The hostility of certain Fula princes led the company to despatch, in 1897, an expedition against the Mahommedan states of Nupé and Illorin. This expedition was organized and personally directed by Goldie and was completely successful. Internal peace was thus secured, but in the following year the differences with France in regard to the frontier line became acute, and compelled the intervention of the British government. In the negotiations which ensued Goldie was instrumental in preserving for Great Britain the whole of the navigable stretch of the lower Niger. It was, however, evidently impossible for a chartered company to hold its own against the state-supported protectorates of France and Germany, and in consequence, on the 1st of January 1900, the Royal Niger Company transferred its territories to the British government for the sum of £865,000. The ceded territory together with the small Niger Coast Protectorate, already under imperial control, was formed into the two protectorates of northern and southern Nigeria (see further [Nigeria]).
In 1903-1904, at the request of the Chartered Company of South Africa, Goldie visited Rhodesia and examined the situation in connexion with the agitation for self-government by the Rhodesians. In 1902-1903 he was one of the royal commissioners who inquired into the military preparations for the war in South Africa (1899-1902) and into the operations up to the occupation of Pretoria, and in 1905-1906 was a member of the royal commission which investigated the methods of disposal of war stores after peace had been made. In 1905 he was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society and held that office for three years. In 1908 he was chosen an alderman of the London County Council. Goldie was created K.C.M.G. in 1887, and a privy councillor in 1898. He became an F.R.S., honorary D.C.L. of Oxford University (1897) and honorary LL.D. of Cambridge (1897). He married in 1870 Matilda Catherine (d. 1898), daughter of John William Elliott of Wakefield.
GOLDING, ARTHUR (c. 1536-c. 1605), English translator, son of John Golding of Belchamp St Paul and Halsted, Essex, one of the auditors of the exchequer, was born probably in London about 1536. His half-sister, Margaret, married John de Vere, 16th earl of Oxford. In 1549 he was already in the service of Protector Somerset, and the statement that he was educated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, lacks corroboration. He seems to have resided for some time in the house of Sir William Cecil, in the Strand, with his nephew, the poet, the 17th earl of Oxford, whose receiver he was, for two of his dedications are dated from Cecil House. His chief work is his translation of Ovid. The Fyrst Fower Bookes of P. Ovidius Nasos worke, entitled Metamorphosis, translated oute of Latin into Englishe meter (1565), was supplemented in 1567 by a translation of the fifteen books. Strangely enough the translator of Ovid was a man of strong Puritan sympathies, and he translated many of the works of Calvin. To his version of the Metamorphoses he prefixed a long metrical explanation of his reasons for considering it a work of edification. He sets forth the moral which he supposes to underlie certain of the stories, and shows how the pagan machinery may be brought into line with Christian thought. It was from Golding’s pages that many of the Elizabethans drew their knowledge of classical mythology, and there is little doubt that Shakespeare was well acquainted with the book. Golding translated also the Commentaries of Caesar (1565), Calvin’s commentaries on the Psalms (1571), his sermons on the Galatians and Ephesians, on Deuteronomy and the book of Job, Theodore Beza’s Tragedie of Abrahams Sacrifice (1577) and the De Beneficiis of Seneca (1578). He completed a translation begun by Sidney from Philippe de Mornay, A Worke concerning the Trewnesse of the Christian Religion (1604). His only original work is a prose Discourse on the earthquake of 1580, in which he saw a judgment of God on the wickedness of his time. He inherited three considerable estates in Essex, the greater part of which he sold in 1595. The last trace we have of Golding is contained in an order dated the 25th of July 1605, giving him licence to print certain of his works.
GOLDINGEN (Lettish, Kuldiga), a town of Russia, in the government of Courland, 55 m. by rail N.E. of Libau, and on Windau river, in 56° 58′ N. and 22° E. Pop. (1897) 9733. It has woollen mills, needle and match factories, breweries and distilleries, a college for teachers, and ruins of a castle of the Teutonic Knights, built in 1248 and used in the 17th century as the residence of the dukes of Courland.
