Cato's Letters, upon a variety of important public subjects. These were followed by a periodical paper, under the title of the Independent Whig; which was continued some years after Mr. Trenchard's death, by Gordon alone, against the hierarchy of the church: but with more acrimony than was shown in Cato's Letters. At length Sir Robert Walpole retained him to defend his administration, to which end he wrote several pamphlets. At the time of his death, in 1750, he was first commissioner of the wine licenses, an office which he had enjoyed many years. He published English translations of Sallust and Tacitus, with additional discourses to each author, which contain much useful matter. Two of his tracts, entitled 1. A Cordial for Low-spirits, in 3 vols; and, 2, The Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy shaken; in 2 vols. 8vo., were published after his death.

GORDONIA, in botany, a genus of the polyandria order, and monadelphia class of plants: CAL. simple style, five cornered, stigma quinquefied: CAPS. quinquelocular: SEEDS two-fold with a leafy wing. Species four, the principal is G. lasianthus. A tall and very straight tree, with a regular pyramidal head. Its leaves are shaped like those of the common bay, but serrated. It blossoms in May, June, and July. The flowers grow on foot-stalks about five inches long, are monopetalous, and are succeeded by conic capsules with a divided calyx. The stamina are headed with yellow apices. This tree retains its leaves all the year, and grows only in wet places, and usually in water.

GORE, n. s. & v. a. Sax. gone; Welsh, GORY, adj. gor. Effused and congealed blood. The verb signifies to stab, or pierce, especially, as cattle, with a horn. The adjective, used figuratively also as bloody, murderous, fatal, is now obsolete.

That all the ground with purple bloud was spent ; And all their armours stayned with bloudie gore. Spenser. Faerie Queene.

A griesly wound, From which forth gushed a stream of gore blood thick,

That all her goodly garment stained around,
And into a deep sanguine dyed the grassy ground.

Then plunged; the rock below received like glass, His body crashed into one gory mass, With scarce a shred to tell of human form, Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm.

Byron.

GORE (Thomas), a writer on heraldry, was born at Alderton in Wiltshire, and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He first entered at Lincoln's Inn, but soon after retired to his patrimony at Alderton. He was appointed, in 1680, high sheriff of Wiltshire, and wrote Loyalty displayed, and Falsehood unmasked, as a defence of his character in that office. He was the author of A Table showing how to blazon a Coat ten several ways, 1655; Series Alphabetica LatinoAnglica, Nomina Gentilitiorum, sive cognominum plurimarum familiarum, qua multos per annos in Anglia floruere, 1667; Catalogus in certa capita, seu classes, alphabetico ordine concinnatus; plerorumque omnium Authorum tam antiquorum quam recentiorum qui de re Heraldica, Latinè, Gallice, Ital. Hisp. scripserunt, Nomenclator Geographicus. He died at Alderton in 1684.

GORE'S ISLAND, an island of the North Pacific, so named by captain Cook in 1778. It is about thirty miles in length, consisting of two hills connected by a low neck of land, in Long. 172° 30' W., lat. 60° 40′ N.

GOREE, an island and town of South Holland, being the first land usually made by vessels bound to Rotterdam. The island is ten miles in circumference, and was once called West Voorn.

GOREE, a small island, off the coast of Africa, about a mile from the southern shore of Cape Verd. Its importance is solely derived from its inaccessible situation. The first European power which occupied it was the Dutch, who, in 1617, concluded a treaty of cession with Birar, king of Cape Verd. It was taken in 1663 by the English admiral Holmes, but retaken two years after by De Ruyter. In 1677 a French squadron, commanded by the count d'Estrées forced it to surrender: and by the treaty of Nimeguen it was ceded to France.

Goree is divided into three parts. One consists of the rock which forms a naked mass of black basalt, rising on all sides to the height of 300 feet. On the summit is a plain 130 fathoms in length and seventy in breadth. The western side is perpendicular from top to bottom, and physically inaccessible; the eastern and southern sides are very steep, but it cannot be considered quite impossible to scale them. The northern side is the most accessible; and here a mound has been formed, fifteen feet in width, and with a proper slope for conveying heavy artillery up to the plain. On the top is fort St. Michael, originally built by the Dutch, and considered by Golheny as having no strength except what it derives from its situation. On a sandy plain, at the foot of the rock, is the town of Goree, supposed to contain about 5000 inhabitants. It is the entrepôt for the French trade with the opposite coast of Africa. The third part of the island is the north point, which forms a kind of natural mole 120 fathoms long by thirty broad; it is commanded by a fort called St. François. Such is the French account of this place.

