GRAY GREECE. 



525 



mcnced, but wanted energy to mature. So slow was 

 he to publish, that it was not until 1747 that his Ode 

 on a distant Prospect of Eton College made its ap- 

 pearance ; and it was only in consequence of the 

 printing of a surreptitious copy, that, in 1751, he 

 published his Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. 

 In 1757, on the death of Cibber, the office of laureate 

 was offered to Mr Gray, who declined it, and the 

 same year published his two principal odes, On the 

 Progress of Poesy, and The Bard. In 1759, he re- 

 moved to London, where he resided for three years. 

 In 1708, the duke of Grafton presented him with the 

 professorship of modern history at Cambridge; in 

 consequence of which he wrote the Ode for Music, 

 for the installation of that nobleman as chancellor of 

 the university the following year. It was the inten- 

 tion of Gray to do something more than his predeces- 

 sors, who had made the office a sinecure, although 

 affording a salary of .300 per annum ; but, his 

 health soon after declining, he proceeded no farther 

 than to sketch a plan for his inauguration speech. 

 He died of the gout in his stomach, on the 30th July, 

 1771, in his fifty-fifth year, and was buried with his 

 mother in the churchyard of Stoke Pogeis in Buck- 

 inghamshire. As a poet, Gray is splendid, lofty, 

 energetic, and harmonious. Although lyric poetry 

 was what he chiefly cultivated, he would have ex- 

 celled in the didactic, if a judgment may be formed 

 from his noble fragment of An Essay on the Alliance 

 of Education and Government. As a writer of Latin 

 verse, he is surpassed by few, and his letters are 

 admirable specimens of the epistolary style. In his 

 disposition he was peculiarly fastidious, which gave 

 an air of effeminacy and timidity to his manners, sub- 

 jecting him to much ridicule, at the same time singu- 

 larly contrasting with the manly strains of his poetry. 

 His general acquirements were uncommon, but his 

 want of energy and perseverance rendered his exten- 

 sive research little effective. See Memoirs of his life, 

 &c. by Mason. 



GRAY, LADY JANE. See Grey. 



GREAT BAHAMA. See Bahamas. 



GREAT BAHAMA BANK. See Bahama Bank. 



GREAT ST BERNARD. See Bernard, Great 

 St. 



GREAT BRITAIN. See the articles Britain, 

 England, and Scotland. 



GREECE, ANCIENT. The name of Gratia ori- 

 ginated in Italy, and was probably derived from 

 Pelasgian colonies, who, coming from Epirus, and 

 calling themselves Grecians, from Greecus, the son of 

 their ancestor, Thessalus, occasioned the application 

 of this name to all the people who spoke the same 

 language with them. In earlier times, e. g., in the 

 time of Homer, Greece had no general name among 

 the natives. It afterwards received the name of 

 Hellas, and still later, after the country was con- 

 quered by the Romans, the name of Achaia, under 

 which Macedonia and Epirus were not included. 

