accept, an office in the government. In the following year he showed the strength of his judgment and character by supporting, in spite of consequent unpopularity in Ireland, a measure for increasing the powers of the executive to deal with Irish disorder. Roman Catholic emancipation, which he continued to advocate with unflagging energy though now advanced in age, became complicated after 1808 by the question whether a veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops should rest with the crown. Grattan supported the veto, but a more extreme Catholic party was now arising in Ireland under the leadership of Daniel O’Connell, and Grattan’s influence gradually declined. He seldom spoke in parliament after 1810, the most notable exception being in 1815, when he separated himself from the Whigs and supported the final struggle against Napoleon. His last speech of all, in 1819, contained a passage referring to the union he had so passionately resisted, which exhibits the statesmanship and at the same time the equable quality of Grattan’s character. His sentiments with regard to the policy of the union remained, he said, unchanged; but “the marriage having taken place it is now the duty, as it ought to be the inclination, of every individual to render it as fruitful, as profitable and as advantageous as possible.” In the following summer, after crossing from Ireland to London when out of health to bring forward the Catholic question once more, he became seriously ill. On his death-bed he spoke generously of Castlereagh, and with warm eulogy of his former rival, Flood. He died on the 6th of June 1820, and was buried in Westminster Abbey close to the tombs of Pitt and Fox. His statue is in the outer lobby of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Grattan had married in 1782 Henrietta Fitzgerald, a lady descended from the ancient family of Desmond, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.
The most searching scrutiny of his private life only increases the respect due to the memory of Grattan as a statesman and the greatest of Irish orators. His patriotism was untainted by self-seeking; he was courageous in risking his popularity for what his sound judgment showed him to be the right course. As Sydney Smith said with truth of Grattan soon after his death: “No government ever dismayed him. The world could not bribe him. He thought only of Ireland; lived for no other object; dedicated to her his beautiful fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendour of his astonishing eloquence.”[1]
Bibliography.—Henry Grattan, Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. H. Grattan (5 vols., London, 1839–1846); Grattan’s Speeches (ed. by H. Grattan, junr., 1822); Irish Parl. Debates; W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century (8 vols., London, 1878–1890) and Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland (enlarged edition, 2 vols., 1903). For the controversy concerning the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam see, in addition to the foregoing, Lord Rosebery, Pitt (London, 1891); Lord Ashbourne, Pitt: Some Chapters of his Life (London, 1898); The Pelham Papers (Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 33118); Carlisle Correspondence; Beresford Correspondence; Stanhope Miscellanies; for the Catholic question, W. J. Amhurst, History of Catholic Emancipation (2 vols., London, 1886); Sir Thomas Wyse, Historical Sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (London, 1829); W. J. MacNeven, Pieces of Irish History (New York, 1807) containing an account of the United Irishmen; for the volunteer movement Thomas MacNevin, History of the Volunteers of 1782 (Dublin, 1845); Proceedings of the Volunteer Delegates of Ireland 1784 (Anon. Pamph. Brit. Mus.). See also F. Hardy, Memoirs of Lord Charlemont (London, 1812); Warden Flood, Memoirs of Henry Flood (London, 1838); Francis Plowden, Historical Review of the State of Ireland (London, 1803); Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878); Sir Jonah Barrington, Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation (London, 1833); W. J. O’Neill Daunt, Ireland and her Agitators; Lord Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament (2 vols., London, 1792); Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George III. (4 vols., London, 1845 and 1894); Lord Stanhope, Life of William Pitt (4 vols., London, 1861); Thomas Davis, Life of J. P. Curran (Dublin, 1846)—this contains a memoir of Grattan by D. O. Madden, and Grattan’s reply to Lord Clare on the question of the Union; Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and some of his Contemporaries (London, 1822); J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland (London, 1881); J. G. McCarthy, Henry Grattan: an Historical Study (London, 1886); Lord Mahon’s History of England, vol. vii. (1858). With special reference to the Union see Castlereagh Correspondence; Cornwallis Correspondence; Westmorland Papers (Irish State Paper Office). (R. J. M.)
