Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/412

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GRAY, W. DE—GRAZ
395

of the “fount of tears,” and his characteristic melancholy, except in the few hours when it was indeed black, was not a pitiable state; rather, it was one secret of the charm both of the man and of the poet.

A very complete bibliography of Gray will be found in Dr. Bradshaw’s edition of the poems in the Aldine series. Dodsley published ten of the poems, exclusive of the “Long Story,” in 1768. Mason’s Life of Gray (1778) included the poems and some hitherto unpublished fragments, with a selection from his letters, much garbled. Mathias in 1814 reprinted Mason’s edition and added much from Gray’s MS. commentaries together with some more of his translations. The most exhaustive edition of Gray’s writings was achieved by the Rev. John Mitford, who first did justice to the correspondence with Wharton and Norton Nicholls (5 vols., Pickering, 1836–1843; correspondence of Gray and Mason, Bentley, 1853); see also the edition of the works by Edmund Gosse (4 vols., 1884); the Life by the same in Eng. Men of Letters (2nd ed., 1889); some further relics are given in Gray and His Friends by D. C. Tovey (Cambridge, 1890); and a new edition of the letters copiously annotated by D. C. Tovey is in the Standard Library (1900–1907). Nicholl’s Illustrations, vol. vi. p. 805, quoted by Professor Kittredge in the Nation, Sept. 12th, 1900, gives the true story of Gray’s migration to Pembroke College. Matthew Arnold’s essay on Gray in Ward’s English Poets is one of the minor classics of literary criticism.  (D. C. To.) 


GRAY (or Grey), WALTER DE (d. 1255), English prelate and statesman, was a nephew of John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, and was educated at Oxford. He owed his early and rapid preferment in church and state to the favour of King John, becoming the king’s chancellor in 1205, and being chosen bishop of Lichfield in 1210. He was, however, not allowed to keep this bishopric, but he became bishop of Worcester in 1214, resigning his office as chancellor in the same year. Gray was with John when the king signed Magna Carta in June 1215; soon after this event he left England on the king’s business, and it was during his absence that he was forced into the archbishopric of York, owing his election to the good offices of John and of Pope Innocent III. He took a leading part in public affairs during the minority of Henry III., and was regarded with much favour by this king, who employed him on important errands to foreign potentates, and left him as guardian of England when he went to France in 1242. Afterwards the archbishop seems to have been less favourably disposed towards Henry, and for a time he absented himself from public business; however, in 1255, he visited London to attend a meeting of parliament, and died at Fulham on the 1st of May 1255. Gray was always anxious to assert his archiepiscopal authority over Scotland, and to maintain it against the archbishop of Canterbury, but in neither case was he very successful. He built the south transept of the minster at York and bought for his see the village, afterwards called Bishopthorpe, which is still the residence of the archbishop of York. He was also generous to the church at Ripon. Gray was regarded by his contemporaries as an avaricious, but patriotic man.


GRAY, a town of eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Saône, situated on the declivity of a hill on the left bank of the Saône, 36 m. S.W. of Vesoul by the Eastern railway. Pop. (1906) 5742. The streets of the town are narrow and steep, but it possesses broad and beautiful quays and has a busy port. Three bridges, one dating from the 18th century, unite it to suburbs on the right bank of the river, on which is the railway-station from which lines branch off to Auxonne, Dijon, Besançon and Culmont-Chalindrey. The principal buildings are the Gothic church, restored in the style of the Renaissance but with a modern portal, and the hôtel de ville, built by the Spaniards in 1568. The latter building has a handsome façade decorated with columns of red granite. Gray is the seat of a subprefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a communal college and a small museum. It has large flour-mills; among the other industries is the manufacture of machinery and iron goods. There is also a considerable transit traffic in goods from the south of France and the colonies, and trade in iron, corn, provisions, vegetables, wine, wood, &c., much of which is carried by river. Gray was founded in the 7th century. Its fortifications were destroyed by Louis XIV. During the Franco-German War General von Werder concentrated his army corps in the town and held it for a month, making it the point d’appui of movements towards Dijon and Langres, as well as towards Besançon.

Gray gave its name to the distinguished English family of de Gray, Gray or Grey, Anschitel de Gray being mentioned as an Oxfordshire tenant in Domesday.


GRAYLING (Thymallus), fishes belonging to the family Salmonidae. The best known are the “poisson bleu” of the Canadian voyageurs, and the European species, Thymallus vulgaris (the Asch or Äsche of Germany, ombre of France, and temola of Upper Italy). This latter species is esteemed on account of its agreeable colours (especially of the dorsal fin), its well-flavoured flesh, and the sport it affords to anglers. The grayling differ from the genus Salmo in the smaller mouth with comparatively feeble dentition, in the larger scales, and especially in the much greater development of the dorsal fin, which contains 20 to 24 rays. These beautiful fishes, of which five or six species are known, inhabit the fresh waters of Europe, Siberia and the northern parts of North America. The European species, T. vulgaris or vexillifer, attains, though rarely, a length of 2 ft. The colours during life are remarkably changeable and iridescent; small dark spots are sometimes present on the body; the very high dorsal fin is beautifully marked with purplish bands and ocelli. In England and Scotland the grayling appears to have had originally a rather irregular distribution, but it has now been introduced into a great number of rivers; it is not found in Ireland. It is more generally distributed in Scandinavia and Russia, and the mountain streams of central Europe southwards to the Alpine water of Upper Italy. Specimens attaining to a weight of 4 ℔ are very scarce.


GRAYS THURROCK, or Grays, an urban district in the south-eastern parliamentary division of Essex, England, on the Thames, 20 m. E. by S. from London by the London, Tilbury & Southend railway. Pop. (1901) 13,834. The church of St Peter and St Paul, wholly rebuilt, retains some Norman work. The town takes its name from a family of Gray who held the manor for three centuries from 1149. There are an endowed and two training ship schools. Roman remains have been found in the vicinity; and the geological formations exhibiting the process of silting up of a former river channel are exposed in the quarries, and contain large mammalian remains. The town has trade in bricks, lime and cement.


GRAZ [Gratz], the capital of the Austrian duchy and crownland of Styria, 140 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 138,370. It is picturesquely situated on both banks of the Mur, just where this river enters a broad and fertile valley, and the beauty of its position has given rise to the punning French description, La Ville des grâces sur la rivière de l’amour. The main town lies on the left bank of the river at the foot of the Schlossberg (1545 ft.) which dominates the town. The beautiful valley traversed by the Mur, known as the Grazer Feld and bounded by the Wildonerberge, extends to the south; to the S.W. rise the Bacher Gebirge and the Koralpen; to the N. the Schöckel (4745 ft.), and to the N.W. the Alps of Upper Styria. On the Schlossberg, which can be ascended by a cable tramway, beautiful parks have been laid out, and on its top is the bell-tower, 60 ft. high, and the quaint clock-tower, 52 ft. high, which bears a gigantic clock-dial. At the foot of the Schlossberg is the Stadt-Park.

Among the numerous churches of the city the most important is the cathedral of St Aegidius, a Gothic building erected by the emperor Frederick III. in 1450–1462 on the site of a previous church mentioned as early as 1157. It has been several times modified and redecorated, more particularly in 1718. The present copper spire dates from 1663. The interior is richly adorned with stained-glass windows of modern date, costly shrines, paintings and tombs. In the immediate neighbourhood of the cathedral is the mausoleum church erected by the emperor Ferdinand II. Worthy of mention also are the parish church, a Late Gothic building, finished in 1520, and restored in 1875, which possesses an altar piece by Tintoretto; the Augustinian church, appropriated to the service of the university since 1827;