Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

each successive wave rolls into the cave, the surface rises so slowly and awfully, that a uervous person would be apprehensive of a ceaseless increase in the elevation of the waters until they reached the summit of the cave. Of this, however, there is not the most distant cause of apprehension, the roof being sixty feet above the high water mark. The roaring of the waves in the interior is distinctly heard; but no probable conclusion can be arrived at from this as to the depth. It is said too, that the inhabitants of some cottages a mile removed from the shore, have their slumbers frequently interrupted in the winter's nights, by the subterranean sounds of Dunkerry Cavern. The entrance is very striking and grand, being twenty-six feet in breadth, and enclosed between two natural walls of dark basalt and the visitor will enjoy a much more perfect view of the natural architecture at the entrance, by sitting in the prow with his face to the stern as the boat returns.

Landing again, and returning to the Causeway road, pursue its windings beneath the wild and barren cliff for about a quarter of a mile, when the first view of the Causeway is afforded. The impression at first produced is that of the building of an extensive pier, for which the stones, blocked out, had many years ago been laid upon the beech; but from some great national calamity, or other unknown cause, the work was interrupted, and the laborers all dismissed. And so the natives believe, that the giants once commenced this colossal task of forming a causeway into Scotland, but that, being expelled by the ancient Irish heroes, they left the great work imperfect. It is not, however, the magnitude of the Causeway which surprises, nor the distant view which commands attention; the wonder and admiration of the tourist are to be reserved until he steps upon the very surface of this great work of nature, when the expectation of the most sanguine and the amazement of the most experienced traveller will indeed be fully realized. To the left are seen some bold projecting rocks, called the Stookins, forming a partition between Port-na-Baw and Port-na-Gange; and a little farther west, close to the shore, stands the insulated rock called Sea-Gull Isle; and between Port-na-Gange and Port-Noffer the Causeway

runs out into the sea.

The Causeway consists of three piers or moles, projecting from the base of a stratified cliff, about 400 feet in height: the principal mole is visible for about 300 yards in extent at low water, the others not more than half that distance. It is composed of polygonal pillars, of dark colored basalt, so closely united, that it is difficult to insert more than a knife-blade between them; and the formation of a continuous surface at each point in the pavement, by polygons whose angles vary so much in value, would have surprised even Proclus, yet no artificial formation can exceed this in accuracy. Towards the centre of the whole mass the pillars ascend; and, from the peculiar appearance of the surface, this vertex is usually called the Honeycomb. The pillars are irregular prisms of an uncertain number of sides, varying from three to nine: there is one of three sides near the centre of the

Honeycomb, and several of nine have been detected, but the hexagonal form prevails most generally.

Each pillar is in itself a distinct piece of workmanship; it is separable from all the adjacent columns, and then is itself separable into distinct joints, whose articulation is as perfect as human exertion could have formed them, the extremities of each joint being concave or convex, which is determined by the terminations of the joint with which it was united; but there is no regularity as to the upper or lower extremity being concave, or convex; the only law on this point is, that the contiguous joints are the one concave, the other convex. In order to ensure stability to this piece of architecture, the angles of the inferior joints frequently overlap those of the superior so finely, that the force required to dislocate them fre quently fractures the joints. If the concavity of any pillar be examined, it will be found to re. present a circle inscribed in a polygon; the interval in each angle intercepted between the periphery of the circle, and the sides of the polygon being perfectly horizontal. To make this more intelligible-suppose the extremity of the pillar or joint had been originally in a soft state, but in a polygonal form, and that a heavy iron ball, whose diameter was equal to the shortest diameter of the polygon, was laid upon it, and, being removed again, left a basin-formed impression on the stone; this would give a perfect idea of the appearance which the concave ends exhibit: the convex, on the other hand, appears as if the ball was enclosed within the pillar still, and a portion of the sphere projected through the extremity of the column. This very mathematical appearance of the circle inscribed in an irregular polygon, has led some fanciful, theorists to suppose, that these curious columns might have been formed by the compression of a number of liquid globules, which at first only touched at one point, but, when the pressure was increased indefinitely, were formed into angular masses.

