Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/201

Rh Sevère et Caracalla (Louvre),—was exhibited in 1769 side by side with Greuze's portrait of Jeaurat (Louvre), and his admirable Petite Fille au Chien Noir. The Academicians received their new member with all due honours, but at the close of the ceremonies the Director addressed Greuze in these words—"Monsieur, l'Académie vous a reçu, mais c'est comme peintre de genre; elle a eu égard à vos anciennes productions, qui sont excellentes, et elle a fermé les yeux sur celle-ci, qui n'est digne ni d'elle ni de vous." Greuze, greatly incensed, quarrelled with his confrères, and ceased to exhibit until, in 1804, the Revolution had thrown open the doors of the Academy to all the world. In the following year, on 4th March 1805, he died in the Louvre in great poverty. He had been in receipt of considerable wealth, which he had dissipated by extravagance and bad management, so that during his closing years he was forced even to solicit commissions which his enfeebled powers no longer enabled him to carry out with success. The brilliant reputation which Greuze acquired seems to have been due, not to his acquirements as a painter,—for his practice is evidently that current in his own day,—but to the character of the subjects which he treated. That return to nature which inspired Rousseau's attacks upon an artificial civilization demanded expression in art. Diderot in Le Fils Naturel et le Père de Famille tried to turn the vein of domestic drama to account on the stage; that which he tried and failed to do, Greuze, in painting, achieved with extraordinary success, although his works, like the plays of Diderot, were affected by that very artificiality against which they protested. The touch of melodramatic exaggeration, however, which runs through them finds an apology in the firm and brilliant play of line, in the freshness and vigour of the flesh tints, in the enticing softness of expression (often obtained by almost an abuse of méplats), by the alluring air of health and youth, by the sensuous attractions, in short, with which Greuze invests his lessons of bourgeois morality. As Diderot said of La Bonne Mère, "ça prèche la population;" and a certain piquancy of contrast is the result which never fails to obtain admirers. La Jeune Fille à l'Agneau fetched, indeed, at the Pourtalis sale in 1865 no less than 1,000,200 francs. One of Greuze's pupils, Madame Le Doux, imitated with success the manner of her master; his daughter and granddaughter, Madame de Valory, also inherited some traditions of his talent. Madame de Valory published in 1813 a Comédie-vaudeville, Greuze, ou l'Accordée de Village, to which she prefixed a notice of her grandfather's life and works, and the Salons of Diderot also contain, besides many other particulars, the story at full length of Greuze's quarrel with the Academy. Four of the most distinguished engravers of that date, Massard père, Flipart, Gaillard, and Levasseur, were specially entrusted by Greuze with the reproduction of his subjects, but there are also excellent prints by other engravers, notably by Cars and Le Bas.

 GREVILLE,  (1794-1865), a great grandson by his father of the fifth earl of Warwick, and son of Lady Charlotte Bentinck, daughter of the duke of Portland, formerly a leader of the Whig party, and first minister of the crown. Greville was born 2d April 1794. Much of his childhood was spent at his grandfather's house at Bulstrode. He was one of the pages of George III., and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford; but he left the university early, having been appointed private secretary to Earl Bathurst before he was twenty. The interest of the duke of Portland had secured for him the secretaryship of the island of Jamaica, which was a sinecure office, the duties being performed by a deputy, and the reversion of the clerkship of the council. Greville entered upon the discharge of the duties of clerk of the council in ordinary in 1821, and continued to perform them for nearly forty years. He therefore served under three successive sovereigns, George IV., William IV., and Victoria, and although no political or confidential functions are attached to that office, it is one which brings a man into habitual intercourse with the chiefs of all the parties in the state. Well-born, well-bred, handsome, and accomplished, Greville led the easy life of a man of fashion, taking an occasional part in the transactions of his day and much consulted in the affairs of private life. But the celebrity which now attaches to his name is entirely due to the posthumous publication of a portion of a Journal or Diary which it was his practice to keep during the greater part of his life. These papers were given by him to his friend Mr Reeve a short time before his death (which took place on the 18th January 1865), with an injunction that they should be published, as far as was feasible, at not too remote a period after the writer's death. The journals of the reigns of George IV. and William IV. (extending from 1820 to 1837) were accordingly so published in obedience to his directions about ten years after that event. Few publications have been received with greater interest by the public; five large editions were sold in little more than a year, and the demand in America was as great as in England. These journals were regarded as a faithful record of the impressions made on the mind of a competent observer, at the time, by the events he witnessed and the persons with whom he associated. Their characteristic is the love of truth, of justice, and of sincerity. The court was irritated at the scornful disclosure of the vices and follies of former sovereigns, and fashionable society was annoyed at the writer's absolute indifference to its pretensions. But Greville did not stoop to collect or record private scandal. His object appears to have been to leave behind him some of the materials of history, by which the men and actions of his own time would be judged. He records not so much public events as the private causes which led to them; and perhaps no English memoir-writer has left behind him a more valuable contribution to the history of this century. Greville published anonymously, in 1845, a volume on the policy of England to Ireland, in which he advocated the payment of the Roman Catholic clergy; and he was also the author of several pamphlets on the events of his day.

 GREW,  (1628-1711), the earliest vegetable anatomist and physiologist of England, was the son of Obadiah Grew, nonconformist divine of St Michael's, Coventry. At the Restoration, his father being ejected from his living, he went to a foreign university, where he took the degree of doctor of physic. Returning to Coventry, his native town, he commenced a series of observations on the physiology of plants, communicating the results to the Royal Society, by which they were so well received that he was induced to remove to London (1672). There he acquired an extensive practice as a physician. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on the recommendation of Bishop Wilkins, and in 1677 he succeeded Mr Oldenburg as secretary, in which capacity he prepared a descriptive catalogue of the rarities preserved at Gresham College (1681). The following year appeared his celebrated work on the Anatomy of Plants, in which he displayed great originality as an investigator, especially in pointing out the sex-differences of plants. Linnæus named a genus of plants Grewia (natural family of Tiliaceæ) in his honour.

