Chapter Garratt to Gavroche of G by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Garratt to Gavroche

Garratt (The mayor of). Garratt is a village between Wandsworth and Tooting. In 1780 the inhabitants associated themselves together to resist any further encroachments on their common, and the chairman was called the Mayor. The first “mayor” happened to be chosen on a general election, and so it was decreed that a new mayor should be appointed at each general election. This made excellent capital for electioneering squibs, and some of the greatest wits of the day have ventilated political grievances, gibbeted political characters, and sprinkled holy water with good stout oaken cudgels under the mask of “addresses by the mayors of Garratt.”

(S. Foote has a farce entitled The Mayor of Garratt, 1763.)

Garraway’s, a coffee-house in Exchange Alley, which existed for 216 years, but is now pulled down. Here tea was sold in 1657 for sums varying from 16s. to 50s. per lb.

Garter. According to legend, Joan countess of Salisbury accidentally slipped her garter at a court ball. It was picked up by her royal partner, Edward III., who gallantly diverted the attention of the guests from the lady by binding the blue band round his own knee, saying, as he did so, “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”

The earl’s greatest of all grandmothers
Was grander daughter still to that fair dame
Whose garter slipped down at the famous ball.
   —R. Browning: A Blot on the ’Scutcheon, i. 3.

John Anstis, Garter King-at-Arms, published, in 1724, the Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, called “The Black Book.”

Garth (Mary), in Middlemarch, ultimately marries Fred Vincy. The heroine is Dorothea, who marries Cassaubon.—George Eliot (Mrs. J. W. Cross) (1872).

Gartha, sister of prince Oswald of Vero’na. When Oswald was slain in single combat by Gondibert (a combat provoked by his own treachery), Gartha used all her efforts to stir up civil war; but Hermegild, a man of great prudence, who loved her, was the author of wiser counsel, and diverted the anger of the camp by a funeral pageant of unusual splendour. As the tale is not finished, the ultimate lot of Gartha is unknown.—Davenant: Gondibert (died 1668).

Gas (Charlatan), in Vivian Grey, a novel by Disraeli (lord Beaconsfield) (1827).

Gasabal, the ’squire of don Galaor.

Gasabal was a man of such silence that the author names him only once in the course of his voluminous history.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. iii. 6 (1605).

Gascoigne (Sir William). Shakespeare says that prince Henry “struck the chief justice in the open court;” but it does not appear from history that any blow was given. The fact is this—

One of the gay companions of the prince being committed for felony, the prince demanded his release; but sir William told him the only way of obtaining a release would be to get from the king a free pardon. Prince Henry now tried to rescue the prisoner by force, when the judge ordered him out of court. In a towering fury, the prince flew to the judgment-seat, and all thought he was about to slay the judge; but sir William said very firmly and quietly, “Syr, remember yourselfe. I kepe here the place of the kynge, your sovereigne lorde and father, to whom you owe double obedience; wherefore I charge you in his name to desyste of your wylfulnes. … And nowe for your contempte goo you to the prysona of the Kynges Benche, whereunto I commytte you, and remayne ye there prisoner untyll the pleasure of the kynge be further known.” With which words, the prince being abashed, the noble prisoner departed and went to the King’s Bench.—Sir T. Elyot: The Governour (1531).

Gashford, secretary to lord George Gordon. A detestable, cruel sneak, who dupes his half-mad master, and leads him to imagine he is upholding a noble cause in plotting against the English catholics. To