[ocr errors]

Though the polygons are all irregular, yet the contiguous sides of the adjacent pillars are equal, so that the contact of the columns is complete. And we have already mentioned, that, notwithstanding the number and different values of the concurring angles in each point, yet their sum is found to be so precisely equal to four right angles, that there is not the smallest aperture or open space left over the whole arena of basaltic pavement. So close is the flooring of this natural quay, that, whenever any subsidence of the surface has occurred, water will be found to lodge, and remain for a length of time. And this suggests also a curious circumstance, to which the attention of the visitor will be called, upon his arrival at the Causeway; that, although the union of the columns has been just represented as impervious to a lodgment of water, yet on the west side of the Causeway is seen a spring of water bubbling up between in the interstices of the columns through which the blade of a knife could, with much difficulty, be introduced. This is called, of course, the Giants Well, and the water found in it is extremely

pure. It may be observed also, that the pillars, between which the water issues, are not in the least worn, nor are their angles less accurate than those of any pillar in the Causeway. In the early ages of natural history, many ridiculous questions were proposed relative to this extraordinary piece of nature's architecture, which would degrade the naturalist of the present age; amongst the rest, it was seriously proposed, as a difficult and important question, to discover the depth which the Causeway pillars run perpendicularly into the ground, and in the Encyclopædia Britannica we find this solemn sentence: How deep they are fixed in the strand was never yet discovered.' But the modern geologist can assure these sage enquirers, that the mole or quay, called the Giants' Causeway, is only the continuation of a basaltic stratum, whose breadth may be measured in various parts of the range along the coast, and is ascertained to be forty-five feet in thickness or depth. The answer to the query, to what distance does it extend under water, is not so satisfactory in a nautical point of view; but it is supposed to obey the same law here as the stratum to which it belongs is

found to do elsewhere.

The Causeway, which is entirely composed of basaltic pillars, is inclined to the horizon in a small angle, and may be traced up the cliff in an easterly direction, and culminates at the distance of one mile from the Causeway, where it attains the height of 250 feet above the level of the sea. It still proceeds towards the east, and ultimately immerges at Portmore. This is not the grandest nor most magnificent stratum of basalt: the next stratum but one to this forms the noblest natural colonnade in the world, the columns being more perfect in their articulation than the great columns of Fair Head, and of more collossal dimensions than those of the Causeway.

An expert guide will afford much satisfaction to the tourist in pointing out the variety of form and position in the different columns around the Causeway; some are remarkable for the great length of their joints, others are seen in the lowest range of the precipice, lying in an horizonta! position; but this is evidently attributable to external causes, as all the columns in these have a vertical position. In the face of the bold stratified cliff, east of the Causeway, some very perfect and regular colonnades of clustered pillars are seen, the most perfect of which are called the organs, from a very striking resemblance which the façade bears to the range of frontal tubes in a large church organ. And opposite these is another, called generally the Giants' Loom, but the term giant has lost its distinguishing power in this vicinity now, as every stone around derives an epithet or name from its relative situation amongst these great men's supellectilia, their chairs, their well, &c.

The scenery east of the Causeway is truly sublime: the dark precipitous cliffs which rise regularly in gradually retiring strata, certainly suggest the idea of their having been deposited age after age, as Werner thought; and the extraordinary appearance of the various colonnades might, for a moment, seduce the fancy of the contemplating visitor, and lead him to imagine,

that here whole palaces have been overwhelmed in ruin. These successive capes, which are visible from the Causeway, are but a part of one great headland, called Bengore, the rival of Benmore or Fair Head, and similarly formed. On a lofty projecting cliff, east of the Causeway, stand a few shattered columns, usually known by the appellation of the chimney tops,' and said to have been mistaken by the crew of the vessels composing the invincible Armada of Spain, and fired upon as such.' Wright's Guide to the Giants' Causeway, 12mo. London, 1823.

