UT 



ORANBY, MARQUIS OF. 



GRANT, FRANCIS, R.A. 



HI 



only 100 copies were printed : ' Me"moire* da Comte de Grammont, 

 noavelle editeoo angaMOtfe d* notes et *lalrcis**m*ni nrfoenair**, 



par M. Hone* Walpok' Strawberry Hill. 1772. in quarto, with three 

 portrait*. Of the Em.-luh edition* perhap* the best i< that of 1811, 

 in S voU, with aixty three portrait*, and many noU4 and illustrations, 

 me of which are aaoribtd to Sir W. Scott; bat thU edition hai be-n 

 (printed, with all the note*. In a aingle volume, published as one of 

 Bonn'* (pries of 'extra volume*.' 



GRAN BY. MAR(ji:iS OF. JOIIM MANXKRH, oommonly called 

 Marqui* of Granby, eldest ion of John, third Duke of Rutland, was 

 January J, 1IBML Having entered the army, he railed a 

 of foot at kia OKU expenie in the rebellion of 174.1 ; wai 



d Colonel of the Hone Guards (Blues) in 1768 ; raiwd to the 



rank of lieutenant-general in 1 759 ; and cent in the same year as second 

 in command, under Lord George Sookville, of the British troops on- 

 operating with the king of Prussia, Being present at the battle of 

 Mindeo, he received tl.e thanks of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick 

 in the following terms: "His serene highness further orders it to 

 be declared to Lieutenant- General the Marquis of Gran by, that he is 

 pereoaded that if he had had the good fortune to have bad him at 

 the bead of the cavalry of the right wing, his presence would havo 

 greatly contributed to make the decision of that day more complete 

 and brilliant." This however is not so much a compliment to the 

 marquis as a reflection on his superior, who, as is well known, was 

 Mailed of reluctance and dilatorineas in obeying orders to bring for- 

 ward the British cavalry, and was ultimately broken for his conduct on 

 this coca-ion. On Lord G. Sackville's resignation, the marquis was 

 appointed to the chief command of the British troops, which he 

 retained during the rest of the Seven Years' War, and both they and 

 be gained honour at the battles of Warburg (1760), of Kirch-deukern 

 (1701), and of Gnebrnatein and Homburg in 1762. After four years 

 of warm service, he was rewarded with the post of Master of the 

 Ordnance in May 1763, and in August 1766 was promoted to be com- 

 man<ter-in-chief. He resigned this office in January 1770, and died 

 much rrgretted on the 1 9th of October following, without succeeding 

 to the dukedom. He appears to have been a good soldier ; brave, 

 active, generous, careful of his men, and beloved by them ; a valuable 

 second k> command, but not possessed of the qualities which make a 

 great general. His popularity was shown by the frequent occurrence 

 of his portrait as a sign for public-houses. 

 ORANDVILLE. [GERARD, JKAK-IOHACE-ISIDORE.] 

 GRANGER, REV. JAMES. So little is known of the personal 

 history of Granger, that even the date of bis birth appears to be 

 unrecorded. He studied at Christchurch, Oxford, and was presented 

 to the vicarage of Sbiplake, in Oxfordshire, where, according to the 

 dedication of the work which brought him into notice, he had " the 

 good fortune to retire early to independence, obscurity, and content" 

 This work, which must have occupied many years of preparatory 

 labour, is entitled 'A Biographical History of England, from Egbert 

 the Great to the Revolution; consisting of characters disposed in 

 different classes, and adapted to a methodical Catalogue of engraved 

 British Heads ; intended as on Essay towards reducing our Biography 

 to system, and a help to the knowledge of Portraits.' The first edition 

 ap|-ared in 1768, in 2 quarto vols., each forming two parts, so that it is 

 often described at in four volumes. Some copies of this edition were 

 printed upon one side of the paper only, to leave room for manuscript 

 note*, or for the insertion of illustrations. In 1774 appeared, in the 

 same sice, a ' Supplement' of corrections and additions, in one volume, 

 whii h was incorporated in the second edition uf the whole work, in 

 4 vols., 8vo, in 1776. A fifth edition, with upwards of 4000 additional 

 lives, appeared in 1824, in 6 tliin royal octavo vols. Granger made 

 considerable progress in the preparation of a continuation of the work, 

 and there are extensive manuscript collections in the British Museum, 

 which were formed by his friend Sir William Muagrave to assist him 

 in this object, but he did not live to complete it ; and the continuation, 

 which extends only to the end of the reign of George I., and was com- 

 piled by the Rev. Mark Noble, partly from his own and partly from 

 Grangers collections, did not appear until 1810. It is in three volumes 

 octavo. Granger's work certainly contains much curious matter, and 

 has been useful in promoting a taste for British biography; but, as it 

 was designed rather as an illustration of British portraits, than as an 

 account of British worthies w find him, as Chalmers observes, " pre- 

 serving the memory of many of the most worthless and insignificant 

 of mankind, as well as giving a value to specimens of the art ot 

 engraving which are beneath all contempt" So great an impulse was 

 given to the taste for collecting portrait* by the publication of this 

 work, that in many caws it was pursued with an ardour truly ridi- 

 culous, books being uwcrupulously mutilated to supply the demand, 

 and the moat preposterous prio-s beiug given for engravings of little 

 iutnnsio value or genuine historical interest. Granger, who publwhed 

 nothing else except a few aingle sermons and tract*, died on the 14th 

 of April 1776, at the age, it is supposed, of about sixty. An octavo 

 volume, containing extract* from hi* correspondence with several 

 literary contemporaries relative to hi* work, and miscellanies and 

 note* of tours in France, Holland, aud Spain, edited by J. P. Malcolm 

 ap|**rK.I in 1806. 



