Gob´ilyve (Godfrey), the assumed name of False Report. He is described as a dwarf, with great head, large brows, hollow eyes, crooked nose, hairy cheeks, a pied beard, hanging lips, and black teeth. His neck was short, his shoulders awry, his breast fat, his arms long, his legs “kewed,” and he rode “brigge-a-bragge on a little nag.” He told Sir Graunde Amoure he was wandering over the world to find a virtuous wife, but hitherto without success. Lady Correction met the party, and commanded Gobilyve (3 syl.) to be severely beaten for a lying varlet.—Stephen Hawes, The Passe-tyme of Plesure, xxix., xxxi., xxxii. (1515).
Gobseck, a grasping money-lender, the hero and title of one of Balzac’s novels.
God.
Full of the god, full of wine, partly intoxicated.
God made the country, and man made the town.—Cowper’s Task (“The Sofa”). Varro, in his De Re Rustica, has: “Divina[“Divina] Natura agros dedit, ars humana ædificavit urbes.”
God sides with the strongest. Napoleon I. said, “Le bon Dieu est toujours du coté des gros bataillons.” Julius Cæsar made the same remark.
Godam, a nickname applied by the French to the English, in allusion to a once popular oath.
Godfrey (de Bouillon), the chosen chief of the allied crusaders, who went to wrest Jerusalem from the hands of the Saracens. He was calm, circumspect, prudent, and brave. Godfrey despised “worldly empire, wealth, and fame.”—Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (1575).
Godfrey (Sir Edmondbury), a magistrate killed by the papists. He was very active in laying bare their nefarious schemes, and his body was found pierced with his own sword, in 1678.—Sir W. Scott, Peveril of the Peak (time, Charles II.).
⁂ Dryden calls Sir Edmondbury “Agag,” and Dr. Titus Otes he calls “Corah.”