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The country between the sea and the Shannon is well watered, and contains several beautiful lakes. Lough Corrib here extends about twenty miles in length, its greatest breadth being eleven; but, in the middle, it is contracted to a narrow channel, which is crossed by a ferry at Knock. It yields a fresh water muscle, that produces pearls, of which,' says Beaufort, I have seen some very fine specimens. Next to the Shannon, the principal rivers are, the Black River, Suck, Clare, Galway, and Dunmore; the Black River, on the bounds of Mayo, is subterraneous for about three miles, and the Clare and the Moyne unite their waters under ground, alternately appearing and retiring from sight. Lough Reagh and Lough Coutra are fine pieces of water; the latter, in particular, which is situated near the borders of Clare, is much admired for its combination of hills, woods, and islands.

The Arran Isles, on the western coast, included in this county, are rocky and precipitous near the shore, which, in many places, shoots up into stupendous perpendicular cliffs. They are called the South Arran Isles, to distinguish them from Arran Island, on the coast of Donegal. They formerly gave the title of earl to the Butler family, which is extinct, but the title is continued in that of Gore.

There are several large estates in Galway, affording an income of from £5000 to £10,000 ayear one of these is said to be the most extensive in the British Isles, and stretches along the sea coast for seventy miles. In 1809 the rent of the green land averaged from a guinea and a half to two guineas per acre, or about 22s. 9d. an English acre. A third, perhaps, of the land is let on partnership leases, at three lives or twenty-one years,' to an indefinite number of persons, sometimes eighteen or twenty, who are joint tenants, and entitled to the benefit of survivorship. These people,' according to Mr. Wakefield, divide the land, and give portions to their children, which consist of a fourth or fifth of what they call a man's share;' that is, of the land which originally belonged to one name in the lease. A certain portion of the whole farm, or take, as it is styled, is appropriated for tillage, and this portion is then divided into lots, perhaps twenty or thirty. These lots are again subdivided into fields, which are partitioned into small lots, each partner obtaining one or two ridges; but these ridges do not continue in the hands of the same occupier longer than the time they are in tillage. The pasture is held in common; and the elders of the village are the legislators, who establish such regulations as may be judged proper for their community, and settle all disputes that arise among them. Their houses stand close to each other, and form what is here termed a village.' Galway, however, has a fair proportion of resident proprietors. The chief towns are Galway, Tuam, and Ballinasloe, where the greatest fairs in Ireland for cattle, sheep, and wool, are held in July and October.

The cattle here are long-horned, and fully equal, in the opinion of Mr. Wakefield, to any n England. But the most valuable part of the

live stock is sheep; 'some of the finest flocks in the world,' says this writer. Potatoes are not here cultivated to so great an extent as in some parts of Ireland; they plant them on oat stubble, or on lea that has been burned or manured, and follow with wheat, bear or barley, or oats; which grains often follow in this order. Paring and burning the soil is common, and a great part of the rent of some of the estates on the shore is paid from kelp. Mr. Wakefield states, that the wages of common labor in Galway, in 1811, were 9d. a day; and, in hay and corn harvest, 1s. 1d. The price of potatoes was 3d. per stone; beef 5d., and pork 31d. per lb.; oatmeal 14s. per cwt.; milk 2d., and butter-milk three farthings per quart; and herrings 5s. 3d. per hundred.

The linen manufacture is not considerable in Galway, but is the only kind of manufacture pursued to any extent. There is a considerable salmon fishery at the town of Galway; and, in the bay, herrings, lobsters, and crabs abound. Of the latter, such as in Dublin would bring 7s. or 8s., may be often bought here for 6d, we are told, or even for less. The oysters found at Pouldoody are much esteemed. The hardy inhabitants of the Arran Isles are at one season of the year fishermen, and at another hus bandmen. The cavities and fissures on their coast also being the resort of great numbers of sea-fowl, they are caught for their feathers, by men suspended by a rope from the summit of the precipices. The mutton of these islands is highly esteemed for its flavor. The principal curiosity of these isles is a circle composed of very large stones, piled up without cement, called Dun Angus, on a high cliff projecting into the sea, in the island of Arranmore: in the same island is said to have been an abbey, which was burnt early in the eleventh century.

