l of the old kingdom;
the fort is garrisoned, and is the treasury of the Nizam; it is also a
State prison.

GOLD COAST (1,475, of whom 150 are Europeans), a British crown
colony on the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa, with a coast-line of 350 m.;
from the low and marshy foreshore the country slopes upward and inward to
Ashanti; the climate is very unhealthy; palm-oil, india-rubber, gold
dust, &c., are exported; Cape Coast Castle is the capital.

GOLDEN AGE, the age of happy innocence under the reign of Cronos or
Saturn, in which, as fabled, the earth yielded all fulness without toil,
and every creature lived at peace with every other; the term is applied
to the most flourishing period in the history of a nation. See
AGES.

GOLDEN ASS, a romance of APULEIUS (q. v.).

GOLDEN BULL, an Imperial edict, issued by the Emperor Charles IV.,
which determined the law in the matter of the Imperial elections, and
that only one member of each electoral house should have a vote; so
called from the gold case enclosing the Imperial seal attached.

GOLDEN FLEECE, the fleece of a ram which PHRYXOS (q. v.),
after he had sacrificed him to Zeus, gave to AEetes, king of Colchis, who
hung it on a sacred oak, and had it guarded by a monstrous dragon, and
which it was the object of the Argonautic expedition under Jason to
recover and bring back to Greece, an object which they achieved. See
ARGONAUTS.

GOLDEN FLEECE, ORDER OF THE, an order of knighthood founded by
Philip III., Duke of Burgundy and the Netherlands in 1429, and instituted
for the protection of the Church.

GOLDEN HORN, the inlet on which Constantinople is situated.

GOLDEN LEGEND, a collection of lives of saints and other tales, such
as that of the "Seven Sleepers" and "St. George and the Dragon," made in
the 13th century by Jacques de Voragine, a Dominican monk, to the glory
especially of his brotherhood.

GOLDEN ROSE, a cluster of roses on a thorny stem, all of gold;
perfumed, and blessed by the Pope on the fourth Sunday in Lent, and sent
to a prince who has during the year shown most zeal for the Church.

GOLDONI, CARLO, the founder of Italian comedy, born at Venice; in
his youth he studied medicine and subsequently law, but in 1732 appeared
as a dramatist with his tragedy "Belisario"; moving from place to place
as a strolling-player, he in 1736 returned to Venice, and finding his
true vocation in comedy-writing, turned out a rapid succession of
spar