[Gil Blas], a romance by Le Sage, from the name of the hero, a character described by Scott as honestly disposed, but being constitutionally timid, unable to resist temptation, though capable of brave actions, and intelligent, but apt to be deceived through vanity, with sufficient virtue to make us love him, but indifferent to our respect.
[Gilbert, Sir Humphrey], navigator, born in Devonshire, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh; in 1583 established a settlement in Newfoundland.
[Gilbert, Sir John], English artist, President of the Royal Society of Water-Colour Painters; was for long an illustrator of books, among the number an edition of Shakespeare; he was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1817-1897).
[Gilbert, William Schwenck], barrister, notable as a play-writer and as the author of the librettos of a series of well-known popular comic operas set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan; b. 1836.
[Gilbert Islands], or Kingsmill Group (37), a group of islands in the Pacific, of coral formation, lying on the equator between 172° and 177° E. long; they are 16 in number, were discovered in 1788, and annexed by Britain in 1892.
[Gilboa, Mount], a range of hills on the SE. of the Plain of Esdraëlon, in Palestine, attaining a height of 1698 ft.
[Gilchrist, Alexander], biographer of [William Blake] (q. v.), born at Newington Green, son of a Unitarian minister; although called to the bar, literary and art criticism became his main pursuit; settled at Guildford in 1853, where he wrote his Life of the artist Etty; became in 1856 a next-door neighbour of Carlyle at Chelsea, and had all but finished his Life of Blake when he died (1828-1861).—His wife, Anne Gilchrist, née Burrows, was during her life an active contributor to magazines; she completed her husband's Life of Blake, and in 1883 published a Life of Mary Lamb (1828-1885).
[Gildas], a monkish historian of Britain, who wrote in the 6th century a Latin work entitled "De Excidio Britanniæ," which afterwards appeared in two parts, a History and an Epistle.
[Gilead], a tableland extending along the E. of the Jordan, at a general level of 2000 ft. above the sea, the highest point near Ramoth-Gilead being 3597 ft.
[Giles, St.], the patron saint of cripples, beggars, and lepers; was himself a cripple, due to his refusal to be cured of a wound that he might learn to mortify the flesh; was fed by the milk of a hind that visited him daily; had once at his monastery a long interview with St. Louis, without either of them speaking a word to the other.