GLOGAU (20), a town with a strong fortress in Silesia, on the Oder, 35 m.  NW. of Liegnitz; is a place of manufacture; was brilliantly taken by Frederick the Great in the Silesian War on the 9th March 1741 by scalade, in one hour, at the very break of day.

GLOMMEN or STOR-ELV (i. e.  Great River), the largest river in Norway; has its source in Lake Aursund, and, after a southward course of 350 m., broken by many falls, and for the most part unnavigable, discharges into the Skager Rack at Frederikstad.

GLORIANA, Queen Elizabeth, represented in her capacity as sovereign in Spenser’s “Faerie Queen.”

GLOUCESTER:  1 (39), the capital of Gloucestershire, on the Severn, 38 m.  NE. of Bristol; a handsomely laid out town, the main lines of its ground-plan testifying to its Roman origin; conspicuous among several fine buildings is the cathedral, begun in 1088 (restored in 1853) and exhibiting features of Perpendicular and Norman architecture; the river, here tidal, is spanned by two stone bridges, and a flourishing commerce is favoured by fine docks and a canal; chemicals, soap, &c., are manufactured. 2 (25), a seaport of Massachusetts, U.S., 30 m.  NE. of Boston; is a favourite summer resort, an important fishing-station, and has an excellent harbour; granite is hewn in large quantities in the neighbouring quarries.

GLOUCESTER, ROBERT OF, English chronicler; was a monk of Gloucester Abbey, and lived in the 13th century; his chronicle, which is in verse, traces the history of England from the siege of Troy to 1271, the year before the accession of Edward I.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE (600), a west midland county of England, which touches Warwick in the centre of the country, and extends SW. to the estuary of the Severn; it presents three natural and well-defined districts known as the Hill, formed by the Cotswold Hills in the E.; the Vale, through which the Severn runs, in the centre; the Forest of Dean (the largest in England) in the W.; coal is wrought in two large fields, but agricultural and dairy-farming are the main industries; antiquities abound; the principal rivers are the Wye, Severn, Lower and Upper Avon, and Thames; BRISTOL (q. v.) is the largest town.

GLUeCK, CHRISTOPH VON, a German musical composer and reformer of the opera; made his first appearance in Vienna; studied afterwards for some years under San-Martini of Milan, and brought out his first opera “Artaxerxes,” followed by seven others in the Italian style; invited to London, he studied Haendel, attained a loftier ideal, and returned to the Continent, where, especially at Vienna and Paris, he achieved his triumphs, becoming founder of a new era in operatic music; in Paris he had a rival in Piccini, and the public opinion was for a time divided, but the production by him of “Iphigenie en Aulide” established his superiority, and he carried off the palm (1714-1787).

GNOMES, a set of imaginary beings misshapen in form and of diminutive size, viewed as inhabiting the interior of the earth and presiding over its secret treasures.