Fr. gorge, gorger; Ital. gorger, of Lat. gurgulio. The throat;

GORGE, n. s. & v. n. GOR'GED, 'adj. GORGET, n. s. the food swallowed: to swallow, or fill up the throat: figuratively to satiate. Gorget is a piece of armour used to defend the throat.

And all the way, most like a brutish beast, He spewed up his gorge, that all did him detest. Spenser. There were birds also made so finely, that they did not only deceive the sight with their figures, but the hearing with their songs, which the watery instruments did make their gorge deliver. Sidney. And now how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Shakspeare. Hamlet. Her delicate tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor. Id. Othello.

the annulets.

GORGE, in fortification, the entrance of the platform of any work. See FORTIFICATION. GORGEOUS, adj.) Old Fr. gorgias; Ital. GORGEOUSLY, adv. gioire, of Lat. gaudere. GORGEOUSNESS, n. s. > Fine; splendid; showy; glittering in various colors; applied generally to attire or dress.

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve;
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wreck behind.

O, that deceit should dwell
In such a gorgeous palace!

Shakspeare.

Id. Romeo and Juliet. As full of spirits as the month of May, And gorgeous as the sun at Midsummer.

GORGET, is a kind of breast-plate like a half moon, with the arms of the prince thereon; worn by the officers of foot. They are either gilt or silver, according to the color of the buttons on the uniforms.

GORGET, or GORGERET, in surgery, the concave or cannulated conductor, used in lithotomy. See SURGERY and LITHOTOMY.

GORGIAS, a celebrated orator of Sicily, born at Leontium, about A. A. C. 417. According to Quintilian, he was the first extemporaneous speaker. But this is not credible; men must have spoken extempore, before they studied speeches. A statue of gold was erected to him at Delphi. GO'RGON, n. s. Gr. γοργώ. A monster with snaky hairs, of which the sight turned the beholders to stone; any thing ugly or horrid.

Gorgons and hydras, and chymeras dire.

The GORGONS, in antiquity and mythology, were three sisters, whose names were Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa; the latter of whom was mortal, but the two former were subject neither to age nor death. They are described with wings heads, their hands were of brass, and their teeth on their shoulders, with serpents round their of a prodigious size, so that they were objects of terror to mankind. Pausanias says, the Gorgons after whose death Medusa, his daughter, reigned were the daughters of Phorbus, or Phorcys; nidis. The queen, being fond of hunting and over the Libyans dwelling near the lake Tritowar, laid the neighbouring coutries quite waste. At last Perseus, having made war on them, and killed the queen, when he came to take a view of the field of battle, he found the queen's corpse so extremely beautiful, that he ordered her head to be cut off, and carried it with him to show the Greeks, who could not behold it without astonishment. Others represent them as a kind of monstrous women, covered with hair, who lived in woods and forests. Others, again, make them animals, resembling wild sheep, whose eyes had a poisonous and fatal influence.

GORGONIA, in natural history, a genus of zoophytes, formerly called ceratophyta, and in English named sea-fans, sea-feathers, and seawhips. Linnæus and Pallas consider them as of a mixed nature in their growth, between animals and vegetables; but, Ellis shows them to be true animals of the polype kind, growing up in a branched form resembling a shrub, and in no part vegetable. They differ from the fresh water polype in many of their qualities, and particularly in producing from their own substance a hard and solid support, serving many of the purposes of the bone in other animals.

The surface of the gorgonia is composed of a kind of scales, so well adapted to each other as to serve for defence from external injuries: and the flesh, or, as some have called it, the bark or cortex, consists of proper muscles and tendons for extending the openings of their cells; for sending forth thence their polype suckers in search of food; and for drawing them in suddenly, and contracting the sphincter muscles of their starry cells, in order to secure these tender parts from danger; and also of proper secretory ducts, to furnish and deposit the osseous matter that forms the stem and branches as well as the base of the bone. Mr. Ellis affirms, that there are ovaries in these animals, and thinks it very probable that many of them are viviparous. See ZOOPHYTES.

