Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/57

 GRIFFITHS

33

GRILLPARZER

he obtained steady employment in a publishing house as reader and reviser of MSS., and in a short time be- came a frequent contributor to some of the leading periodicals and magazines. He wrote on a great variety of topics and displayed such talent that his services were well rewarded. What spare time he had he devoted to the writing of novels, wishing by this means to make known the people and places with which he was most familiar — those of the south of Ireland. And so he started a series of short stories, "Anecdotes of Munster", which he later called " Hol- land-Tide". This series established his reputation and enabled him to give up his literary drudgery. No longer haimted by the danger of failure he returned to Ireland. Though broken down by poor health, he kept on working and produced his "Tales of the Mun.ster Festivals". His ne.xt work, "The Colle- gians"., published in his twenty-fifth year, a.ssured him of fame and fortime. It is perhaps the best of all Irisli novels. It gives a comprehensive picture of every j^hase and gradation of Irish life. The story is well worked out, giving the strongest proof of the dramatic talent of the author. It was dramatized in the popular play, "The Colleen Bawn", but, unfor- tunately, not by Griffin. He took up the study of law at the London University, but in a short time removed to Dublin for the study of ancient Irish his- tory, preparatory to his work "The Invasion", which was published in 18.32. This work had a good sale and was highly praised by scholars, but never became popular. For several years more he kept at his literary work.

It became evident, however, that a great change had come over him in his views of fame and fortune. In a letter to his father in 1833 he told of the desire he had " for a long time entertained of taking orders in the Church", and adds, "I do not know any station in life in which a man can do so much good, both to others and to himself, as in that of a Catholic priest." This idea of doing good had been the motive power at work with him; but soon the conviction had forced itself upon him that he had overrated the value of fiction, and he was afraid that "he was wasting his time". The rest of his life may be briefly told. With the exception of a tour through Scotland and a short trip on the Continent, he lived with his brother, keep- ing up to some extent his literary labours, but devot- ing more and more time to prayer and to teaching the poor children of the neighbourhood. This last occu- pation was so congenial that he resolved to enter the Institute of the Christian Brothers, a society which has as its special aim the education of the children of the poor. It was apparently a sense of the deep responsi- bility of the duties attached to the priesthoocl that caused him to turn to the humbler position of Chris- tian Brother. But before entering upon his religious life he gathered together and burned almost all- his unpubli-shed manuscripts. On 8 Sept., 1838, he entered the Institute, and there as Brother Joseph spent the rest of his life content and happy. Writing to an old friend he said " he felt a great deal happier in the practice of this daily routine than he ever did while roving about the great city, absorbed in the modest project of rivalling Shakespeare and throwing Scott in the .shade". In June, 18.39, he was trans- ferred from Dublin to the south monastery of Cork, where he died of typhus fever at the early age of thirty-six.

Notwithstanding the severe trials he was put to during his residence in London he remained sin- gularly pure-minded, and the purity of his mind is reflected in all he wrote. Though he thought he had failed, he really succeeded in his aim of furnishing healthy food to the imagination. He knew the Irish character, and portrayed faithfully its many peculiar- ities. The same may be said, but perhaps in a lesser degree, of the Banim brothers, but not of the other VII.— 3

novelists of this period. Lover, Lever, and Carleton do not give true sketches of Irish life, for they were out of sympathy with it. An edition of the novels of Griffin in ten volumes was published in New York in 1896.

Dahiel Griffin, Life of Gerahl Griffin (London. 1843); Read, Cabinet of Irish- Literature (London, 1891): Dublin Review. vols. XV. XVL

M. J. Flaherty.

Griffiths, Thom.\s, b. in London, 2 June, 1791 ; d.

12 .August, 1847; the first and only Vicar Apostolic of the London District educated wholly in England. At the age of thirteen he %vas sent to St. Edmund's Col- lege, Old Hall, where he went through the whole cour.se, and was ordained priest in 1814. Four years later he was chosen as president, at the early age of twenty-seven. He ruled the college with remarkable success for fifteen years, at the end of which time he was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Bramston, Vicar Apostolic of the London District. He was conse- crated as Bishop of Olena at St. Edmund's College, 28 October, 1833. Within three years Bishop Bramston died, and Bishop Griffiths succeeded him.

It was a time when great activities, which reached their full development later under Cardinal Wiseman, were already beginning to show them.selves. The agi- tation for a regular hierarchy became more and more pronounced, and as a preliminary measure, in 1840, the four ecclesiastical "districts" into which England had been divided since the reign of James II were sub- divided to form eight, Dr. Griffiths retaining the new London District. Soon after this, the Oxford eon- versions began : before Dr. Griffiths died, Newman had been a Catholic nearly two years, and many others had followed him into the Church. There was also a re- vival of Christian art, due to the enthusiasm of Pugin, while the immigration of the Iri.sh, in consequence of the potato famine, necessitated the opening of many new missions. At the same time the growth of the British colonies, many of which had been till lately ruled as part of the London District, brought him into contact with the government. In all these different spheres Dr. GriflSths discharged his duties with great practical ability; but it was thought that he would not have the breadth of view or experience necessary for initiating the new hierarchy, and according to Bishop Ullathorne, this was the reason why its establishment was postponed. He bears witness, however, to the es- teem in which Dr. Griffiths was held, and when the latter died, somewhat unexpectedly, in 1847 LHlathorne him- self preached the funeral sermon. The body of the deceased prelate was laid temporarily in the vaults of Moorfields Church ; but two years later it was removed to St. Edmund's College, where a new chapel by Pugin was in course of erection, and a special chantry was built to receive the body of Dr. Griffiths, to whose initiative the chapel was due. An oil painting of Dr. Griffiths is at Archbishop's House, Westminster; an- other, more modern, at St. Edmund's College.

Cooper in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v.; Gillow, Bib. Diet. Eng. Cath., s. v.; W-\rd, History of St. Edmund's College (London, 1S93): Brady, Annals of the Cath. Hierarchy: E. Price in Dolman's Magazine, VI; Co-X in Cath. Directory for 1S48.

Bernard Ward.

Grignion de Montfort. See Louis-Marie-Gri- GNioN DE Montfort, Blessed.

Grillparzer, Franz, an Austrian poet, b. at Vi- enna, 15 January, 1791; d. 21 January, 1872. After desultory schooling at home and at the gymnasium he entered the university to study law and philosophy. His tastes, however, were more for literature and music, and at the age of sixteen, under Schiller's influ- ence, he tried his hand at dramatic composition. In 1813, he entered the civil service in the customs de- partment, but his official life was anj^thing but happy. Throughout his career, he had to submit to the ill-will and distrust of his superiors, and the interference of a rigid censorship. His rise was very slow; repeatedly