5. Scarlat Ghica (1750-1802) was twice prince of Walachia. His grandson John (Ioan) Ghica (1817-1897), a lifelong friend of Turkey, was educated in Bucharest and in the West, and studied engineering and mathematics in Paris from 1837 to 1840; returning to Moldavia he was involved in the conspiracy of 1841, which was intended to bring about the union of Walachia and Moldavia under one native prince (Michael Sturdza). The conspiracy failed and John Ghica became a lecturer on mathematics at the university which was founded by Prince Sturdza in Jassy. In 1848 he joined the party of revolution and in the name of a provisional government then established in Bucharest went to Constantinople to approach the Turkish government. Whilst there he was appointed Bey of Samos (1853-1859), where he extirpated piracy, rampant in that island. In 1859 after the union of Moldavia and Walachia had been effected Prince Cuza induced John Ghica to return. He was the first prime minister under Prince (afterwards King) Charles of Hohenzollern. His restless nature made him join the anti-dynastic movement of 1870-1871. In 1881 he was appointed Rumanian minister in London and retained this office until 1889. He died on the 7th of May 1897 in Gherghani. Besides his political distinction John Ghica earned a literary reputation by his "Letters to Alexandri” (2nd edition, 1887), his lifelong friend, written from London and describing the ancient state of Rumanian society, fast fading away. He was also the author of Amintiri din pribegie, " Recollections of Exile in 1848 " (Bucharest, 1890) and of Convorbiri Economice, discussions on economic questions (Bucharest, 1866-1873). He was the first to advocate the establishment of national industry and commerce, and also, to a certain extent, principles of "exclusive dealing." (M. G.) GHILZAI, a large and widespread Afghan tribe, who extend from Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the S. to the Kabul river on the N., and from the Gul Koh range on the W. to the Indian border on the E., in many places overflowing these boundaries. The popular theory of the origin of the Ghilzais traces them to the Turkish tribe of Kilji, once occupying districts bordering the upper course of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes), and affirms that they were brought into Afghanistan by the Turk Sabuktagin in the 10th century. However that may be, the Ghilzai clans now rank collectively as second to none in strength of military and commercial enterprise. They are a fine, manly race of people, and it is from some of their most influential clans (Suliman Khel, Nasir Khel, Kharotis, &c.) that the main body of povindah merchants is derived.

GHIRLANDAJO, DOMENICO (1449-1494), Florentine painter. His full name is given as Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi; appears therefore that his father's surname was Curradi, and his grandfather's Bigordi. The painter is generally termed Domenico Bigordi, but some authors give him, and apparently with reason, the paternal surname Curradi. Ghirlandajo (garland-maker) was only a nickname, coming to Domenico from the employment of his father (or else of his earliest instructor), who was renowned for fashioning the metallic garlands worn by Florentine damsels; he was not, however, as some have said, the inventor of them. Tommaso was by vocation a jeweller on the Ponte Vecchio, or perhaps a broker. Domenico, the eldest of eight children, was at first apprenticed to a jeweller or goldsmith, probably enough his own father; in his shop he was continually making portraits of the passers-by, and it was thought expedient to place him with Alessio Baldovinetti to study painting and mosaic. His youthful years were, however, entirely undistinguished, and at the age of thirty-one he had not a fixed abode of his own. This is remarkable, as immediately afterwards, from 1480 onwards to his death at a comparatively early age in 1494, he became the most proficient painter of his time, incessantly employed, and condensing into

In 1480 Ghirlandajo painted a " St Jerome "and other frescoes in the church of Ognissanti, Florence, and a life-sized "Last Supper " in its refectory, noticeable for individual action and expression. From 1481 to 1485 he was employed upon frescoes in the Sala dell' Orologio in the Palazzo Vecchio; he painted the apotheosis of St Zenobius, a work beyond the size of life, with much architectural framework, figures of Roman heroes and other detail, striking in perspective and structural propriety. While still occupied here, he was summoned to Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. to paint in the Sixtine chapel; he went thither in 1483. In the Sixtine he executed, probably before 1484, a fresco which has few rivals in that series," Christ calling Peter and Andrew to their Apostleship,"-a work which, though somewhat deficient in colour, has greatness of method and much excellence of finish. The landscape background, in especial, is very superior to anything to be found in the works, which had no doubt been zealously studied by Ghirlandajo, of Masacció and others in the Brancacci chapel. He also did some other works in Rome, now perished. Before 1485 he had likewise produced his frescoes in the chapel of S. Fina, in the Tuscan town of S. Gimignano, remarkable for grandeur and grace,two pictures of Fina, dying and dead, with some accessory work. Sebastian Mainardi assisted him in these productions in Rome and in S. Gimignano; and Ghirlandajo was so well pleased with his co-operation that he gave him his sister in marriage.

