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gas out of the producer, but it has various drawbacks and
has been abandoned in all modern constructions. Where the
natural draught " is not sufficient, it is aided either by blowing
air under the grate or else by suction at the other end.
We shall now describe a few of the very large number of gas-

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FIG. 12. Siemens Producer (Sectional Elevation).

the retorts in the desired proportion, and the mixture of water gas and coal gas is then carburetted to the required extent by benzol vapour, a process which at the present price of oil and benzol is distinctly more economical than the use of carburetted water gas. In 1896 Karl Dellwik introduced a modification in the process of making water gas which entirely altered the whole aspect of the industry. In all the attempts to make water gas, up to that date, the incandescence of the fuel had been obtained by "blowing " SO deep a bed of fuel that carbon monoxide and the residual nitrogen of the air formed the chief products, this mixture being known as producer" gas. In the Dellwik process, however, the main point is the adjustment of the air supplied to the fuel in the generator in such a way that carbon dioxide is formed instead of carbon monoxide. Under these conditions producer gas ceases to exist as a by-product, and the gases of the blow consist merely of the incombustible products of complete combustion, carbon dioxide and nitrogen, the result being that more than three times the heat is developed for the combustion of the same amount of fuel, and nearly double the quantity of water gas can be made per pound of fuel than was before possible. The runs or times of steaming can also be continued for longer periods. The possibility of making from 60,000 to 70,000 cub. ft. of water gas per ton of coke used in the Dellwik generator as against 34,000 to 45,000 cub. ft. per ton made by previous processes reduces the price of water gas to about 3d. per thousand, so that the economic value of using it in admixture with coal gas and then enriching the mixture by any cheap carburetting process is manifest. The universal adoption of the incandescent mantle for lighting purposes has made it evident that the illuminating value of the gas is a secondary consideration, have been erected and many may be still at work, is shown in The Siemens Producer in its original shape, of which hundreds and the whole tendency now is to do away with enrichment and fig. 12. A is the chargingproduce a gas of low-candle power but good heating power at a cheap rate for fuel purposes and incandescent lighting. (See also hole; B, the inclined front LIGHTING: Gas.) wall, consisting of a cast (V. B. L.) iron plate with fire-brick 2. Gas for Fuel and Power.-The first gas-producers, which lining; C, the equally inwere built by Faber du Faur at Wasseralfingen in 1836 and clined " step-grate"; D, a by C. G. C. Bischof at Mägdesprung (both in Germany), condamper by which the producer may be isolated in sisted of simple perpendicular shafts of masonry contracted case of repairs; E, a waterat the top and the bottom, with or without a grate for the pipe, by which the cinders coal. Such producers, frequently strengthened by a wrought at the bottom may be iron casing, are even now used to a great extent. Some-quenched before taking times the purpose of a gas-producer is attained in a very simple manner by lowering the grate of an ordinary fireplace so much that a layer of coal 4 or 5 ft. deep is maintained in the fire. The effect of this arrangement is that the great body of coal reaches a higher temperature than in an ordinary fireplace, and this, together with the reduction of the carbon dioxide formed immediately above the grate by the red-hot coal in the upper part of the furnace, leads to the formation of carbon monoxide which later on, on the spot where the greatest heat is required, is burned into dioxide by admitting fresh air, preferably pre-heated. This simple and inexpensive arrangement has the further advantage that the producer-gas is utilized immediately after its formation, without being allowed to cool down.

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But it

is not very well adapted to large furnaces, and especially not to those cases where all the space round the furnace is required for manipulating heavy, white-hot masses of iron, or for similar purposes. In these cases the producers are arranged outside the iron-works, glass-works, &c., in an open yard where all the manipulations of feeding them with coal, of stoking, and of removing the ashes are performed without interfering with the work inside. But care must always be taken to place the producers at such a low level that the gas has an upward tendency, in order to facilitate its passage to the furnace where it is to be burned. This purpose can be further promoted by various means. The gas-producers constructed by Messrs Siemens Brothers, from 1856 onwards, were provided with a kind of brick chimney; on the top of this there was a horizontal iron tube, continued into an iron down-draught, and only from this the underground flues were started which sent the gas into the single furnaces. This arrangement, by which the gas was cooled down by the action of the air, acted as a gas-siphon for drawing the

producers constructed, selecting some of the most widely applied in practice.

