Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/146

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Grenville
138
Gresham

impressive, and I may say authoritative. His declamation was powerful and his attacks hard to be borne’ (Memoirs, iii. 488-9). From a party point of view Grenville's career, taken as a whole, was inconsistent. This inconsistency of political conduct was due to his inbred alarm at the spread of revolutionary principles abroad, and his belief in the efficacy of repressive measures at home. It should, however, always be remembered, when Grenville's consistency is called in question, that he twice gave up office rather than sacrifice his principles on the subject of catholic emancipation, and that his views on that question practically excluded him from office during the rest of his political life.

Grenville married, on 18 July 1792, the Hon. Anne Pitt, only daughter of Thomas, first baron Camelford, and sole heiress of her brother Thomas, the second baron. There being no issue of the marriage the barony of Grenville became extinct upon his death. His widow survived him for many years, and died in South Street, Grosvenor Square, on 13 June 1864, aged 91, leaving her large estates to her husband's nephew, the Hon. George Matthew Fortescue. The National Portrait Gallery possesses a portrait of Grenville by Hoppner. Another portrait, painted in 1792 by Gainsborough Dupont, was exhibited in the third Loan Collection of National Portraits (Catalogue, No. 29), while a third, painted by W. Owen, belonging to Christ Church, Oxford, was lent to the Exhibition of Old Masters in 1872 (Catalogue, No. 248). Engravings after portraits of Grenville by W. Owen and J. Jackson will be found in Cadell's ‘British Gallery of Contemporary Portraits’ (1822) and Fisher's ‘National Portrait Gallery’ (1830). A large collection of letters, including Grenville's correspondence with Pitt, is preserved by Colonel Fortescue at Dropmore. In addition to a number of his speeches, which were separately published, and the edition of Homer which was privately printed by him and his brothers, and edited by Porson and others (Oxford, 1800, 4to, 4 vols.), Grenville published the following: 1. ‘Letters written by the late Earl Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, Esq. (afterwards Lord Camelford, then at Cambridge’ [edited by Grenville], London, 1804, 8vo; third edition, London, 1804, 8vo; a new edition, London, 1810, 12mo; a new edition, London, 1821, 8vo. 2. ‘Letter from Lord Grenville to the Earl of Fingal, January 22, 1810,’ Buckingham [1810], 8vo; another edition, London, 1810, 8vo; new edition, corrected, London, 1812, 8vo; ‘third edition, 1815,’ contained in the fifth volume of ‘The Pamphleteer’ (1815), pp. 141-50. 3. 'Nugæ Metricæ,' 1824, 4to, privately printed, addenda printed 1834. 4. ‘Essay on the supposed advantages of a Sinking Fund,’ by Lord Grenville, part the first, London, 1828, 8vo, privately printed; second edition corrected, London, 1828, 8vo; no second part was ever printed. 5. ‘Oxford and Locke,’ by Lord Grenville, London, 1829, 8vo; second edition, corrected, London, 1829, 8vo. 6. ‘Dropmore,’ 1830, 4to, privately printed.

[Memoirs of Court and Cabinets of George III (1853-6); Memoirs of the Court of the Regency (1856); Memoirs of the Court of George IV (1859); Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of William IV and Victoria (1861); Lord Auckland's Journal and Correspondence (1861-2); Lord Colchester's Diary and Correspondence (1861); Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party (1852-4); Lord Stanhope's Life of Pitt (1861-2); Life and Opinions of Earl Grey (1861); Yonge's Life of Lord Liverpool (1868); Pellew's Life of Lord Sidmouth (1847); Sir G. C. Lewis's Administrations of Great Britain 1783-1830(1864); Lord Brougham's Statesmen of George III (1839), 1st series, pp. 254-9; Lord Brougham's Memoirs (1871), iii. 487-98; Martineau's History of England, 1800-1815 (1878); Walpole's History of England (1879), vols. i. and ii.; Edinburgh Review, clxviii. 271-312; Collins's Peerage (1812), ii. 418, viii. 269-70; Lipscombe's Buckinghamshire (1847), i. 600-1; Gent. Mag. 1792, vol. lxii. pt. ii. p. 672, 1834 new ser. vol. i. pt. i. pp. 327-9, 1864 new ser.xvii. 125; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, pt. ii. p. 563; Official Return of Lists of Members of Parliament, pt. ii. pp. 162, 175, 187; Haydn's Book of Dignities (1851): Lincoln's Inn Registers; Brit.Mus. Cat.; Grenville Library Cat.]

G. F. R. B.

GRESHAM, JAMES (fl. 1626), poet, published in 1626 ‘The Picture of Incest: liuely portraicted in the historie of Cinyras and Myrrha,’ 12mo. This poem, written in heroic couplets, is a translation from book x. of Ovid's ‘Metamorphoses,’ and is a satisfactory performance. A reprint from the one known copy of the original edition, which is in the British Museum Library, has been made by the Rev.A.B. Grosart (1876). Gresham may be identical with the James Gresham who in 1631 married the widow of Roger Hurst, a brewer, and five years later petitioned the king for protection against the creditors of Hurst's estate (Cal State Papers, Dom. 1636, p. 30).

[Gresham's Picture of Incest.]

A. V.

GRESHAM, Sir JOHN (d. 1556), lord mayor of London. [See under Gresham, Sir Richard.]