GORITZ, or GORZ, a province of the Austrian empire between Germany and Italy, bounded on the north-east and south by the duchy of Carniola, and on the west by the Venetian States. In 1817 it was constituted a circle of the new kingdom of Illyria, and contains 974 square miles, with 116,000 inhabitants. On the north side it extends among the Alps, and is bleak, but around the town of Goritz and throughout the south-west it is very warm, and produces vines and the fruits of Italy. This province came into the possession of Austria, so far back as the year 1500, on the decease of the last of the counts. The county of Gradiska was afterwards annexed to it, and the whole considered a part of Friuli. It was retained by Austria during the different changes of Buonaparte's reign, and received very considerable additions on Illyria being constituted a kingdom in 1817. It is divided into the three districts of Canale, Gradiska, and Goritz.

:

GORITZ, OF GORIZIA, a town of the Austrian empire, the capital of the above province, stands on the Isonzo, and is divided into the upper and lower town. The former, situated on a mountain and defended by a castle, is an ancient place the latter stands on a plain adjacent to the river. Its chief manufactures are of leather and silk. In 1751 an archbishop's see was erected here, but it was suppressed in 1782. In the beginning of 1797, Goritz was taken by the French. The castle and the adjoining eminences command beautiful prospects. Twenty miles N. N. W. of Trieste.

GORLÆUS (Abraham), an eminent antiquary, born at-Antwerp, in 1540. He collected the rings and seals of the ancients, and published an account of a prodigious number of them, in 1601; under this title, Dactyliotheca; sive Annulorum Sigillarium, quorum apud priscos tam Græcos quam Romanos usus ex ferro, ære, argento, et auro, Promptuarium. This was the first part of the work: the second was entitled, Variarum Gemmarum, quibus antiquitas in signando uti solita, sculpturæ. In 1608 he published his collection of medals: which, however, if we may believe the Scaligerana, it is not safe always to trust. He resided at Delft, and died there in 1609.

GORLITZ, a town of the Prussian states, in Upper Lusatia. It is a well-built town, standing on the Neisse, and has long been noted for its

But

pronounce it), and mando, to wish to eat. Minsheu says q. gulosè mandere (to eat gluttonously). A ravenous or luxurious eater: to eat voraciously or greedily.

GOROPIUS (John), M. D., a native of Brabant; author of a work entitled Origines Antuerpianæ, wherein, among other legendary stories, he attempts to prove that the Flemish was the original language spoken by Adam and Eve.

GORREUS (John), M. D., a physician of Paris, in the sixteenth century, who published a translation of Nicander. He was born in 1500. Being a protestant, he suffered much from religious persecution; and, his coach being one day suddenly seized by a party of soldiers, he was attacked with a delirium, and died, in 1572.

GORSE, n. s. Sax. gonr. Furze; a thick prickly shrub that bears yellow flowers in Winter.

GORSERIA, in botany, a genus of the polygamia frustanea order, and syngenesia class of plants; natural order forty-ninth, compositæ. The receptacle is naked; the pappus woolly; the florets of the radius ligulated or plane: CAL. imbricated with spinous scales.

GOʻSHAWK, n. s. Sax. gor, goose, and þarco a hawk. A hawk of a large kind.

Like as a goshawk, that in foote doth beare
A trembling culver having spide on hight
An eagle, that with plumy wings doth sheare
The subtile ayre, stouping with all his might
The quarrey throwes with fell despight
And to the batteil doth herselfe prepare
So ran the geauntesse unto the fight.

Spenser. Faerie Queene.
Such dread his awful visage on them cast;
So seem poor doves at goshawks sight aghast.
Fairfaz.

GOSHAWK. See FALCO.

GOSHEN, in ancient geography, a district of Egypt, which Joseph procured for his father and brethren. It was the most fruitful part of the country; and its name seems to be derived from the Hebrew Geshem; which signifies 'rain;' Calmet thinks that Goshen, which Joshua x. 41, xi. 16, xv. 51, makes part of the tribe of Judah, is the same land of Goshen which was given to Jacob and his sons by Pharaoh. Gen. xlvi. 26.

GOSHEN, a post town of Orange county, New York,twenty miles west of West Point, sixty-three north of New York, 112 south by west of Albany.

It is pleasant and flourishing, and contains a court house, a gaol, a bank, and an academy, and has considerable trade. . It is an excellent agricultural town, situated in a fertile tract of country, and includes a part of the Drowned Lands. The courts for the county are held alternately at Goshen and Newburgh. Three weekly newspapers are published here.

