Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/258

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Grimald
250
Grimaldi

known of them beyond Bale's notice. Other works on biblical subjects—the birth of Christ, the Protomartyr, and Athanasius— which appear in Bale's memoir may have been dramas. Of his classical scholarship Grimald has left other valuable proofs. The first edition of his translation into English of Cicero's 'De Officiis,' entitled 'M. T. Ciceroe's Three Bookes of Dueties,' dedicated to Thomas Thirleby, bishop of Ely, London, 8vo, seems to have appeared in 1553, and a second edition in 1556 (Ames), but we have been unable to discover copies of either. The editions of 1558, 1574, 1583, and 1596 (?) are in the British Museum. As late as 1591 was issued a scholarly Latin paraphrase of Virgil's 'Georgies,' under the title 'Nicolai Grimoaldi viri doctiss. in P. V. Maronis quatuor libros Georgicorum in oratione soluta paraphrasis elegantissima Oxonii in æde Christi anno Eduardi sexti secundo confecta,' London, G. Bishop and R. Newbery, 1591. Googe refers to Grimald's labours on Virgil in his epitaph on Phayre, and implies that he attempted an English translation. The only other extant book with certainty attributable to Grimald is 'Oratio ad Pontifices, Londini in æde Paulina anno Dom. 1553 17 Idus Aprilis habita in Synodo publica per Nicolaum Grimoaldum,' London, H. Binneman, 1583 (Bodl. Libr.) Bale attributes to Grimald an anonymous work issued in 1549, entitled 'Vox Populi, or The People's Complaint,' which was, writes Wood, 'against rectors, vicars, archdeacons, deans, &c., for living remote from their flocks, and for not performing the duty belonging to their respective offices.' Hunter suggests, on no very obvious grounds, that Grimald may be the anonymous translator of Dr. Lawrence Humfrey's 'Of Nobles and of Nobility, … late englished with a similar treatise by Philo the Jew' (London, by Thomas March, 1563), and the anonymous author of 'The Institution of a Gentleman,' dedicated to Lord Fitz-Walter (London, by T. March, 1555).

Besides the pieces assumed to be dramatic which we have already mentioned, Bale's list of Grimald's unpublished works includes speeches, sermons, religious tracts, letters, and poems. There are verses on Protector Somerset's restoration to power in 1551, and to Bale himself; treatises 'in partitiones Tullii,' 'in Andriam Terentianam,' 'in epistolas Horatii,' and translations from the Greek of Xenophon's 'De Disciplina Cyri,' and 'Hesiodi Ascrea.' Grimald is said to have made emendations for an edition of Matthew of Vendôme's 'Tobias,' and to have contemplated an edition of Joseph of Exeter's Latin poem on the Trojan war.

[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, i. 407-11; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 230-1; Bale's De Script. Angl.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 344; Strype's Cranmer, iii. 128-30 ; Ritson's Bibliographia Poetica; Ridley's Works (Parker Soc.), pp. 337, 372; the Rev. A. B. Grimaldi's Cat. of Printed Books, &c., by Writers of the name of Grimaldi, London, 1883 (privately printed); notes supplied by the Rev. A. B. Grimaldi; Arber's reprint of Tottel's Miscellany; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum in Add. MS. 24487, pp. 228-231; Herford's Lit. Relations of England and Germany (1886). Professor Arber's argument that the poet is distinct from Ridley's chaplain (whose name is spelt Grimbold by Strype) is controverted by the references in Foxe and in Ridley's correspondence.]

S. L. L.

GRIMALDI, JOSEPH (1779–1837), actor and pantomimist, born 18 Dec. 1779 in Stanhope Street, Clare Market, came of a family of dancers and clowns. His grandfather, Giovanni Battista Grimaldi, was known in Italy and France, and his father, Giuseppe Grimaldi (d. 23 March 1788, aged 75), is said to have acted at the Théâtres de la Foire in France, to have first appeared in London at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket, and to have played at Drury Lane in 1758-9, and subsequently at Sadler's Wells. During the Lord George Gordon riots he wrote, instead of 'No Popery,' 'No Religion' on his door. Grimaldi's mother, a Mrs. Rebecca Brooker, danced and played utility parts at the last-named theatres. The first appearance of 'Joe' Grimaldi was at Sadler's Wells, 16 April 1781, as an infant dancer, and he took part in the pantomime of 1781, or that of 1782, at Drury Lane. In the intervals between his engagements at the two theatres he went to a boarding-school at Putney, kept by a Mr. Ford. In successive pantomimes at Drury Lane and Sadler's Wells he acquired mastery of his profession. A list of the pieces in which he appeared is valueless, and his adventures, though they furnish material for a volume, are to a great extent imaginary, or consist of accidents such as are to be expected in his occupation. After his father's death he was allowed to act at the two houses—Drury Lane and Sadler's Wells—on the same night, and had to run from one to the other. His boyish amusements consisted in breeding pigeons and collecting insects. He is said to have collected with great patience four thousand specimens of flies. In 1798 he married Maria Hughes, the eldest daughter of one of the proprietors of Sadler's Wells. His work at this time was arduous, and his earnings were considerable. He was, however, through life imprudent or unlucky in his investments, and rarely succeeded in