GIBBE, n. s. Heb., to end. Any old worn out animal.

For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, w.se, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gibbe, Such dear concernings hide? Shakspeare. Hamlet. GIBBER, v. n. To speak indistinctly, meaning; applied to the private language or GIB BERISH, n. s. or utter words without Skinner from Fr. gaber, to cheat; see GIBE. By cant terms of rogues and gipsies. According to from jabber. But, as it was anciently written others conjectured to be formed by corruption from the chemical cant, and originally implied giberish, Dr. Johnson thinks it probably derived the jargon of 'Geber' and his tribe.

Some, if they happen to hear an old word, albeit very natural and significant, cry out straightway, that we speak no English, but gibberish. Spenser.

The sheeted dead,

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.

Shakspeare.

Some of both sexes writing down a number of letters, just as it came into their heads; upon reading this gibberish, that which the men had wrote sounded like High Dutch, and the other by the women like Italian. Swift.

GIB'BET, n. s. & v. n. Fr. gibet; barb. Lat. gabalus, from Heb. 3, an end or boundary.— Minsheu. That on which malefactors are hanged or exposed; any transverse beam.

He shall come off and on swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer's bucket. Shakspeare. When was there ever cursed atheist brought Unto the gibbet, but he did adore That blessed power which he had set at nought? Davies.

You scandal to the stock of verse, a race Able to bring the gibbet in disgrace. Cleaveland. Oldham. I'll gibbet up his name. Haman suffered death himself upon the very gibbet that he had provided for another. L'Estrange.

Papers lay such principles to the Tories, as if they in every parish, and hang them out of the way. were true, our next business should be to erect gibbets

Swift.

One to destroy is murder by the law, And gibbets keep the lifted hand in awe, To murder thousands takes a specious name War's glorious art, and gives immortal fame.

[blocks in formation]

Gibbou, Esq., and Judith, daughter of Porten, Esq. merchant, of London. His family was descended from John Gibbon, architect to Edward III., who possessed lands in Kent. His constitution till his fifteenth year was extremely feeble, as were those of his brethren and sisters, who all died in infancy: and he complains that the chain of his education was broken, as often as he was called from the school of learning to the bed of sickness.' To the care and attention of his maternal aunt he ascribes his preservation from a premature death. In 1745 he was sent to the grammar-school at Kingston; in January, 1749, to that of Westminster; and in April, 1752, to Oxford, where he matriculated in Magdalen College; the professors of which he blames greatly for their remissness and inattention to his moral conduct and principles. In consequence of this he became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith in his sixteenth year. To cure the young Catholic of his errors, and bring him back to the Protestant faith, his father, within three weeks after his conversion (June 30th, 1753) sent him to Switzerland, and entrusted him to the tutorage of Mr. Pavilliard, a Calvinist minister at Lausanne, whom Mr. Gibbon mentions with gratitude, as a most excellent preceptor. Under his tuition he made rapid progress in the Latin, Greek, and French classics; in history, geography, logic, and metaphysics; and was also soon reclaimed from the errors of popery; so that on Christmas, 1754, he received the sacrament in the church of Lausanne. Thus had he communicated with three different churches before he was eighteen years old. These jarring opinions, however, successively adopted and rejected, and the repeated changes so rapidly made from the one to the other, perhaps contributed to weaken our author's faith in revelation, and to lead to his final change to deism, as much as his perusal of M. Voltaire's writings, or his conversation with that author, to whom he introduced himself in 1757. About this time Mr. Gibbon fell in love with Mad. Susan Curchod, daughter of the minister of Crassay, a lady whom he describes as possessed of every accomplishment, corporeal and mental, that can adorn a woman. But, though the consent of the young lady and her parents was easily obtained, yet his father's tyrannical veto, to which, after a painful struggle,' he submitted, deprived him of this inestimable treasure, and of matrimonial felicity for life. The lady was afterwards married to the celebrated M. Neckar. In spring, 1758, he was recalled to England, and well received by his father; at whose house at Beriton, in Hampshire, he finished a work he had begun at Lausanne, entitled Essai sur l'étude de la Literature, which he published in 1761, 12mo., with a dedication to his father. Previous to this period, he had been appointed a captain in the South Hampshire militia, in which he served two years, and which contributed to make him better acquainted with English manners, principles, and parties. At the peace in 1763 he went abroad; and after visiting Paris, where he was introduced to Messrs. D'Alembert and Diderot, returned to his favorite residence at Lausanne Having spent some time

