GAIA or GE, in the Greek mythology the primeval goddess of the earth, the alma mater of living things, both in heaven and on earth, called subsequently Demeter, i. e.  Gemeter, Earth-mother.

GAILLARD, French historian, born at Amiens; devoted his life to history (1726-1806).

GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS, one of England’s greatest artists in portrait and landscape painting, born at Sudbury, Suffolk; he early displayed a talent for drawing, and at 14 was sent to London to study art; when 19 he started as a portrait-painter at Ipswich, having by this time married Margaret Burr, a young lady with L200 a year; patronised by Sir Philip Thicknesse, he removed in 1760 to Bath, where he rose into high favour, and in 1774 he sought a wider field in London; he shared the honours of painting portraits with Reynolds and of landscape with Wilson; his portraits have more of grace, if less of genius, than Reynolds, while his landscapes inaugurated a freer and more genial manner of dealing with nature, while as a colourist Ruskin declares him the greatest since Rubens; among his most famous pictures are portraits of Mrs. Siddons, the Duchess of Devonshire, and the Hon. Mrs. Graham, “Shepherd Boy in the Shower,” “The Seashore,” &c. (1727-1788).

GAIUS, a Roman jurist of the 2nd century, whose “Institutes” served for the basis of Justinian’s.

GALAHAD, SIR, son of Lancelot, one of the Knights of the Round Table; distinguished for the immaculate purity of his character and life; was successful in his search for the Holy Graal.

GALAOR, a hero of Spanish romance, brother of Amadis de Gaul, the model of a courtly paladin, and always ready with his sword to avenge the wrongs of the widow and the orphan.

GALAPAGOS, a sparsely populated group of islands (13 in number), barren on the N., but well wooded on the S., situated on the equator, 600 m.  W. of Ecuador, and which, although belonging to Ecuador, all bear English names, bestowed upon them, it would appear, by the buccaneers of the 17th century; Albemarle Island makes up more than half of their area; they are volcanic in formation, and some of their 2000 craters are not yet inactive; their fauna is of peculiar scientific interest as exhibiting many species unknown elsewhere; besides the islands proper there is a vast number of islets and rocks.

GALATA, a faubourg of Constantinople where the European merchants reside.

GALATEA, a nymph whom Polyphemus made love to, but who preferred Acis to him, whom therefore he made away with by crushing him under a rock, in consequence of which the nymph threw herself into the sea.

GALATIA, a high-lying Roman province in Asia Minor that had been invaded and taken possession of by a horde of Gauls in the 3rd century B.C., whence the name.

GALATIANS, EPISTLE TO THE, an epistle of St. Paul to the churches in Galatia, which was an especial favourite with Luther, as, with its doctrine of spiritual freedom in Christ, it might well be, for it corroborated the great revelation first made to him by a neighbour monk; “man is not saved by singing masses, but by the grace of God”; it is a didactic epistle, in assertion, on the one hand, of freedom from the law, and, on the other, of the power of the spirit.