=Guil´denstern=, one of Hamlet’s companions, employed by the king and queen to divert him, if possible, from his strange and wayward ways.—Shakespeare, _Hamlet_ (1596). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are favorable examples of the thorough-paced time-serving court knave ... ticketed and to be hired for any hard or dirty work.—Cowden Clarke. =Guillotine= (3 _syl._). So named from Joseph Ignace Guillotin, a French physician, who proposed its adoption, to prevent unnecessary pain. Dr. Guillotin did not invent the guillotine, but he improved the Italian machine (1791). In 1792 Antoine Louis introduced further improvements, and hence the instrument is sometimes called _Louisette, or Louison_. The original Italian machine was called _mannaja_; it was a clumsy affair, first employed to decapitate Beatrice Cenci, in Rome, A.D. 1600. It was the popular theme for jests. It was [called _La mère Guillotine_], the “sharp female,” the “best cure for headache.” It “infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey.” It “imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion.” It was the “national razor,” which shaved close. Those “who kissed the guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack.” It was the sign of “the regeneration of the human race.” It “superseded the cross.” Models were worn[_as ornaments_].—C. Dickens, A _Tale of Two Cities_, iii. 4 (1859). =Guinart= (_Roque_), whose true name was Pedro Rocha Guinarda, chief of a band of robbers who levied black mail in the mountainous districts of Catalonia. He is introduced by Cervantes in his tale of _Don Quixote._ =Guinea= (_Adventures of a_), a novel by Charles Johnstone (1761). A guinea, as it passes into different hands, is the historian of the follies and vices of its master for the time being; and thus a series of scenes and personages is made to pass before the reader, somewhat in the same manner as in _The Devil upon Two Sticks_ and in _The Chinese Tales_. =Guin´evere= (_3 syl._). So Tennyson spells the name of Arthur’s queen in his _Idylls_. He tells us of the liaison between her and “Sir Lancelot,” and says that Mordred, having discovered this familiarity, “brought his creatures to the basement of the tower for testimony.” Sir Lancelot flung the fellow to the ground, and instantly took to horse; while Guinevere fled to the nunnery at Almesbury. Here the king took leave of her; and when the abbess died, the queen was appointed her successor, and remained head of the establishment for three years, when she also died. ⁂ It will be seen that Tennyson departs from the _British History_, by Geoffrey, and the _History of Prince Arthur_ as edited by Sir T. Malory. (See GUENEVER.) =Guiomar=, mother of the vain-glorious Duar´te.—Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Custom of the Country_ (1647).