 The Grecian tribes were so widely dispersed, that it 

 is difficult to determine, with precision, the limits of 

 Greece, properly so called. The name was sometimes 

 applied only to that country which was surrounded on 

 three sides by the Mediterranean sea, was separated 

 from Macedonia by the Cambunian mountains, and 

 contained about 42,000 square miles ; sometimes it 

 was taken in a wider sense, including Macedonia and 

 Epirus, having mount Haemus and the ^Egean and 

 Ionian seas for its boundaries, and comprising the 

 islands of these two seas. Greece consists partly of 

 continental, and partly of insular regions. A chain 

 of mountains, extending from the Ambracian gulf, 

 in the west, to ThermopyUe, on the east, separates 

 Northern Greece from Southern. The climate is 

 alternately severe or mild, aa the mountains or valleys 



predominate, but it is agreeable and healthy. People 

 are not unfrequently found here, whose age is over 

 one hundred years. The soil of the valleys and 

 plains is favourable to the growth of the finest tropi- 

 cal fruits, while the summits of the high mountains 

 are covered with the plants of the polar regions. In 

 Athens, the thermometer very seldom falls below the 

 freezing point, or rises above 25 Reaumur (88 Fah- 

 renheit). In the islands, every evening, at a parti- 

 cular hour, a gentle sea breeze sets in, which tempers 

 the heat of the day. But in the plains of Thessaly, 

 which lie 1200 feet above the level of the sea, and 

 more especially in the mountains of Arcadia, the 

 winter is as severe as in England. The fruits of the 

 soil are as abundant as they are various. Even where 

 it is not adapted for the purposes of husbandry, it 

 produces thyme, marjoram, and a number of aromatic 

 herbs, which afford a rich pasturage. Greece pro- 

 duces eight kinds of corn and ten kinds of olives. 

 It is, perhaps, the native country of the grape, par- 

 ticularly of the small sort, from which the currants 

 of commerce are had. The name of these is a 

 corruption of Corinth, the chief plantation having 

 formerly been on the isthmus of this name. There 

 are forty kinds of Grecian grapes known. The honey 

 of this country is very famous. (See Hymettus.) 

 Greece produces all the necessaries of life, and there 

 is no country whose coast is so well supplied with 

 bays and harbours for commerce. The main land is 

 now divided into Northern Greece, Middle Greece, 

 Greece Proper, or Hellas, in its narrower sense, and 

 the Peloponnesus (Morea). I. Northern Greece in- 

 cludes, 1. Thessaly (q. v.) (now Janna); 2. Epirus 

 (q. v.) (now Albania) ; 3. Macedonia (now Macedo- 

 nia, or Filiba-Vilajeti), accounted a part of Greece 

 from the time of Philip and Alexander, and making 

 a link in the chain between Greece and Thrace, of 

 which, in earlier times, Macedonia made a part. II. 

 Middle Greece, or Hellas (now Livadia), contains, 1. 

 Acarnania, inhabited by a rough and warlike people, 

 with no remarkable rivers or mountains ; 2. ^Etolia 

 (q. v.) ; 3. Doris, or Doris Tetrapolis (formerly Dry- 

 opolis) ; 4. Locris (q. v.) with the pass of Thermo- 

 pylae ; 5. Phocis, watered by the Cephisus, and 

 containing mount Parnassus, under which lay Delphi 

 (q. v.) ; 6. Boeotia (q. v.) ; 7. Attica (q. v.) ; 8. 

 Megaris, with the city of Megara, the smallest of 

 all the Grecian states. III. The peninsula of the 

 Peloponnesus, to which the isthmus of Corinth led 

 through Megaris, contained, 1. the territory of 

 Corinth (q. v.), with the city of the same name, called, 

 in earlier times, Ephyra ; 2. the small territory of 

 Sicyon, with the ancient city of the same name ; 3. 

 Achaia, anciently called sEgialos, and, afterwards, 

 Ionia, contained twelve cities on the coast which 

 stretched along the Corinthian gulf to the river 

 Melas ; 4. Elis, divided into two parts by the river 

 Alpheus, stretched from Achaia, south-west, to the 

 sea-coast ; it contained the celebrated cities of Cyl- 

 lene and Olympia (q. v.) ; 5. Messenia, with the 

 river Pamisus, extending from the southern part of 

 Elis along the sea to the extremity of the continent, 

 with the city of Messene, and the frontier towns of 

 Ithome and Ira ; 6. Laconia, Laconica, Lacedasmon, 

 a mountainous country traversed by the Taygetus, 

 and watered by the Eurotas, bounded on three sides 

 by the Messenian, the Laconian, and the Argolic 

 gulfs ; Sparta (q. v.) was the capital ; 7. Argolis 

 (q. v.) ; 8. Arcadia (q. v.). The islands which be- 

 long to Greece, lie, I. in the Ionian sea, on the west 

 and south of the main land. 1. Corcyra (Corfu); 2. 

 Cephalonia ; 3. Asteris ; 4. Ithaca (Teaki) ; 5. Za- 

 cynthus (Zante : St Maura is the ancient peninsula 

 of Leucadia, formerly connected with the main land 

 of Acarnania) ; 6. Cythera (Cerigo) ; 7. the grouj) 