there, he made the tour of Italy; and at Roine on the 15th of October, 1764, while musing amidst the ruins of the capitol, the idea of his great work first started into his mind. Upon his return to Hampshire in June, 1765, he found his father involved in pecuniary difficulties, and, to relieve him, consented to the sale of part of the estate. After commencing a history of the revolutions of Switzerland, which he suppressed, he engaged in a journal entitled Memoires Literaires de la Grand Bretagne, and published 2 vols. for 1767 and 1768; but his partner in this undertaking, a native of Switzerland, going abroad, when the third volume was nearly finished, the work was discontinued. Bishop Warburton having about this time published an Interpretation of the Sixth Book of Virgil's Eneid, he criticised it with equal asperity and success. Of his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the 1st vol. was published in 1776, and met with extraordinary success; the 2d and 3d vols. appeared in 1781; and the 4th, 5th, and 6th, in 1787, established Mr. Gibbon's fame as an historian. Encomiums were lavished on him from all quarters by Mr. Hume, Dr. Robertson, Dr. Watson, Zimmerman, &c. The last represents Mr. Gibbon as even excelling both those eminent historians in point of style. All the dignity,' he adds, all the charms of historic style are united in Gibbon; his periods are melody itself, and all his thoughts have nerve and vigor. But others, while they give our author full credit for acuteness of penetration, fertility of genius, luxuriance of fancy, elegance of style, harmony of language, and beauty of epithets, &c., object that the uniform stateliness of his diction sometimes imparts to his narrative a degree of obscurity, unless he descends to the miserable expedient of a note to explain the minuter circumstances,' and that his style on the whole is much too artificial; which gives a degree of monotony to his periods, that extends almost to the turn of his thoughts.' But a more serious objection, it has been added, is his attack upon Christianity; the loose and disrespectful manner in which he mentions many points of morality, regarded as important on the principles of natural religion; and the indecent allusions and expressions which too often occur in the work. An argumentative attack upon Christianity will never, merely as such, he condemned or shunned by the Christian; on the other hand, the attack is never to be carried on in an insidious manner, and with improper weapons: indeed Christianity itself, so far from dreading, will invite every mode of fair and candid discussion. But our historian often makes, when he cannot readily find, an opportunity to insult the Christian religion. Such indeed is his eagerness in the cause, that he stoops to the most despicable pun, or to the most awkward perversion of language, for the pleasure of turning the Scripture into ribaldry, or calling Jesus an impostor. Yet of the Christian religion has Mr. Gibbon himself observed, that it contains a pure, benevolent, and universal system of ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of life.' Various answers to Mr. Gibbon's attack on Christianity were published by Dr. Chelsam, Dr. Randolph, lord Hailes, Dr. Watson, bishop

of Llandaff, Dr. White, Mr. Apthorpe, Mr. Davis, Mr. Taylor, Dr. Priestley, and others. To most of these our author made no reply, though his posthumous memoirs show that he felt the weight of some of them. Our author, however, was no friend to new opinions in politics. Being introduced into the house of commons as M. P. for Liskeard in 1774, he uniformly supported administration with his vote, during the American war; and upon the French revolution he adopted Mr. Burke's creed, in every thing but his reverence for church establishments. Soon after the downfal of lord North's administration, he returned to Lausanne; but his Swiss friend dying, and French politics prevailing in Berne, he left his Paradise, as he styled it, and returned to London in June, 1793. He did not however enjoy this retreat long. His constitution had suffered much from repeated attacks of the gout, and a swelling of his ancles; and, after having been often tapped for a hydrocele, he died at London, of the gout in his stomach, on the 16th of January, 1794, in the fifty-seventh year of his

age.