The county of Galway sends two members to parliament, and the borough one; the landed property of the Roman Catholics returning the members for the county. The freeholders amount to 4000. In 1809 the Catholics ia this county were, to the Protestants, as forty or fifty to one. In the western parts, there are districts of fifty miles, perhaps, in extent, where there is neither a church nor a single Protestant inhabitant. The militia are nearly all Catholics; and ten Catholics are called on the grand jury. The Protestant population seems to be stationary; but, in several parishes, the increase of the Catholic, in fifteen years before 1811, is stated to have been as five and a half to seven. In the county of Galway, the services of the Catholic church are performed by the priests in Irish.

GALWAY, a town of Ireland, and capital of the foregoing county, is situated on a bay, sheltered by the isles of Arran, and having a safe and deep harbour. Its population has been conjecturally stated at about 15,000. It is the only parliamentary borough. The harbour is defended by a strong fort: the town is surrounded with strong walls, and contains several large and regular streets; the houses are generally of stone and well built. The parish church is a large and beautiful gothic structure; it has also an exchange, an hospital, a charter-house, and

an extensive barrack for foot soldiers. It is governed by a mayor, sheriffs, and recorder. Galway has been considered as one of the strongest towns in Ireland, and held out a considerable time against general Ginkle, who invested and took it after the battle of Aghrim; since which time the bastions have been suffered to go to decay. Several religious houses were in this neighbourhood, but the ruins were entirely demolished in 1652, to prevent Cromwell from turning them into fortifications. The salmon and herring-fisheries are carried on here with great spirit, and employ several hundred boats: it has a considerable trade in making and exporting kelp, and the linen manufactures have, of late, been much improved. It is 108 miles south-west of Dublin.

GAMA (Vasco de), a Portuguese admiral, celebrated for his discovery of the passage to the East Indies, by the Cape of Good Hope, was born at Synes; and, in 1497, was sent to the Indies by king Emanuel; he returned in 1502, and sailed thither again with thirteen vessels richly laden. He was made viceroy of the Indies by king John III, and died at Cochin on the 24th of December, 1525. Stephen and Christopher de Gama, his sons, were also viceroys of the Indies, and celebrated in history. GAMBADE', n. s. Italian, gamba, a leg. GAMBA'DO, n. s. Spatterdashes, or boots

worn upon the legs above the shoe. The pettifogger ambles to her in his gambadoes once a week. Dennis's Letters.

GAMBIA, a river of Western Africa, formerly supposed to be one of the branches by which the Niger emptied its waters into the ocean; an opinion which has been completely refuted by Mr. Park. Its sources have never been actually visited; but they are ascertained to exist among that range of lofty mountains which form the eastern frontier of Foota Jallo. In the higher parts of its course it is called the Ba Deema.

The Gambia empties itself by a mouth three leagues wide, between the Birds' Island on the north and Cape St. Mary on the south; is navigable for vessels of 300 tons, sixty leagues; and, for those of 150 tons, 250 leagues; or to Barraconda, to which distance the tide is felt in the dry season from December to June. From June to September the ascent is impossible, from the rapidity of the current, and in these months it also overflows and inundates the low country on its banks, which latter are generally covered with mangroves. Its waters are at all times muddy: it abounds in fish, but is infested with crocodiles. The hippopotamus also inhabits it. At Barraconda it is crossed by a bank of rocks; above which the obstructions increase in all directions.

There are two channels into the river; the northernmost, or grand channel, is between the Birds' Island and a bank named Banguion; it is two leagues wide, with six and seven fathoms. The southern, or little channel, is between the same bank and Cape St. Mary, and has only eight or nine feet depth.