GOSLAR, an old town of Hanover, in Hildesheim, on the Gosse, and at the foot of the Ramelsberg Mountain famous for its mines. Its houses are mean and crowded; but a great fire destroyed about 500 in 1780, and their areas have since been laid out in gardens. The most curious building in the town is the Kaiserhaus, where the emperors in former times used to hold their courts, and call the diet together. It is now used as a magazine. The cathedral contains an altar of Crothos, one of the deities of the ancient Saxons; it is a brass chest with openings on every side to allow the flames to issue upwards and consume the infants laid on it. The inhabitants are chiefly Lutherans, and their chief employment is mining and brewing. Goslar was in former times a free imperial town, but given to Prussia in 1802, and ceded to Han over in 1814. Here gunpowder is supposed to have been invented by a monk of the name of Berthold Schwartz. It is twenty-eight miles south of Brunswick, and twenty-five south of Wolfenbuttel.

GOSLING, n.s. From goose. goose; a goose not yet full grown.

A young

A foole sent forth to fetch the goslings home, When they unto a river's brink were come (Through which their passage lay) conceived a feare

His dames best brood might have been drowned there. George Withers.

Why do you go nodding and wagging so like a fool, as if you were hipshot? says the goose to her gosling.

heads.

v.n. ?

L'Estrange.

Nature hath instructed even a brood of goslings to stick together, while the kite is hovering over their Swift. GOSPEL, n. s. & v. n. I Sax. goder rþel, Gos'PELLER, n. s. or God's good tidings; Gr. Evayyeλiov; Erse. soskel, skeal, suach, happy tidings. The Sax. spellian (whence our word SPELL), also signifies to detail. Divinity or theology. To gospel is to fill with sentiments of religion, used in Shakspeare with some degree of irony. Gospeller is a name of the followers of Wickliffe, who first attempted a reformation from popery, given them by the Papists in reproach, from their professing to follow and preach only the gospel. The histories given by the four evangelists are called the gospel, and it is a term applied to the Christian revelation, generally.

Matheu that was of iudee as he is set first in order of gospellers, so he wroot first the gospel in

iudee, and fro the office of a tolgaderer he was clepid Wiclif. Prologue on Matheu.

to God.

This maiden, bright Cecile, as hire lif saith,
Was come of Romaines, and of noble kind;
And from hire cradle, fostred in the faith
Of Crist; and bare his gospel in hire mind.

Chaucer. The Second Nonnes Tale.
And for to make you hem perceiven
That usen folke thus to decieven,

GOSPORT, a town of Hampshire, seventynine miles from London. It has a ferry over the mouth of the harbour to Portsmouth, and great trade, especially in time of war. Travellers prefer lodging here, as cheaper and more commodious than at Portsmouth. The mouth of the harbour is secured by four forts, and a platform of above twenty cannon level with the water. Gosport has an hospital for sick and wounded sailors, and a free school.

GOS'SAMER, n. s. Low Lat. gossipium. The down of plants; the long white cobwebs which fly in the air in calm sunny weather, especially about the time of autumn.

As sore wondren som on cause of thonder,
On ebbe, and floud, on gossomere and on mist,
And on all things, til that the cause is wist.
Chaucer. The Squieres Tale.

A lovur may bestride the gassamour,
That idles in the wanton Summer air,
And yet not fall, so light is vanity. Shakspeare.
Four nimble gnats the horses were,
Their harnesses of gossamere.

Drayton's Nymphia.
The filmy gossamer now flits no more,
Nor halcyons bask on the short sunny shore.
Dryden.

stance, like cobwebs, which is seen to float in GOSSAMER is the name of a fine filmy subthe air in clear days in autumn, and is more observable in stubble fields, and upon furze and the flying spider, which, in traversing the air for other low bushes. This is probably formed by

food, shoots out these threads from its arms which are borne down by the dew, &c.

GOSSELIN (Anthony), regius professor of history and rhetoric in the university of Caen in Normandy, and principal of the College of Du Bois, was author of a Latin history of the ancient Greeks.

GOSSELINI (Julian), an Italian author, born in 1525. At seventeen he was made secretary to Ferdinand de Gonzaga, viceroy of Sicily, and retained that office forty years. He wrote several works in prose and verse; and died at Milan in 1587.

