events by more than two thousand years to blame particular portions of the famous tribune's conduct; but it is better for us to suppose that we are mistaken from not being acquainted with all the facts. The brief, brilliant, troubled career of thirty-five years terminated 133 b.c.—W. M—l.
GRACCHUS, Caius Sempronius, was born 159 b.c., and died 121 b.c., at the age of thirty-eight. He perished in the endeavour to continue and consummate the reforms begun by his brother Tiberius; but though he had the same enthusiasm, the same disinterestedness, the same patriotic fervour, he had scarcely the same loftiness of principle. Even his enemies admitted that he was foremost among Roman orators, and from his eloquence, which was both insinuating and vehement, much of his influence was derived. Like his brother and Romans of rank generally, he began his career in the army and served for some time in Spain. He had not long returned to Rome before Tiberius was slain. To be his avenger and the avenger of the Roman people became his fixed resolve. But he knew how jealously he was watched by the aristocratical party, and therefore he seemed for a season disinclined to take any part in political affairs. As quæstor he followed to Sardinia the Roman army, commanded by the consul Aurelius Orestes. Here he obtained such immense popularity that the oligarchical faction dreaded his return to Rome. Aurelius Orestes was therefore ordered to remain in Sardinia, which implied that the quæstor, Caius Gracchus, should remain there too. To defeat this trickery Gracchus at once returned. The patricians thought to crush him by accusing him of desertion. He not only defended himself in a magnificent speech, but denounced the corruption and unveiled the crimes of his enemies. Other accusations flung at him he converted in the same way into victories. For years before his death he sought the tribunate, and though his foes were active as they were virulent, they could not prevent his election. The Gracchi were cast in a mould too tender for the stern work they had to do. Their sympathies were stronger than their will. Though Caius Gracchus was eminently brave, yet he was deficient in persistent, indomitable purpose. It was through his own fault then, through something which it would be ungenerous to call weakness, that he failed in his conflict with his opponents. Under Caius the field of contest considerably widened. An agrarian law was no longer deemed sufficient by those who aspired to annihilate that monopoly of power, which for generations the senate had been misusing for selfish objects. The first blows of Caius Gracchus were struck at the murderers of his brother. He then renewed the agrarian law. But a law which more immediately affected the Roman population, was that whereby grain was sold to the people at little more than nominal prices. Measures of less doubtful policy and propriety than the last were the erection of public granaries, the building of bridges, and the making of roads to facilitate the intercourse between Rome and subject or allied countries, the restoration of the cities which had been destroyed by the Romans, and the planting there or elsewhere of Roman colonies. Of the political reforms which Caius Gracchus carried through, one of the most important was that by which judiciary power was taken from the senate and conferred on the equestrian order. To overwhelm the senate he had two other innovations in store. One was conferring the right of citizenship on the inhabitants of the Italian provinces; the other was adding to the senate members of the equestrian order, whereby the number of senators would have been increased threefold. The game which the senate now played has been often played since. It can seldom fail at first, but it is sure at last to be as disastrous as it is dishonourable. One of the colleagues of Caius Gracchus, Marcus Livius Drusus, a man of enormous wealth, and of unscrupulous, intriguing spirit, lent himself willingly to the schemes of the senate. Whenever Caius Gracchus proposed a reform, Drusus brought forward another, in the sense and the direction of the most outrageous democracy. The senate by affecting to accept the measures of Drusus, destroyed the popularity of Gracchus. The latter, from a motive which it is now difficult to explain or to understand, retired from the scene. He conducted to Carthage the Roman colony which had resolved to settle there. When again in Rome, he found he had still less influence than when he left it two months before. His fiercest foes were in power; and Opimius, who was implacably hostile to him, his opinion and his party, had been appointed consul. No choice remained to Gracchus but civil war; and from this, perhaps from a noble impulse which we ought to respect, he shrank. His unflinching friend, Fulvius Flaccus, had taken a military position near the temple of Diana, and called the people to arms. There Caius Gracchus joined him, but wished to negotiate with the senate. The negotiations were fruitless. Opimius, thirsting for blood, led his soldiers to the attack. Flaccus, his son, and more than three thousand adherents of Gracchus, were slain. The senate rioted in baseness and atrocity. Gracchus fled to a little wood, where he ordered a slave to kill him; the slave then killed himself Ten years after, the fickle people, ashamed of having deserted their valiant, magnanimous champions, erected statues to the Gracchi, and declared sacred the places where they died.—W. M—l.
