GILBERT, SIR HUMPHREY, navigator, born in Devonshire, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh; in 1583 established a settlement in Newfoundland.

GILBERT, SIR JOHN, English artist, President of the Royal Society of Water-Colour Painters; was for long an illustrator of books, among the number an edition of Shakespeare; he was a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (1817-1897).

GILBERT, WILLIAM SCHWENCK, barrister, notable as a play-writer and as the author of the librettos of a series of well-known popular comic operas set to music by Sir Arthur Sullivan; b. 1836.

GILBERT ISLANDS, or KINGSMILL GROUP (37), a group of islands in the Pacific, of coral formation, lying on the equator between 172 deg. and 177 deg.  E. long; they are 16 in number, were discovered in 1788, and annexed by Britain in 1892.

GILBOA, MOUNT, a range of hills on the SE. of the Plain of Esdraelon, in Palestine, attaining a height of 1698 ft.

GILCHRIST, ALEXANDER, biographer of WILLIAM BLAKE (q. v.), born at Newington Green, son of a Unitarian minister; although called to the bar, literary and art criticism became his main pursuit; settled at Guildford in 1853, where he wrote his Life of the artist Etty; became in 1856 a next-door neighbour of Carlyle at Chelsea, and had all but finished his Life of Blake when he died (1828-1861).—­His wife, Anne Gilchrist, nee Burrows, was during her life an active contributor to magazines; she completed her husband’s Life of Blake, and in 1883 published a Life of Mary Lamb (1828-1885).

GILDAS, a monkish historian of Britain, who wrote in the 6th century a Latin work entitled “De Excidio Britanniae,” which afterwards appeared in two parts, a History and an Epistle.

GILEAD, a tableland extending along the E. of the Jordan, at a general level of 2000 ft. above the sea, the highest point near Ramoth-Gilead being 3597 ft.

GILES, ST., the patron saint of cripples, beggars, and lepers; was himself a cripple, due to his refusal to be cured of a wound that he might learn to mortify the flesh; was fed by the milk of a hind that visited him daily; had once at his monastery a long interview with St. Louis, without either of them speaking a word to the other.

GILFILLAN, GEORGE, a critic and essayist, born at Comrie, minister of a Dissenting congregation in Dundee from 1836 to his death; a writer with a perfervid style; author of “Gallery of Literary Portraits,” “Bards of the Bible,” etc., and editor of Nichol’s “British Poets,” which extended to 48 vols. (1817-1878).

GILLESPIE, GEORGE, a celebrated Scotch divine, born at Kirkcaldy; trained at St. Andrews, and ordained to a charge at Wemyss; in 1642 he was called to Edinburgh, and in the following year appointed one of a deputation of four to represent Scotland at the Westminster Assembly; his chief work is “Aaron’s Rod Blossoming,” a vigorous statement and vindication of his Presbyterianism; in 1648 he was Moderator of the General Assembly (1613-1648).