that the concession with which he commenced his reign did not proceed from any lack of spirit or courage. Accompanying his generals, Nanienus and Mellobaudes, at the head of his array, he contributed by his personal gallantry, if not to the victory at Colmar, to the subsequent successes of the campaign. Meanwhile his uncle Valens, who ruled the eastern division of the empire, by permitting the Goths to settle on the southern side of the Danube, had involved himself in a formidable contest with their leader, Fritigern. Gratian now hastened to afford his kinsman assistance, and Count Richomar was despatched to counsel the avoidance of an engagement until the advancing succours had arrived. But Valens rashly hazarded a battle near Adrianople, in which he was defeated and slain. The tidings of this calamity compelled Gratian to alter his plans. While the Goths swept onward to attempt the capture of Constantinople, the emperor sadly retraced his steps, for the purpose of strengthening his defences and consulting for the recovery of the eastern empire. His own dominions being threatened by the barbarians of Germany, it was necessary to intrust one of his generals with the more distant enterprise, or to place the sceptre of Valens in the hand of a successor capable of meeting the emergency. The latter course was wisely preferred; nor was less wisdom displayed in conferring the vacant dignity on the exiled duke of Mœsia, who afterwards won for himself the honourable appellation of Theodosius the Great. Gratian seems to have felt a sincere regard for Christianity. His rejection of the old Roman title of Pontifex Maximus, his removal of the altar of victory from the senate house, and his confiscation of revenues which had been devoted to the support of paganism, indicated the bent of his religious policy, while his letter to Ambrose of Milan, requesting the instructions of that prelate, breathed the spirit of an anxious inquirer after divine truth. But deep shadows fell upon the closing years of his brief reign. Neglecting the cares of government in literary pursuits, and exchanging martial exercises for the amusements of the chace, he lost the confidence of his subjects, and gave occasion to serious discontent among his troops. The legions in Britain revolted, and proclaimed Maximus emperor. The latter speedily appeared in Gaul at the head of a formidable army, and Gratian fled to Lyons, where he was betrayed and put to death in 383.—W. B.
GRATIANI. See Graziani.
GRATIANUS or GRAZIANO, born at Chiusi in Tuscany at the beginning of the twelfth century. He passed the greater part of his life in the convent of San Felice at Bologna, and was a teacher in the university. He became celebrated as the author of the great collection of ecclesiastical acts and decrees which goes under the title of "Decretum Gratiani," or simply "Decretum." Though assumed by mediæval canonists as an unquestionable authority, the work of Gratian is in reality open to grave objections. Much of it in the progress of historical criticism has been proved to be altogether apocryphal, as for instance the so-called Decretals of Isidorus, of which, as adopted by the canonist, the popes of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made so formidable a use. Gratian died at Bologna, but the year of his death is unknown.—A. S., O.
GRATIUS, Faliscus. See Faliscus.
GRATIUS or GRAEZ, Ortuinus, made famous by the ridicule of the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum, was born at Holtwick in the neighbourhood of Munster, and is sometimes called Daventriensis from having been educated at the school of Deventer under Alexander Hegio. In 1509 he began to teach humaniora in the gymnasium of Cologne, and two years later he was made professor of philosophy, and finally director of that institution. In his "Apologia adversus Jo. Reuchlinum," and his "Lamentationes Obscurorum Virorum," Coloniæ, 1518, he made abortive attempts to revenge himself upon his formidable enemies. Another of his productions was "Fasciculus rerum expetendarum ac fugiendarum," 1535, folio. He died at Cologne in 1542.—P. L.