E

K

FIG. 13.-Lürmann's Producer.

away; the steam here
formed rises into the pro-
ducer where it forms some
"semi-water gas (see
FUEL: Gaseous). Openings
like that shown at G serve
for introducing a poker in
order to clean the prick-
work from adhering slags.
high; JJ, the horizontal iron tube; K, the descending branch men-
H is the gas flue; I, the perpendicularly ascending shaft, 10 or 12 ft.
tioned above, for producing a certain amount of suction by means
of the gas-siphon thus formed. In the horizontal branch JJ much

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forms cakes, impenetrable to the air and impeding the regular sink- | pushed into V, whereby the level of the coke in V should assume ing of the charge in the producer. The fuel employed should be the shape shown by the dotted line ... m. If the level became non-bituminous coal anthracite or coke, or at least so much of these materials should be mixed with ordinary coal that no semi-solid cakes of the kind just described are formed. Where it is unavoidable to work with coal softening in the. fire, Lürmann's producer may be employed, which is shown in fig 13. V shows a gasproducer of the ordinary kind, which during regular work is filled with the coke formed in the horizontal

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retort E. The door b serves for removing the slags and ashes from the bottom of V, as far as they do not fall through the grate. The hot producer-gas formed in V is passed round the retort E in the flues n 2, and ultimately goes away through K to the furnace

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FIG. 18.-Mond Gas Plant.

FIG. 19.-Mond Gas Plant.

formed in lieu of monoxide.

too low, such as is shown by the dotted line x.. y, the working of the producer would be wrong, as in this case the layer of coke at the front side would be too low, and carbon dioxide would be Figs. 14 and 15 show Liegel's producer, the special object of which is to deal with any fuel (coal or coke) giving a tough, pasty slag on combustion. Such slags act very prejudicially by impeding the up-draught of the air and the sinking of the fucl; nor can they

[blocks in formation]

be removed by falling through a grate, like ordinary coal-ashes. To obviate these drawbacks the producer A is kept at a greater heat than is otherwise usual, the air required for feeding the producer being pre-heated in the channels e, e. The inside shape of the producer is such that the upper, less hot portion cannot get stopped, as it widens out towards the bottom; the lower, hotter portion, where the ashes are already fluxed, is contracted to a slit a, through which the air ascends. The grate b retains any small pieces of fuel, but allows the liquid cinder to pass through. The lateral flues c, c prevent the brickwork from being melted.

One of the best-known gas-producers for working with compressed air from below is Taylor's, shown in fig. 16. A is the feeding-hopper, on the same principle as is used in blastfurnaces. L is the producer-shaft, with an iron casing B and peep

holes B, to B, passing through the brick lining M. F is the contracted part, leading to the closed ash-pit, accessible through the doors D. An injector I, worked by means of the steam-pipe J. forces air through K into F. The circular grate G can be turned round K by means of the crank E from the outside. This is done, without interfering with the blast, in order to keep the fuel at the proper level in L, according to the indications of the burning zone, as shown through the peep-holes B, to B. The ashes collecting at the bottom are from time to time removed by the doors D. As the steam, introduced by J, is decomposed in the producer, we here obtain a "semi-water gas," with about 27% CO and 12% H2.

Fig. 17 shows the Dowson gas-producer, together with the arrangements for purifying the gas for the purpose of working a gas engine. a is a vertical steam boiler, heated by a central shaft filled with coke, with superheating tubes b passing through the central shaft. c is the steam-pipe, carrying the dry steam into the air-injector d. This mixture of steam and air enters into the gas-producer e below the fire-grate f. g is the feeding-hopper for the anthracite which is usually employed in this kind of producer. h, h are cooling-pipes for the gas where most of the undecomposed steam (say 10% of the whole employed in d) is condensed. i is a hydraulic box with water seal; j, a coke-scrubber; k, a filter; 1, a saw. dust-scrubber; m, inlet of gas-holder; #, gasholder; o, outlet of same; p, a valve with weighted lever to regulate the admission of steam to the gas-producer; q, the weight which actuates the lever automatically by the rise or fall of the bell of the gas-holder. In practical work about lb of steam is decomposed for each pound of anthracite consumed, and no more than 5% of carbon dioxide is found in the resulting gas. The latter has an average calorific power of 1732 calories per cubic metre, or 161 B.T.U. per cubic foot, at o° and 760 mm.