(iKANT, ANNE, commonly called Mr*. Grant of Laggan, a miscel- 

 laneous wnter, wai born at Glasgow on the 21st of February 1765. 



rler father Duncan Macviear held a commission in the army, and 

 served for some time in America before the Revolution. He possessed 

 considerable estate* in Vermont, which on the breaking out of the 

 war were appropriated by the revolutionists, while he did not come 

 within the scheme of compensation to sufferers, as he resided in 

 Britain during the war. In 1773 he became barrack-master of Fort 

 Augustus in Inverness-shire, and there his daughter met Mr. Grant, 

 (he clergyman of the neighbouring parish of Laggan, to whom she 

 was married in 1779. 



Mr*. Grant was left a widow in 1801, with a large family, aud 

 in very straitened circumstances. She had for some time shown a 

 taste and talent for poetry, and in 1803 her friends prevailed on 

 tier to publish a volume of ' Original Poems with some Translations 

 From the Gaelic,' which was very successful. From her first resi- 

 dence in the Highlands she had studied the position and habits of 

 the people, and written a series of letters on the subject to her 

 intimate friends, from 1773 downwards. She was now prevailed on 

 to collect these letters, and they were published in 1806 under the 

 title of ' Letters from the Mountains,' one of the most successful of 

 the productions of light literature in its day. She subsequently liv.-.l 

 at Edinburgh, where she was the highly esteemed centre of a circle 

 of accomplished and amiable people. Through a long tr.iiu of 

 domestic calamities, accompanied by bodily infirmities, she preserved 

 an equal serenity of temper, her company was sought by the beat 

 Scottish society, and he was even enabled, while carrying on a long 

 war with pecuniary difficulties, to be genrrous to others. Besides the 

 above works she published ' Memoirs of an American Lady,' in 1308 ; 

 and ' Essays on the Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland,' in 

 1811. She di- d on the 7th of November 1838. 



(Memoir and Correspondence of Mrt. Grant of Lagyan, by her Sou, 

 3 vols. 1844.) 



GRANT, FRANCIS, R.A., the fashionable portrait painter, is a 

 younger son of Francis Grant, the laird of Kilgraston, and was born 

 about the beginning of the present century. Sir Walter Scott, who 

 took a warm interest in young Grant, has left in his Diary (March 2ti, 

 1831) the following account of him : " In youth he was passionately 

 fond of fox-hunting and other sports ; he had also a strong passion for 

 painting, and made a little collection. As he had sense enough to feel 

 that a younger brother's fortune would not last long under the ex- 

 penses of a good stud and a rare collection of chefs d'oauvre, he used 

 to avow his intention to spend his patrimony, about 10,000, aud then 

 again to make his fortune by the law. The first he soon accomplished. 

 But the law is not a profession BO easily acquired, nor did Frank's 

 talent lie in that direction. His passion for painting turned out 

 better In the meantime Frank saw the necessity of doing some- 

 thing to keep himself independent, having too much spirit to become 

 a ' Jock the laird's brither,' drinking out the last glass of the bottle, 

 riding the horses which the laird wishes to sell, and drawing sketches 

 to amuse the lady and the children. He was above all this, and 

 honourably resolved to cultivate his taste for painting 1 , and become a 

 professional artist I am no judge of painting, but I am conscious 

 that Francis Grant possesses, with much cleverness, a sense of beauty 

 derived from the best source, that is, the observation of really good 

 society. . . . His former acquaintances render his immediate entrance 

 into business completely secure. He bos I tliink that degree of force 

 of character which will make him keep and enlarge any reputation 

 which he may acquire. He has confidence, too, in his own powers, 

 always requisite for a young gentleman tryiug things of this sort, 

 whose aristocratic pretensions must be envied." Sir Walter's antici- 

 pations have been fully verified. Mr. Grant's aristocratic connections 

 enlarged by his marriage with a iiiece of the Duke of Rutland 

 introduced him at once into an ample and lucrative business, aud his 

 popularity witli the fashionable world has always been maintained. 

 Probably no living portrait painter has painted anything like so large 

 a number of members of the higher classes of both sexes ; aud his 

 sitters have included the dlite of the political as well as the fashion- 

 able world. Sir Walter Scott suggested the secret of his success 

 (apart from aristocratic connection) in speaking of his "sense of 

 beauty " derived from " the observation of really good society." All 

 his portraits have a " good-society " air. His men, if not manly, are 

 gentlemanly, his women, if not handsome, are elegant : aud if neither 

 sex is distinguished by an intellectual, both are by a nonchalant 

 expression. He is eminently the painter of the " really good-society " 

 classes, and he has caught to perfection their easy, listless airs and 

 attitudes. Probably, if his faces seldom wear any marked appearance 

 of intelligence, it is not the painter's fault The technical qualities of 

 Mr. Grant's pictures are not of a high order. The drawing is com- 

 monly negligent, the composition commonplace, and the colouring 

 meagre, cold, and poor. Many of his portraits are painted on cauvasn 

 of the largest size, and of course with increase of size the evidences 

 of imperfect artistic education aud neglect of study are increasingly 

 manifest 



In the early part of his career Mr. Grant used to paint sporting 

 compositions, embracing the portraits of a number of horses as well as 

 men, such as the ' Meet of the Queen's Stag-hounds,' ' Shooting Party 

 at Ronton Abbey, the Earl of Lichfield's ; ' ' Sir Richard Button's 

 Hound* ; ' the ' Melton Hunt,' &c., some of which were engraved and 

 enjoyed considerable popularity among sporting men, but he has for 