The trade of the Gambia belonging almost exclusively to Great Britain, she has several

establishments on it: of which the principal is Fort James, on an island ten leagues above the entrance; and at which the depth of the river is not less than five fathoms. This island is only 200 yards long and fifty broad; it was originally fortified by the English, but being taken by the French, in 1688, they destroyed the works, and it has never been found necessary to restore them. The second establishment is Jillifree, on the right bank opposite Fort James; it is in an healthy situation, and the neighbouring country is extremely fertile. On the left, or south bank of the river, are Vintain, two leagues above Jillifree; Tancrowal, twelve leagues further; Joukakonda, six day's navigation above Vintain. The French factory of Albreda is a league below Jillifree. The river Bintan empties itself into the Gambia on the left bank, a league above Fort James, and is navigable for large boats, at all seasons, to the village of Bintan, chiefly inhabited by African Portuguese, who are described as having good houses and a neat church. The territory along the banks of the Gambia is divided among a multitude of petty sovereignties, among which, that of Boor Salum is a principal one. The northern bank is chiefly inhabited by the Taloffs and Mandingoes; the southern by the Feloops.

GAMBIA is also the name of an island in the river Bunch, which falls into the Sierra Leone from the south; on which the French attempted a settlement in 1784.

GAMBIER'S ISLANDS, Several high islands of the South Pacific Ocean, lying in 23° 12′ S. lat., 135° 0' W. long., occupying a space six leagues long, surrounded by a coral reef, and appearing to be well inhabited. They were discovered by captain Wilson, of the missionary ship Duff, in May, 1797. The inhabitants opposed all attempts to land. The principal island is high, and the reef by which they are surrounded shelters all of them from the billows of the main ocean, so that the sea around is calm. They present a barren appearance, but the valleys seemed covered with trees. Duff's Mountains are two lofty mountains, visible here at the distance of fourteen or fifteen leagues, and are in long. 225° 0′ E., lat. 23° 12' S.

GAMBIER'S ISLES are also several small islands on the south coast of New Holland, at the mouth of Spencer's Gulf. Wedge Island, the largest, is in long. 136° 29′ E., lat. 35° 11′ S.

GAM'BLER, n.s. Į A cant word for gameGAMBLING, part. Šster: a knave, whose practice it is to invite the unwary, to game and cheat them,

She had an inward abhorrence of gambling.
Looker-on xxi.
Pret. from Cambogia,
A resinous gum, used in

GAMBOGE', n. s. whence it first came. medicine and painting.

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from Cambaja in the East Indies. The best sort is of a deep yellow or orange color, breaks shining and free from dross: it has no smell. It immediately communicates a bright golden color to spirit of wine, which almost entirely dissolves it. Geoffroy says, except the sixth part. Alkaline salts enable water to act upon this substance powerfully as a menstruum: the solution is somewhat transparent, of a deep blood-red color, and passes the filtre: the dulcified spirit of sal ammoniac readily and entirely dissolves it, and takes up a considerable quantity; and this solution mixes either with water or spirit, without growing turbid. As a pigment, it makes a beautiful yellow, which is much used by the painters. Dr. Lewis says, that it makes a beautiful and durable citron yellow stain upon marble, whether rubbed in substance on the hot stone, or applied in form of a spirituous tincture. When it is applied on cold marble, the stone must afterwards be heated, to make the color penetrate. As a medicine, gamboge evacuates powerfully both ways; some condemn it as acting with too great violence, and occasioning dangerous hypercatharses. Geoffroy seems fond of it, and informs us, that he has frequently given from two to four grains, without its proving at all emetic; and that from four to eight grains it both vomits and purges, without violence; that its operation is soon over; and that if given in a liquid form, and sufficiently diluted, it stands not in need of any corrector; that in the form of a bolus or pill, it is most apt to prove emetic, but very rarely has this effect if joined with mercurius dulcis. He nevertheless cautions against its use where the patient cannot easily bear vomiting. It has been used in dropsy with cream of tartar or jalap, or both, to quicken their operation. It is also recommended by some to the extent of fifteen grains, with an equal quantity of vegetable alkali, in cases of the tape-worm. This dose is ordered in the morning; and, if the worm is not expelled in two or three hours, it is repeated even to the third time with safety and efficacy. It is asserted that it has been given to this extent even in delicate habits. This is said

to be the remedy alluded to by Baron Van Swieten, which was employed by Dr. Herenschward.

