Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/317

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Gifford
311
Gigli

plain his sourness. His health began to break in 1822, but, at Murray's request, he continued to edit the review until the publication of the sixtieth number. He announces his resignation to Canning on 8 Sept. 1824. His illness had caused the review to be two numbers in arrear. John Taylor Coleridge [q. v.] took his place until Lockhart succeeded in 1825. Gifford died 31 Dec. 1826, in his house at 6 St. James's Street, and was buried in Westminster Abbey 18 Jan. 1827. He had received at first 200l. a year, afterwards raised to 900l., for editing the ‘Quarterly Review.’ He also held a commissionership of the lottery at 100l. a year, and was paymaster of the gentlemen-pensioners at 1,000l. a year. On 5 March 1826 he acknowledged ‘a splendid and costly proof of affection,’ apparently of a pecuniary nature, presented to him by Canning, in which Lord Liverpool and John Hookham Frere had taken part. Gifford seems to have been of penurious habits. He left the bulk of his savings, amounting to 25,000l., to the Rev. Mr. Cookesley, son of his first patron, the lease of his house to the widow of his friend Hoppner, the painter to whom the ‘Baviad’ was dedicated, other sums to the poor of Ashburton, and 2,000l. to found two exhibitions at Exeter College. He also left 3,000l. to the relatives of his beloved servant-maid, Ann Davies, who died 6 Feb. 1815, and upon whom he wrote an elegy of which the second line runs, ‘I would I were where Anna lies.’ He was amiable in private life, kind to children, and fond of dogs.

His portrait by Hoppner prefixed to his ‘Juvenal’ is said to be very like him. It is now in the possession of Mr. John Murray. Gifford's works include valuable editions of the old dramatists: Massinger, 1805, 1813; Ben Jonson, 1816; Ford, 1827; his notes upon Shirley were used in Dyce's edition, 1833; and some manuscript notes on Shakespeare are in a copy in the British Museum. The editions have always had a very high reputation for thoroughness and accuracy, and although as a literary critic Gifford was crabbed and strangely wanting in taste, the fault was redeemed by strong common sense.

A second edition of his ‘Juvenal’ appeared in 1817, and a translation of ‘Persius’ in 1821. A reply to strictures of the ‘Critical Review’ upon the ‘Juvenal’ appeared in 1803, and a collection of ‘beauties’ from Gifford's prose and verse, edited by A. Howard, in 1834.

[Nichols's Illustrations, vi. 1–39, containing his autobiography (often reprinted) and anecdotes first published in the Literary Gazette; Annual Obituary (1828), pp. 159–200; Gent. Mag. (1827), i. 105–12 (with portrait); Canning's Official Correspondence, by E. J. Stapleton (1887), i. 129, 224, ii. 183, 227, 233; Jerdan's Autobiography, ii. 270, iv. 108–19; John Taylor's Records of my Life, ii. 279, 372–8; Southey's Life and Correspondence (1849) and Selections from Letters (1856); Boase's Register of Exeter College, pp. 126, 146; Moore's Life of Byron; Lockhart's Life of Scott; Hazlitt's Spirit of the Age, pp. 277–303 (a bitter attack); Moore's Diary (1856), ii. 230, 248, viii. 70, 215.]

L. S.


GIGLI, GIOVANNI (d. 1498), bishop of Worcester, was a native of Lucca. He was a skilled ecclesiastical lawyer, entered the papal service, and was sent to England as papal collector by Pope Sixtus IV. He seems to have made himself useful to Edward IV, and was appointed a canon of Wells in 1478. Still he did not cease to serve the pope, and in the synod of London, 1480, he set forth that the pope had sold his jewels and melted his plate to provide money for the defence of Rhodes; but despite his eloquence the English clergy refused to tax themselves (Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 613, where Gigli appears as Joannes de Sighs). Gigli was a humanist of considerable attainments, and in 1486 wrote an epithalamium in Latin hexameters on the marriage of Henry VII with Elizabeth of York. In 1489 Gigli was employed by Pope Innocent VIII as his commissioner for the sale of indulgences in England. Soon afterwards Henry VII, who had reasons of his own for establishing intimate relations with the papacy, sent Gigli to Rome as his diplomatic agent. In 1492 Burchard (Diarium, ed. Thuasne, i. 490) calls him ‘orator antiquus regis Angliæ.’ Gigli's services were rewarded in 1497 by the bishopric of Worcester, to which he was appointed by a provision of Pope Alexander VI, dated 30 Aug. He was consecrated in Rome, appointed Thomas Wodyngton as his vicar-general, and was enthroned by proxy. He had no time to visit his see, for he died in Rome on 25 Aug. 1498, and was buried in the English College there, where a tomb was erected to him by his nephew, Silvestro. The inscription is given by Thomas, ‘Survey of Worcester Cathedral,’ p. 202.

Gigli's ‘Epithalamium,’ which is a good example of the complimentary verses of the period, is in the British Museum, Harleian MS. 336.

[To the sources quoted in the text may be added Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 538, and the manuscript Register of Bishop Gigli in the Worcester Diocesan Registry.]

M. C.


GIGLI, SILVESTRO (1463–1521), bishop of Worcester, was a native of Lucca, and succeeded his uncle Giovanni [q. v.] in the see of Worcester. It would seem that