GLEIG, GEORGE (1753-1840), Scottish divine, was born at Boghall, Kincardineshire, on the 12th of May 1753, the son of a farmer. At the age of thirteen he entered King’s College, Aberdeen, where the first prize in mathematics and physical and moral sciences fell to him. In his twenty-first year he took orders in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and was ordained to the pastoral charge of a congregation at Pittenweem, Fife, whence he removed in 1790 to Stirling. He became a frequent contributor to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman’s Magazine, the Anti-Jacobin Review and the British Critic. He also wrote several articles for the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and on the death of the editor, Colin Macfarquhar, in 1793, was engaged to edit the remaining volumes. Among his principal contributions to this work were articles on “Instinct,” “Theology” and “Metaphysics.” The two supplementary volumes were mainly his own work. He was twice chosen bishop of Dunkeld, but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards primus, rendered the election on both occasions ineffectual. In 1808 he was consecrated assistant and successor to the bishop of Brechin, in 1810 was preferred to the sole charge, and in 1816 was elected primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, in which capacity he greatly aided in the introduction of many useful reforms, in fostering a more catholic and tolerant spirit, and in cementing a firm alliance with the sister church of England. He died at Stirling on the 9th of March 1840.
Besides various sermons, Gleig was the author of Directions for the Study of Theology, in a series of letters from a bishop to his son on his admission to holy orders (1827); an edition of Stackhouse’s History of the Bible (1817); and a life of Robertson the historian, prefixed to an edition of his works. See Life of Bishop Gleig, by the Rev. W. Walker (1879). Letters to Henderson of Edinburgh and John Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, are in the British Museum.
His third and only surviving son, George Robert Gleig (1796-1888), was educated at Glasgow University, whence he passed with a Snell exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford. He abandoned his scholastic studies to enter the army, and served with distinction in the Peninsular War (1813-14), and in the American War, in which he was thrice wounded. Resuming his work at Oxford, he proceeded B.A. in 1818, M.A. in 1821, and, having been ordained in 1820, held successively curacies at Westwell in Kent and Ash (to the latter the rectory of Ivy Church was added in 1822). He was subsequently appointed chaplain of Chelsea hospital (1824), chaplain-general of the forces (1844-1875) and inspector-general of military schools (1846-1857). From 1848 till his death on the 9th of July 1888 he was prebend of Willesden in St Paul’s cathedral. During the last sixty years of his life he was a prolific, if not very scientific, writer; he wrote for Blackwood’s Magazine and Fraser’s Magazine, and produced a large number of historical works.
Among the latter were (besides histories of the campaigns in which he served), Life of Sir Thomas Munro (3 vols., 1830); History of India (4 vols., 1830-1835); The Leipsic Campaign and Lives of Military Commanders (1831); Story of the Battle of Waterloo (1847); Sketch of the Military History of Great Britain (1845); Sale’s Brigade in Afghanistan (1847); biographies of Lord Clive (1848), the duke of Wellington (1862), and Warren Hastings (1848; the subject of Macaulay’s essay, in which it is described as “three big bad volumes full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric”).
GLEIM, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG (1719-1803), German poet, was born on the 2nd of April 1719 at Ermsleben, near Halberstadt. Having studied law at the university of Halle he became secretary to Prince William of Brandenburg-Schwedt at Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of Ewald von Kleist, whose devoted friend he became. When the prince fell at the battle of Prague, Gleim became secretary to Prince Leopold of Dessau; but he soon gave up his position, not being able to bear the roughness of the “Old Dessauer.” After residing a few years in Berlin he was appointed, in 1747, secretary of the cathedral chapter at Halberstadt. “Father Gleim” was the title accorded to him throughout all literary Germany on account of his kind-hearted though inconsiderate and undiscriminating patronage alike of the poets and poetasters of the period. He wrote a large number of feeble imitations of Anacreon, Horace and the minnesingers, a dull didactic poem entitled Halladat oder das rote Buch (1774), and collections of fables and romances. Of higher merit are his Preussische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier (1758). These, which were inspired by the campaigns of Frederick II., are often distinguished by genuine feeling and vigorous force of expression. They are also noteworthy as being the first of that long series of noble political songs in which later German literature is so rich. With this exception, Gleim’s writings are for the most part tamely commonplace in thought and expression. He died at Halberstadt on the 18th of February 1803.
Gleim’s Sämtliche Werke appeared in 7 vols. in the years 1811-1813; a reprint of the Lieder eines Grenadiers was published by A. Sauer in 1882. A good selection of Gleim’s poetry will be found in F. Muncker, Anakreontiker und preussisch-patriotische Lyriker (1894). See W. Körte, Gleims Leben aus seinen Briefen und Schriften (1811). His correspondence with Heinse was published in 2 vols. (1894-1896); with Uz (1889), in both cases edited by C. Schüddekopf.
GLEIWITZ, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the Klodnitz, and the railway between Oppeln and Cracow, 40 m. S.E. of the former town. Pop. (1875) 14,156; (1905) 61,324. It possesses two Protestant and four Roman Catholic churches, a synagogue, a mining school, a convent, a hospital, two orphanages, and barracks. Gleiwitz is the centre of the mining industry of Upper Silesia. Besides the royal foundry, with which are connected machine manufactories and boiler-works, there are other foundries, meal mills and manufactories of wire, gas pipes, cement and paper.
See B. Nietsche, Geschichte der Stadt Gleiwitz (1886); and Seidel, Die königliche Eisengiesserei zu Gleiwitz (Berlin, 1896).