GAM'BOL, v. n. & n. s. Fr. gambiller. To dance, leap, or skip; the act of dancing or leaping a frolic; a wild prank. From gamb-in Fr. jambe, the leg, literally leaping into the air.

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took the degree of Master of Arts at Christchurch, Oxford, and was afterwards presented by archbishop Secker to the living of Stanton Harcourt; but he resigned this preferment in 1748, having become a convert to the opinions of Zinzendorf, an account of whose life and character he now published. In 1754 he was consecrated a prelate of this ancient episcopal church, in which situation he displayed much activity until his death, which took place at his native town in 1771. While at Oxford he published in 1740 a sacred drama, on the martyrdom of St. Ignatius, and in 1742 superintended an edition of the Greek Testament printed at the Clarendon press. At a subsequent period of his life he assisted in translating Crantz's History of Greenland, and was the author of Maxims and Theological Ideas; a volume of Sermons on the second article of the Church of England, &c. GAMBREL, n. s. Ital. gamba, gambarella, the leg of a horse.

Grew.

What can be more admirable than for the principles of the fibres of a tendon to be so mixed as to make it a soft body, and yet to have the strength of iron? as appears by the weight which the tendon, lying on a horse's gambrel, doth then command, when he rears up with a man upon his back. GAME, n. s. & v. n. GAME COCK, n. s. GAME-EGG, n. s. GAME KEEPER, n. s. GAME SOME, adj. GAME SOMENESS, n.s. GAME SOMELY, adv.

Saxon, gaman, from Goth. gamm, a tipler; Isl. gaman, a jest. The radical, game, whence all the rest are derived, implies simply sport, and this idea enters into GAME'STER, n.s. all the compounds, as gamecock, the bird which is bred to fight; gameegg, that from which the birds are bred; gamekeeper, a person who takes care of the birds and animals which are kept for sport. The other derivatives are expressive of varicus acts, and manners connected with the original meaning: gamester is a person who is engaged at play, whether viciously, or otherwise; a merry, frolicsome person; used also in a licentious sense.

Beryn wan the first, the seconde, and the third,And at the fourth game, in the ches amid, The burgeyse was ymated.

Chaucer. The Merchantes Second Tale. Take up also The coper teine, (not knowing thilke preest,) And hid it; and him hente by the brest,And to him spake, and thus said in his game. The Chanones Yemannes Tale. Then on her head they set a garland green, And crowned her 'twixt earnest and 'twixt game. Spenser.

The games are done, and Cæsar is returning.

Shakspeare.

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than a looker-on: but, when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business strait.

Bacon.

GAME, in law, signifies birds, or prey, taken or killed by fowling or hunting. The property of such animals feræ naturæ as are known under

A gamester, the greater master he is in his art, the the denomination of game, with the right of pur

worse man he is.

When we observe the ball, how to and fro

Id.

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This gamesome humour of children should rather be encouraged, to keep up their spirits and improve their strength and health, than curbed or restrained. Id.

When I see a young profligate sqandering his for tune in bagnios, or at the gaming-table, I cannot help looking on him as hastening his own death, and in a manner digging his own grave. Connoisseur.

Thus boys hatch game-eggs under birds of prey, To make the fowl more furious for the fray. Garth. Could we look into the mind of a common gamester, we should see it full of nothing but trumps and mattadores: her slumbers are haunted with kings, queens, and knaves. Addison.

Whose table wit, or modest merit share, Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player. Pope. Proud Nimrod first the bloody chace began,

A mighty hunter, and his prey was man :
Our haughty Norman boasts that barbarous name,
And makes his trembling slaves the royal game. Id.
All the superfluous whims relate,
That fill a female gamester's pate;
What agony of soul she feels
To see a knave's inverted heels.
Her youngest daughter is run away with a gamester,
a man of great beauty, who in dressing and dancing
has no superior.

