Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/47

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Greaves
39
Green

1699. 5. 'An Account of the Longitude and Latitude of Constantinople and Rhodes,' 1705. 6. 'Descriptio Peninsulæ Arabicæ, ex Abulfeda.' 7. 'The Origin of English Weights and Measures,' 1706. 8. Miscellaneous works, including, besides reprints, a 'Dissertation upon the Sacred Cubit;' tracts upon various subjects, and a 'Letter from Constantinople,' 1638; and preceded by an historical and critical account of his life and writings prepared by Thomas Birch, 1737.

Besides these Greaves edited and prepared for the press many geographical and astronomical commentaries and tables, and various mathematical and scientific works. His correspondence with the learned men of his day was very large; in addition to those mentioned above his correspondents included William Schickard, Claudius Hardy, Francis Junius, Peter Scanenius, Christian Ravius, Archbishop Ussher, Dr. Gerard Langbaine, Dr. William Harvey, Sir John Marsham, and Sir George Ent. His astronomical instruments were left by will to the Savilian library at Oxford. Many of his manuscripts and letters were lost or dispersed after his death.

[Vita Joannis Gravii, published among Vitæ Illustrium Virorum, by Thomas Smith, 1707; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 324-9; Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 218, 240; John Greaves's Letter from Constantinople, 2 Aug. 1638; Thomas Smith's Miscellanea, 1686; Wood's Hist. et Antiquitates Oxon. ii. 42; Greaves's Tract on Reformation of the Kalendar; Marsham's Canon Chronicus; Pope's Life of Seth Ward, iv. 18-21, 1697; Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, ii. 25, 1735; Miscellaneous Works of J. Greaves, 2 vols. 1737 (especially preface), ed. T. Birch; Savage's Balliofergus, p. 108, 1668; Biog. Brit. iv. 2267, 1757; Ward's Gresham Professors, p. 135, 1740; Brodrick's Hist. of Merton College (Oxford Hist. Soc. 1885), pp. 84, 88, 96, 98, 102, 282, 353.]

N. D. F. P.

GREAVES, THOMAS (fl. 1604), musical composer and lutenist, belonging probably to the Derbyshire family of Greaves, was lutenist to Sir Henry Pierrepont. He published in London in 1604, fol., 'Songes of sundrie kinds; first, aires to be sung to the lute and base violl; next, songes of sadnesse for the viols and voyce; lastly madrigalles for five voyces.' Three of the madrigals, 'Come away, sweet love,' 'Lady, the melting crystal of thine eyes,' and 'Sweet nymphs,' have been republished (1843 and 1857), with pianoforte accompaniment by G. W. Budd.

[Grove's Dict. i. 624; Brown's Dict. p. 288.]

L. M. M.

GREAVES, THOMAS, D.D. (1612–1676), orientalist, was son of the Rev. John Greaves of Colemore, Hampshire, and brother of Sir Edward Greaves [q. v.], and of John Greaves [q. v.] He was educated at Charterhouse School, and was admitted scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 1627, becoming fellow in 1636, and deputy-reader of Arabic 1637. He proceeded B.D. in 1641, and was appointed rector of Dunsby, near Sleaford, in Lincolnshire. He also held another living near London. He made a deposition on behalf of his brother, John Greaves, when the latter was ejected from his professorship at Merton. He proceeded D.D. in 1661, and was admitted to a prebend in the cathedral of Peterborough 23 Oct. 1666 (Le Neve, Fasti, ii.548), being then rector of Benefield in Northamptonshire. He was obliged to resign this rectory some years before his death on account of an impediment in his speech. The latter part of his life was spent at Weldon in Northamptonshire, where he had purchased an estate, and dying there in 1676, he was buried in the chancel of Weldon Church. The inscription on his gravestone called him 'Vir summæ pietatis et eruditionis; in philosophicis paucis secundus; in philologicis peritissimis par; in linguis Orientalibus plerisque major, quarum Persicam notis in appendice ad Biblia Polyglotta doctissime illustravit. Arabicam publice in Academia Oxon. professus est, dignissimus etiam qui et theologiam in eodem loco profiteretur; poeta insuper et orator insignis; atque in mathematicis profunde doctus.' His works are: 1. 'De linguæ Arabicæ utilitate et præstantia,' 1637 (see 'Letters to Thomas Greaves' by J. Selden and A. Wheelock, professor of Arabic at Cambridge, in Birch's Preface to the Miscellaneous Works of John Greaves, 1737, p. 67 sq.) 2. 'Observationes quædam in Persicam Pentateuchi versionem.' 3. 'Annotationes quædam in Persicam Interpretationem Evangeliorum,' both printed in vol. vi. of the 'Polyglot Bible,' 1647. He was probably also the author of 'A Sermon at Rotterdam,' 1763, and 'A brief Summary of Christian Religion.' Besides these works he contemplated a 'Treatise against Mahometanism,' as appears from a letter to his friend Baxter (published in Birch's Preface).

[Biog. Brit. 1757, iv. 2279; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ii. 2, 147; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 1061; Ward's Gresham Professors, 1740, pp. 145, 152; Macray's Annals of Bodleian.]

N. D. F. P.

GREEN, AMOS (1735–1807), painter, born in 1735 at Halesowen, near Birmingham, where his family owned a small property, was apprenticed to Baskerville, the Birmingham printer. He was chiefly occupied in painting trays and boxes, but soon developed a love of painting and drawing. His specialty lay