He now returned to Florence, and undertook in the church of the Trinita, and afterwards in S. Maria Novella, the works which have set the seal on his celebrity. The frescoes in the Sassetti chapel of S. Trinita are six subjects from the life of St Francis, along with some classical accessories, dated 1485. Three of the principal incidents are "St Francis obtaining from Pope Honorius the approval of the Rules of his Order "; his "Death and Obsequies," and the Resuscitation, by the interposition of the beatified saint, of a child of the Spini family, who had been killed by falling out of a window. In the first work is a portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici; and in the third the painter's own likeness, which he introduced also into one of the pictures in S. Maria Novella, and in the " Adoration of the Magi" in the hospital of the Innocenti. The altar-piece of the Sassetti chapel, the "Adoration of the Shepherds," is now in the Florentine Academy. Immediately after disposing of this commission, Ghirlandajo was asked to renew the frescoes in the choir of S. Maria Novella. This choir formed the chapel of the Ricci family, but the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families, then much more opulent than the Ricci, undertook the cost of the restoration, under conditions, as to preserving the arms of the Ricci, which gave rise in the end to some amusing incidents of litigation. The frescoes, in the execution of which Domenico had many assistants, are in four courses along the three walls,-the leading subjects being the lives of the Madonna and of the Baptist. Besides their general richness and dignity of art, these works are particularly interesting as containing many historical portraits-a method of treatment in which Ghirlandajo was pre-eminently skilled.

There are no less than twenty-one portraits of the Tornabuoni and Tornaquinci families; in the subject of the " Angel appearing to Zacharias," those of Politian, Marsilio Ficino and others; in the "Salutation of Anna and Elizabeth," the beautiful Ginevra de' Benci; in the "Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple," Mainardi and Baldovinetti (or the latter figure may perhaps be Ghirlandajo's father). The Ricci chapel was reopened and completed in 1400; the altar-piece, now removed from the chapel, was probably executed with the assistance of Domenico's brothers, David and Benedetto, painters of ordinary calibre; the painted window was from Domenico's own design. Other distinguished works from his hand are an altar-piece in tempera of the "Virgin adored by Sts Zenobius, Justus and others," painted for the church of St Justus, but now in the Uffizi gallery, a remarkable masterpiece; "Christ in glory with Romuald and

other Saints," in the Badia of Volterra; the "Adoration of the Magi," in the church of the Innocenti (already mentioned), perhaps his finest panel-picture (1488); and the " Visitation," in the Louvre, bearing the latest ascertained date (1491) of all his works. Ghirlandajo did not often attempt the nude; one of his pictures of this character, "Vulcan and his Assistants forging Thunderbolts," was painted for Lo Spedaletto, but (like several others specified by Vasari) it exists no longer.. Two portraits by him are in the National Gallery, London. The mosaics which he produced date before 1491; one, of especial celebrity, is the "Annunciation," on a portal of the cathedral of Florence.