Swift.

Law.

Avarice itself does not calculate strictly when it

games.

Burke on Parliament.

It will bear a doubt, if a gamester has any other title to be called a man, except under the distinction of Hobbes, and upon claim to the charter of homo hominis lupus. As a human wolf I grant he has a right to his wolfish prerogatives.

Cumberland.

A phantasy which sometimes seizes warriors Unless they are game as bull-dogs and fox-terriers. Byron.

suing, taking, and destroying them, is vested in the king alone, and from him derived to such of his subjects as have received the grants of a chase, a park, or a free warren. By the law of nature, indeed, every man, from the prince to the peasant, has an equal right of pursuing, and taking to his own use, all such creatures as are feræ naturæ, and therefore the property of nobody, but liable to be seized by the first occupant. But it follows, says Blackstone, from the very end and constitution of society, that this natural right, as well as many others belonging to man as an individual, may be restrained by positive laws enacted for reasons of state, or for the supposed benefit of the community. This restriction may be either with respect to the place in which this right may, or may not, be exercised; with respect to the animals that are the subjects of this right; or with respect to the persons allowed or forbidden to exercise it. And, in consequence of this authority, we find, that the municipal laws of many nations have exerted such power of restraint; have in general forbidden the entering on another man's grounds, for any cause, without the owner's leave; have extended their protection to such part cular animals as are usually the objects of pursuit; and have invested the prerogative of hunting and taking such animals in the sovereign of the state only, and such as he shall authorise. Many reasons have concurred for making these constitutions: as, 1. For the encouragement of agriculture and improvement of lands, by giving every man an exclusive dominion over his own soil. 2. For the preservation of the several species of these animals, which would soon be extirpated by a general liberty. 3. For prevention of idleness and dissipation in husbandmen, artificers, and others of lower rank; which would be the unavoidable consequence of universal license. 4. For prevention of popular insurrections and resistance to the government, by disarming the bulk of the people: which last is a reason oftener meant than avowed, by the makers of forest or game laws. Nor, certainly, in these prohibitions is there any natural injustice, as some have weakly enough supposed: since, as Puffendorf observes, the law does not hereby take from any man his present property, or what was already his own; but barely abridges him of one means of acquiring a future property, that of occupancy; which indeed the law of nature would allow him, but of which the laws of society have in most instances very justly and reasonably deprived him. Yet, howbe, on the footing of reason, or justice, or civil ever defensible these provisions in general may that, in their present shape, they owe their impolicy, we must, notwithstanding, acknowledge, mediate original to slavery. It is not till after the irruption of the northern nations into the Roman empire, that we read of any other prohibitions, than that natural one of not sporting on any private grounds without the owner's leave. With regard to the rise and original of our pre

war.

