fontibus unde Evangelistæ suas de Resurrectione Domini narrationes hauserint," a tract not without a rationalistic taint. He published, also, some brief philological remarks on the commencement of the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, in 1777; and in 1792 a somewhat similar "Programma de Imaginibus Judaicis" on the Epistle to the Hebrews. One of his most popular works, and probably the marrow of his own prelections, "Anleitung zum Studium der populärer Dogmatik," speedily passed through four editions. His "Symbolæ Criticæ" appeared, Part i. 1785; Part ii. 1793. In 1794 followed his "Commentarius Criticus in textum Græcum Novi Test," affording some insight into that system of critical law which he was preparing to embody in his famous second edition of the New Testament. The first volume of this second edition appeared in 1796, Londini et Halæ Saxonum; and the second, containing the Epistles, &c., in 1807, Halæ Saxonum et Londini. Both volumes were printed at Jena under Griesbach's immediate inspection, and from types cast by Göschen, an eminent artist. The duke of Grafton (Illustrissimus Dux, as he is styled in the preface), then chancellor of the university of Cambridge, generously defrayed the expense of the paper of what are usually called the fine copies. In the copious prolegomena to both volumes are found a history of the text of the New Testament, as previously edited and printed; an account of the various MSS. which had been collated; the readings which had been gathered by Birch, Alter, Matthaei, and Knittel; those of the Latin versions of Sabatier and Blanchini; and the system pursued in determining what lection should be adopted, and which in this case was founded on a peculiar theory of "families," or "recensions" among MSS. and quotations of the Greek fathers. The numbers of the verses are given in the margin, and under them the various readings. A somewhat complicated array of marks (signa) is employed to designate the nature of the various readings—some to be rejected and some received; some equal in authority and some worthy of farther examination; some more and others less probable; supposed omissions being pointed out by one sign, and supposed additions by another. This edition, it may be added, was reprinted in London in 1809, and again in 1818. The text, without the critical apparatus, has often issued from the press both here and in America. A third and full edition was projected in Germany after Griesbach's death, and under the care of Dr. Scholz, of which only the first volume appeared at Berlin in 1827. For this he had a new collation of Codex A in the British Museum, and Barrett's facsimile of Codex Z, belonging to the university of Dublin; but the work was never completed.
As the fame and labours of Griesbach are identified with the critical revision of the text of the New Testament, a few words as to his peculiar theory, now happily superseded, may suffice. If by a collation of MSS. (Griesbach examined or collated above five hundred) various readings are found, the question is, How shall the right reading be detected? or how shall the critic be enabled to say, This word or phrase is what the evangelist or apostle probably wrote? The best way, surely, is to ascertain what MSS. are of highest authority on account of their age and general character, and to determine what reading or spelling a copyist was most likely to introduce, either from an error of sight—such as omitting a whole line if two words like each other occurred, the one above the other, in two consecutive lines; or from an error of hearing if he wrote from dictation, and mistook words of similar sound but of different meaning; or from the common temptation to exchange a simpler for a more difficult or idiomatic reading. Therefore the shortest reading, which might have originated the rest, is most likely the true one. Griesbach was well aware of all this; but he went a step farther, and endeavoured to classify MSS., not from their age, but from their country. He imagined that he found certain characteristic readings in certain codices, belonging to a country; and acting on a hint of Bengel and Semler, he proposed an elaborate division of all MSS. into three great families—the Alexandrian, Byzantine, and Western. On the first family, whose readings are not only in certain MSS., but also in quotations made by Clement and Origen, he placed the highest authority and made it his final arbiter, as he held that text to have proceeded from an actual revision. Now to divide MSS. in this way was a very uncertain process, and could not be sustained but by many and baseless shifts and devices. There is no proper boundary between the so-called recensions—as, for example, out of two hundred and twenty-six readings in Origen, the great authority of the Alexandrian family, only eighteen differ from the Western text. Griesbach's ingenious and complicated theory was violently assailed on its appearance by Eichhorn, and by Matthaei with all his usual virulence embittered by his being a rival; by Archbishop Laurence and Dr. Nolan in this country, and that very effectively; latterly by Scholz in the prolegomena to his New Testament, in which he overturned Griesbach's hypothesis and set up one of his own quite antagonistic but not more stable; and finally, and more recently, by a sharp-sighted New Englander, the late Professor Norton, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Griesbach's system is now followed by nobody, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and others, having pointed out a simpler and more excellent way. Yet Griesbach's labours were of great value in this dry and dusty department of critical labour. Erasmus, Stephens, and Beza had, in their various editions, done their best with the few critical materials at their disposal. The Elzevirs had originated, by an impudent sentence in one of their prefaces, the so-called Textus Receptus. Walton, Fell, Mill, and Wells had done good service among ourselves; while Bentley had, in his own style, called attention to the subject, and made some preparations. Wetstein had accumulated more materials than he could well manage, when Griesbach took up the work, and brought order and system to bear upon it, cleared up many obscurities and widened the field of research, brought out many useful facts, though he based a false theory upon them, showed the way to collect and test evidence in spite of the wrong results he deduced from it, was the first to turn to the subject a scientific attention which has never since slept, and, in his own patience, industry, candour, and acuteness, left an example which has proved a guide and a stimulus to so many of his successors. His "Vorlesungen über Hermeneutik des N. T." were published after his death, in 1815. It may be added, in a word, that certain anti-trinitarian writers here, and probably elsewhere, made so much of Griesbach's edition and some of its readings, that an impression seems to have prevailed that the creed of the critic was Socinian. Griesbach gave the rumour a distinct denial, and that he believed in the Deity of Christ, he adds, "publice profiteor atque Deum testor." His "Opuscula," containing the tracts already named in this sketch and some others, were edited by Gabler, in 2 vols. 8vo, 1824-25.—J. E.
GRIFFIER, Jan, a Dutch landscape painter, was born at Amsterdam in 1656, and was a pupil of Roland Rogman. Coming to London soon after the great fire, he chiefly occupied himself in painting the scenery of the Thames, many of his pictures being painted on board a yacht, in which, according to Walpole, he spent all his time sailing about the river. After some years he sailed in his yacht to Rotterdam, but, in returning to England, was wrecked, and lost the whole of his earnings. This cured him of his passion for living on the water. He took a house in Millbank, where he died in 1718, according to Walpole; but Brulliot and Waagen say that he was living in 1720. His pictures are pleasingly painted, but imitative rather than original in style. Several of them are in the galleries of Dresden, Berlin, and Amsterdam.—His son Robert—born in London in 1688; died in 1750—was a pupil of his father, and painted pictures somewhat similar in character, by which he acquired considerable reputation in his day.—J. T—e.
GRIFFIN, Gerald, a novelist, poet, and dramatic writer, was born in the city of Limerick on the 12th of December, 1803. In his seventh year his family removed to a romantic spot—Fairy Lawn—on the banks of the Shannon, where he received those deep impressions of natural beauty which are so prominently displayed in his writings, and whose scenery is commemorated in many of his poems and tales. Gerald was fortunate in possessing a mother both tender, intellectual, and well educated, and she helped his young mind both in its expansion and its strengthening. The lad soon showed his poetic leanings; and while it was thought that the little fellow was only copying the compositions of others, he was composing. In due time it was proposed that Gerald should follow the medical profession, to which his brother William belonged, under whose auspices he made some slight progress. In 1820 his parents and some of the children went to America, the rest, including Gerald, settling in Adare with William. Here he first determined to devote himself to a life of letters, and accordingly studied with great application. One morning he put into his brother's hands a tragedy founded on a Spanish story, "Aguire."
