Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/633

 Griselidis and printed at Bréhan-Loudéac in 1484, and its popularity is shown by the number of early editions quoted by Brunet (Manuel du libraire, s.v. Petrarca). The story was dramatized in 1395, and a Mystère de Griselidis, marquise de Saluses par personnaiges was printed by Jehan Bonfons (no date). Chaucer followed Petrarch’s version in the Canterbury Tales. Ralph Radcliffe, who flourished under Henry VIII., is said to have written a play on the subject, and the story was dramatized by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle and W. Haughton in 1603.

GRISI, GIULIA (1811–1869), Italian opera-singer, daughter of one of Napoleon’s Italian officers, was born in Milan. She came of a family of musical gifts, her maternal aunt Josephina Grassini (1773–1850) being a favourite opera-singer both on the continent and in London; her mother had also been a singer, and her elder sister Giudetta and her cousin Carlotta were both exceedingly talented. Giulia was trained to a musical career, and made her stage début in 1828. Rossini and Bellini both took an interest in her, and at Milan she was the first Adalgisa in Bellini’s Norma, in which Pasta took the title-part. Grisi appeared in Paris in 1832, as Semiramide in Rossini’s opera, and had a great success; and in 1834 she appeared in London. Her voice was a brilliant dramatic soprano, and her established position as a prima donna continued for thirty years. She was a particularly fine actress, and in London opera her association with such singers as Lablache, Rubini, Tamburini and Mario was long remembered as the palmy days of Italian opera. In 1854 she toured with Mario in America. She had married Count de Melcy in 1836, but this ended in a divorce; and in 1856 she married (q.v.). She died in Berlin on the 29th of November 1869.

GRISON (Galictis vittata), a carnivorous mammal, of the family Mustelidae, common in Central and South America and Mexico. It is about the size of a marten, and has the upper surface of a bluish-grey tint, and the under surface is dark brown. The grison lives on small mammals and birds, and in settled districts is destructive to poultry. Allamand’s grison (G. allamandi), with the same range, is somewhat larger. Another member of the genus is the tayra or taira (G. barbara), about as large as an otter, with a range from Mexico to Argentina. This species hunts in companies (see ).

