Burmann (1731) and "Warnsdorf (1780) in the Poctce Latini Minorca, and by Weber in the Corpus Poctarum Latinorum. The most recent editions are those of Stern (1832) and Haupt (1838). A rendering into English verse was published by Christopher Wase in 1654; there is also a German translation by Perlet (1826).
GRATTAN, Henry (1746-1820), Irish statesman and
orator, was born 3d July 1746. His father, a Protestant,
was for many years recorder of the city of Dublin, and from
1761 to 1766 its representative in the Irish parliament ;
and his mother was a daughter of Thomas Marlay, chief
justice of Ireland. Both at school and at Trinity College,
Dublin, which he entered in 1763, young Grattan greatly
distinguished himself, especially in the study of the classics;
and several well-authenticated anecdotes indicate also that
the more prominent moral characteristics displayed in his
public career had begun to assert their strength at a very
early period. While still attending the university he
discarded the Tory principles of his father, who, dying in
1766 before his irritation had time to moderate, testified
his resentment by depriving him of the paternal mansion,
and of all property not secured by settlement. Having in
herited, however, a small inalienable patrimony he resolved
to study for the bar, and in 1767 he entered the Middle
Temple, London. He was called to the Irish bar in 1772,
but never obtained a large practice ; and indeed from the
time that he left the university he seems to have concen
trated his attention chiefly on politics and the study of
popular oratory. He early acquired a passionate admira
tion of the great orators of Greece and Rome, and while
in London he spent the most of his evenings in the galleries
of the House of Commons or at the bar of the Lords,
anxious to profit by every opportunity of obtaining an
insight into the art of eloquence, his enthusiasm for which
had received additional stimulus from the genius of Lord
Chatham. Of the eloquence of Chatham he has given a
detailed and graphic description in one of his letters, and
he also wrote an admirable portraiture of his character,
which was inserted as a note in the political publication
Barataria conducted by Sir Hercules Langrishe. The
knowledge obtained from the study of the best specimens
of ancient and modern oratory, and that gained from wit
nessing the debates in the English parliament, Grattan
began sedulously to apply to the purposes of his own dis
cipline. By the constant practice of recitation to imaginary
audiences, and by taking part frequently in private theatri
cals, he succeeded in overcoming to a remarkable extent
his great physical defects, so as to acquire a clear and
rounded articulation, an emphasis in some respects admir
ably consonant with his meaning, and a certain ease in a
style of elocution which was effective partly by reason of
its very singularity. At the same time, by practising the
habit of writing out the principal passages of his speeches,
and subjecting them to a constant mental revision, he
attained to the possession of a diction which for clearness,
epigrammatic vigour, polished beauty of phrase, and the
power of illuminating a whole subject by sudden flashes
of meaning conveyed in a single sentence, is unsurpassed
in modern oratory. He was equally diligent also in per
fecting his political knowledge by a careful study of the
history and political constitution both of ancient and
modern nations ; and the minor accomplishment of pro
ficiency as a pistol shot, at that time essential to every
Irish politician who would be prepared for all emergencies,
was cultivated by him with the same dogged perseverance
which he displayed in other matters.
When therefore, under the auspices of Lord Charlemont,
Grattan in 1775 entered the Irish parliament, he had
already all his powers under full command, and had so
trained and disciplined his natural genius that it was
able to exert its influence with untrammelled freedom.
The period at which he began public life was one of the
most critical in his country s history ; and it is within the
limits of strict truth to affirm that he inaugurated a new
era in her political condition, and that, whether for good or
for evil, and whether by the direct success of his efforts or
by the modifying or opposing influences they called into
exercise, he has had a greater share than any other indi
vidual in determining her present relation to the United
Kingdom. Through the writings of Molyneux and Swift,
the beginnings of a true national sentiment had been pre
viously awakened; and the first step in the path of constitu
tional reform had been taken, when by the advocacy of
Flood the Octennial Bill of 1768 was passed, which limited
the duration of parliaments to eight years, instead of as
formerly making their continuance depend upon the life
of the sovereign; but Flood himself whose friendship
and influence were a powerful element in determining
Grattan to adopt a political career had, like less formid
able agitators, succumbed to the intrigues of the " castle,"
and, although possessed of a private fortune which placed
him beyond the suspicion of being governed chiefly by mer
cenary considerations, had consented to hamper his political
action by accepting a sinecure office ; and it seemed as if
the germs of a better future had already begun to rot in a
soil of such political corruption. The difficulty of the task
which Grattan had set before him was also increased by a
peculiarity in the case of Ireland which requires to be em
phasized. Her political constitution, and, with the excep
tion of the restrictions which paralysed her trade, the laws
which were inflicting upon her such moral and physical
misery, did not nominally differ to any great extent from
those of the country by which she was in reality governed.
She possessed intact her separate nationality ; she was
blessed with the boon of a national parliament ; she had a
legal administration of her own, including the right of trial
by jury ; and she enjoyed something resembling the privi
leges of municipal government. She possessed these things,
however, scarcely more than in form ; and she possessed them
in such a form that, instead of being the guarantees of her
liberty, they increased her sense of bondage, and directly
fostered discontent and chronic mutiny. Though the Test
Act and the penal laws were actually enforced with less
rigour than in England, yet from the numbers who came
within their sweep their disastrous influence was incal
culably increased. They excluded four-fifths of her other
wise eligible population from the jury box and from muni
cipal and parliamentary suffrage ; they had produced con
fiscations on almost a national scale with all the evils con
sequent on absenteeism ; and from their operation there had
resulted an ignorance, a poverty, a violation of the rights
of conscience, not confined to a few thousands, helplessly
dispersed throughout the kingdom, but afflicting the great
mass of the people, and both by their direct and their reflex
action poisoning the springs of the whole national life.
Her judges besides were liable to dismissal at pleasure,
and her parliament had no independent authority, and by
its very constitution was subject to corrupt influences far
exceeding those in operation in the English parliament,
and such as virtually to deprive it of independence of vote,
almost as completely as it had been deprived of the power
of legislation. Still that parliament constituted a kind of
centre for political discussion and for the propagation and
diffusion of political ideas, and it was by means of it that
Grattan and his associates determined to work out the
political and social regeneration of their country. Almost
as soon as he entered parliament, Grattan became the
acknowledged leader of the opposition, not only from the
influence exerted by his oratory within the House, but
from its power to kindle the enthusiasm of the people,
and to create out of the chaos of shapeless and discordant
elements the united sympathy and purpose of a true
