same song; but there is a distinct difference between it and the madrigal—one of the earliest forms of concerted music known in England. While the madrigal does not show a distinction of contrasted movements, this feature is absolutely necessary in the glee. In the madrigal the movement of the voices is strictly contrapuntal, while the more modern form allows of freer treatment and more compact harmonies. Differences of tonality are fully explained by the development of the art, for while the madrigal reached its acme in Queen Elizabeth’s time, the glee proper was little known before the Commonwealth; and its most famous representatives belong to the 18th century and the first quarter of the 19th. Among the numerous collections of the innumerable pieces of this kind, only one of the earliest and most famous may be mentioned, Catch that Catch can, a Choice Collection of Catches, Rounds and Canons, for three and four voices, published by John Hilton in 1652. The name “glee,” however, appears for the first time in John Playford’s Musical Companion, published twenty-one years afterwards, and reprinted again and again, with additions by later composers—Henry Purcell, William Croft and John Blow among the number. The originator of the glee in its modern form was Dr Arne, born in 1710. Among later English musicians famous for their glees, catches and part-songs, the following may be mentioned:—Attwood, Boyce, Bishop, Crotch, Callcott, Shield, Stevens, Horsley, Webb and Knyvett. The convivial character of the glee led, in the 18th century, to the formation of various societies, which offered prizes and medals for the best compositions of the kind and assembled for social and artistic purposes. The most famous amongst these—The Glee Club—was founded in 1787, and at first used to meet at the house of Mr Robert Smith, in St Paul’s churchyard. This club was dissolved in 1857. A similar society—The Catch Club—was formed in 1761 and is still in existence.
GLEICHEN, two groups of castles in Germany, thus named
from their resemblance to each other (Ger. gleich = like, or
resembling). The first is a group of three, each situated on a
hill in Thuringia between Gotha and Erfurt. One of these
called Gleichen, the Wanderslebener Gleiche (1221 ft. above
the sea), was besieged unsuccessfully by the emperor Henry IV.
in 1088. It was the seat of a line of counts, one of whom, Ernest
III., a crusader, is the subject of a romantic legend. Having
been captured, he was released from his imprisonment by a
Turkish woman, who returned with him to Germany and became
his wife, a papal dispensation allowing him to live with two
wives at the same time (see Reineck, Die Sage von der Doppelehe
eines Grafen von Gleichen, 1891). After belonging to the elector
of Mainz the castle became the property of Prussia in 1803.
The second castle is called Mühlburg (1309 ft. above the sea).
This existed as early as 704 and was besieged by Henry IV.
in 1087. It came into the hands of Prussia in 1803. The third
castle, Wachsenburg (1358 ft.), is still inhabited and contains
a collection of weapons and pictures belonging to its owner, the
duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose family obtained possession
of it in 1368. It was built about 935 (see Beyer, Die drei Gleichen,
Erfurt, 1898). The other group consists of two castles, Neuen-Gleichen
and Alten-Gleichen. Both are in ruins and crown
two hills about 2 m. S.E. from Göttingen.
The name of Gleichen is taken by the family descended from Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg through his marriage with Miss Laura Seymour, daughter of Admiral Sir George Francis Seymour, a branch of the Hohenlohe family having at one time owned part of the county of Gleichen.
GLEIG, GEORGE (1753–1840), Scottish divine, was born at
Boghall, Kincardineshire, on the 12th of May 1753, the son of a
farmer. At the age of thirteen he entered King’s College,
Aberdeen, where the first prize in mathematics and physical and
moral sciences fell to him. In his twenty-first year he took
orders in the Scottish Episcopal Church, and was ordained to the
pastoral charge of a congregation at Pittenweem, Fife, whence
he removed in 1790 to Stirling. He became a frequent contributor
to the Monthly Review, the Gentleman’s Magazine, the
Anti-Jacobin Review and the British Critic. He also wrote several
articles for the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and
on the death of the editor, Colin Macfarquhar, in 1793, was
engaged to edit the remaining volumes. Among his principal
contributions to this work were articles on “Instinct,” “Theology”
and “Metaphysics.” The two supplementary volumes were
mainly his own work. He was twice chosen bishop of Dunkeld,
but the opposition of Bishop Skinner, afterwards primus, rendered
the election on both occasions ineffectual. In 1808 he was
consecrated assistant and successor to the bishop of Brechin, in 1810
was preferred to the sole charge, and in 1816 was elected primus
of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, in which capacity he greatly
aided in the introduction of many useful reforms, in fostering a
more catholic and tolerant spirit, and in cementing a firm
alliance with the sister church of England. He died at Stirling
on the 9th of March 1840.