GOSSIP, n. s. & v. n. Į Sax. god, and rýb; Gos'sIPRED, n. s. Goth. godsip. Relation; affinity. The primary idea being relation or affinity, the words are variously applied: as to sponsors in baptism; to tippling companions; to merry chattering persons, as women at a lying-in.

And if I have a gossip or a frend,
Withouten gilt,-thou chidest as a fend
If that I walke or play unto his hous.

Chaucer. Prologue to the Wif of Bathes Tale.
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip's bowl,

In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob.

"Tis sung in every street,

Hudibras.

The common chat of gossips when they meet.

Dryden. The market and exchange must be left to their own ways of talking; and gossipings not be robbed of their ancient privilege.

Locke. He gives himself up to an idle gossiping conversa. tion. Law. He died when last from pilgrimage I came With other gossips from Jerusalem. Pope. There are a set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder characters to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he has years to know the value of it.

Sheridan.

GOSSLAR, a large and ancient town of Lower Saxony, in the territory of Brunswick. It is a free imperial city, and it was here that gun-powder was first invented. It is a large place, but the buildings are in the ancient taste. In 1728 St. Stephen's fine church and 280 houses were burnt. It is seated on a mountain near the Gose, and near it are rich mines of iron. The inhabitants are famous for brewing excellent beer. Long. 5° 37′ E., lat. 51° 55′ N. GOSSYPIUM, cotton, a genus of the polyandria order, and monadelphia class of plants; natural order thirty-seven, columnifera: CAL. double, the exterior trifid: CAPS. quadrilocular: SEEDS enclosed in cotton wool. There are ten species, all natives of warm climates.

G. arboreum, the cotton tree, has an upright woody perennial stalk, branching six or eight feet high; palmated, four or five-lobed smooth leaves, and yellow flowers succeeded by large pods filled with seeds and cotton.

G. Barbadense, the Barbadoes shrubby cotton, has a shrubby stalk, branching four or five feet high, three-lobed smooth leaves, glandulous underneath, and yellow flowers succeeded by oval pods containing seeds and cotton.

G. herbaceum, the common herbaceous cotton, has an herbaceous smooth stalk two feet high, branching upwards; five-lobed smooth leaves, and yellow flowers from the end of the branches succeeded by roundish capsules full of seeds and cotton.

G. hirsutum, the hairy American cotton, has hairy stalks branching laterally two or three feet high; palmated, three and five-lobed hairy leaves, and yellow flowers succeeded by large oval pods furnished with seeds and cotton.

The last three species are annual, but the first is perennial both in root and stalk. In warm countries these plants are reared in great quantities in fields for the sake of the cotton; but the herbaceum species is most generally cultivated. The pods are sometimes as large as middling sized apples, closely filled with the cotton surrounding the seed. When these plants are raised in this country, they must be continually kept in a warm stove, where they will produce seeds and cotton. The American islands produce cotton shrubs of various sizes, which rise and grow up without any culture; especially in low and marshy grounds. Their produce is of a pale red; some paler than others; but so short that it cannot be spun. None of this is brought to Europe, though it might be usefully employed in making hats. The little that is picked up, serves to make mattresses and pillows. The cotton shrubs, that supply our manufactures, require a dry and stony soil, and thrive best in ground that has been tilled. The plant appears more flourishing in fresh lands than in those which are exhausted; but, while it produces more wood, it bears less fruit. A western exposure is fittest for it. The culture begins in March and April, and continues during the first spring rains. Holes are made at seven or eight feet distance, and a few seeds thrown in. When they are five or six inches high, all the stems are pulled up, except two or three of the strongest. These are cropped twice before the end of August. This precaution is necessary, as the wood bears no fruit till after the second pruning; and, if the shrub was suffered to grow more than four feet high, the crop would not be greater, nor the fruit so easily gathered. The same method is pursued for three years; for so long the shrub may continue, if it cannot conveniently be renewed oftener with the prospect of an advantage that will compensate the trouble. This useful plant will not thrive if great attention is not paid to pluck up the weeds that grow about it. Frequent rains promote its growth; but they must not be incessant. Dry weather is particularly necessary in March and April, which is the time of gathering the cotton, to prevent it from being discolored and spotted. When gathered in, the seeds must be picked out from the wool with which they are naturally mixed. This is done by a cotton mill; composed of two rods of hard wood, about eighteen feet long, eighteen lines