568 



GROG GROSBEAK. 



the siege of Vienna ; defended Bnda, in 1531 ; be- 

 came governor of Hungary, but drew upon himself 

 the popular hatred by the murder of the bishop of 

 Wardeiu. The Hungarians besieged him in Med- 

 wisrh, which they took in 1534. They cut off 

 his hands in the morning, his feet at noon, and his 

 head in the evening. 



GROG ; a general name for any spirituous liquor 

 anil water mixed together ; but is more particularly 

 applied to rum and water cold, without sugar. 



GROIN, among builders, is the angular curve 

 made by the intersection of two semi-cylinders or 

 arches, and is either regular or irregular : regular, 

 as when the intersecting arches, whether semicircular 

 or semi-elliptical, are of the same diameters and 

 heights ; and irregular, when one of the arches is 

 semicircular, and the other semi-elliptical. 



GRONINGEN ; a province of Holland situated 

 between 52 50* and 53 2& N. lat., and 6" 10' and 

 7 13' E. Ion., on the coast of the German ocean, and 

 containing 780 square miles. It is protected against 

 the encroachments or' the sea by dikes. It is very 

 level, and is intersected by innumerable canals, partly 

 for the purpose of safety, and partly to drain the 

 land, which is in some parts fertile, in others sandy, 

 and in others marshy. In the south-east are the vast 

 morasses of Bourtange. There are many lakes, of 

 which the Zuidlaader, the Schild and the Foxholster 

 are the principal. The climate is damp. The 

 142,575 inhabitants are mostly Calvinists, and raise 

 great numbers of cattle. Groningen takes the six- 

 teenth place in the kingdom, and sends four deputies 

 to the states-general. The provincial states consist 

 of 36 members. In 1810, it was made a department 

 of the French empire, under the name of the Western 

 Ems. 



Groningen ; capital of the province of Groningen, 

 is situated on the rivers Hunse and Fivel, eighty-one 

 miles west of Bremen, 100 miles north-east of Am- 

 sterdam ; lat. 53 13' 13" N. ; Ion. 6 34' 26'' E. 

 It is large, rich, strong, well peopled, and adorned 

 with many excellent buildings, public and private ; 

 its figure is nearly round, encompassed with good 

 ramparts, guarded by large ditches filled with water, 

 besides many bastions and other fortifications, which 

 would render an attack upon it very difficult. Its 

 port is very commodious ; ships enter with great 

 ease by means of a canal, whose sides are lined with 

 large stones for about nine miles from the sea. The 

 university of Groningen, founded in 1614, and en- 

 dowed with the revenues of several monasteries, has 

 long been respectable. It consists of five faculties, 

 and lias a good library. Here are also academies for 

 drawing, navigation and agriculture, an institution 

 for the deaf and dumb, and societies of lawyers and 

 physicians. In 1826, an epidemic, caused by the 

 great drought, did great injury. Some authors think 

 this city to be on the spot of the ancient fortress 

 which Tacitus mentions under the name of Corbul- 

 onis Monumentum, but there is no historical proof of 

 it. Population about 30,000. 



GRONOVIUS (properly Gronov); the name of 

 several celebrated critics and philologists. 



1. John Frederic, one of the most learned students 

 of antiquities, was born at Hamburg in 1611. He 

 studied at Leipsic and Jena, and went through a 

 course of law at Altdorf, spent some time in Holland 

 and England, was appointed professor of history and 

 eloquence at Deventer, and, after the death of Daniel 

 Heinsius, succeeded him, as professor of belles-lettres 

 at Leyden (1658), where he died 1671. With exten- 

 sive knowledge he combined indefatigable industry 

 and amiable manners. His editions of Livy, Statius, 

 Justin, Tacitus, Gellius, Piugdrus, Seneca, Sullnst, 

 Pliny, Plautus, &c., and his Observations, are valua- 



ble for their notes and improved readings. Ills 

 Commentaries de Sestcrciis displays a thorough ac- 

 quaintance with the Roman language and antiquities ; 

 an.i his edition of Hugo Grotius's work, De Jure 

 Belli et Pads, is justly valued, on account of the 

 notes. 