Besides various sermons, Gleig was the author of Directions for the Study of Theology, in a series of letters from a bishop to his son on his admission to holy orders (1827); an edition of Stackhouse’s History of the Bible (1817); and a life of Robertson the historian, prefixed to an edition of his works. See Life of Bishop Gleig, by the Rev. W. Walker (1879). Letters to Henderson of Edinburgh and John Douglas, bishop of Salisbury, are in the British Museum.
His third and only surviving son, George Robert Gleig (1796–1888), was educated at Glasgow University, whence he passed with a Snell exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford. He abandoned his scholastic studies to enter the army, and served with distinction in the Peninsular War (1813–14), and in the American War, in which he was thrice wounded. Resuming his work at Oxford, he proceeded B.A. in 1818, M.A. in 1821, and, having been ordained in 1820, held successively curacies at Westwell in Kent and Ash (to the latter the rectory of Ivy Church was added in 1822). He was subsequently appointed chaplain of Chelsea hospital (1824), chaplain-general of the forces (1844–1875) and inspector-general of military schools (1846–1857). From 1848 till his death on the 9th of July 1888 he was prebend of Willesden in St Paul’s cathedral. During the last sixty years of his life he was a prolific, if not very scientific, writer; he wrote for Blackwood’s Magazine and Fraser’s Magazine, and produced a large number of historical works.
Among the latter were (besides histories of the campaigns in which he served), Life of Sir Thomas Munro (3 vols., 1830); History of India (4 vols., 1830–1835); The Leipsic Campaign and Lives of Military Commanders (1831); Story of the Battle of Waterloo (1847); Sketch of the Military History of Great Britain (1845); Sale’s Brigade in Afghanistan (1847); biographies of Lord Clive (1848), the duke of Wellington (1862), and Warren Hastings (1848; the subject of Macaulay’s essay, in which it is described as “three big bad volumes full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric”).
GLEIM, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG (1719–1803), German
poet, was born on the 2nd of April 1719 at Ermsleben, near
Halberstadt. Having studied law at the university of Halle he
became secretary to Prince William of Brandenburg-Schwedt
at Berlin, where he made the acquaintance of Ewald von Kleist,
whose devoted friend he became. When the prince fell at the
battle of Prague, Gleim became secretary to Prince Leopold of
Dessau; but he soon gave up his position, not being able to bear
the roughness of the “Old Dessauer.” After residing a few
years in Berlin he was appointed, in 1747, secretary of the
cathedral chapter at Halberstadt. “Father Gleim” was the title
accorded to him throughout all literary Germany on account of
his kind-hearted though inconsiderate and undiscriminating
patronage alike of the poets and poetasters of the period. He
wrote a large number of feeble imitations of Anacreon, Horace and
the minnesingers, a dull didactic poem entitled Halladat oder das
rote Buch (1774), and collections of fables and romances. Of higher
merit are his Preussische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier (1758).
These, which were inspired by the campaigns of Frederick II.,
are often distinguished by genuine feeling and vigorous force of
expression. They are also noteworthy as being the first of that
long series of noble political songs in which later German literature
is so rich. With this exception, Gleim’s writings are for the
most part tamely commonplace in thought and expression. He
died at Halberstadt on the 18th of February 1803.
Gleim’s Sämtliche Werke appeared in 7 vols. in the years 1811–1813; a reprint of the Lieder eines Grenadiers was published by