GOLDMARK, KARL (1832- ), Hungarian composer, was born at Keszthely-am-Plattensee, in Hungary, on the 18th of May 1832. His father, a poor cantor in the local Jewish synagogue, was unable to assist to any extent financially in the development of his son’s talents. Yet in the household much music was made, and on a cheap violin and home-made flute, constructed by Goldmark himself from reeds cut from the riverbank, the future composer gave rein to his musical ideas. His talent was fostered by the village schoolmaster, by whose aid he was able to enter the music-school of the Oedenburger Verein. Here he remained but a short time, his success at a school concert finally determining his parents to allow him to devote himself entirely to music. In 1844, then, he went to Vienna, where Jansa took up his cause and eventually obtained for him admission to the conservatorium. For two years Goldmark worked under Jansa at the violin, and on the outbreak of the revolution, after studying all the orchestral instruments he obtained an engagement in the orchestra at Raab. There, on the capitulation of Raab, he was to have been shot for a spy, and was only saved at the eleventh hour by the happy arrival of a former colleague. In 1850 Goldmark left Raab for Vienna, where from his friend Mittrich he obtained his first real knowledge of the classics. There, too, he devoted himself to composition. In 1857 Goldmark, who was then engaged in the Karl-theater band, gave a concert of his own works with such success that his first quartet attracted very general attention. Then followed the “Sakuntala” and “Penthesilea” overtures, which show how Wagner’s influence had supervened upon his previous domination by Mendelssohn, and the delightful “Ländliche Hochzeit” symphony, which carried his fame abroad. Goldmark’s reputation was now made, and very largely increased by the production at Vienna in 1875 of his first and best opera, Die Königin von Saba. Over this opera he spent seven years. Its popularity is still almost as great as ever. It was followed in November 1886, also at Vienna, by Merlin, much of which has been rewritten since then. A third opera, a version of Dickens’s Cricket on the Hearth, was given by the Royal Carl Rosa Company in London in 1900. Goldmark’s chamber music has not made much lasting impression, but the overtures “Im Frühling,” “Prometheus Bound,” and “Sapho” are fairly well known. A “programme” seems essential to him. In opera he is most certainly at his best, and as an orchestral colourist he ranks among the very highest.
GOLDONI, CARLO (1707-1793), Italian dramatist, the real founder of modern Italian comedy, was born at Venice, on the 25th of February 1707, in a fine house near St Thomas’s church. His father Giulio was a native of Modena. The first playthings of the future writer were puppets which he made dance; the first books he read were plays,—among others, the comedies of the Florentine Cicognini. Later he received a still stronger impression from the Mandragora of Machiavelli. At eight years old he had tried to sketch a play. His father, meanwhile, had taken his degree in medicine at Rome and fixed himself at Perugia, where he made his son join him; but, having soon quarrelled with his colleagues in medicine, he departed for Chioggia, leaving his son to the care of a philosopher, Professor Caldini of Rimini. The young Goldoni soon grew tired of his life at Rimini, and ran away with a Venetian company of players. He began to study law at Venice, then went to continue the same pursuit at Pavia, but at that time he was studying the Greek and Latin comic poets much more and much better than books about law. “I have read over again,” he writes in his own Memoirs, “the Greek and Latin poets, and I have told to myself that I should like to imitate them in their style, their plots, their precision; but I would not be satisfied unless I succeeded in giving more interest to my works, happier issues to my plots, better drawn characters and more genuine comedy.” For a satire entitled Il Colosso, which attacked the honour of several families of Pavia, he was driven from that town, and went first to study with the jurisconsult Morelli at Udine, then to take his degree in law at Modena. After having worked some time as clerk in the chanceries of Chioggia and Feltre, his father being dead, he went to Venice, to exercise there his profession as a lawyer. But the wish to write for the stage was always strong in him, and he tried to do so; he made, however, a mistake in his choice, and began with a tragedy, Amalasunta, which was represented at Milan and proved a failure. In 1734 he wrote another tragedy, Belisario, which, though not much better, chanced nevertheless to please the public. This first success encouraged him to write other tragedies, some of which were well received; but the author himself saw clearly that he had not yet found his proper sphere, and that a radical dramatic reform was absolutely necessary for the stage. He wished to create a characteristic comedy in Italy, to follow the example of Molière, and to delineate the realities of social life in as natural a manner as possible. His first essay of this kind was Momolo Cortesan (Momolo the Courtier), written in the Venetian dialect, and based on his own experience. Other plays followed—some interesting from their subject, others from the characters; the best of that period are—Le Trentadue Disgrazie d’ Arlecchino, La Notte critica, La Bancarotta, La Donna di Garbo. Having, while consul of Genoa at Venice, been cheated by a captain of Ragusa, he founded on this his play L’Impostore. At Leghorn he made the acquaintance of the comedian Medebac, and followed him to Venice, with his company, for which he began to write his best plays. Once he promised to write sixteen comedies in a year, and kept his word; among the sixteen are some of his very best, such as Il Caffè, Il Bugiardo, La Pamela. When he left the company of Medebac, he passed over to that maintained by the patrician Vendramin, continuing to write with the greatest facility. In 1761 he was called to Paris, and before leaving Venice he wrote Una delle ultime sere di Carnevale (One of the Last Nights of Carnival), an allegorical comedy in which he said good-bye to his country. At the end of the representation of this play, the theatre resounded with applause, and with shouts expressive of good wishes. Goldoni, at this proof of public sympathy, wept as a child. At Paris, during two years, he wrote comedies for the Italian actors; then he taught Italian to the royal princesses; and for the wedding of Louis XVI. and of Marie Antoinette he wrote in French one of his best comedies, Le Bourru bienfaisant, which was a great success. When he retired from Paris to Versailles, the king made him a gift of 6000 francs, and fixed on him an annual pension of 1200 francs. It was at Versailles he wrote his Memoirs, which occupied him till he reached his eightieth year. The Revolution deprived him all at once of his modest pension, and reduced him to extreme misery; he dragged on his unfortunate existence till 1793, and died on the 6th of February. The day after, on the proposal of André Chénier, the Convention agreed to give the pension back to the poet; and as he had already died, a reduced allowance was granted to his widow.