=Gilpin= (_John_), a linen-draper and train-band captain, living in London. His wife said to him, “Though we have been married twenty years, we have taken no holiday;” and at her advice the well-to-do linen-draper agreed to make a family party, and dine at the Bell, at Edmonton. Mrs. Gilpin, her sister, and four children went in the chaise, and Gilpin promised to follow on horseback. As madam had left the wine behind, Gilpin girded it in two stone bottles to his belt, and started on his way. The horse, being fresh, began to trot, and then to gallop; and John, being a bad rider, grasped the mane with both his hands. On went the horse, off flew John Gilpin’s cloak, together with his hat and wig. The dogs barked, the children screamed, the turnpike men (thinking he was riding for a wager) flung open their gates. He flew through Edmonton, and never stopped till he reached Ware, when his friend the calender gave him welcome, and asked him to dismount. Gilpin, however, declined, saying his wife would be expecting him. So the calender furnished him with another hat and wig, and Gilpin harked back again, when similar disasters occurred, till the horse stopped at his house in London.—W. Cowper, _John Gilpin_ (1786). ⁂ John Gilpin was a Mr. Beyer, of Paternoster Row, who died in 1791, and it was Lady Austin who told the anecdote to the poet. The marriage adventure of Commodore Trunnion in _Peregrine Pickle_ is a similar adventure. =Gines de Passamonte=, one of the galley-slaves set free by Don Quixote. Gines had written a history of his life and adventures. After being liberated, the slaves set upon the knight; they assaulted him with stones, robbed him and Sancho of everything they valued, broke to pieces “Mambrino’s helmet,” and then made off with all possible speed, taking Sancho’s ass with them. After a time the ass was recovered (pt. I. iv. 3). “Hark ye, friend,” said the galley-slave, “Gines is my name, and Passamonte the title of my family.”—Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, I. iii. 8 (1605). ⁂ This Gines re-appears in pt. II. ii. 7 as “Peter the showman,” who exhibits the story of “Melisendra and Don Gayferos.” The helmet also is presented whole and sound at the inn, where it becomes a matter of dispute whether it is a basin or a helmet. =Gineura=, the troth-plight bride of Ariodantês, falsely accused of infidelity, and doomed to die unless she found within a month a champion to do battle for her honor. The duke who accused her felt confident that no champion would appear, but on the day appointed Ariodantês himself entered the lists. The duke was slain, the lady vindicated, and the champion became Gineura’s husband.—Arisoto, _Orlando Furioso_ (1516).