Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/608

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
GAU
572
GAU

is in the church of S. Francesco a Ripa. Gaulli's facility of composition, rapidity of hand, and clear, bright style, rendered his mural paintings very attractive to his contemporaries; but they belong to an essentially superficial style of art. He is one of the painters called by his countrymen Macchinisti. His faults are less obtrusive in his easel pictures, and his manner more varied. He had the reputation of being the best portrait painter of his day in Rome. Among his sitters are said to have been seven pontiffs—from Alexander VII. to Clement XI. He painted children with marked grace and vivacity. Gaulli died at Rome in 1709.—J. T—e.

GAULMIN, Gilbert, born at Moulins, 1585; died at Paris, 1665. He was intendant of the Nivernois, maitre des requetes, and conseiller d'etat. His public duties left him little time for composition, but his contemporaries gave him credit for knowing all the tongues of Babel, and Greek in particular. He wrote a tragedy on the subject of Iphigenia, in which Æschylus was his model. It is still in manuscript in the imperial library. Gaulmin's name has a better chance of immortality than Greek verses give. He wished to marry; the curé of the parish, for some reason which we do not know, refused to administer the sacrament. Gaulmin on this solemnly stated in the presence of his curé that he took the woman for his wedded wife, and he thenceforward lived with her in that relation. The incident gave rise to some litigation, and such marriages—by no means uncommon—were called à la Gaulmin. Gaulmin published the first edition of Eustathius' romance; he also edited Psellus de demonibus.—J. A., D.

GAULTIER, Aloisius Edouard Camille, l'Abbé, born about 1745 at Asti, Piedmont; died at Paris in 1818. Educated at Rome, where he took priest's orders. He came to France in 1780, and devoted himself to the subject of education. The Revolution drove him from France; he went to London, where he established a school for the children of refugees. When circumstances permitted he returned to France, and occupied himself chiefly in the preparation of school-books and works explaining his plans of education. He seems in some respect to have anticipated Bell's system of mutual instruction by the children themselves.—J. A., D.

GAULTIER, Charles, a French advocate, was born at Paris in 1590, and made his first speech at the bar in 1613. He was soon recognized as one of the most powerful orators of the day. By his stormy and passionate declamation, and by his vehement invective, he became even more feared than admired, and Boileau himself satirized him only after his death. In 1663, Gaultier injudiciously published "by desire" a volume containing the most celebrated of his orations; but the vigour and emphasis of his delivery could not be reproduced in print, and the book seemed cold and dull. Other selections from his pleadings appeared after his death, which took place at Paris, 16th September, 1666.—W. J. P.

GAUNT, John of. See Lancaster.

GAURICO, Luca, an Italian ecclesiastic; born at Gifoni, kingdom of Naples, in 1476, and died at Rome in 1558. He acquired reputation as an astronomer and astrologer, pretending to be able to predict future events, and was patronized by several popes, among whom were Julius II. and Leo. X. He was made bishop of Civita-Ducale in 1545. There is a collection of his works under the title of "Opera omnia qua; quidem exstant Lucæ Gaurici, Gephonensis," &c., Basle, 1575.—A. S., O.