GRISONS (Ger. Graubünden), the most easterly of the Swiss cantons and also the largest in extent, though relatively the most sparsely populated. Its total area is 2753.2 sq. m., of which 1634.4 sq. m. are classed as “productive” (forests covering 503.1 sq. m. and vineyards 1.3 sq. m.), but it has also 138.6 sq. m. of glaciers, ranking in this respect next after the Valais and before Bern. The whole canton is mountainous, the principal glacier groups being those of the Tödi, N. (11,887 ft.), of Medels, S.W. (Piz Medel, 10,509 ft.), of the Rheinwald or the Adula Alps, S.W. (Rheinwaldhorn, 11,149 ft.), with the chief source of the Rhine, of the Bernina, S.E. (Piz Bernina, 13,304 ft.), the most extensive, of the Albula, E. (Piz Kesch, 11,228 ft.), and of the Silvretta, N.E. (Piz Linard, 11,201 ft.). The principal valleys are those of the upper Rhine and of the upper Inn (or, q.v.). The three main sources of the Rhine are in the canton. The valley of the Vorder Rhine is called the Bündner Oberland, that of the Mittel Rhine the Val Medels, and that of the Hinter Rhine (the principal), in different parts of its course, the Rheinwald, the Schams valley and the Domleschg valley, while the upper valley of the Julia is named the Oberhalbstein. The chief affluents of the Rhine in the canton are the Glenner (flowing through the Lugnetz valley), the Avers Rhine, the Albula (swollen by the Julia and the Landwasser), the Plessur (Schanfigg valley) and the Landquart (coming from the Prättigau). The Rhine and the Inn flow respectively into the North and the Black Seas. Of other streams that of Val Mesocco joins the Ticino and so the Po, while the Maira or Mera (Val Bregaglia) and the Poschiavino join the Adda, and the Rambach (Münster valley) the Adige, all four thus ultimately reaching the Adriatic Sea. The inner valleys are the highest in Central Europe, and among the loftiest villages are Juf, 6998 ft. (the highest permanently inhabited village in the Alps), at the head of the Avers glen, and St Moritz, 6037 ft., in the Upper Engadine. The lower courses of the various streams are rent by remarkable gorges, such as the Via Mala, the Rofna, the Schyn, and those in the Avers, Medels and Lugnetz glens, as well as that of the Züge in the Landwasser glen. Below Coire, near Malans, good wine is produced, while in the Val Mesocco, &c., maize and chestnuts flourish. But the forests and the mountain pasturages are the chief source of wealth. The lower pastures maintain a fine breed of cows, while the upper are let out in summer to Bergamasque shepherds. There are many mineral springs, such as those of St Moritz, Schuls, Alvaneu, Fideris, Le Prese and San Bernardino. The climate and vegetation, save on the southern slope of the Alps, are alpine and severe. But yearly vast numbers of strangers visit different spots in the canton, especially (q.v.), Arosa and the Engadine. As yet there are comparatively few railways. There is one from Maienfeld (continued north to Constance and north-west to Zürich) to Coire (11 m.), which sends off a branch line from Landquart, E., past Klosters to Davos (31 m.). From Coire the line bears west to Reichenau (6 m.), whence one branch runs S.S.E. beneath the Albula Pass to St Moritz (50 m.), and another S.W. up the Hinter Rhine valley to Ilanz (20 m.). There are, however, a number of fine carriage roads across the passes leading to or towards Italy. Besides those leading to the Engadine may be noted the roads from Ilanz past Disentis over the Oberalp Pass (6719 ft.) to Andermatt, from Disentis over the Lukmanier Pass (6289 ft.) to Biasca, on the St Gotthard railway, from Reichenau past Thusis and Splügen over the San Bernardino Pass (6769 ft.) to Bellinzona on the same railway line, and from Splügen over the Splügen Pass (6946 ft.) to Chiavenna. The Septimer Pass (7582 ft.) from the Julier route to the Maloja route has now only a mule path, but was probably known in Roman times (as was possibly the Splügen), and was much frequented in the middle ages.

The population of the canton in 1900 was 104,520. Of this number 55,155 (mainly near Coire and Davos, in the Prättigau and in the Schanfigg valley) were Protestants, while 49,142 (mainly in the Bündner Oberland, the Val Mesocco and the Oberhalbstein) were Romanists, while there were also 114 Jews (81 of whom lived in Davos). In point of language 48,762 (mainly near Coire and Davos, in the Prättigau and in the Schanfigg valley) were German-speaking, while 17,539 (mostly in the Val Mesocco, the Val Bregaglia and the valley of Poschiavo, but including a number of Italian labourers engaged on the construction of the Albula railway) were Italian-speaking. But the characteristic tongue of the Grisons is a survival of an ancient Romance language (the lingua rustica of the Roman Empire), which has lagged behind its sisters. It has a scanty printed literature, but is still widely spoken, so that, of the 38,651 persons in the Swiss Confederation who speak it, no fewer than 36,472 are in the Grisons. It is distinguished into two dialects: the Romonsch (sometimes wrongly called Romansch), which prevails in the Bündner Oberland and in the Hinter Rhine valley (Schams and Domleschg), and the Ladin (closely related to the tongue spoken in parts of the South Tyrol), that survives in the Engadine and in the neighbouring valleys of Bergün, Oberhalbstein and Münster. (See F. Rausch’s Geschichte der Literatur des rhaeto-romanischen Volkes, Frankfort, 1870, and Mr Coolidge’s bibliography of this language, given on pp. 22-23 of Lorria and Martel’s Le Massif de la Bernina, Zürich, 1894.) Yet in the midst of this Romance-speaking population are islets (mostly, if not entirely, due to immigration in the 13th century from the German-speaking Upper Valais) of German-speaking inhabitants, so in the Vals and Safien glens, and at Obersaxen (all in the Bündner Oberland), in the Rheinwald (the highest part of the Hinter Rhine valley), and in the Avers glen (middle reach of the Hinter Rhine valley), as well as in and around Davos itself.

There is not much industrial activity in the Grisons. A