refuse

any

In general artistic attainment Ghirlandajo may fairly be regarded as exceeding all his precursors or competitors; though the names of a few, particularly Giotto, Masaccio, Lippo Lippi and Botticelli, stand higher for originating power. His scheme of composition is grand and decorous; his chiaroscuro excellent, and especially his perspectives, which he would design on a very elaborate scale by the eye alone; his colour is more open to criticism, but this remark applies much less to the frescoes than the tempera-pictures, which are sometimes too broadly and crudely bright. He worked in these two methods alone-never in oils; and his frescoes are what the Italians term "buon fresco," without any finishing in tempera. A certain hardness of outline, not unlike the character of bronze sculpture, may attest his early training in metal work. He first introduced into Florentine art that mixture of the sacred and the profane which had already been practised in Siena. His types in figures of Christ, the Virgin and angels are not of the highest order; and a defect of drawing, which has been often pointed out, is the meagreness of his hands and feet. It was one of his maxims that painting is designing." Ghirlandajo was an insatiate worker, and expressed a wish that he had the entire circuit of the walls of Florence to paint upon. He told his shop-assistants not to commission that might offer, were it even for a lady's petticoat-panniers: if they would not execute such work, he would. Not that he was in any way gasping or sordid in moneymatters, as is proved by the anecdote of the readiness with which he gave up a bonus upon the stipulated price of the Ricci chapel frescoes, offered by the wealthy Tornabuoni in the first instance, but afterwards begrudged. Vasari says that Ghirlandajo was the first to abandon in great part the use of gilding in his pictures, representing by genuine painting any objects supposed to be gilded; yet this does not hold good without some considerable exceptions-the high lights of the landscape, for instance, in the "Adoration of the Shepherds," now in the Florence Academy, being put in in gold. Many drawings and sketches by this painter are in the Uffizi gallery, remarkable for vigour of outline. One of the great glories of Ghirlandajo is that he gave some early art-education to Michelangelo, who cannot, however, have remained with him long. F. Granacci was another of his pupils. This renowned artist died of pestilential fever on the 11th of January 1494, and was buried in S. Maria Novella. He had been twice married, and left six children, three of them being He had a long and honourable line of descendants, which came to a close in the 17th century, when the last members of the race entered monasteries. It is probable that Domenico died poor; he appears to have been gentle, honourable and conscientious, as well as energetically diligent.

sons.

The biography of Ghirlandajo is carefully worked out in Crowe and Cavalcaselle's book. A recent German work on the subject is that of Ernst Steinmann (1897). See also Codex Escurialensis, ein Skizzenbuch aus der Werkstatt Domenico Ghirlandaios (texts and plates), by Chr. Hülsen, Adolf Michaelis and Hermann Egger in the Sonderschriften des österr. archaol. Instituts in Wien (2 vols., 1906), and cf. T. Ashby in Classical Quarterly (April 1909). (W. M. R.) GHIRLANDAJO, RIDOLFO (1483-1560), son of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Florentine painter, was born on the 14th of February 1483, and, being less than eleven years old when his father died, was brought up by his uncle David. To this second-rate artist he owed less in the way of professional training than to Granacci, Piero di Cosimo and perhaps Cosimo Rosselli. It has been said that Ridolfo studied also under Fra Bartolommeo, but this is

not clearly ascertained. He was certainly one of the earliest students of the famous cartoons of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. His works between the dates 1504 and 1508 show a marked influence from Fra Bartolommeo and Raphael, with the latter of whom he was on terms of familiar friendship; hence he progressed in selection of form and in the modelling and relief of his figures. Raphael, on reaching Rome in 1508, wished Ridolfo to join him; but the Florentine painter was of a particularly home-keeping humour, and he neglected the opportunity. He soon rose to the head of the Florentine oil-painters of his time; and, like his father, accepted all sorts of commissions, of whatever kind. He was prominent in the execution of vast scenic canvases for various public occasions, such as the wedding of Giuliano de' Medici, and the entry of Leo X. into Florence in 1515. In his prime he was honest and conscientious as an artist; but from about 1527 he declined, having already accumulated a handsome property, more than sufficient for maintaining in affluence his, large family of fifteen children, and his works became comparatively mannered and self-repeating. His sons traded in France and in Ferrara; he himself took a part in commercial affairs, and began paying some attention to mosaic work, but it seems that, after completing one mosaic, the "Annunciation" over the door of the Annunziata, patience failed him for continuing such minute labours. In his old age Ridolfo was greatly disabled by gout. He appears to have been of a kindly, easy-going character, much regarded by his friends and patrons. The following are some of his leading works, the great majority of them being oil-pictures:

"Christ and the Maries on the road to Calvary," now in the Palazzo Antinori, Florence, an early example, with figures of half life-size. An "Annunciation Leonardesque in style. In 1504, the "Coronation of the Virgin," in the Abbey of Montoliveto near Florence, now in the Louvre. A" Nativity," very carefully exccuted, now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, and ascribed in the catalogue to Granacci. A" Predella," in the oratory of the Bigallo, Florence, five finished. In 1514, on the ceiling of the chapel of St Bernard in the panels, representing the Nativity and other subjects, charmingly Palazzo Pubblico, Florence, a fresco of the "Trinity," with heads of the twelve apostles and other accessories, and the Annunciation "; also the Assumption of the Virgin, who bestows her girdle on St Thomas," in the choir loft of Prato cathedral. Towards the same date, a picture showing his highest skill, replete with expression, vigorous life, and firm accomplished pictorial method, now in the gallery of the Uffizi, "St Zenobius resuscitating a child "; also the translation of the remains of the same Saint. The "Virgin and various saints," at S. Pier Maggiore, Pistoja. In 1521, the "Pietà," at S. Agostino, Colle di Valdelsa, life-sized. Towards 1526, the Assumption," now in the Berlin Museum, containing the painter's own portrait. An excellent portrait of "Cosimo de' Medici" (the Great) in youth. In 1543, a series of frescoes in the monastery of the Angeli. In the National Gallery, London, is "The Procession to Calvary." A great number of altar-pieces were executed by Ghirlandajo, with the assistance of his favourite pupil, currently named Michele di Ridolfo. Another of his pupils was Mariano da Pescia. (W. M. R.)

