Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/429

Le Grice Shortly after taking his degree Le Grice went to Cornwall — 'cutting.' says Lamb, 'Miss Hunt completely' — as tutor to William John Godolphin Nicholls of Trereife, near Penzance, only son of Mary Ustick, widow of William Nicholls. In ; 1798 he was ordained, and in the following year he married his pupil's mother. Young Nicholls died from 'ossification of the body' on 9 May 1815, aged 26, and on his mother's death on 22 Nov. 1821 the family property came to Le Grice, as mother and son had cut off the entail. For several years he gratuitously undertook the duties at St. Mary's Church, Penzance, and was appointed incumbent on 31 July 1806, retaining it, his sole preferment in the church, until June 1831. As a clergyman Le Grice opposed with great ardour the views of Bishop Phillpotts ; but the statement that he was 'prohibited preaching in the diocese of Exeter' is not correct. The rest of his life was passed on his property at Trereife. He died there on 24 Dec. 1868, and was buried at Madron.

Le Grice during his long life threw off a number of small pieces in verse and prose, the titles of which fill several pages of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis,' but none of them did justice to his wit and talents. The chief of them are : 1. ' An Imitation of Horace's First Epistle.' 1793, 1824, and 1860. 2. 'The Tineum.' 1794. 3. 'A Prize Declamation in Trinity College Chapel on Richard Cromwell,' 1796. 4. 'Analysis of Paley's Philosophy,' 1796 ; 8th ed. 1822. 6. 'A General Theorem for A * * * * * * Coll. Declamation, by Gronovius.' 1796 and 1836. 6. 'Daphnis and Chloe, translated from the Greek of Longus.' 1803. A translation of this work, based on that of Le Grice, was published in 1890. 7. 'Petition of an Old Uninhabited House in Penzance to its Master in Town.' 1811 ; 3rd ed. 1868.

Lamb, in his essay on 'Christ's Hospital' (Elia, ed. Ainger, p. 30), refers to the 'wit combats ' between Coleridge and Le Grice, comparing Coleridge to the Spanish galleon and the other to an English man-of-war; and in the 'Grace before Meat' (ib. p. 137) mentions Le Grice as 'that equivocal wag, but my pleasant schoolfellow.' Le Grice furnished Talfourd with some interesting particulars of the early part of Lamb's life, which were embodied in Talfourd's memoir, and Carew Hazlitt asserts that Lamb's taste for punning was inspired by his admiration for Le Grice's skill in that direction. The 'College Reminiscences of Coleridge.' contributed by Le Grice to the 'Gentleman's Magazine'—in which paper his effusions appeared for more than sixty years—were reprinted in 1842 and included in Carlyon's Early Years.' 1843. One of the last journeys made by Southey was to visit his old acquaintance Le Grice at Trereife. The poet Wordsworth subsequently received a short visit from Le Grice at Grasmere. A story showing the frolicsome spirit which sometimes brought Le Grice into trouble is in Henry Gunning's 'Reminiscences.' ii. 7–9; and an epigram of congratulation from him on Sedgwick's appointment to a canonry in Norwich Cathedral is in Sedgwick's 'Life.' i. 436.

 LE GRYS, ROBERT (d. 1635), courtier and translator, was probably grandson of the Sir Robert Le Grys, 'an Arragonist or Spaniard.' to whom Henry VIII made a grant of the castle of St. Mawes, Cornwall, in 1535. His father appears to have served in the Irish wars under Elizabeth, and he himself was a groom of the king's chamber to James I, when on New-year's day 1605–6 he received from the royal treasury a gift of ten ounces of gilt plate. In 1628 he was preparing 'John Barclay his Argenis, translated out of Latine into English. The Prose upon his Majesty's command, by Sir Robert Le Grys, and the Verses by Thomas May, Esq. .. . London, for Richard Meighen and Henry Seile, 1629,' 4to. On the completion of his task he was knighted by Charles I on 9 Jan. 1628–9. In 1632 Le Grys issued another translation, 'Velleius Paterculus, his Romaine Historie: In two Bookes, exactly translated out of the Latine edition supervised by James Gruterus. . . and rendred English by Sr Robert Le Grys, Knt. London, for K. Swaine, in Britaines-Burse, at the signe of the Bible, 1632,' dedicated to Sir Thomas Jermyn, vice-chamberlain of his majesty's household, and governor of Jersey. It was probably in the spring of the following year that he drew up and presented to the king some proposals, in which he offered his services as tutor of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II, then three years old. Le Grys undertook that when the prince was seven years old 'the nimblest Latinist should find him his match,' and he promised to thoroughly instruct his pupil in 