GIBBONS (Grinling), a celebrated modern carver and statuary, was born in London of Dutch parents about the middle of the last century. He was patronised both by Charles II., and James II.; and gave to wood and coin, to marble and to bronze, the lightness of flowers. His principal remaining works are, the wooden throne at Canterbury, the monument of viscount Camden, at Exton in Rutlandshire, the font in St. James's Church, the statue of Charles II. at Charing Cross, and that of James II. in the Privy Garden. He died in 1721.

GIBBONS (Thomas), D.D., a dissenting minister of some popularity, was born in 1720 at Swaffham, Norfolk. He became in 1742 pastor of an Independent meeting-house in Silver-street, London; but the next year removed to Haberdasher's Hall. In 1754 he was one of the tutors of the Mile End Academy, and in 1764 received a diploma from the university of Aberdeen He died in 1785; having published,-1. Juvenilia; or Poems on Several Occasions. 2. Family Sermons, 8vo. 3. A System of Rhetoric, 8vo. 4. Female Worthies; or the Lives of Pious Women, 2 vols., 8vo. 5. Memoirs of Dr. Isaac Watts, 8vo. After his death, three volumes of his sermons were published. GIBBOSITY,n.s. Fr. gibbosité; Latin GIB'BOUS, adj. gibbus. An astronomical GIB BOUSNESS, n. s. term implying convexity; inequality. Crookbacked; deformed; a promi

rence.

[blocks in formation]

The sea, by this access and recess, shuffling the empty shells, wears them away, reducing those that are concave and gibbous to a fiat. Woodward's Natural History.

To make the convexity of the earth discernible,

suppose a man lifted in the air, that he may have a spacious horizon; but then, because of the distance, the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away, and he would only see a great circular fiat. Bentley's Sermons.

GIBBOSITY, in surgery, denotes any protuberance, or convexity of the body, as in a person hump-backed. Infants are much more subject to gibbosity than adults, and it oftener proceeds from external than internal causes. A fall, blow, or the like, frequently thus distorts the tender bones of infants. When it proceeds from an internal cause, it is generally from a relaxation of the ligaments that sustain the spine, or a caries of its vertebræ; though the spine may be inflected forward, and the vertebrae thrown out, by a too strong and repeated action of the abdominal muscles. This, if not timely redressed, grows up and fixes as the bones harden, till in adults it is totally irretrievable: but when the disorder is recent, and the person young, there are hopes of

a cure.

GIBBOUS, in astronomy, is used in respect to the enlightening parts of the moon, whilst she is moving from the first quarter to the full, and from the full to the last quarter: for all that time the dark part appears horned or falcated; and the light one hunched out, convex, or gibbous.

GIBBS (James), A. M., a celebrated Scott.sh architect, born at Aberdeen in 1674. His father was a merchant of that city, and, parties running high about 1688, he named his two dogs Whig and Tory, in ridicule of both parties;—an offence for which the magistrates of Aberdeen summoned him before them, and condemned the two dogs to be hanged at the cross! Young Gibbs was educated at the Marischal College, where he took his degree of A. M. About 1694 he travelled into Holland, where he spent some years with an eminent architect; and where, in 1700, he was introduced to the earl of Mar, who generously assisted him with money and recommendatory letters, to enable him to complete himself under the best Italian masters. About 1710 he left Italy, and returned to England, where he found his noble patron in favor with the queen. An act being passed for building fifty new churches, Mr. Gibbs was employed, and gave a specimen of his abilities by planning and executing St. Martin's Church, St. Mary's in the Strand, and several others. Among many other beautiful edifices planned by him, and built by his direction, we shall only mention the Radcliffe Library at Oxford; the King's College, Royal Library, and Senate House at Cambridge; and the duke of Newcastle's monument. He died 5th of August, 1754, leaving a fortune of £15,000.

