Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/89

Rh was known as Il Lasca or Leuciscus, and this pseudonym is still frequently substituted for his proper name. His temper was what the French happily call a difficult one, and his life was consequently enlivened or disturbed by various literary quarrels. His Humid brethren went so far as to expel him for a time from the society,—the chief ground of offence being apparently his ruthless criticism of the "Arameans," a party of the academicians who maintained that the Florentine or Tuscan tongue was derived from the Hebrew, the Chaldee, or some other branch of the Semitic. He was readmitted in 1566, when his friend Salviati was "consul" of the academy. His death took place on February 18, 1583. Il Lasca ranks as one of the great masters of Tuscan prose. His style is copious and flexible: abundantly idiomatic, but without any affectation of being so, it carries with it the force and freshness of popular speech, while it lacks not at the same time a flavour of academic culture. His principal works are Le Cene, a collection of stories in the manner of Boccaccio, and a number of prose comedies, La Gelosia, La Spiritata, I Parentadi, La Arenga, La Sibilla, La Pinzochera, L' Arzigogolo. The stories, though of no special merit as far as the plots are concerned, are told with verve and interest. A number of miscellaneous poems, a few letters, and Four Orations to the Cross complete the list of Grazzini's extant works.

 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND,, has been since January 1, 1801, the official title of the political unity composed of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Great Britain was employed as a formal designation from the time of the union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland in 1707. Although the name (which apparently had its origin in Britannia Major, the name given to the island to distinguish it from Britannia Minor or Brittany) had, in earlier times, been often used both by English and by foreign writers, especially for rhetorical and poetical purposes, it was not till after the accession of James I. that it became a recognized part of the royal style. Its adoption was due to the king himself, who was anxious to give expression to the fact that he was sovereign of the undivided island, and not only of England or Scotland. As early as 1559 the Scottish Congregation had formally proposed through Maitland the union of the two crowns, and the adoption of the name of Great Britain for the common country (Teulet, i., "Mém. Caillé à M. de la Mothe," Dec. 20). But in England the innovation at first met with great opposition. Various objections, sentimental and practical, were urged against it in parliament; and the judges, when appealed to by the king, declared that the adoption of the title would invalidate all legal processes. At length, on the 20th October 1604, the king, weary of the discussion, cut the knot by assuming the title by royal proclamation, and in due course the inscription "J. D. G. Mag. Brit. F. et H. Rex" appeared on his coins. The proclamation declared that Great Britain was "the true and ancient name which God and time have imposed upon this Ile, extant and received in histories, in all mappes and cartes wherein this ile is described, and in ordinary letters to ourselfe from divers foreign princes, warranted also by authentical charters, exemplifications under seals, and other records of great antiquitie." In November 1604 we find the king instructing the Lords Commissioners of the Gunpowder Plot to try and discover if the prisoner was the author of a most "cruel pasquil" against him for assuming the name of Britain. For further details see Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, and Spedding, Letters and Life of Lord Bacon, vol. iii.

 GREAVES, (1602-1652), a mathematician and antiquary, was the eldest son of John Greaves, rector of Colemore, near Alresford in Hampshire, and was born in 1602. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1630 was chosen professor of geometry in Gresham College, London. After travelling in Europe, he in 1637 visited the East, where he collected a considerable number of Arabic, Persic, and Greek manuscripts, and made a more accurate survey of the pyramids of Egypt than any traveller who had preceded him. On his return to Europe he visited a second time several parts of Italy, and during his stay at Rome instituted inquiries into the ancient weights and measures. Soon after his arrival in England, he was appointed to the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford, but he was deprived of his Gresham professorship for having neglected its duties. In 1648 he lost both his fellowship and his Savilian chair on account of his adherence to the royalist party. But his private fortune more than sufficed for all his wants till his death in 1652.

 GREBE (French Grèbe], the generally accepted name for all the birds of the Family Podicipedidæ, belonging to the group Pygopodes of Illiger, members of which inhabit almost all parts of the world. Some systematic writers have

Great Crested Grebe.

distributed them into several so-called genera, but, with one exception, these seem to be insufficiently defined, and here it will be enough to allow but two—Latham's Podiceps and the Centropelma of Messrs Sclater and Salvin. Grebes are at once distinguishable from all other Water-birds by their