GRATTIUS [FALISCUS], Roman poet, of the age of Augustus, author of a poem on hunting (Cynegetica), of which 541 hexameters remain. He was possibly a native of Falerii. The only reference to him in any ancient writer is incidental (Ovid, Ex Ponto, iv. 16. 33). He describes various kinds of game, methods of hunting, the best breeds of horses and dogs.
There are editions by R. Stern (1832); E. Bährens in Poëtae Latini Minores (i., 1879) and G. G. Curcio in Poeti Latini Minori (i., 1902), with bibliography; see also H. Schenkl, Zur Kritik des G. (1898). There is a translation by Christopher Wase (1654).
GRAUDENZ (Polish Grudziadz), a town in the kingdom of
Prussia, province of West Prussia, on the right bank of the
Vistula, 18 m. S.S.W. of Marienwerder and 37 m. by rail N.N.E.
of Thorn. Pop. (1885) 17,336, (1905) 35,988. It has two Protestant
and three Roman Catholic churches, and a synagogue.
It is a place of considerable manufacturing activity. The town
possesses a museum and a monument to Guillaume René Courbière
(1733–1811), the defender of the town in 1807. It has
fine promenades along the bank of the Vistula. Graudenz is
an important place in the German system of fortifications, and
has a garrison of considerable size.
Graudenz was founded about 1250, and received civic rights in 1291. At the peace of Thorn in 1466 it came under the lordship of Poland. From 1665 to 1759 it was held by Sweden, and in 1772 it came into the possession of Prussia. The fortress of Graudenz, which since 1873 has been used as a barracks and a military depot and prison, is situated on a steep eminence about 112 m. north of the town and outside its limits. It was completed by Frederick the Great in 1776, and was rendered famous through its defence by Courbière against the French in 1807.
GRAUN, CARL HEINRICH (1701–1759), German musical
composer, the youngest of three brothers, all more or less musical,
was born on the 7th of May 1701 at Wahrenbrück in Saxony.
His father held a small government post and he gave his children
a careful education. Graun’s beautiful soprano voice secured
him an appointment in the choir at Dresden. At an early age he
composed a number of sacred cantatas and other pieces for the
church service. He completed his studies under Johann Christoph
Schmidt (1664–1728), and profited much by the Italian operas
which were performed at Dresden under the composer Lotti.
After his voice had changed to a tenor, he made his début at
the opera of Brunswick, in a work by Schürmann, an inferior
composer of the day; but not being satisfied with the arias assigned
him he re-wrote them, so much to the satisfaction of the court
that he was commissioned to write an opera for the next season.
This work, Polydorus (1726), and five other operas written for
Brunswick, spread his fame all over Germany. Other works,
mostly of a sacred character, including two settings of the
Passion, also belong to the Brunswick period. Frederick the
Great, at that time crown prince of Prussia, heard the singer in
Brunswick in 1735, and immediately engaged him for his private
chapel at Rheinsberg. There Graun remained for five years,
and wrote a number of cantatas, mostly to words written by
Frederick himself in French, and translated into Italian by
Boltarelli. On his accession to the throne in 1740, Frederick
sent Graun to Italy to engage singers for a new opera to be
established at Berlin. Graun remained a year on his travels,
earning universal applause as a singer in the chief cities of Italy.
After his return to Berlin he was appointed conductor of the
royal orchestra (Kapellmeister) with a salary of 2000 thalers
(£300). In this capacity he wrote twenty-eight operas, all to
Italian words, of which the last, Merope (1756), is perhaps the
most perfect. It is probable that Graun was subjected to considerable
humiliation from the arbitrary caprices of his royal
master, who was never tired of praising the operas of Hasse and
abusing those of his Kapellmeister. In his oratorio The Death of Jesus Graun shows his skill as a contrapuntist, and his originality
of melodious invention. In the Italian operas he imitates
the florid style of his time, but even in these the recitatives
occasionally show considerable dramatic power. Graun died
on the 8th of August 1759, at Berlin, in the same house in which,
thirty-two years later, Meyerbeer was born.
- ↑ Sydney Smith’s Works, ii. 166-167.