2. His son James, born at Deventer, in 1645, 

 studied there and at Leyden. He spent some months 

 at Oxford and Cambridge, and returned to Leyden, 

 where he published, in 1676, an edition of Polybius, 

 which met with such applause, that he received .111 

 offer of a professorship at Deventer. He refused it, 

 however, from a desire to travel through France, 

 Spain, and Italy. The grand-duke of Tuscany con- 

 ferred on him a professorship at Pisa, which he 

 relinquished in 1679, and was appointed professor <>f 

 belles-lettres at Leyden and geographer to the uni- 

 versity. He died at Leyden in 1716. This learned 

 and industrious critic edited Tacitus, Polybius, Hero- 

 dotus, Pomponius Mela, Cicero, Ammianus Marcel- 

 linus, &c., and compiled the valuable Thesaurus 

 Aittiquitatum Greecarum (Leyden, 1697, 13 vols. fol.) 

 He also promoted the publication of the collections 

 of Greevius. (See GrcEvius.) These two works 

 should be united, and, to form a complete library of 

 antiquities, the Novus Thesaur. Ant. Rom. by Sal- 

 lengre (Hague, 1716, 3 vols. fol.), the Utritisyue 

 Thes. nova Supplementa, by Poleni (Venice, 1737, 

 5 vols. fol.), the Inscriptiones Antiques totius Orbis 

 Rom. by Gruter (Amsterdam, 1707, 4 vols. fol.), and 

 the Lexicon Ant. Rom., by Pitiscus, (Leuwarden, 

 1713, 2 vols. fol.), should be added. He had many 

 weak points in his character, and his vanity led him 

 to assail and calumniate men of the greatest merit, 

 such as Henry Stephens, Spanheim, Vossius, Salma- 

 sius, Bochart, and Graevius. 



3. His son Abraham, born at Leyden, 1694, showed 

 himself a good philologist, by his editions of Justin, 

 Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, and ^Elian. He died there 

 in 1775, librarian to the university. 



GROS (French); thick, strong; a word used in 

 many compositions for silks, as gros de Naples, gros 

 de Tours, gros de Berlin, &c., all strong fabrics. 



GROSBEAK (loxia, L.) These birds are in gene- 

 ral shy and solitary, chiefly living in woods, at a 

 distance from the habitations of man. Their vocal 

 powers are not great, and hence they are little sought 

 after as song birds. Their most conspicuous charac- 

 teristics are the thickness and strength of their bills, 

 which enable them to break the stones of various 

 kinds of fruits. There are many species of them, 

 the best known of which is the L. coccothraustes. 

 This species is an inhabitant of the temperate parts 

 of Europe. Buflbn says it is a shy and solitary bird, 

 with no song. The female builds her nest in trees ; 

 it is composed of small, dry roots and grass, and 

 lined with warmer materials. The eggs are roundish, 

 of a bluish green, spotted with brown. The green 

 grosbeak (L. chloris) is common in every part of 

 Great Britain, and may be seen in every hedge, 

 especially in winter. It does not migrate. The female 

 builds in hedges or low bushes ; she lays five or six 

 eggs, of a pale greenish colour, marked at the large, 

 end with spots of a reddish brown. The pine gros- 

 beak (L. enuchleator) inhabits the cold regions of both 

 continents, whence it occasionally visits temperate 

 climates in the winter. The female makes her nest 

 on trees, at a small distance from the ground, and 

 lays four white eggs. There are several species pecu- 

 liar to North America, as the cardinal bird (L. car- 

 dinalis], which is found from New England to South 

 America, and is most numerous west of the Alle- 

 ghanies. This beautiful bird, which is often kept in 

 cages, on account of its bright plumage, is crested, 

 of a red colour, brighter beneath, with the throat 