GRATTAN, Henry, the Right Hon., the most distinguished Irish statesman during the most important period in the history of that country; when, chiefly owing to his patriotic exertions, England was constrained to relax the unjust and despotic policy which she had previously maintained as regarded the constitutional rights and national industry of Ireland. His great-grandfather, Patrick Grattan, had been a senior fellow of Trinity college, Dublin, and by marriage acquired a small landed estate in the county of Cavan, which was enjoyed by his descendants. Grattan's maternal ancestors were the Marlays, a family of Norman extraction, one of whom, Anthony, came to Dublin in the duke of Ormond's regiment in 1677; and his grandson, Thomas, became chief-justice of Ireland. Of the sons of the latter, one served under Prince Ferdinand at the battle of Minden; another was bishop of Waterford; and Mary, his daughter, and mother of the subject of this memoir, was married to Henry Grattan, a lawyer, who was recorder and afterwards member of parliament for Dublin, where his distinguished son was born on the 3rd July, 1746. Neither at school nor at college, where he entered in 1763, did he display any special aptitude for study, his attention being more attracted to the observation of political occurrences; and at this early period his spirits were overcast by differences with his father, chiefly arising out of public matters, in which the tory predilections of his family had already become distasteful to the future advocate of popular rights. On the death of his father, Grattan succeeded to the patrimony of the family, and in 1767 entered himself at the middle temple in London. But the debates in the houses of parliament had even a greater effect in drawing him away from legal study, than his discussions under the paternal roof had in detaching him from the pursuits of college. These, and his taste for the drama and private theatricals, with a predilection for light literature, and an aptitude for graceful composition, all operated to the prejudice of his attainments as a lawyer. At the Irish bar, to which he was called in 1772, he was neither eminent nor successful, his time and attention being devoted to his political friends, and to the society of that section of Irish patriots who played so eminent a part at the close of the last century. At length, in 1775, he was elected as its representative by the borough of Charlemont, and on the 11th December he took his seat in the Irish house of commons. The story of Mr. Grattan's life from this date till that of his death in 1820, is so identified with the great struggles of his country, that it forms the leading feature in the history of Ireland throughout this momentous period. In these great conflicts with power his nervous and passionate eloquence was so sustained by his lofty and unsullied reputation, that his influence in Ireland became extraordinary. To the influence of moral force that of physical was soon superadded; and inspired by his exhortations and example, the people of Ireland organized that celebrated army of volunteers whose calm and determined attitude exercised so powerful an influence over the deliberations of the British cabinet, and led to those important concessions by which the demands of Irish justice extorted a tardy acquiescence from the apprehensions of England. In 1782 the British legislature consented to the repeal of the obnoxious statute of George I., by which, notwithstanding the recognized existence of the Irish parliament, Ireland was held to be bound by acts passed in the parliament of Great Britain, and the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish peers was transferred to the English house of lords. For the powerful and successful services of Grattan in these memorable discussions the parliament of Ireland proposed the grant to him of £100,000, which, at his own instance, was r educed to one half; and out of this sum an estate was purchased in the Queen's county, and entailed on him and his heirs. But public rewards, however just in their bestowal, are seldom conferred without exposing their recipients to misrepresentation; and during many following years Grattan had to encounter the attacks of Mr. Flood, a rival in every way worthy of him.—(See Flood, Henry.) His attacks upon Grattan were based on the alleged fallacy of assuming that the repeal of the act in question, although ostensibly it recalled the declaration of the intention of the British parliament to bind the people of Ireland, amounted to a virtual surrender of the power to do so. Flood's motion was defeated; but his sophistry threatened for a time to undermine the popularity of his illustrious opponent, till Grattan more than re-established himself in public favour by his successful opposition in 1785 to the Orde propositions, by which it was sought to impose upon Ireland the obligation, in all matters affecting trade, of adopting and giving effect to such statutes as the parliament of England might think proper to enact. In the enthusiasm with which he was hailed for this, and a rapid succession of other triumphs, Grattan was returned in 1790 as the representative of the metropolis; but he considerably alienated the attachment of his new constituency in Dublin by his advocacy of Roman catholic emancipation. In 1798, disheartened by the recall of Earl Fitzwilliam from the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland, and by the insurrection which burst forth in that year,