46

GHOR, or GHUR, an ancient kingdom of Afghanistan. The name of Ghor was in the middle ages, and indeed locally still is, applied to the highlands east of Herat, extending eastward to the upper Helmund valley, or nearly so. Ghor is the southern portion of that great peninsula of strong mountain country which forms the western part of modern Afghanistan. The northern portion of the peninsula was in the middle ages comprehended under the names of Gharjistän (on the west), and Juzjana (on the east), whilst the basin of the Herat river, and all south of it, constituted Ghor. The name as now used does not include the valley of the Herat river; on the south the limit seems to be the declivity of the higher mountains dominating the descent to the lower Helmund, and the road from Farah to Kandahar. It is in Ghor that rise all those affluents of the closed basin of Seistan, the Hari-rud, the Farah-rud, the Khashrud, besides other considerable streams joining the Helmund above Girishk.

Ghor is mentioned in the Shahnama of Firdousi (A.D. 1010), and in the Arab geographers of that time, though these latter fail in details almost as much as we moderns, thus indicating how little accessible the country has been through all ages. Ibn Haukal's map of Khorasan (c. 976) shows Jibül-al-Ghür, "the

"ghostly man" for a clergyman (cf. the Ger. Geistlicher) is an archaism the use of which could only be justified by poetic licence, as in Tennyson's Elaine (1094). The word ghost," from the shadowy and unsubstantial quality attributed to the apparitions of the dead, has come also to be commonly used to emphasize the want of force or substance generally, in such phrases as not the ghost of a chance," ""not the ghost of an idea." It is also applied to those literary and artistic "hacks" who are paid to do work for which others get the credit.

GHOST DANCE, an American-Indian ritual dance, sometimes called the Spirit Dance, the dancers wearing a white cloak. It is connected with the doctrine of a Messiah, which arose in Nevada among the Paiute Indians in 1888 and spread to other tribes. A young Paiute Indian medicine-man, known as Wovoka, and called Jack Wilson by the whites, proclaimed that he had had a revelation, and that, if this ghost dance and other ceremonies were duly performed, the Indians would be rid of the white men. The movement led to a sort of craze among the Indian tribes, and in 1890 it was one of the causes of the Sioux outbreak. See J. Mooney, 14th Report (1896) of Bureau of American Ethnology. GIACOMETTI, PAOLO (1816-1882), Italian dramatist, born at Novi Ligure, was educated in law at Genoa, but at the age of twenty had some success with his play Rosilda and then devoted himself to the stage. Depressed circumstances made him attach himself as author to various touring Italian companies, and his output was considerable; moreover, such actors as Ristori, Rossi and Salvini made many of these plays great successes. Among the best of them were La Donna (1850), La Donna in seconde nozze (1851), Giuditta (1857), Sofocle (1860), La Morte civile (1880). A collection of his works was published at Milan in eight volumes (1859 et seq.).

