[Guise, Henry II.], fifth Duke of, grandson of preceding; at 15 he became archbishop of Rheims, but the death of his brother placed him in the dukedom (1640); he opposed Richelieu, was condemned to death, but fled to Flanders; with Masaniello he made a fruitless attempt to seize the kingdom of Naples, and eventually settled in Paris, becoming grand-chamberlain to Louis XIV. (1614-1664).
[Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume], a celebrated French historian and statesman, born at Nîmes; his boyhood was spent at Geneva, and in 1805 he came to Paris to study law, but he soon took to writing, and in his twenty-fourth year had published several works and translated Gibbon's great history; in 1812 he was appointed to the chair of History in the Sorbonne; on the second restoration (1814) became Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior; the return of Napoleon drove him from office, but on the downfall of the Corsican he received the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Justice; in 1830 he threw in his lot with Louis Philippe, became Minister of Public Instruction, Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister; his political career practically closed with the downfall of Louis Philippe; his voluminous historical works, executed between his terms of office and in his closing years, display wide learning and a great faculty of generalisation; the best known are "The History of the English Revolution" and "The History of Civilisation"; as a statesman he was honest, patriotic, but short-sighted (1787-1874).
[Gujarat] (3,098), a N. maritime province of the Presidency of Bombay, lying between the Gulfs of Cutch and Cambay; it is a rich alluvial country, and chiefly comprises the native States of Kathiawar, Cutch, and Baroda.
[Gulf Stream], the most important of the great ocean currents; it issues by the Strait of Florida from the Gulf of Mexico (whence its name), a vast body of water 50 m. wide, with a temperature of 84° and a speed of 5 m. an hour; flows along the coast of the U.S. as far as Newfoundland, whence it spreads itself in a NE. direction across the Atlantic, throwing out a branch which skirts the coasts of Spain and Africa, while the main body sweeps N. between the British Isles and Iceland, its influence being perceptible as far as Spitzbergen; the climate of Britain has been called "the gift of the Gulf Stream," and it is the genial influence of this great current which gives to Great Britain and Norway their warm and humid atmosphere, and preserves them from experiencing a climate like Labrador and Greenland, a climate which their latitude would otherwise subject them to.
[Gull, Sir William Withey], physician, born at Thorpe-le-Soken; received his medical training at London, and in 1843 became professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution; four years later he was appointed clinical lecturer at Guy's Hospital; in 1871 his attendance on the Prince of Wales brought him a baronetcy; published various lectures and papers on cholera, paralysis, &c. (1816-1890).
[Gulliver], the hero of Swift's satirical romance entitled "Gulliver's Travels," which records his adventures among the pigmies of Lilliput, the giants of Brobdingnag, the quacks of Laputa, and the [Houyhnhnms] (q. v.).
[Gully, Right Hon. William Court], Speaker of the House of Commons since 1895; has represented Carlisle since 1886, is son of Dr. Gully of water-cure celebrity; b. 1835.
[Gun-cotton], a powerful explosive formed by the action of nitric or sulphuric acid on cotton or some similar vegetable fibre.
[Gun-metal], a tough, close-grained alloy of copper and tin.
[Gunnings], two beautiful Irish girls, Maria (1733-1760) and Elizabeth (1734-1790), the elder of whom became Countess of Cromarty, and the younger married first the Duke of Hamilton (1752) and afterwards the first Duke of Argyll (1759).