The doctor was astonished at so extraordinary a production from a lad of eighteen. As it was destroyed by Gerald we must refer to the testimony both of the doctor and of Banim, who speak of it as possessing great dramatic excellence and poetic power. With this he was determined to try his fortune in London. His relatives all disapproved, but opposition was vain; and in his twentieth year he was in London, unknown, poor, friendless, with little else than his tragedy and his indomitable resolution to bear him up and onward. He presented his manuscript to one of the London managers, who sent it discourteously back, without a word of comment, wrapped up in an old paper unsealed. The kindness of Banim consoles him; he works at a new piece, and is now fairly committed to London authorship. A few words will describe a life—so common with many a struggling genius. He lived hard; he starved; he sought desultory employment—the newspaper and the periodical, the bookseller's drudgery; yet with a proud independence concealing his wants from every one. Meantime he is at every interval putting down his new tragedy on "slips of paper written in coffee-houses." When "Gissipus" was completed, Banim endeavoured to get it on the stage, but failed, and Gerald was left to his struggles, supported still by an abiding sense of his own power and a craving hunger for literary success. "Failure! No; death first!" he writes to a sister in America. For a while, as he tells this sister, he was sickened with the drama, though a great tragic actress offered to present his play, and do her best to have it acted; and he now turned his mind to the composition of tales and novels, animated by the success of his friend Banim; preparing "Hollandtide"—the first of the tales by which he was afterwards to be so well known—in the intervals of hack-writing and parliamentary reporting, reviewing, correcting novels as a reader, and writing poetry and essays; and all this time he was suffering from violent palpitations that forced him to be on the hard chairs through the greater part of the night. Some criticisms which he wrote on the drama anonymously led to a correspondence with a manager of one of the theatres, and to the production of some light operatic pieces for which he received fair remuneration. In 1827 "Hollandtide" was published, and it met with such success as to establish a reputation for the author, and to induce him to pursue this line of literature. For an interval, however, he had to yield to the severe attacks to which he was subject; and, remitting his labours, he visited his family in Ireland, in the hope, too, of seeing a dying sister, whom he was not destined again to behold alive. Returning to London, he produced in the end of 1827, the "Tales of the Minster Festival," in two volumes, containing Card-drawing, the Half Sir, and Suil Duiv the coiner. The popularity of these surpassed that of his former volumes; his position was securely established; he was, on the whole, favourably renewed, and the booksellers began to look after him; and yet, though these tales were pronounced "to be equalled only by the author of Waverley in their national portraiture, and sketches of manners," they did not yield their author more than £250. He now turned his mind with ardour to this species of composition, though undoubtedly his strongest, as his first love, was the drama, and he adopted the other somewhat upon compulsion. In the winter of 1828 he published the "Collegians." It was written with a wonderful facility, thrown off from hour to hour, often to meet the demands of the printer, and yet it bears no marks of haste or want of uniformity and completeness; it is, in truth, the rapid transmission to paper of thoughts overflowing from a mind in which they were well matured. This tale of deep tragic interest—intensified by the well-known fact of its reality—was wrought out with great power, and was deservedly appreciated both by the press and the public, and has been the most popular of his works. We may add that it was afterwards successfully dramatized under the title of "Eily O'Connor." Griffin now turned his attention to the study of Irish history. The result was the "Invasion," a novel whose beauties were unappreciated by the English public. In 1830 appeared two more sketches of Irish life—"The Rivals" and "Tracey's Ambition." They cannot be considered as highly as the "Collegians," and do not show the same power or finish. These were succeeded in 1832 by the "Tales of the Five Senses." Meantime a strong feeling had been gradually growing up in his mind that after all "he might be misspending his time;" that the pursuit of literature was a transitory and unsatisfying passion. Religious impressions were becoming stronger, and the process of writing in consequence was often irksome. After a visit to Scotland, he returned once more to his native land, and announced to his family his determination to devote himself to a monastic life. In September, 1830, he joined the Society of Christian Brothers, assuming the name of Joseph, having first burned all his manuscripts. The two following years of his novitiate were spent in works of charity and devotion. He died of typhus fever on the 12th of June, 1840, at the North Monastery, Cork. A headstone in the cemetery, with the simple inscription, "Brother Gerald Griffin," marks the spot where he lies. One manuscript fortunately escaped destruction—the tragedy of "Gissipus." More than one competent authority highly commended it. Finally it was placed in the hands of Mr. Macready, who put it on the stage of Drury Lane in 1842, and subsequently on that of Dublin. It was applauded by audiences, and praised by critics, but, with all its dramatic merits, has not kept its hold of the stage. Of Griffin as a novelist and a poet there can be but one opinion. In the former character he ranks amongst the best of our modern Irish writers. "He must live," says one of his critics, "as an able delineator of our national feelings—as an expounder of that subtlest of problems, the Irish heart, he can never be forgotten." As a poet he is true to nature, material and spiritual nature, tender, melodious, and lyrical, and pourtrays the domestic affections with a master hand. But after all, his true mission—one, alas! unfulfilled—was the dramatic. It was the passion of his life, checked by circumstances, and thrown back upon his heart; and thus true to his first love, his soul was never satisfied with his second, and to this disappointment may be, perhaps, traced his disgust of literature and retirement to the convent. "I do not," says Mr. Foster, speaking of 'Gissipus,' "hesitate to call it one of the marvels of youthful production in literature. The solid grasp of character, the manly depth of thought, the beauties as well as defects of the composition, wanted only right direction to have given to our English drama another splendid and enduring name." The last and best edition of his collected works is that by Duffy, Dublin, 1857, in eight volumes, including a biography by his brother, Dr. Daniel Griffin.—J. F. W.
* GRIFFIN, John Joseph, the well-known manufacturer of chemical apparatus, was born in London, January 22, 1802. He was at one time a bookseller in Glasgow, and has written the following works—"Chemical Recreation and Romance of Chemistry," published in 1834; "A Treatise on Chemical Manipulation, and on the use of the Blowpipe in Chemical Analysis," 1837; "A System of Crystallography, with its Application to Mineralogy," 1844; "The Radical Theory in Chemistry," 1858. The last-named book was designed by the author to effect a revolution in chemistry. In it, among other things, a new system of nomenclature was proposed; a system, however, which hitherto has found little favour with chemists. In the memoirs of the Chemical Society for 1848, he wrote a paper on the "Constitution of Aqueous Solutions of Acids and Alkalies."—J. A. W.
GRIFFITH, Elizabeth, born in Wales in 1750. Early in life she married Richard Griffith of Maiden Hall, county Kilkenny, Ireland; and in conjunction with him wrote the "Letters of Henry and Frances," in 4 vols., which enjoyed much popularity in their day. Mrs. Griffith also wrote several plays, and a book of more merit entitled "The Morality of Shakspeare's Dramas illustrated." She died in 1793.—J. O.
GRIFFITH, Richard, husband of the preceding, was born at Maiden Hall, county Kilkenny, in 1714. He wrote the "Gordian Knot;" the "Triumvirate," much admired in its day; several plays, and various statistical papers; and in conjunction with his wife the "Letters of Henry and Frances." He died in 1788.—J. O.
* GRIFFITH, Sir Richard John, Baronet, LL.D., F.G.S., F.R.S., grandson of the preceding, a distinguished geologist, the chairman of the board of public works, and commissioner of the general valuation of Ireland. His father, Richard, was a member of the Irish house of commons, and distinguished himself as a successful advocate for the improvement of his country, and was one of the chief promoters of the grand canals. Richard was born in Hume Street, Dublin, 20th September, 1784. In 1797 he was placed at a school in Kildare, where, in May, 1798, the rebels took himself and schoolfellows prisoners, and held them as hostages, till put to flight by the city of Cork militia. In 1800 he received his commission as lieutenant in the Royal Irish artillery; but, on the union of the countries, he retired and embraced
