250 GRESHAM Indies had paid them a visit, and found them tired of their situation. Grenville, to keep pos- session of the country, left 15 men on Roanoke island, and sailed again for England. In 1588 he was made a member of the council created to devise means of defence against the Span- ish armada, and in 1591 was raised to the rank of vice admiral and sent with five ships to cruise against the Spaniards in the West Indies. Off the Azores he encountered a Spanish fleet of 53 ships with 10,000 men on board. He gave them battle at 3 P. M., fought them till daybreak, and beat them oft' 15 times. Four of the Spanish ships sank during the action or soon afterward, and 1,000 Spaniards were kill- ed. Grenville was wounded early in the fight, but refused to go below, and had his wounds dressed on deck. At length he was shot through the body, and was carried into his cabin, upon which the remnant of his crew sur- rendered. He was taken on board a Spanish ship and well treated, but died in three days. GRESHAM, Sir Thomas, an English merchant, bora in London in 1519, died there, Nov. 21, 1579. He was educated at Cambridge, became a London merchant, and was employed in 1551 in negotiating foreign loans for the government of Edward VI., and subsequently for those of Mary and Elizabeth ; and he suggested to the latter the advantage of raising loans from her own subjects rather than from foreign states. He accumulated immense wealth, and was the founder of the first royal exchange, and of Gresham college. By his will his London resi- dence was vested in trustees, who were to see that seven able lecturers, each with a salary of 50 per annum, payable from the rents of the exchange, and having apartments in the mansion, were elected to deliver lectures there on divinity, astronomy, music, geometry, law, physic, and rhetoric. In 1768 the building was sold to government, and the character of the institution modified by act of parliament ; the lectures were subsequently read at the royal exchange until it was burned in 1838, and in 1843 the present college was opened. GRESLON, Adrien, a French missionary in Canada and China, born at Perigueux in 1618, died in 1697. He came to America in 1647, and, after seeing the Huron mission destroyed and many of his fellow missionaries put to death by the Iroquois, returned to Europe in 1650. He went to China in 1657, and remain- ed there till 1670. While in Chinese Tartary he is said to have met an Indian woman whom he had known on Lake Huron, and who had been sold from tribe to tribe. This led to the belief that America and Asia approached each other very nearly. CRESSET, Jf* an Baptiste Lonls, a French author, born in Amiens in 1709, died in 1777. He was educated at a college of the Jesuits, and at the age of 16 entered the order as a novice. In 1733 he published a poem under the title of Vert-tert, in which he ridiculed some of the features of convent life. Having removed to GRETNA GREEN Paris, he produced successively La Chartreuse, Le careme impromptu, Le lutrin vivant, and Les ombres, all of which were received with great favor on account of their spirited style and elegant versification. But the freedom of some of his remarks displeased his religious superiors, and he left the order before the end of his novitiate. He now produced a tragedy, Edouard ///., and a few years later Sidney, a drama. In 1747 appeared his comedy of Le mechant, which procured him admission to the French academy. In the midst of his successes Gresset retired to Amiens, where having mar- ried he passed his time in religious employ- ments, in the care of his family, and in attack- ing various abuses. He condemned the irreli- gious tendency of his works, committed several unpublished pieces to the flames, and asked pardon of heaven in a copy of verses which Voltaire and Piron ridiculed. He founded an academy of letters at Amiens, and, as director of the French academy, was chosen to con- gratulate Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette on their accession to the throne in 1774; in re- turn for which he received a patent of nobil- ity. An edition of his works in 3 vols. was published at Paris in 1811. Vert-vert has re- peatedly been translated into English. GRESWELL, Edward, an English ecclesiastical writer, born in Manchester in 1797, died in Oxford, June 29, 1869. After graduation at the university, he became fellow and vice pres- ident of Corpus Christi college, and devoted himself to theological literature. His works are valuable and highly esteemed by scholars. Among them are: "Exposition of the Para- bles and other Parts of the Gospels" (5 vols. 8vo, 1834-'5 ; Prolegomena ad Harmoniam Evangelicam (4th ed., 1845); "Dissertations upon the Principles and Arrangement of a Harmony of the Gospels " (5 vols., 2d ed., 1837) ; Fasti Temporis Catholici (5 vols., with tables, 1852) ; and Origines Kalendaria Italic (4 vols., 1854), showing the early calendars of Romulus, of Numa Pompilius, and of the de- cemvirs. He also translated into Greek verse Milton's "Comus" and "Samson Agonistes." GRETCH, Nikolai, a Russian author, born in St. Petersburg, Aug. 14, 1787, died there, Jan. 24, 1867. He acquired eminence as a teacher, and became councillor of state in 1829, and privy councillor in 1862. His best known work is a manual of Russian literature (4 vols., St. Petersburg, 1819-'22). GRETNA GREEN, a small village of Dumfries- shire, Scotland, 9 m. N. W. of Carlisle, famous for the celebration of irregular marriages until December, 1856, from which date, by the act passed July 29, such marriages were declared invalid, unless one of the parties had been for 21 days a resident of Scotland. The ceremony consisted in an admission before witnesses by the parties that they were husband and wife, this being sufficient, according to the law of Scotland, to constitute a valid marriage. After the ceremony, the officiating functionary (who