The Mond plant is shown in figs. 18 and 19. The gases produced in the generators Gare passed through pipes r into washers W, in which water is kept in violent motion by means of paddle-wheels. The spray of water removes the dust and part of the tar and ammonia from the gases, much steam being produced at the same time. This water is withdrawn from time to time and worked for the ammonia it contains. The gases, escaping from W at a temperature of about 100 C., and containing much steam, pass though g and a into a tower, fed with an acid-absorbing liquid, coming from the tank s, which is spread into many drops by the brick filling of the tower. This liquid is a strong solution of ammonium sulphate, containing about 2.5% free sulphuric acid which absorbs nearly all the ammonia from the gases, without dissolving much of the tarry substances. Most of the liquor arriving at the bottom, after mechanically separating the tar, is pumped back into s, but a portion is always withdrawn and worked for ammonium sulphate. When escaping from the acid tower, the gas contains about 0.013% NH, and has a temperature of about 80° C. and is saturated with aqueous vapour. It is passed through c into a second tower B, filled with blocks of wood, where it meets with a stream of comparatively cold water. At the bottom of this the water runs away, its temperature being 78° C.; at the top the gas passes away through d into the distributing main. The hot water from B, freed from tar, is pumped into a third tower C, through which cold air is forced by means of a Root's blower by the pipe w. This air, after being heated to 76° C., and saturated with steam in the tower C, passes through I into the generator G. The water in C leaves this tower cold enough to be used in the scrubber B. Thus two-thirds of the steam originally employed in the generator is reintroduced into it, leaving only onethird to be supplied by the exhaust steam of the steam-engine. The gas-generators G have a rectangular section, 6X12 ft., several of them being erected in series. The introduction of the air and the removal of the ashes takes place at the narrower ends. The bottom is formed by a water-tank and the ashes are quenched here. The air enters just above the water-level, at a pressure of 4 in. The

Mond gas in the dry state contains 15% carbon dioxide, 10% | have joined the Middle Temple. He became a member of Gray's monoxide, 23% hydrogen, 3% hydrocarbons, 49% nitrogen. The yield of ammonium sulphate is 75 lb from a ton of coal (slack with 11.5% ashes and 55% fixed carbon).

One of the best plants for the generation of water-gas is that constructed by E. Blass (fig. 20). Steam enters through the valve V at D into the generator, filled with coke, and passes away at the bottom through A. The pressure of the gas should not be such that it could get into the pipe conveying the airblast, by which an explosive mixture would be formed. This is prevented by the water-cooled damper S, which always closes the air-blast when the gas-pipe is open and vice versa. Below the entry W of the air-blast there is a throttle valve d which is closed as soon as the damper S opens the gas canal; thus a second security against the production of a mixture of air and gas is afforded. The watercooled ring channel K protects the bottom outlet of the generator and causes the cinders to solidify, so that they can be easily removed. But sometimes no such cooling is effected, in which case the cinders run away in the liquid form. Below K the fuel is lying in a conical heap, leaving the ring channel A free. During the period of hotblowing (heating-up) S is turned so that the air-blast communicates with the generator; d and G are open; g (the damper connected with the scrubber) and V are closed. During the period of gasmaking G and d are closed, S now closes the air-blast and connects the generator with the scrubber; V is opened, and the gas passes from the scrubber into the gas-holder, the inlet w being under a pressure of 4 in. All these various changes in the opening of the valves and dampers are automatically performed in the proper order by means of a hand-wheel H, the shaft m resting on the standards and shaft v. This hand-wheel has merely to be turned one way for starting the hot-blowing, and the opposite way for gas-making, to open and shut all the connexions, without any mistake being possible on the part of the attendant. The feeding-hopper E is so arranged that, when the cone e opens, e, is shut, and vice versa, thus no more gas can escape, on feeding fresh coke into the generator, than that which is contained in E. G is the pipe through which the blowing-up gas (Siemens gas) is carried away, either into the open air (where it is at once burned) or into a pre-heater for the blast, or into some place where it can be utilized as fuel. This gas, which is made for 10 or 11 minutes, contains from 23 to 32% carbon monoxide, 7 to 1.5% carbon dioxide, 2 to 3% hydrogen, a little methane, 64 to 66% nitrogen, and has a heating value of 950 calories per cub. metre. The water-gas itself is made for 7 minutes, and has an average composition of 3.3% carbon dioxide, 44% carbon monoxide, 0.4% methane, 48.6% hydrogen, 3.7% nitrogen, and a heating value of 2970 calories per cub. metre. kilogram coke yields 1-13 cub. metre water-gas and 3.13 Siemens gas. 100 parts coke (of 7000 calories) furnish 42% of their heat value as water-gas and 42% as Siemens gas. Lastly we give a section of the Dellwik-Fleischer gas-producer (fig. 21). The feeding-hoppers A are alternately charged every half-hour, so that the layer of fuel in the generator always remains 4 ft. deep. B is the chimney-damper, C the grate, D the door for removing the slags, E the ash-door, F the inlet of