GIAMBELLI (or GIANIBELLI), FEDERIGO, Italian military engineer, was born at Mantua about the middle of the 16th century. Having had some experience as a military engineer in Italy, he went to Spain to offer his services to Philip II. His proposals were, however, lukewarmly received, and as he could obtain from the king no immediate employment, he took up his residence at Antwerp, where he soon gained considerable reputation for his knowledge in various departments of science. He is said to have vowed to be revenged for his rebuff at the Spanish court; and when Antwerp was besieged by the duke of Parma in 1584, he put himself in communication with Queen Elizabeth, who, having satisfied herself of his abilities, engaged him to aid by his counsels in its defence. His plans for provisioning the town were rejected by the senate, but they agreed to a modification of his scheme for destroying the famous bridge which closed the entrance to the town from the side of the sea, by the conversion of two ships of 60 and 70 tons into infernal machines. One of these exploded, and, besides destroying more than 1000 soldiers, effected a breach in the structure of more than 200 ft. in width, by which, but for the hesitation of Admiral Jacobzoon, the town might at once have been relieved. After the surrender of Antwerp Giambelli went to England, where he was engaged for some time in fortifying the river Thames; and when the Spanish Armada was attacked by fireships in the Calais roads, the panic which ensued was very largely due to the conviction among the Spaniards that the fireships were infernal machines constructed by Giambelli. He is said to have died in London, but the year of his death is unknown. See Motley's History of the United Netherlands, vols. i. and ii. GIANNONE, PIETRO (1676-1748), was born at Ischitella, in the province of Capitanata, on the 7th of May 1676. Arriving in Naples at the age of eighteen, he devoted himself to the study of law, but his legal pursuits were much surpassed in importance by his literary labours. He devoted twenty years to the composition of his great work, the Storia civile del regno di Napoli, which was ultimately published in 1723. Here in his account of the rise and progress of the Neapolitan laws and government, he warmly espoused the side of the civil power in its conflicts with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. His merit lies in the fact that he was the first to deal systematically with the question of Church and State, and the position thus taken up by him, and the manner

|

| in which that position was assumed, gave rise to a lifelong conflict between Giannone and the Church; and in spite of his retractation in prison at Turin, he deserves the palm--as he certainly endured the sufferings-of a confessor and martyr in the cause of what he deemed historical truth. Hooted by the mob of Naples, and excommunicated by the archbishop's court, he was forced to leave Naples and repair to Vienna. Meanwhile the Inquisition had attested after its own fashion the value of his history by putting it on the Index. At Vienna the favour of the emperor Charles VI. and of many leading personages at the Austrian court obtained for him a pension and other facilities for the prosecution of his historical studies. Of these the most important result was Il Triregno, ossia del regno del cielo, della terra, e del papa. On the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Charles of Bourbon, Giannone lost his Austrian pension and was compelled to remove to Venice. There he was at first most favourably received. The post of consulting lawyer to the republic, in which he might have continued the special work of Fra Paolo Sarpi, was offered to him, as well as that of professor of public law in Padua; but he declined both offers. Unhappily there arose a suspicion that his views on maritime law were not favourable to the pretensions of Venice, and this suspicion, notwithstanding all his efforts to dissipate it, together with clerical intrigues, led to his expulsion from the state. 23rd of September 1735 he was scized and conveyed to Ferrara. After wandering under an assumed name for three months through Modena, Milan and Turin, he at last reached Geneva, where he enjoyed the friendship of the most distinguished citizens, and was on excellent terms with the great publishing firms. But in an evil hour he was induced to visit a Catholic village within Sardinian territory in order to hear mass on Easter day, where he was kidnapped by the agents of the Sardinian government, conveyed to the castle of Miolans and thence successively transferred to Ceva and Turin. In the fortress of Turin he remained immured during the last twelve years of his life, although part of his time was spent in composing a defence of the Sardinian interests as opposed to those of the papal court, and he was led to sign a retractation of the statements in his history most obnoxious to the Vatican (1738). But after his recantation his detention was made less severe and he was allowed many alleviations. He died on the 7th of March 1748, in his seventy-second year.

On the

Giannone's style as an Italian writer has been pronounced to be below a severe classical model; he is often inaccurate as to the facts, for he did not always work from original authorities (see A. Manzoni, Storia della colonna infame), and he was sometimes guilty of unblushing plagiarism. But his very ease and freedom have helped to make his volumes more popular than many works of greater classical renown. In England the just appreciation of his labours by Gibbon, and the ample use made of them in the later volumes of The Decline and Fall, early secured him his rightful place in the estimation of English scholars. The story of his life has been recorded in the Vita by L. Panzini, in the Milan edition of the historian's works (1823); whilst a more which is based on Giannone's unpublished Autobiografia and printed complete estimate of his literary and political importance may be formed by the perusal of the collected edition of the works written by him in his Turin prison, published in Turin in 1859-under the universally recognized as one of the first authorities in Italy on care of the distinguished statesman Pasquale Stanislao Mancini, questions relating to the history of his native Naples, and especially of the conflicts between the civil power and the Church. See also R. Mariano, "Giannone e Vico," in the Rivista contemporanea (1869); G. Ferrari, La Mente di Pietro Giannone (1868). G. Bonacci's Saggio sulla Storia civile del Giannone (Florence, 1903) is a bitter attack on Giannone, and although the writer's remarks on the plagiarisms in the Storia civile are justified, the charge of servility is greatly exaggerated.