sent civil prohibitions, it will be found, that all forest and game laws were introduced into Europe at the same time, and by the same policy, that gave birth to the feudal system; when those swarms of barbarians issued from their northern hive, and laid the foundation of most of the present kingdoms of Europe on the ruins of the western empire. For when a conquering general came to settle the economy of a vanquished country, and to part it out among his soldiers or feudatories, who were to render him military service for such donation; it behoved him, in order to secure his new acquisitions, to keep the rustici or natives of the country, and all who were not his military tenants, in as low a condition as possible, and especially to prohibit them the use of arms. Nothing could do this more effectually than the prohibition of hunting and sporting, and therefore it was the policy of the conqueror to reserve this right to himself, and such on whom he should bestow it; which were only his capital feudatories or greater barons. And, accordingly, we find, in the feudal constitutions, one and the same law prohibiting the rustici in general from carrying arms, and also proscribing the use of nets, snares, or othe engines for destroying the game. This exclusive privilege well suited the martial genius of the troops, who delighted in a sport, which in its pursuit and slaughter bore some resemblance to 'Vita omnis,' says Cæsar, speaking of the ancient Germans, 'in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris consistit.' And Tacitus in like manner observes, that 'quoties bella non ineunt, multum venatibus, plus per otium transigunt.' And, indeed, like some of their modern successors, they had no other amusement to entertain their vacant hours; they despising all arts as effeminate, and having no other learning than was couched in such rude ditties as were sung at the solemn carousals, which succeeded these ancient huntings. It is remarkable, that in those nations where the feudal policy remains the most unaltered, the forest or game laws continue in their highest rigor. In France, before the revolution, all game was properly the king's; and in some parts of Germany it was death for a peasant to be found hunting in the woods of the nobility. With us in Britain, also, hunting has ever been esteemed a most princely diversion and exercise. The whole island was replenished with all sorts of game in the times of the Britons; who lived in a wild and pastoral manner, without enclosing or improving their grounds; and derived much of their substance from the chase, which they all enjoyed in common. But when husbandry took place under the Saxon government, and lands began to be cultivated, improved, and enclosed, the beasts naturally fled into the woody and desert tracts, which were called the forests; and, having never been disposed of in the first distribution of lands, were therefore held to belong to the crown. These were filled with great plenty of game, which our royal sportsmen reserved for their own diversion, on pain of pecuniary forfeiture for such as interfered with their sovereign. But every freeholder had the full liberty of sporting upon his own territories, provided he abstained from the

king's forests. However, upon the Norman conquest, a new doctrine took place; and the right of pursuing and taking all beasts of chase or venary, and such other animals as were accounted game, was then held to belong to the king, or to such only as were authorised under him. And this, as well upon the principles of the feudal law, that the king is the ultimate proprietor of all the lands in the kingdom, they being all held of him as the chief lord, or lord paramount of the fee; and that, therefore, he has the right of the universal soil, to enter thereon, and to chase and take such creatures at his pleasure: as also upon another maxim of the common law, that these animals are bona vacantia, and, having no other owner, belong to the king by his prerogative. As, therefore, the former reason was held to vest in the king a right to pursue and take them any where, the latter was supposed to give the king, and such as he should authorise, a sole and exclusive right. This right, thus vested in the crown, was exerted with the utmost rigor, at and after the time of the Norman establishment; not only in the ancient forests, but in the new ones which the conqueror made, by laying together vast tracts of country, depopulated for that purpose, and reserved solely for the king's royal diversion; in which were exercised the most horrid tyrannies and oppressions, under color of forest laws for the sake of preserving the beasts of chase; to kill any of which, within the limits of the forest, was as penal as the death of a man. And, in pursuance of the same principle, king John laid a total interdict upon the winged as well as the four-footed creation; capturam avium per totam Angliam interdixit. The cruel and unsupportable hardships, which these forest laws created to the subject, occasioned our ancestors to be as zealous for their reformation, as for the relaxation of the feudal rigors and the other exactions introduced by the Norman family; and accordingly we find the immunities of charta de forestâ as warmly contended for, and extorted from the king with as much difficulty, as those of magna charta itself. By this charter, confirmed in parliament, 9 Hen. III., many forests were disafforested, or stripped of their oppressive privileges, and regulations were made in the regimen of such as remained; particularly killing the king's deer was made no longer a capital offence, but only punished by a fine, imprisonment, or abjuration of the realm. And by a variety of subsequent statutes, together with the long acquiescence of the crown without exerting the forest laws, this prerogative is now become no longer a grievance to the subject. But as the king reserved to himself the forest for his own exclusive diversion, so he granted out from time to time other tracts of land to his subjects under the names of chases or parks; or gave them license to make such in their own grounds; which indeed are smaller forests in the hands of a subject, but not governed by the forest laws; and by the common law no person is at liberty to take or kill any beasts of chase, but such as hath an ancient chase or park; unless they be also beasts of prey. As to all inferior species of game, called beasts and fowls of warren; the

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