interesting in modern times for Gadshill Place, oppo- site the hill, which was long the residence of Charles Dickens and was the home in which he died. GAELIC, or ERSE, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The language spoken by the Highlanders of Scotland is termed by them the Gaelic ; but the name frequently given to it by the Lowlanders is Erse, or Ersh, evidently a corruption of Irish. It is a dialect of that great branch of the Celtic languages termed the Gwyddelian or Gaelic, and to which belong also the Irish and Manx, or that spoken in the Isle of Man. According to Dr. Prichard, the Celts are of Eastern origin, belonging to the great Indo-Euro- pean family. They arrived before the Teutons from the regions on the Oxus, and from Media, and penetrated through the Allophylic races along the S. shores of the Baltic Sea, at a time of which we have no historic data. At the time of the Roman invasion, Celtic was the lan- guage generally spoken in western Eu- rope. The dialects of the Celtic still spoken, besides the three already men- tioned, are the Welsh, and the language of Brittany; while the Cornish, another dialect, though not now spoken, is pre- served in books. The three dialects, the Irish, the Scottish-Gaelic, and the Manx, approach each other so nearly as to constitute but one language, the peculiarities which distinguish them from each other not being sufficiently bi-oad or vital to constitute either of them a distinct language. There are also marked differences in the language as spoken in different parts of the High- lands; and a native of Sutherland has some difficulty in understanding one. The Gaelic which, from a variety of cases has retained, in a considerable de- gree, its original purity, is copious, bold, and expressive. Having affixes and pre- fixes, it greatly resembles the Hebrew, particularly in the inflections of its nouns and verbs. In Ireland, the Gaelic spoken in the different parts varies. GAELIC LEAGUE. An organization having for its object the preservation, cultivation and extension of the Irish language and Irish literature, and the reorganization of life in Ireland on the basis of the old Irish civilization. The Norman French who entered Ireland from England from 1169 onward speedily fell into Irish customs, learned to speak Irish in place of French, and became in the old phrase more Irish than the Irish. Two centuries later, however, when French among the educated classes in England began to give way to English, the English Government enacted laws, such as the Statute of Kilkenny of 1367, prohibiting the use of the Irish language, dress and family names in Ireland. At that time, however, English power in Ire- land was confined to three or four coun- ties in Leinster and even this restricted area was continually dwindling. Follow- ing the Reformation, however, and the Tudor wars, immense effort was put forth by the English Government to conquer Ireland and destroy its language and lit- erature, and this effort found its culmi- nation in the National Schools of 1833, in which English was introduced as the medium of instruction. Various efforts were made to preserve the national language, but without much avail till, in 1893, the Gaelic League was organized. Branches of the league spread quickly through not only Ireland, but other coun- tries, and side by side with the cultiva- tion of the language there was a revival of Irish art, industry, and sport. Chairs in Irish were established at Harvard, Columbia, and the Catholic University, as they had long been established in nu- merous continental universities. The movement spread to Scotland and the Isle of Man where the language still persisted from the period of Irish coloni- zation in the early centuries of the Christian era. At the present time the language shows great vigor in Ireland and the output of books in Irish is almost equal to that in English. GAETA (ga-a'ta), a fortified seaport town of southern Italy, province of Ca- serta, at the end of a peninsula, on the W. shore of the kingdom, forming the N. W. boundary of the gulf to which it gives its name; 4 miles S. S. W. of Mola di Gaeta, 41 N. W. of Naples, and 72 S. E. of Rome. The town is regarded as one of the keys of southern Italy. Its port, though not the largest, is one of the safest and best in Italy. It is the center of a considerable trade. The place is very ancient. Cicero was put to death, by order of Antony, in its immediate vicinity. After the fall of the Western empire it had a republican form of gov- ernment. In 1435 it was taken by Al- fonso V. of Aragon; and since then be-