GAUSS, Johann Friedrich Karl, one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of the nineteenth century, was the son of a bricklayer, and was born at Brunswick on the 30th of April, 1777. His early talent having attracted the attention of Professor Bartel, was by him brought under the notice of his sovereign Karl Wilhelm Friedrich, duke of Brunswick, who caused the young Gauss to be educated in the collegium Carolinum from 1792 till 1795, and from the latter date till 1798 in the university of Göttingen. The favourite study of Gauss during the earlier part of this period was the theory of numbers, in which he made rapid progress, and in the absence of books, discovered for himself many of its most important principles. When he, at length, had access to the works of former writers on the same subject, and especially of Euler and Lagrange, he found that in most of his supposed discoveries he had been anticipated; but not discouraged by that, he pursued his labours, and succeeded in greatly extending and improving that branch of mathematics, especially with reference to the roots of unity, and the geometrical division of the circle. These results were embodied in a treatise called "Disquisitiones Arithmeticæ," published at Leipsic, 1801, a work at first undervalued and misunderstood, but since regarded as a marvel of genius. Having been induced by the discovery of the first known of the small planets, Ceres, in 1800, to apply his mind to the subject of the determination of the elements of the motion of a planet from three observed geocentric longitudes, and three observed geocentric latitudes, or from four longitudes and two latitudes, as the case might be, Gauss soon published a complete solution of that problem, which he applied successively to the several "asteroids," as they were discovered. Having extended his investigations to the subject of planetary motion in general, he published in 1809 his "Theoria motuum corporum cœlestium." In that work was published the now well-known "method of least squares," for determining the most probable result of a series of observations, when the data are more numerous than the quantities to be found, a method discovered independently by Gauss and by Legendre. In 1807 Gauss became professor of mathematics in the university of Göttingen, director of the observatory, and member of the Academy of Sciences of that place. He was subsequently elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin, of the French Institute, of the Royal Society of London, and of various other learned bodies. He continued from time to time to publish most remarkable and original papers on the theory of numbers, the theory of equations, the secular variations of the orbits of the planets, and other mathematical subjects. The greatest and most celebrated of the scientific labours of Gauss were those connected with terrestrial magnetism. They commenced by an experimental determination, the first ever made, of the absolute intensity of the earth's magnetic force. In this and other experimental researches. Gauss was assisted by Weber. It was followed by the establishment of an association of observers in correspondence with Gauss, by whom a series of simultaneous observations have ever since been carried on at magnetic observatories scattered all over the world. Gauss next, with skill and industry which have never been surpassed, reduced the whole subject of terrestrial magnetism to a complete and exact mathematical theory. Amongst other conclusions he showed that the earth can have but two magnetic poles, one in the northern and the other in the southern hemisphere, and not four, as Halley had erroneously supposed; and that the direction and intensity of the earth's magnetic force at a given point on its surface, are functions of the position of that point, and of twenty-four coefficients to be found by experiment; and he calculated the approximate values of these coefficients at ninety-one stations at which observations had been made. The results of the magnetic researches of Gauss and the body of fellow-labourers whom he organized from 1836 until 1841 are recorded in six volumes, entitled "Resultäte, aus den Beobachtungen des magnetisches Vereins." The third volume, entitled "Allgemeine Theorie des Erdmagnetismus," which was published in 1838, contains Gauss's mathematical theory of terrestrial magnetism. Gauss died at Göttingen on the 23d of February, 1855, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His body, after lying in state for three days in the rotunda of the university, was buried on the 26th of that month with every mark of well-deserved respect. He had been twice married, and left by the first marriage a son, and by the second two sons and a daughter.—W. J. M. R.

GAUSSEN, Etienne, a French protestant theologian, born at Nimes in the first half of the seventeenth century; died at Saumur in 1675. In 1651 he obtained the chair of philosophy, and in 1655 that of theology, in the protestant academy at Saumur. His works were held in great estimation in Holland and Germany, particularly his "De Ratione Studii Theologici," &c., 1671, of which many editions have appeared in these two countries. Bayle speaks of this work as the best possible guide to the theology of the age in which it appeared.—J. S., G.

GAUSSIN, Jeanne Catherine, an actress, was born at Paris, 25th December, 1711, and died at La Villette, 6th June, 1767. Her début upon the public stage took place on 28th April, 1731, in the part of Junie in Racine's Britannicus. For thirty-two years she continued to delight Parisian audiences, and to elicit warm praise even from fastidious critics. La Harpe said of her—a phrase which has since been applied to Rubini and others—"elle avait des larmes dans la voix;" whilst even her tragic powers were surpassed by her talents as an