GIANNUTRI (Gr. 'Apreμiolov, Lat. Dianium), an island of Italy, about 1 sq. m. in total area, 19 m. S.E. of Giglio and about 10 m. S. of the promontory of Monte Argentario (see ORBETELLO). The highest point is 305 ft. above sea-level. It contains the ruins of a large Roman villa, near the Cala Maestra on the E. coast of the island. The buildings may be divided into five groups: (1) a large cistern in five compartments, each measuring 39 by 17 ft.; (2) habitations both for the owners and for slaves, and

store-rooms; (3) baths; (4) habitations for slaves; (5) belvedere. | The brick-stamps found begin in the Flavian and end with the Hadrianic period. The villa may have belonged to the Domitii Ahenobarbi, who certainly under the republic had property in the island of Igilium (Giglio) and near Cosa.

See G. Pellegrini in Notizie degli scavi (1900), 609 seq. GIANT (O.E. geant, through Fr. géant, O.Fr. gaiant, jaiant, jéant, med. pop. Lat. gagante-cf. Ital. gigante-by assimilation from gigantem, acc. of Lat. gigas, Gr. yiyas). The idea conveyed by the word in classic mythology is that of beings more or less manlike, but monstrous in size and strength. Figures like the Titans and the Giants whose birth from Heaven and Earth is sung by Hesiod in the Theogony, such as can heap up mountains to scale the sky and war beside or against the gods, must be treated, with other like monstrous figures of the wonder-tales of the world, as belonging altogether to the realms of mythology. But there also appear in the legends of giants some with historic significance. The ancient and commonly repeated explanation of the Greek word yiyas, as connected with or derived from γηγενής, οι earth-born," is etymologically doubtful, but at any rate the idea conveyed by it was familiar to the ancient Greeks, that the giants were earth-born or indigenous races (see Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre, i. 787). The Bible (the English reader must be cautioned that the word giant has been there used ambiguously, from the Septuagint downwards) touches the present matter in so far as it records the traditions of the Israelites of fighting in Palestine with tall races of the land such as the Anakim (Numb. xiii. 33; Deut. ii. 10, iii. 11; 1 Sam. xvii. 4). When reading in Homer of " the Cyclopes and the wild tribes of the Giants," or of the adventures of Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus (Homer, Odyss. vii. 206; ix.), we seem to come into view of dim traditions, exaggerated through the mist of ages, of pre-Hellenic barbarians, godless, cannibal, skin-clothed, hurling huge stones in their rude warfare. Giantlegends of this class are common in Europe and Asia, where the big and stupid giants would seem to have been barbaric tribes exaggerated into monsters in the legends of those who dispossessed and slew them. In early times it was usual for cities to have their legends of giants. Thus London had Gog and Magog, whose effigies (14 ft. high) still stand in the Guildhall (see Goc); Antwerp had her Antigonus, 40 ft. high; Douai | had Gayant, 22 ft. high, and so on.

Besides the conception of giants, as special races distinct from mankind, it was a common opinion of the ancients that the human race had itself degenerated, the men of primeval ages having been of so far greater stature and strength as to be in fact gigantic. This, for example, is received by Pliny (Hist. Nat. vii. 16), and it becomes a common doctrine of theologians such as Augustine (De civitate Dei, xv. 9), lasting on into times so modern that it may be found in Cruden's Concordance. Yet so far as can be judged from actual remains, it does not appear that giants, in the sense of tribes of altogether superhuman stature, ever existed, or that the men of ancient time were on the whole taller than those now living. It is now usual to apply the word giant not to superhuman beings but merely to unusually tall men and women. In every race of mankind the great mass of individuals do not depart far from a certain mean or average height, while the very tall or very short men become less and less numerous as they depart from the mean standard, till the utmost divergence is reached in a very few giants on the one hand, and a very few dwarfs on the other. At both ends of the scale, the body is usually markedly out of the ordinary proportions; thus a giant's head is smaller and a dwarf's head larger than it would be if an average man had been magnified or diminished. The principle of the distribution of individuals of different sizes in a race or nation has been ably set forth by Quetelet (Physique sociale, vol. ii.; Anthropometrie, books iii. and iv.). Had this principle been understood formerly, we might have been spared the pains of criticizing assertions as to giants 20 ft. high, or even more, appearing among mankind. The appearance of an individual man 20 ft. high involves the existence of the race he is an extreme member of, whose mean

