finally came into the possession of Prince William V. of Orange Nassau in 1777. The castle was formerly of importance.
Gelderland is intersected by the main railway lines, which are largely supplemented by steam-tram railways. Steam-tramways connect Arnhem and Zutphen, Wageningen, Nijmwegen, Velp, Doetinchem (by way of Dieren and Doesburg), whence there are various lines to Emmerich and Gendringen on the Prussian borders. Groenlo and Lichtenvorde, Borkulo and Deventer are also connected.
GELDERN, a town of Germany, in Rhenish Prussia, on the
Niers, 28 m. N. W. of Düsseldorf, at the junction of railways to
Wesel and Cologne. Pop. (1905) 6551. It has an Evangelical
and two Roman Catholic churches and a town hall with a fine
council chamber. Its industries include the manufacture of
buttons, shoes, cigars and soap. The town dates from about
1100 and was early an important fortified place; until 1371 it
was the residence of the counts and dukes of Gelderland. Having
passed to Spain, its fortifications were strengthened by Philip
II., but they were razed by Frederick the Great, the town having
been in the possession of Prussia since 1703.
See Nettesheim, Geschichte der Stadt und des Amtes Geldern (Crefeld, 1863); Henrichs, Beiträge zur innern Geschichte der Stadt Geldern (Geldern, 1893); and Real, Chronik der Stadt und Umgegend von Geldern (Geldern, 1897).
GELL, SIR WILLIAM (1777–1836), English classical archaeologist,
was born at Hopton in Derbyshire. He was educated at
Jesus College, Cambridge, and subsequently elected a fellow of
Emmanuel College (B.A. 1798, M.A. 1804). About 1800
he was sent on a diplomatic mission to the Ionian islands, and on his
return in 1803 he was knighted. He went with Princess (afterwards
Queen) Caroline to Italy in 1814 as one of her chamberlains,
and gave evidence in her favour at the trial in 1820 (see
G. P. Clerici, A Queen of Indiscretions, Eng. trans., London,
1907). He died at Naples on the 4th of February 1836. His
numerous drawings of classical ruins and localities, executed
with great detail and exactness, are preserved in the British
Museum. Gell was a thorough dilettante, fond of society and
possessed of little real scholarship. None the less his topographical
works became recognized text-books at a time when
Greece and even Italy were but superficially known to English
travellers. He was a fellow of the Royal Society and the Society
of Antiquaries, and a member of the Institute of France and the
Berlin Academy.
His best-known work is Pompeiana; the Topography, Edifices and Ornaments of Pompeii (1817–1832), in the first part of which he was assisted by J. P. Gandy. It was followed in 1834 by the Topography of Rome and its Vicinity (new ed. by E. H. Bunbury, 1896). He wrote also Topography of Troy and its Vicinity (1804); Geography and Antiquities of Ithaca (1807); Itinerary of Greece, with a Commentary on Pausanias and Strabo (1810, enlarged ed. 1827); Itinerary of the Morea (1816; republished as Narrative of a Journey in the Morea, 1823). All these works have been superseded by later publications.
GELLERT, CHRISTIAN FÜRCHTEGOTT (1715–1769), German
poet, was born at Hainichen in the Saxon Erzgebirge on the 4th
of July 1715. After attending the famous school of St Afra in
Meissen, he entered Leipzig University in 1734 as a student of
theology, and on completing his studies in 1739 was for two years
a private tutor. Returning to Leipzig in 1741 he contributed
to the Bremer Beiträge, a periodical founded by former disciples
of Johann Christoph Gottsched, who had revolted from the
pedantry of his school. Owing to shyness and weak health
Gellert gave up all idea of entering the ministry, and, establishing
himself in 1745 as privatdocent in philosophy at the university
of Leipzig, lectured on poetry, rhetoric and literary style with
much success. In 1751 he was appointed extraordinary professor
of philosophy, a post which he held until his death at Leipzig
on the 13th of December 1769.
