Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/378

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Grosvenor
366
Grosvenor

first earl of Cork, 1886-8 (5 vols.) For the Chetham Society he edited the Farmer MSS. in the 'Chetham Library,' 1873; for the Roxburghe Club the complete poems of Richard Barnfield, 1876; and for the Camden Society 'The Voyage to Cadiz of 1625' in 1883. He also issued a complete collection of the prose works of Wordsworth, 1876, 3 vols. A supplement to his edition of the 'Works of Crashaw,' consisted of hitherto unprinted poems which he discovered in manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (1888), and he prepared some small volumes of selections from the works of Sidney, Ralegh, and others in a series which he called the 'Elizabethan Library' (1896-1899). A projected life of Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton, was never written.

All Grosart's editions of old authors were privately issued in very limited editions to subscribers at high prices, and the business arrangements were conducted by himself. His handwriting was peculiarly small and often illegible. He spared neither time nor trouble in searching for rare volumes and recondite information, and in the course of his career travelled widely, ransacking the chief libraries of France, Germany, Italy, and Russia, as well as those of England, Scotland, and Ireland. His literary style was defaced by mannerisms and affectations; he was, as Dr. John Brown (author of 'Rab and his Friends') used to say, 'by nature quaint and archaic;' in the prefaces and notes to some of his later reprints his querulousness, dogmatism, and ill-temper were painfully conspicuous. All his literary work was marred by egotism, a want of taste, diffuseness, and clumsy arrangement of his materials. Yet by means of his elaborate series of reprints of Tudor and Jacobean writers, whose works were rare and almost inaccessible, he conspicuously advanced the thorough study of English literature.

Grosart never abandoned the writing of devotional books of religion. His early religious publications include 'Small Sins' and 'Mighty to Save,' 1863; 'The Lambs all Safe' and 'The Prince of Light,' 1864; and 'Joining the Church,' 1865. 'Representative Nonconformists, with the Message of their Lifework for To-day,' appeared in 1879. In 1868 he printed for private circulation a small volume of fifteen hymns, and he afterwards printed many new year and watch-night hymns. His poems and hymns were collected in 'Songs of the Day and Night, or Three Centuries of Original Hymns' (1890).

Grosart was also a voluminous contributor to literary and theological periodicals. He wrote many articles for the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (9th edit.), and was a frequent contributor to 'The Leisure Hour,' 'Sunday at Home,' and 'United Presbyterian Magazine.' In August 1877 the university of Edinburgh conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. The university of St. Andrews gave him the degree of D.D. He was also a fellow of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries. His library had few exemplars in first-rate condition, but it was large and well selected, and valuable from the completeness of its puritan literature. Many of the volumes were acquired after his death by the Princeton University of the United States and by the British Museum.

[Notice by Miss Toulmin Smith in Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1900; Prospectus of the Huth Library, 1881; Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology; personal knowledge.]

T. B. J.

GROSVENOR, HUGH LUPUS, first Duke of Westminster (1825–1899), second son and eventual heir of Richard Grosvenor, second marquis of Westminster [q. v.], by Lady Elizabeth Mary Leveson Gower, second daughter of George Granville, first duke of Sutherland, was born at Eaton Hall, Chester, on 13 Oct. 1825. He was nephew of Lord Robert Grosvenor, first baron Ebury [q. v. Suppl.] He was educated at Oxford, where he matriculated from Balliol College on 2 June 1843, being then known as Viscount Belgrave. Earl Grosvenor, as he was styled from 1845, was returned to parliament on 28 July 1847 in the liberal interest for Chester, which constituency he continued to represent until his accession to the peerage on the death of his father, 31 Oct. 1869. He voted steadily with his party, but took no prominent part in debate until 1866, when he united with the Adullamites and conservatives in opposition to the government on the franchise question. This coalition was denounced by Bright as a 'dirty conspiracy,' and Grosvenor's motion to postpone the second reading of the franchise bill until the entire scheme for the amendment of the representation was before parliament was treated by the government as tantamount to a resolution of want of confidence. It was, however, only negatived by the narrow majority of five after prolonged debate in an unusually full house (16 April), and a subsequent defeat in committee sealed the fate of the measure and the administration. The scheme of reform subsequently submitted by Disraeli was accepted by Grosvenor as a basis of discussion, and the amendments which he