See Mills and Rowan, Fuel and its Application (London, 1889); Samuel S. Wyer, Producer-Gas and Gas-Producers, published by the Engineering and Mining Journal (New York); F. Fischer, Chemische Technologie der Brennstoffe (1897-1901); Gasförmige Heizstoffe, in Stohmann and Kerl's Handbuch der technischen Chemie, 4th edition, (G. L.) GASCOIGNE, GEORGE (c. 1535-1577), English poet, eldest son of Sir John Gascoigne, of Cardington, Bedfordshire, was born probably between 1530 and 1535. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and on leaving the university is supposed to

39 66

Inn in 1555. He has been identified without much show of evidence with a lawyer named Gastone who was in prison in 1548 under very discreditable circumstances. There is no doubt that his escapades were notorious, and that he was imprisoned for debt. George Whetstone says that Sir John Gascoigne disinherited his son on account of his follies, but by his own account he was obliged to sell his patrimony to pay the debts contracted at court. He was M.P. for Bedford in 1557-1558 and 1558-1559, but when he presented himself in 1572 for election at Midhurst he was refused on the charges of being" a defamed person and noted for manslaughter," a common Rymer and a deviser of slaunderous Pasquelles," " a notorious ruffianne," an atheist and constantly in debt. His poems, with the exception of some commendatory verses, were not published before 1572, but they were probably circulated in MS. before that date. He tells us that his friends at Gray's Inn importuned him to write on Latin themes set by them, and there two of his plays were acted. He repaired his fortunes by marrying the wealthy widow of William Breton, thus becoming step-father to the poet, Nicholas Breton. In 1568 an inquiry into the disposition of William Breton's property with a view to the protection of the children's rights was instituted before the lord mayor, but the matter was probably settled in a friendly manner, for Gascoigne continued to hold the Walthamstow estate, which he had from his wife, until his death. He sailed as a soldier of fortune to the Low Countries in 1572, and was driven by stress of weather to Brill, which luckily for him had just fallen into the hands of the Dutch. He obtained a captain's commission, and took an active part in the campaigns of the next two years, during which he acquired a profound dislike of the Dutch, and a great admiration for William of Orange, who had personally intervened on his behalf in a quarrel with his colonel, and secured him against the suspicion caused by his clandestine visits to a lady at the Hague. Taken prisoner after the evacuation of Valkenburg by the English troops, he was sent to England in the autumn of 1574. He dedicated to Lord Grey of Wilton the story of his adventures, "The Fruites of Warres" (printed in the edition of 1575) and "Gascoigne's Voyage into Hollande." In 1575 he had a share in devising the masques, published in the next year as The Princely Pleasures at the Courte at Kenelworth, which celebrated the queen's visit to the Earl of Leicester. At Woodstock in 1575 he delivered a prose speech before Elizabeth, and presented her with the Pleasant Tale of Hemetes the Heremite1 in four languages. Most of his works were actually published during the last years of his life, after his return from the wars. He died at Bernack, near Stamford, where he was the guest of George Whetstone, on the 7th of October 1577. George Whetstone wrote a long dull poem in honour of his friend, entitled "A Remembrance of the wel-imployed life and godly end of George Gaskoigne, Esquire."