stature would be at least 12 to 14 ft., which is a height no human being has been proved on sufficient evidence to have approached (Anthropom. p. 302). Modern statisticians cannot accept the loose conclusion in Buffon (Hist. nat., ed. Sonnini, iv. 134) that there is no doubt of giants having been 10, 12, and perhaps 15 ft. high. Confidence is not even to be placed in ancient asserted measurements, as where Pliny gives to one Gabbaras, an Arabian, the stature of 9 ft 9 in. (about 9 ft. 5 in. English), capping this with the mention of Posio and Secundilla, who were half a foot higher. That two persons should be described as both having this same extraordinary measure suggests to the modern critic the notion of a note jotted down on the philosopher's tablets, and never tested afterwards.

Under these circumstances it is worth while to ask how it is that legend and history so abound in mentions of giants outside all probable dimensions of the human frame. One cause is that, when the story-teller is asked the actual stature of the huge men who figure in his tales, he is not sparing of his inches and feet. What exaggeration can do in this way may be judged from the fact that the Patagonians, whose average height (5 ft. 11 in.) is really about that of the Chirnside men in Berwickshire, are described in Pigafetta's Voyage round the World as so monstrous that the Spaniards' heads hardly reached their waists. It is reasonable to suppose, with Professor Nilsson (Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia, chap. vi.), that in the traditions of early Europe tribes of savages may have thus, if really tall, expanded into giants, or, if short, dwindled into dwarfs. Another cause which is clearly proved to have given rise to giant-myths of yet more monstrous type has been the discovery of great fossil bones, as of mammoth or mastodon, which were formerly supposed to be bones of giants (see Tylor, Early History of Mankind, chap. xi.; Primitive Culture, chap. x.). A tooth weighing 4 lb and a thigh-bone 17 ft. long having been found in New England in 1712 (they were probably mastodon), Dr Increase Mather thereupon communicated to the Royal Society of London his theory of the existence of men of prodigious stature in the antediluvian world (see the Philosophical Transactions, xxiv. 85; D. Wilson, Prehistoric Man, i. 54). The giants in the streets of Basel and supporting the arms of Lucerne appear to have originated from certain fossil bones found in 1577, examined by the physician Felix Plater, and pronounced to have belonged to a giant some 16 or 19 ft. high. These bones have since been referred to a very different geological genus, but Plater's giant skeleton was accepted early in the 19th century as a genuine relic of the giants who once inhabited the earth. Of giants in real life whose stature has been authentically recorded Quetelet gives the palm to Frederick the Great's Scotch giant, who measured about 8 ft. 3 in. But since his time there have been several giants who have equalled or surpassed this figure. Patrick Cotler, an Irishman, who died at Clifton, Bristol, in 1802, was 8 ft. 7 in. high. The famous " Irish giant O'Brien (Charles Byrne), whose skeleton is preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, was 8 ft. 4 in. Chang (Chang-woo-goo), who appeared in London in 1865–1866 and again in 1880, was 8 ft. 2 in. Josef Winkelmaier, an Austrian, exhibited in London on the roth of January 1887, was 8 ft. 9 in.; while Elizabeth Lyska, a Russian child of twelve, when shown in London in 1889, had already reached 6 ft. 8 in. Machnow, a Russian, born at Charkow, was exhibited in London in his twenty-third year in 1905; he then stood 9 ft. 3 in., and weighed 360 lb (25 st. 10 lb). From his wrist to the top of his second finger he measured 2 ft. (see The Times, roth February 1905).

The whole subject of giant myths and the now entirely exploded theory that mankind has, as far as stature is concerned, degenerated by MM. P. E. Launois and P. Roy, entitled Etudes biologiques sur since prehistoric times, has been ably dealt with in a volume published les géans (Paris, 1904). See also E. J. Wood, Giants and Dwarfs (1860).

GIANT'S CAUSEWAY, a promontory of columnar basalt, situated on the north coast of county Antrim, Ireland. It is divided by whin-dykes into the Little Causeway, the Middle Causeway or "Honeycomb," as it is locally termed, and the Larger or Grand Causeway. The pillars composing it are