Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/375

 suit, and Grainger wrote with spirit in his own defence (, Illustr. of Lit. vii. 271–5). Grainger commenced practising as a physician in the island, and was entrusted by his wife's uncle, Daniel Mathew, with the care of his estates. Want of capital prevented him from becoming, as he wished, a planter himself, and thus indulging in his favourite study of botany. His scanty savings were invested in the purchase of negroes.

During his rides to different parts of the island to visit his patients, Grainger composed a poem in four books on the cultivation of the sugar cane. He sent the manuscript to Percy in June 1762 for his and Shenstone's revision. In the autumn of 1763 the death of his brother William recalled him to England. On his arrival he submitted his poem to his friends. Boswell relates, on the authority of Bennet Langton, that the ‘Sugar Cane’ was read in manuscript in Sir Joshua Reynolds's drawing-room, and that the ‘assembled wits’ were much amused by Grainger's bald references to the havoc wrought by rats in the sugar-fields. Boswell adds that the company knew that rats had been substituted for mice in Grainger's original draft. Percy is said to have explained that that part of the subject was treated in mock-heroic style in imitation of Homer's ‘Batrachomyomachia.’ Miss Reynolds doubted Boswell's story on the ground that Grainger and Sir Joshua were not personally acquainted. Johnson told her, however, that Grainger read the poem to him, and that when he came to the line, ‘Say, shall I sing of rats?’ Johnson cried ‘No’ with great vehemence (, ed. Croker, 1848, p. 834). ‘Percy had a mind,’ said Johnson, ‘to make a great thing of Grainger's rats’ (ib. ed. Hill, ii. 453–4), and was displeased by Johnson's ridicule. The poem was published in quarto in 1764, with copious notes. A pirated duodecimo edition appeared in 1766, with the addition of ‘Beauty, a Poem, by the same author’ (in reality by Robert Shiels). Johnson helped Percy to write a kindly notice in the ‘London Chronicle’ for 5 July 1764, and, as Smollett was now on his travels, sent another favourable article to the ‘Critical Review’ (p. 270); but he censured Grainger for not denouncing the slave-trade, although Grainger recommends throughout a humane treatment of slaves (ib. i. 481–2). Grainger's diction is very poor, and his arguments and episodes ludicrously flat and formal.

Just before the publication of his poem in May 1764, Grainger embarked for St. Christopher. His affairs there had become involved in his absence, but he acquired some property on the death of his brother, and was able in part to meet his difficulties. He expanded the notes of the ‘Sugar Cane’ into an ‘Essay on the more common West India Diseases; and the Remedies which that Country itself produces. To which are added some Hints on the Management, &c., of Negroes. By a Physician in the West Indies,’ 8vo, London, 1764 (2nd edition, ‘with practical notes and a Linnæan index by William Wright, M.D.,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1802). He also contributed to the first volume of Percy's ‘Reliques’ (1764) a ballad of West Indian life called ‘Bryan and Pareene.’ Grainger died at St. Christopher on 16 Dec. 1766, a victim to the West Indian fever.

‘Grainger was a man,’ said Johnson, ‘who would do any good that was in his power.’ He was the ‘ingenious acquaintance’ whose ‘singular history’ Johnson related (not quite correctly) to Boswell in 1776 (ib. ii. 455). In person he was tall and of ‘a lathy make,’ plain-featured, and deeply marked with the small-pox. Despite a broad provincial accent his conversation was very pleasing. By his wife he left two daughters, Louise Agnes, and Eleanor. The latter was married in 1798 to Thomas Rousell of Wandsworth. A foul attack on Mrs. Grainger, imputing her husband's premature death to grief at the discovery of her immorality, was published during her lifetime in the ‘Westminster Magazine’ for December 1773. Percy sent an indignant denial to the ‘Whitehall Evening Post,’ and threatened legal proceedings, upon which the libel was withdrawn and apologised for in January 1774. Grainger bequeathed his manuscripts to Percy. In accordance with his wish, a complete edition of his poetical works was suggested by Percy to Dr. Robert Anderson in 1798, and was printed in 1801, with the addition of an index of the Linnæan names of plants, &c., by William Wright, M.D. Anderson deferred the publication till Percy supplied him with materials for a life of Grainger, and the book did not make its appearance until 1836 (2 vols. 12mo, Edinburgh). Most of the copies were destroyed, and it is now extremely scarce. It contains, among other miscellaneous pieces, the fragment of a blank-verse tragedy entitled ‘The Fate of Capua.’ Some poems which appeared in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1758 are not included in this edition, and are printed in Nichols's ‘Illustrations of Literature’ (vii. 234–40), together with Percy's correspondence with Grainger and Anderson. Grainger's ‘Essay’ and the ‘Sugar Cane’ were, with Colonel Martin's ‘Essay on Plantership,’ reprinted at Jamaica in 1802, under the general title of ‘Three Tracts on West Indian Agriculture.’