His theory of metrical composition is explained in a short critical treatise, "Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of verse or ryme in English, written at the request of Master Edouardo Donati," prefixed to his Posies (1575). He acknowledged Chaucer as his master, and differed from the earlier poets of the school of Surrey and Wyatt chiefly in the added smoothness and sweetness of his verse. His poems were published in 1572 during his absence in Holland, surreptitiously, according to his own account, but it seems probable that the "editor" who supplied the running comment was none other than Gascoigne himself. A hundreth Sundrie Floures bound up in one small Posie. Gathered partely (by translation) in the fyne outlandish Gardens of Euripides, Ovid, Petrarke, Ariosto and others; and partely by Invention out of our owne fruitfull Orchardes in Englande, Yelding Sundrie Savours of tragical, comical and moral discourse, bothe pleasaunt and profitable, to the well-smelling 1 Printed in 1579 in a pamphlet called The Paradoxe, the author of which, Abraham Fleming, does not mention Gascoigne's Reprinted in vol. ii. of J. Haslewood's Ancient Critical Essays (1811-1815), and in Gregory Smith's Elizabethan Critical Essays (1904).

[graphic]

name.

noses of learned Readers, was followed in 1575 by an authorized | biographical Don Bartholomew of Bath, and miscellaneous poems. edition, The Posies of G. G. Esquire... (not dated).

Gascoigne had an adventurous and original mind, and was a pioneer in more than one direction. In 1576 he published The Steele Glas, sometimes called the earliest regular English satire. Although this poem is Elizabethan in form and manner, it is written in the spirit of Piers Plowman. Gascoigne begins with a comparison between the sister arts of Satire and Poetry, and under a comparison between the old-fashioned "glas of trustie stecle," and the new-fangled crystal mirrors which he takes as a symbol of the "Italianate "corruption of the time, he attacks the amusements of the governing classes, the evils of absentee landlordism, the corruption of the clergy, and pleads for the restoration of the feudal ideal.1

Real personages, some of whom were well known at court, were supposed to be concealed under fictitious names in The Adventures of Master F. J., and the poem caused considerable scandal, so that the names are disguised in the second edition. A more comprehensive collection, The Whole Workes of G. G.... appeared in 1587. In 1868-1870 The Complete Poems of G. G.... were edited for the Roxburghe Library by Mr W. C. Hazlitt. In his English Reprints Prof. E. Arber included Certayne Notes of Instruction, The Steele Glas and the Complaynt of Philomene. The Steele Glas was also edited for the Library of English Literature, by Henry Morley, vol. i. p. 184 (1889). A new edition, The Works of George Gascoigne (The Cambridge English Classics, 1907, &c.) is edited by Dr J. W. Cunliffe. See also The Life and Writings of George Gascoigne, by Prof. Felix E. Schelling (Publications of the Univ. of Pennsylvania series in Philology, vol. ii. No. 4 [1894]); C. H. Herford, Studies in the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 149164 (1886); C. H. Herford, "Gascoigne's Glasse of Government,' in Englische Studien, vol. ix. (Halle, 1877, &c.).

His dramatic work belongs to the period of his residence at Gray's Inn, both Jocasta (of which Acts i. and iv. were contributed by Francis Kinwelmersh) and Supposes being played there in GASCOIGNE, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1350-1419), chief justice of 1566. Jocasta was said by J. P. Collier (Hist. of Dram. Poetry England in the reign of Henry IV. Both history and tradition iii. 8) to be the "first known attempt to introduce a Greek | testify to the fact that he was one of the great lawyers who in play upon the English stage," but it turns out that Gascoigne times of doubt and danger have asserted the principle that the was only very indirectly acquainted with Euripides. His play is head of the state is subject to law, and that the traditional a literal version of Lodovico Dolce's Giocasta, which was derived practice of public officers, or the expressed voice of the nation in probably from the Phoenissae in the Latin translation of R. parliament, and not the will of the monarch or any part of the Winter. Supposes, a version of Ariosto's I Suppositi, is notable legislature, must guide the tribunals of the country. He was a as an early and excellent adaptation of Italian comedy, and descendant of an ancient Yorkshire family. The date of his moreover, as "the earliest play in English prose acted in public birth is uncertain, but it appears from the year-books that he or private." Udal's Ralph Roister Doister had been inspired practised as an advocate in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard directly by Latin comedy; Gammer Gurton's Needle was a purely II. On the banishment of Henry of Lancaster Gascoigne was native product; but Supposes is the first example of the ac-appointed one of his attorneys, and soon after Henry's accession climatization of the Italian models that were to exercise so to the throne was made chief justice of the court of king's bench. prolonged an influence on the English stage. A third play of | After the suppression of the rising in the north in 1405, Henry Gascoigne's, The Glasse of Government (published in 1575), is eagerly pressed the chief justice to pronounce sentence upon a school drama of the " Prodigal Son" type, familiar on the Scrope, the archbishop of York, and the earl marshal Thomas continent at the time, but rare in England. It is defined by Mr Mowbray, who had been implicated in the revolt. This he C. H. Herford as an attempt "to connect Terentian situation | absolutely refused to do, asserting the right of the prisoners to be with a Christian moral in a picture of school life," and it may tried by their peers. Although both were afterwards executed, be assumed that Gascoigne was familiar with the didactic drama the chief justice had no part in the transaction. It has been very of university life in vogue on the continent. The scene is laid at much doubted, however, whether Gascoigne could have displayed Antwerp, and the two prodigals meet with retribution in Geneva | such independence of action without prompt punishment or and Heidelberg respectively. removal from office following. The oft-told tale of his committing the prince of Wales to prison must also be regarded as unauthentic, though it is both picturesque and characteristic. The judge had directed the punishment of one of the prince's riotous companions, and the prince, who was present and enraged at the sentence, struck or grossly insulted the judge. Gascoigne immediately committed him to prison, using firm and forcible language, which brought him to a more reasonable mood, and secured his voluntary obedience to the sentence. The king is said to have approved of the act, but there appears to be good ground for the supposition that Gascoigne was removed from his post or resigned soon after the accession of Henry V. He died in 1419, and was buried in the parish church of Harewood in Yorkshire. Some biographies of the judge have stated that he died in 1412, but this is clearly disproved by Foss in his Lives of the Judges; and although it is clear that Gascoigne did not hold office long under Henry V., it is not absolutely impossible that the scene in the fifth act of the second part of Shakespeare's Henry IV. has some historical basis, and that the judge's resignation was voluntary.

