522 



GRATZ 'SGRAVESANDE. 



Irish house of lords liad no jurisdiction in matters of 

 repeul ; and that the dernier resort, iu all cases of 

 law and equity, was in the lords of Great Britain. 

 For his share in the acquirement of this concession, 

 tlie Irish parliament voted him ,50,000, and a house 

 and lands for him and his heirs for ever. Two or 

 three sessions of great parliamentary exertion follow- 

 ed, which were distinguished by the rivalry of Messrs 

 G rattan and Flood, which terminated in the confirm- 

 ed ascendency of the former, who became the leader 

 of the country party, in the house of commons, and 

 the head of the Irish whigs. In 1790, although al- 

 ready avowedly zealous for concessions to the Catho- 

 lic-;, Mr <l rattan was returned for the city of Dublin, 

 and remained an active senator until the premature 

 recall of earl Fitzwilliam. Disgusted by the policy 

 which followed, and by the Irish rebellion, and its 

 manifold horrors, he temporarily seceded from parlia- 

 ment, and lived in retirement. The project of a 

 union being brought forward by Mr Pitt, he once 

 more obtained a seat in parliament, for the purpose 

 of opposing it. When carried, however, he did not 

 refuse a seat in the united house of commons, being 

 returned, in 1805, for the borough of Malton, in 

 Yorkshire. He supported the war policy of the ad- 

 ministration, but the later years of his parliamentary 

 attendance were chiefly occupied in a warm and ener- 

 getic support of Catholic emancipation. He died in 

 the service of this cause ; for, being unanimously 

 called upon, by the Catholic body, to carry their 

 petition to England, and to present and support it in 

 the house of commons, when the exertions were 

 represented, by his friends, as incompatible with his 

 age and declining health, he nobly replied, that " he 

 should be happy to die in the discharge of his duty." 

 He did in fact die soon after his arrival in London, 

 May 14, 1820, at the age of 70. His remains were 

 interred in Westminster abbey. In the political 

 life of Mr Grattan there was nothing temporizing or 

 dubious. He was the zealous and unequivocal friend 

 to Ireland, and to what he deemed her best interests, 

 from first to last. In private life, he was a warm 

 friend, and, until years had softened his ardent tem- 



Rerament, a bitter enemy. As a public speaker, he 

 iid to contend with a defective voice ; but his elo- 

 quence was always bold and commanding, combining 

 strength with beauty, and energy and elevation with 

 elegance. He was at all times animated, and occa- 

 sionally powerful. 



GRATZ ; a town of Stiria, on the river Muhr, 

 capital of a circle of the same name, comprising the 

 northern part of Lower Stiria. It is built on a very 

 steep hill, on the banks of the Muhr, and has a lyceum, 

 an academy, and a large school. The houses are of 

 stone, and the town is in general well built. It has 

 twenty-two churches and chapels, great and small. 

 The cathedral is not new, but was formerly the par- 

 ish church. The most striking edifice in the place is 

 a mausoleum erected to the emperor Ferdinand II., 

 Gratz has many manufactures, such as hardware, 

 stoneware and saltpetre ; also cotton and silk. 100 

 miles S. W. Vienna. Of the 34,000 inhabitants, 

 12,000 are engaged in the manufacture of chintz and 

 calico. Lon. 15 26' 15" E.; lat. 47 4' 9' N. 



GRAUN, CHARLES HENRY, a musical composer, 

 master of the chapel to Frederic II. of Prussia, was 

 born in 1701, at Wahrenbruck, in Saxony, where his 

 father was a receiver of excise. In 1713. he went 

 to a school in Dresden. His fine voice procured him 

 the situation of singer in the church. In 1720, he 

 left the school, and began to compose for the church. 

 He spent some years in Brunswick, as a singer, and 

 composer, until the crown-prince of Prussia obtained 

 him from the duke Ferdinand Albert, and placed him 

 in his chapel, at Rhineberg, in 1735. Here he pre- 



pared cantatas for the concerts of the prince, which 

 he also performed himself. When the prince suc- 

 ceeded to the, throne, in 1740, he appointed Graun to 

 be master of his chapel, and sent him to Italy, to 

 engage the male and female singers necessary for 

 the newly established opera. During this journey, 

 Graun occasionally sang his own compositions in 

 public, with applause. After his return, he devoted 

 himself entirely to composition for the opera, until 

 his death, at Dresden, in 1759. The king shed tears 

 when he heard the news of this event. Graun is 

 reckoned among the most correct and elegant com 

 posers. The first of liis known compositions are tlie 

 mottettes, which he composed while at school, in 

 Dresden. The pieces which he composed while in 

 Brunswick, Rhineberg and Berlin, are very numer- 

 ous. There are among them about thirty operas. 

 His music for Ramler's oratorio for passion week, 

 Der Tod Jesu (The Death of Jesus), is generally con- 

 sidered as his masterpiece, particularly on account of 

 the recitatives and choruses which it contains. The 

 chapel-master Hiller has written a Life of Graun. 



GRAVE, in music, is applied to a sound which is 

 of a low or deep tone. The thicker tlie cord or 

 string, the more grave is the note or tone ; and the 

 smaller, the more acute. Grave, in the Italian music, 

 denotes a very grave and slow motion, somewhat 

 faster than adagio, and slower than largo. 



GRAVE ACCENT, in grammar, siiows that the 

 voice is to be lowered. Its mark stands thus v Set; 

 decent. 



GRAVEL. See Stone. 



GRAVER. See Engraving. 

 'SGRAVESANDE, WILLIAM JAMES VAN ; an 

 eminent Dutch mathematician and natural philoso- 

 pher of the eighteenth century. He was born in 1688, 

 at Bois-le-Duc, and studied the civil law at the uni- 

 versity of Leyden, where he took his doctor's degree 

 in 1707. He settled at the Hague, and practised as 

 a barrister ; but his attention was much engrossed by 

 mathematics and physics, on which subjects he pub- 

 lished some dissertations in the Literary Journal of 

 the Hague, in the conduct of which he was concern- 

 ed. In 1715, he was appointed secretary to the em- 

 bassy sent by the states-general to England, to con- 

 gratulate George I., on his accession to the crown. 

 On this occasion, doctor 'sGravesande formed an ac- 

 quaintance with sir Isaac Newton, and was chosen a 

 fellow of the royal society. On his returning home, 

 he became professor of mathematics and astronomy 

 at Leyden, where he first taught the Newtonian 

 philosophy. In 1721, he went to Cassel, at the 

 request of the landgrave of Hesse, to examine the 

 famous wheel of Orftyreus, a professed exhibition of 

 the perpetual motion. He himself considered it not 

 necessarily impossible to prepare a machine which 

 should contain in itself a principle of perpetual 

 motion. In 1734, he received the chair of philo- 

 sophy, which he filled with much distinction. The 

 death of two promising sons threw him into a linger- 

 ing illness, of which he died in 1742, aged 55. 

 He possessed great power of concentrating his at- 

 tention. He could, for instance, carry on intricate 

 mathematical calculations in the midst of a number 

 of people engaged in conversation. To his labours 

 in the cause of science as a lecturer, he added the 

 publication of several works, which contributed to 

 make known the discoveries of Newton, and extend 

 the boundaries of knowledge. Among these were, 

 Physices Elementa Mathematica, Experiment is con- 

 firmuta, sive Introductio ad Philosophiam Newtoni- 

 anam (1720), translated into English by doctor Desa- 

 guliers ; Matheseos Universalis Elementa (1727, 8vo), 

 and Introductio ad Philosophiam, Metaphysicam e/ 

 Logicam continens. 