GRACE, Richard, Colonel, was a lineal descendant of Raymond le Gros, being the younger son of Robert Grace, baron of Courtstown in the county Kilkenny. He distinguished himself in the service of Charles I., and uniformly proved a formidable foe to the parliamentary army both in England and Ireland. Oxford having surrendered to Cromwell in 1646, Grace proceeded to his native country, where he raised five thousand men, and harassed the parliamentary force so successfully, that we find a reward of £500 offered for his head. In 1652 Cromwell came to terms with him, and Grace was permitted to emigrate with his regiment to the continent, where he signalized himself in the service of France and Spain. On the Restoration, Grace accompanied James to Ireland, and continued, even after the flight of that prince, a devoted adherent to the Jacobite cause. Grace had been appointed governor of Athlone; and it was his conduct, while in this capacity, that has chiefly contributed to impart a historic interest to his name. His enthusiasm and activity in the royal cause knew no rest. He was a rigid disciplinarian; but his conduct to the protestants, when in his power, was honourable and humane. The pertinacity with which he held out against superior numbers was very striking. The Williamite commander at last sent a messenger for the object of effecting a capitulation, but Grace's reply was a pistol shot, adding—"These are my terms; these only will I give or receive; and when my provisions are consumed, I will defend till I eat my old boots." He defeated an attempt made by the Williamite army to cross the Shannon, and at length absolutely forced it to retreat from before Athlone. Ginkell, however, surprised it during the following year. Great carnage ensued, and the body of the venerable Grace was found among the slain.—W. J. F.
GRACIAN, Balthazar, a Spanish author, chiefly remarkable as having followed up the "cultismo," or affected classicalism which reigned under the name of "Gongorism" in the seventeenth century. Little is known of his life, except that he was a jesuit of Arragon. His birth is by some fixed as early as 1584, and his death in 1658; but the precise time is uncertain. The chief merit of this author is exemplified in the allegorical work entitled "Criticon," which Ticknor compares to the Pilgrim's Progress. Many of his works were published in the name of his brother Lorenzo; there are various editions of the collected writings.—F. M. W.
GRADENIGO, Giovanni Agostino, an archæologist and biographer, born at Venice on the 10th of July, 1725, entered the benedictine order in 1744, taught philosophy at Mantua, and became bishop of Chioggia, and subsequently of Ceneda. He corresponded with Mazzuchelli, Lami, Morelli, Mansi, and many other celebrated men, and left a great number of works enumerated by Tippaldo. He died 16th of March, 1774.—A. C. M.
GRADENIGO, Pietro, Doge of Venice from 1289 to 1311. Before his election the constitution of Venice was in some measure democratic, the great council being open to citizens who could command the necessary suffrages of the people. An aristocratic coup d'etat, however, had been long prepared by the Venetian nobles. Gradenigo accomplished it, and maintained by his energy the new system of government. After the death of the Doge Giovanni Dandolo in 1289, the people, suspicious of the aristocracy, attempted to exclude from the election of the new doge the forty-one electors of the nobility, and unanimously offered supreme power to Giacomo Tiepolo. But Giacomo preferred to exile himself from his native town, rather than become the ringleader of a civil war, and the aristocratic electors availing themselves of the disorganization of their opponents which followed that step, elected Pietro Gradenigo, who was no sooner in power than he enacted a law excluding the people from any share in the formation of the great council. Thus the senate of the republic was changed from an elective representa-