The Spoyle of Antwerpe, written by an eyewitness of the sack of the city in 1576, has sometimes been attributed to Gascoigne, but although a George Gascoigne was employed in that year to carry letters for Walsingham, internal evidence is against Gascoigne's authorship. A curious editorial preface by Gascoigne to Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Discourse of a Discoverie for a new Passage to Cataia (1576) has led to the assertion that Gascoigne printed the tract against its author's wish, but it is likely that he was really serving Gilbert, who desired the publication, but dared not avow it. The Wyll of the Devill... (reprinted for private circulation by Dr F. J. Furnivall, 1871), an anti-popish tract, once attributed, on slender evidence, to Gascoigne, is almost certainly by another hand.

Gascoigne's works not already mentioned include: "G. G. in commendation of the noble Arte of Venerie," prefixed to The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting (1575); The Complaynte of Phylomene, bound up with The Steele Glas (1576); The Droomme of Doomes-day (1576), a prose compilation from various authors, especially from the De contemptu mundi sive de miseria humanae conditionis of Pope Innocent III., printed with varying titles, earliest ed. (1470?); A Delicate Diet for daintie mouthde droonkardes (1576), a free version of St Augustine's De ebrietate. The Posies (1572) included Supposes, Jocasta, A Discourse of the Adventures of Master Flerdinando] Jeronimi), in imitation of an Italian novella, a partly autoAgaine I see, within my glasse of Steele

1

But foure estates, to serve each country soyle,
The King, the Knight, the Pesant, and the Priest.
The King should care for al the subjects still,
The Knight should fight, for to defend the same,
The Pesant, he shoulde labor for their ease,
And Priests shuld pray, for them and for themselves."-
(Arber's ed. p. 57.).
The influence of this play on the Shakespearian Taming of the

Shrew is dealt with by Prof. A. H. Tolman in Shakespeare's Part in
the Taming of the Shrew (Pub. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. vol, v.
No. 4, pp. 215, 216, 1890).

GASCONY (Wasconia), an old province in the S.W. of France. It takes its name from the Vascones, a Spanish tribe which in 580 and 587 crossed the Pyrenees and invaded the district known to the Romans as Novempopulana or Aquitania tertia. Basque, the national language of the Vascones, took root only in a few of the high valleys of the Pyrenees, such as Soule and Labourd; in the plains Latin dialects prevailed, Gascon being a Romance language. In the 7th century the name of Vasconia was substituted for that of Novempopulana. The Vascones readily recognized the sovereignty of the Merovingian kings. In 602

they consented to be governed by a duke called Genialis, but in reality they remained independent. They even appointed national dukes, against whom Charlemagne had to fight at the beginning of his reign. Finally Duke Lupus II. made his

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