The esteem and veneration in which Gellert was held by the students, and indeed by persons in all classes of society, was unbounded, and yet due perhaps less to his unrivalled popularity as a lecturer and writer than to his personal character. He was the noblest and most amiable of men, generous, tender-hearted and of unaffected piety and humility. He wrote in order to raise the religious and moral character of the people, and to this end employed language which, though at times prolix, was always correct and clear. He thus became one of the most popular German authors, and some of his poems enjoyed a celebrity out of proportion to their literary value. This is more particularly true of his Fabeln und Erzählungen (1746–1748) and of his Geistliche Oden und Lieder (1757). The fables, for which he took La Fontaine as his model, are simple and didactic. The “spiritual songs,” though in force and dignity they cannot compare with the older church hymns, were received by Catholics and Protestants with equal favour. Some of them were set to music by Beethoven. Gellert wrote a few comedies: Die Betschwester (1745), Die kranke Frau (1748), Das Los in der Lotterie (1748), and Die zärtlichen Schwestern (1748), the last of which was much admired. His novel Die schwedische Gräfin von G. (1746), a weak imitation of Richardson’s Pamela, is remarkable as being the first German attempt at a psychological novel. Gellert’s Briefe (letters) were regarded at the time as models of good style.
See Gellert’s Sämtliche Schriften (first edition, 10 vols., Leipzig, 1769–1774; last edition, Berlin, 1867). Sämtliche Fabeln und Erzählungen have been often published separately, the latest edition in 1896. A selection of Gellert’s poetry (with an excellent introduction) will be found in F. Muncker, Die Bremer Beiträge (Stuttgart, 1899). A translation by J. A. Murke, Gellert’s Fables and other Poems (London, 1851). For a further account of Gellert’s life and work see lives by J. A. Cramer (Leipzig, 1774), H. Döring (Greiz, 1833), and H. O. Nietschmann (2nd ed., Halle, 1901); also Gellerts Tagebuch aus dem Jahre 1761 (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1863) and Gellerts Briefwechsel mit Demoiselle Lucius (Leipzig, 1823).
GELLERT, or Killhart, in Welsh traditional history, the dog
of Llewellyn, prince of Wales. The dog, a greyhound, was
left to guard the cradle in which the infant heir slept. A wolf
enters, and is about to attack the child, when Gellert flies at him.
In the struggle the cradle is upset and the infant falls underneath.
Gellert kills the wolf, but when Prince Llewellyn arrives and
sees the empty cradle and blood all around, he does not for the
moment notice the wolf, but thinks Gellert has killed the baby.
He at once stabs him, but almost instantly finds his son safe
under the cradle and realizes the dog’s bravery. Gellert is
supposed to have been buried near the village of Beddgelert
(“grave of Gellert”), Snowdon, where his tomb is still pointed
out to visitors. The date of the incident is traditionally given
as 1205. The incident has given rise to a Welsh proverb, “I
repent as much as the man who slew his greyhound.” The whole
story is, however, only the Welsh version of a tale long before
current in Europe, which is traced to the Indian Panchatantra
and perhaps as far back as 200 B.C.
See W. A. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions (1887); D. E. Jenkins, Beddgelert, its Facts, Fairies and Folklore (Portmadoc, 1899).
GELLIUS, AULUS (c. A.D. 130–180), Latin author and grammarian,
probably born at Rome. He studied grammar and
rhetoric at Rome and philosophy at Athens, after which he
returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. His teachers
and friends included many distinguished men—Sulpicius
Apollinaris, Herodes Atticus and Fronto. His only work, the
Noctes Atticae, takes its name from having been begun during
the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards
continued it at Rome. It is compiled out of an Adversaria,
or commonplace book, in which he had jotted down everything
of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in
books, and it comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy,
history and almost every other branch of knowledge. The work,
which is utterly devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided
into twenty books. All these have come down to us except
the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The
Noctes Atticae is valuable for the insight it affords into the nature
of the society and pursuits of those times, and for the numerous
excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors.
Editio princeps (Rome, 1469); the best editions are those of Gronovius (1706) and M. Hertz (1883–1885; editio minor, 1886, revised by C. Hosius, 1903, with bibliography). There is a translation in English by W. Beloe (1795), and in French by various hands (1896). See Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol. i. (1906), 210.
