kling character plays after the manner of Moliere; in 1761 he went to
Paris as a playwright to the Italian theatre; became Italian master to
Louis XV.'s daughters, and subsequently was pensioned; his comedies
displaced the burlesques and farces till then in vogue on the stage in
Italy (1707-1793).

GOLDSCHMIDT, MADAME. See LIND, JENNY.

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, English man of letters, born at Pallas or
Pallasmore, co. Longford, Ireland, and celebrated in English literature
as the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield"; a born genius, but of careless
ways, and could not be trained to any profession, either in the Church,
in law, or in medicine, though more or less booked for all three in
succession; set out on travel on the Continent without a penny, and
supported himself by his flute and other unknown means; came to London,
tried teaching, then literature, doing hack-work, his first work in that
department being "An Inquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in
Europe," which was succeeded by his "Citizen of the World"; became a
member of the "Literary Club," and associated with Johnson, Reynolds,
Burke, and others; produced poems, "The Traveller" and the "Deserted
Village," besides comedies, such as "She Stoops to Conquer"; lived
extravagantly, and died in debt; wrote histories of Greece and Rome, and
"Animated Nature"; was a charming writer (1728-1774).

GOLF, a game played with a bent club and a small ball on commons
with short grass, in which the player who drives the ball into a
succession of small holes in the ground, usually 18, with the fewest
strokes, or who reckons up the most holes in the round by taking them
with the fewest strokes, is the winner; an old popular Scotch game, and
first introduced into English on Blackheath by James I., which has of
late years been revived, and in connection with which clubs have
established themselves far and wide over the globe, even at Bagdad.

GOLIATH, a Philistine giant of Gath slain by David with pebbles from
a brook by a sling (1 Sam. xvii.).

GOMARISTS, a sect of Calvinists in Holland, so called from their
leader Gomarus (1563-1641), a bitter enemy of ARMINIUS (q. v.).

GONCOURT, EDMOND AND JULES DE, French novelists, born, the former at
Nancy, the latter at Paris; a habit of elaborate note-taking whilst on
sketching tours first drew the brothers towards literature, and
inoculated them with the habit of minute and accurate observation which
gave value to