GIBBS (Vicary), an English lawyer and judge of mo lern celebrity, was born in 1752 at Exeter, in which city his father was a surgeon. He was educated at Eton and King's College Cambridge on the royal foundation. In 1772 he obtained

a Craven scholarship. After this, entering himself of Lincoln's Inn, he contracted an acquaintance with Mr Dunning, afterwards lord Ashburton, whose patronage became important to him. He succeeded Mr. Burke in the recordership of the city of Bristol, and was an able and eloquent pleader at the bar. His exertions on the trials of Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, &c, in particular, ranked him high in his profession; and he proceeded rapidly through the situations of chief justice of Chester, solicitor, and attorney-general (on accepting which last office he was knighted), till, being raised to the bench, he was, in 1814, finally elevated to the dignity of lord chief justice of the common pleas. Sir Vicary only filled this last post about four years, when his infirmities compelled him to resign. He survived about two years, and died in the month of February,

1820.

[blocks in formation]

They seem to imagine that we have erected of late a framo of some new religion, the furniture whereof we should not have borrowed from our enemies, lest they should afterwards laugh and gibe at our party. Hooker.

Mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns That dwell in every region of his face. Shakspeare. You are well understood to be a more perfect giber of the table, than a necessary bencher of the capitol. Id. Coriolanus.

Why, that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.

[blocks in formation]

built upon a hill as its name imports. This city gave birth to Saul, the first king of Israel, for which reason it is often called Gibeah of Saul.

GIBEON, a city seated on an eminence about forty furlongs north of Jerusalem, and not far from Gibeah. It was the capital of the Gibeonites.

GIBEONITES, an ancient nation of Canaan, who, hearing of Joshua's great conquests, saved their lives at the expense of their liberty, by a representation that they belonged to a very remote country, and desired to make an alliance with the Hebrews. See Joshua ix. 3-27. The Gibeonites were descended from the Hivites, and possessed four cities; viz. Chephirah, Beeroth, Kirjathjearim, and Gibeon; which were afterwards given to the Benjamites, except the last, which fell to the tribe of Judah. The Gibeonites continued subject to those burdens which Joshua had imposed on them, and were very faithful to the Israelites till the dispersion of that nation.

GIB'LETS, n. s. Minsheu says, from gobbet, a good mouthful; Mr. Thomson refers us to the Saxon gıblar; M. Goth. gibla, a wing; according to Junius, more properly from Fr. gibier, game. The parts of a goose which are cut off before it is roasted.

'Tis holyday; provide me better cheer: 'Tis holyday; and shall be round the year: Shall I my household gods and genius cheat, To make him rich who grudges me my meat? That he may loll at ease; and pampered high, When I am laid, may feed on giblet pie?

Dryden.

GIBRALTAR, a promontory, and important fortress, in the south of Spain, at the entrance from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean. It is in fact a great rocky mountain, about three miles in length from north to south, from half to three-fourths of a mile in width, and from 1200 to 1400 feet in height. On the north side is an isthmus, about a mile and a half in length, and half as much in breadth, which connects this vast mass of rock with the continent. Its northern front is almost perpendicular; and the east side is full of precipices, while the south, being narrow and abrupt, presents hardly any possibility of approach even to an enemy in command of the sea. On none of these sides has this fortress ever been attacked; there remains only the western front, which is almost as abrupt as the others, but which may be approached in shipping from the bay, and on a level part of which the town is built.

The rock is in general calcareous; and, on blowing it up, fossil bones and teeth have been found, which at first were supposed to be human, but are now known to belong to quadrupeds The rock has also several caverns, of which that of St. Michael on the west, is the largest; it is 1110 feet above the level of the sea. The rain water continually filtrates through, and forms stalactites, some of which extend from the roof to the bottom, forming columns two feet in diameter, and which continually increase in bulk. Excavations have been formed in the rock by blasting, capable of holding the entire garrison of 6000 men; and these subterranean barracks

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »