the more congenial profession of a civil engineer. In 1802 he became the pupil of William Nicholson of London, the editor of the Philosophical Journal, and there devoted himself to the study of various sciences, including practical mining; visited the various mines of the British islands; and made the acquaintance of many eminent persons, amongst whom were Sir Humphry Davy and Sir John St. Aubyn. In the year 1808 he became a member of the Royal Dublin Society, for which he made a survey of the Leinster coal district; and in 1809 he received his first public appointment as one of the engineers to report upon the situation, extent, and capability for culture of the bogs of Ireland. The bog of Allan and the adjacent bog-lands fell to his lot, and he reported upon four hundred and seventy-four thousand acres of country. Besides the subject in hand he described the geological, physical, and mineral aspects of the districts reported upon, and showed the adaptation of the reclaimed bogs for the production of fiorin grass, remarkable for its nutritious qualities. Owing to the celebrity he then gained, the Royal Dublin Society having, in 1812, founded a professorship of geology and practical mining, Mr. Griffith was appointed to it. His next appointment was that of inspector of his majesty's royal mines in Ireland. From this time up to the year 1822, he continued his lectures on geology and mining. His subsequent labours have been so numerous and unremitting, that we can only give a general glance at their extent. In 1822 he laid out two hundred and eighty miles of admirable road through the mountainous districts of the south. In 1824 a general valuation and ordnance survey of Ireland having been directed by government, Mr. Griffith's recommendation of a scale of six inches to the mile was adopted, and he was appointed to carry out as a prelude a territorial or boundary survey of the country. This work was completed in the year 1846. From the year 1825 his career became a purely public one, and the remainder of it is but the history of his branch of the public service in Ireland with which his name is identified. His general valuation of Ireland, commenced in 1830, continues in operation to the present time; and upon it the various local and public assessments are made. In 1835 he was appointed by the treasury one of the commissioners for improving the river Shannon, and in 1836 a member of the railway commission. In 1846 he was appointed deputy-chairman, and in 1850 chairman of the board of public works in Ireland. Meantime, from the year 1812, he had been engaged in geological investigations, and though often interrupted by other avocations, he never lost sight of the subject. At length his labours resulted in his great geological map of Ireland on a scale of four miles to an inch. This work added to his reputation, and in 1854 the late Professor Forbes, on behalf of the Geological Society of London, presented him with the Wollaston palladium medal, on which occasion the professor termed his map "one of the most remarkable geological maps ever produced by a single geologist." It may be mentioned that, in preparing this map, he incurred the enormous labour of visiting every parish in Ireland three times. In the year 1858, in consideration of his distinguished services, he was made a baronet.—J. O.
GRIFFITH, William, a distinguished botanist, was born on 4th March, 1810, at Ham Common, Surrey. He was educated for the medical profession at University college, London, and his botanical studies were superintended by Dr. Lindley. He went to Madras in 1832 as assistant-surgeon in the service of the East India Company. His first appointment was to the coast of Tenasserim, but in 1835 he was attached to the Bengal Presidency, and he was selected along with Drs. Wallich and M'Clelland to visit and report on the tea districts of Assam. This mission was for Mr. Griffith the commencement of a series of botanical journeys, during which he visited nearly the whole extent of the East India Company's extra-peninsular possessions. In 1841 he was appointed to superintend the botanic garden at Calcutta. In 1844 he proceeded to Malacca to undertake medical duties, and died there on the 9th February, 1845. He was a most distinguished botanical observer, and his works show great ability and wonderful powers of research. He made large collections to illustrate the flora of India. His posthumous works have been edited by Dr. M'Clelland.—J. H. B.
GRIFFITHS, Ralph, LL.D., born in Shropshire in 1720; died in 1803, is best known as the proprietor and editor of the Monthly Review, a periodical founded by him in 1749. Labouring himself assiduously in the supervision of his Review, Griffiths spared no expense in engaging good writers as contributors to it, so that it well merited the success which it ere long attained. Oliver Goldsmith in 1757 ceased his distasteful labours as an usher in a school at Peckham to reside with Griffiths and write for the Monthly. Mr. Griffiths remained editor of his Review till his death, and realized from it a handsome fortune. The publication of the Monthly Review ceased in 1842.—R. V. C.
GRIGNAN, Françoise Marguerite de Sevigné, Comtesse de, born in 1648; died in 1705; daughter of Henri, marquis de Sevigné, and Marie de Rabutin, the celebrated madame de Sevigné. She was well acquainted with Latin, Italian, and Spanish, and had the dangerous reputation of being an adept in the occult mysteries of metaphysics. She married count de Grignan, lieutenant-general of Provence, who had been twice married before; had children by both marriages, and was over head and ears in debt. To her separation from her mother the world is indebted for the letters of madame de Sevigné. In this correspondence some three or four of madame de Grignan's letters are given.—J. A., D.
* GRILLPARZER, Franz, a distinguished German dramatist, was born at Vienna 15th January, 1790, and successively held several subordinate situations in the civil service, till in 1856 he retired into private life. In his tragedies, especially his "Ahnfrau," the darkest fatalism is combined with the most romantic beauties and sweetest graces of language and metre. He is the foremost fatalist (Schicksalsdichter) among the German dramatists. Among his tragedies are "Sappho;" "Das Goldene Vliess;" "Melusina;" and "Der Traum ein Leben."—K. E.
GRIMALDI, the family name of the princes of Monaco. The race professed to trace its descent from Grimaut, the mayor of the palace to Childebert II., assassinated in 714, and to have held the sovereignty for about seven hundred and fifty years, counting from 980. The Grimaldi and Fieschi families as Guelphs, and the Doria and Adorni families as Ghibelines, stand at the summit of Genoese politics in the middle ages. The direct male line of the Grimaldi expired in 1731 with Antonio, whose daughter Louise Hippolyte, duchess of Valentinois, married Jacques François de Goyon Matignon, comte de Torigny. The most remarkable members of this family are—
Ranieri II., Prince of Monaco, who succeeded his father, Ranieri I., towards 1300, and died in 1330. In Italy he was a formidable opponent of the Ghibelines; and, entering the service of Philip le Bel of France, he was the first to lead a Genoese fleet beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. On the Flemish coast he commanded sixteen of his own galleys and twenty French vessels with great success; and, engaging the Flemish fleet of eighty vessels before Zieric Zee, he gained a victory, killing many of the enemy, and taking prisoner Gui de Namur, son of the count of Flanders, though not without the loss of several French ships. He bore an important part also in the victory of Mons-en-Puelle in 1304, and was created admiral of France.
Carlo I., Prince of Monaco, Admiral of France and Genoa, &c., surnamed the Great, succeeded his father Ranieri II. in the princedom in 1330; died in 1363. In 1338 he aided Philip VI. of France with twenty galleys against the Flemings; and in 1346, together with Antonio Doria, he again aided that king with thirty galleys against the English. The crews joined the French army, and fought along with them at the decisive battle of Crecy. Grimaldi and Doria bravely led on their Genoese, then reckoned the best archers in the world, the prince himself fighting in the foremost ranks.
Giovanni I., Prince of Monaco, succeeded his father, Ranieri III., in 1406; died in 1454. He gave the Venetians a memorable naval defeat on 23rd May, 1431. Having joined the party of the Visconti, lords of Milan, against Venice, and sharing with Pacino Eustachio the command of the fleet, he attacked the Venetians under Niccolò Trevisani in descending the Po; and, though they were strongly supported by a land force, terminated the engagement triumphantly on the second day, killing two thousand five hundred men, and taking seventy vessels out of a hundred and thirty-seven, with immense booty. Grimaldi was also distinguished in the wars against Pisa.
Onorio II., Prince of Monaco, born in 1597, succeeded in boyhood, 1604, to his father Ercole, who was assassinated in a revolt; died 10th January, 1662. During his minority a Spanish garrison was placed in Monaco, but in 1641, feeling himself at last sufficiently powerful, Onorio expelled the Spaniards, and placed himself under the protection of France, the
