Climate? :Ie tempurr regain Jul/live, Stcflzani, Ilmrici 1]., ct It’z'czu'tlz' 1., brings the history down to the death of the last named (1199) ; but his Vita) Dorobornmsium Arc/zi- rpisroporum closes with that of Reginald Fitz-Joceline (1191). These works, which are all of them characterized by labori- ousness and trustworthiness, are reprinted in Twysden’s Historic? daylimme .\'c)-a',v)tores (vol. In the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, there is an unpublished 318., also by Gervaise, containing a work entitled .lluppa Mania", and also an English chronicle from the fabulous ages to the death of Richard. The year of the death of Gervaise is not recorded, but the fact that he does not appear to have accomplished any part of his promised chronicle of the reign of John may fairly be taken to imply that he did not live long after 1200. See Wright, Bio-
graphia Britannica (1846).GERVASE, or Gervaise, of Tilbury (Cervasius Tilburiensis), an English Latin writer of the 13th century, was probably born at Tilbury in Essex. He is frequently said to have been a nephew of Henry II. of England; but if this was the case, it is strange that in speaking of Henry to Otto IV. he makes no allusion to this relationship, but simply calls him “my master the illustrious king of the English, Henry II., your uncle vestri avunculi.” The truth probably is that the statement owes its origin to some care- less copyist or reader either taking vestri for nostri in this passage, or, as M. Petit Radel suggests, the contraction vri for mei. Gervase was present at the peace of Venice in 1177, was professor of canon law some years later at Bologna, and afterwards entered the service of William 11. of Sicily. Having obtained the favour of Otto IV., who had close intercourse with England, he was by him appointed about 1200 chancellor and marshal of the kingdom of Arles. He subsequently received the provostship of the nunnery at Ebsdorf, and died about 1235. His best known, if not his only important work, is the Odd Im- perialia, which he composed about 1212 for the entertain- ment of his imperial patron. The first two books are a sort of geographical and historical compendium, and the third is devoted to all kinds of curious facts and beliefs. The history begins at the beginning with the creation of the world, but it only comes down to the author’s own days, as he confesses he had not the gift of prophecy. It is a fairly learned but on the whole very dry digest of the ordinary narratives handed on from chronicler to chronicler, relieved at times with curious disquisitions, or passages from the writer’s own experience. It is mainly the third book which justifies Mr Wright’s assertion that Gervase was “ one of the most amusing writers of the period,” for in it he collects a great many popular myths and legends about such matters as the magnet, asbestos, the sirens of the British sea, the veronica, the horn of St Simon, and so on.
The Otia was printed by Leibnitz in vol. i. of Scriptorcs Ire-rum Brunsvicensium, and corrections from MSS. appeared in vol. ii. A portion of the second book had already been printed by J. J. Maderus as Jervasz'i Tilb. dc Imperio Romanorum, Helmstadt, 1673; and Liebrecht has since made selections from the non-historical portions, Hanover, 1856. The Dialogue dc Scacca-rin, now recognized as the work of Iligel bishop of Ely, was long attributed to Gervase ; and he had consequently the credit also of the Tricolummu: (now lost) claimed by the author of the dialogue. It is needless to mention the works assigned to him by Bale; but we have his own authority for the statement that he wrote a Libcr Facrti'a’IILIIL, or book of anecdotes, for Henry II. Litt. de la Franc», vol. xvii. See I'ctit Rudel in 1178!.
the most eminent literary and political historians of Germany, was born on May 20, 1805, at Darmstadt. His well-to-do parents, belonging to the middle classes, had him educated at the gymnasium of the town, where he studied with great success. At the age of fourteen they chose for him a commercial career, but Gervinus continued his classical studies privately, and made himself fully acquainted with the polite literature of Germany and other countries. He also cultivated his literary and musical taste by frequent~ ing the theatre of the Hessian capital, which was then in an excellent condition. In 1825 he relinquished the unCon~ genial commercial life, and repaired, after a brief prepara— tion, to the university of Giessen to study philology. The short interruption in his school education helped to de- velop in him, in an eminent degree, his social qualities, and taught him to employ methodically and usefully every hour of his life. In 1826 he went to Heidelberg, where he attended the lectures of the great historian Schlosser, who became henceforth his guide and his model. From 1828 to 1830 he held a mastershipin a private insti- tution at Frankforton-the-Main, issuing at the same time, in conjunction with Morstadt and Hertlein, a comprehensive edition of Thucydides, and writing an essay on Bloomfield's English translation of the Greek historian. In 1830110 returned to Heidelberg, and wrote among other essays one on Probert’s Ancient Laws of Cambria. The year 1832 he spent in Italy as travelling tutor to a young Englishman, and on his return to Heidelberg he wrote several historical treatises, which he issued in 1833, in a collected form, as the first volume of his 111310713ch Sclm_'/'ten. This publication procured him the appoint- ment of professor extraordinarius; and the first volume of his GC’SL'It'if‘lltf’ der poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deut- schen brought him, through the special reconunendation of the historian Dahlmann, the appointment to a regular professorship of history and literature at G'o'ttingen. He settled there at Easter 1836, and married a wealthy young lady, who proved a true “ companion to his intellect.” In the following year he wrote his Grumln'iye tier Ilisfori/r, which is perhaps the most thoughtful of his philosophico- historical productions. The same year brought his ex- pulsion from Clottingen in consequence of his manly protest, in conjunction with six of his colleagues, against the un- scrupulous violation of the constitution by Ernest Augustus, king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland. After applying himself to his literary and artistic studies at Heidelberg, Darmstadt, and Rome, he returned once more to Heidel- berg, where he continued, among other works, his history of German literature, and was appointed in 1844 honorary professor. He zealously took up in the following year the cause of the German Catholics, hoping it would lead to a union of all the Christian confessions, and to the establish- ment of a national church. He also came forward in 1846 as a patriotic champion of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, and when, in 1847, King Frederick William IV. promulgated the royal decree for summoning the so—called “United Diet ” (Vereinigte Landtag), Gervinus hoped that this event would form the basis of the constitutional development of the largest German state; and, thinking that the hour of publicistic activity had arrived, he founded,in common with some other patriotic scholars, the Denise/cc Zritzmg, which certainly was one of the best-written political journals ever published in Germany. His appearance in the political arena secured his election as deputy for the Prussian province of Saxony tothe National Assembly sitting in 1848 at Frank- fort. The weight of his name and his journalistic activity were of considerable advantage to the liberals in that short- lived parliament ; but when he saw that all their endeavours were frustrated by the indecision of the king of Prussia, who declined accepting the imperial crown of Gcrmany, he re- tired in gloomy disappointment from all active political life. So embittered was he against the royal house of Hohenzol- lern that neither the formation of the North German Con- federation in 1866, which in former years he Would have
hailed with the greatest satisfaction, nor the glorious estab-