of the value of such a thing far behind. He certainly assisted, however, in laying the foundation of a remedy for the evil which he, more than any other man, had occasioned. This school Sir James continued at his own house in the Piazza for some years. His death, in 1734, obliged the artists to procure another situation, which was not effected without some difficulty; for the people at first regarded the study from the naked figure as immoral. Another school was at length formed by Michael Moser, a native of Schaffhausen, and a chaser by profession, and six other artists, principally foreigners, the management resting with Moser. After a while, they were visited by Hogarth and others, and a larger body was formed in consequence, who established themselves in Peter's Court, St. Martin's-lane, in the year 1739. Having acquired some property by combined exhibitions of their works, they solicited a charter of incorporation, and, the scheme being sanctioned by his late majesty, their charter was granted in 1765. But, dissensions arising in the body, a secession of many of its principal members took place, and the result was the establishment of the Royal Academy in 1768, under the more immediate patronage of the king; Sir Joshua Reynolds being nominated its first president.

On the success of Hogarth, Reynolds, and Wilson, several other societies were also formed throughout the kingdom, for the avowed purpose of patronising and cultivating the imitative art. Richardson, whose tracts ought to be known to every student and amateur of painting, died in 1745, at the advanced age of eighty. He was a bad painter, but his treatises on the art are full of enthusiasm, and of judicious observations on the theory of the art. Of one of these Sir Joshua Reynolds declared, that it had confirmed him in his love of the art, and elevated his ideas of its professors. Richardson contended strenuously for the propriety of painting portraits in the costume of their time; thus striking at the absurd system of flowing robes, which had been adopted by Kneller.

This period may be denominated the infancy of English art; and it is not a little curious, that, at the time when painting was verging towards a state of hopeless decline all over the continent of Europe, it should have revived, and that to no small purpose, in these islands, the inhabitants of which had been frequently taunted by foreigners as unable to execute a fine painting. We shall not dwell on its incipient state of improvement; indeed, the commendations bestowed on the painters alluded to above regard the principle of imitation rather than the thing imitated, since nothing could possibly be more untasteful or repulsive than the stiff, starch, and unsightly uniform (both male and female) of those days. But, the principle of attention to actual representation once established, it soon produced the fruits of a better taste in the art generally; and, accordingly, it was not long before the matchless talent of Hogarth beamed forth in unapproachable splendor to gild the onward progress of the muse of painting, and to herald the appearance of a kindred genius in the person of Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Sir Joshua was the first president of the Royal Academy; and on his return from Rome, at a previous part of his life, carried the art (at least as far as regards portrait-painting) to its very highest point of perfection.

What Reynolds did for portrait-painting, his distinguished contemporary, Wilson, did for landscape. He also had studied at Rome, and brought home from thence a refined taste, and a power of execution at once chaste, glowing, and brilliant: while, in the historical department, Sir Joshua's successor, the late lamented Mr. West, without rivalling either of the three great names just mentioned, yet displayed sufficient ability to throw completely into the back ground what had been previously produced by the successors of Sir James Thornhill, Hayman, Pine, and Whale. Besides West, honorable mention must ever be made of the names of Romney, Opie, Barry, and Fuseli.'

The present state of painting in this country is certainly encouraging to the lover of art. In portrait, besides the highly-gifted president of the academy, Sir Thomas Lawrence, we have several other eminent professors: in landscape, and marine subjects, Turner and Callcott are at the head of a numerous body of followers. The pencil of Wilkie throws a brilliant lustre over both the humorous and pathetic departments of art; and in the arduous walk of history (a walk of art which, although it is entitled, when successfully pursued, to the highest honors, is too often followed without either profit or distinction), there are several names which we might select, whose bearers appear to us qualified to elevate the national reputation far higher than it has ever hitherto been raised. For the truth of these observations, we need only appeal to the annual exhibitions both at Somerset House and at the British Institution.

In sculpture, England, down to the Reformation, kept pace, at least, with her continental neighbours, as the west front of the cathedral of Wells (executed in the reign of Henry III.), Exeter, Litchfield, and Salisbury cathedrals, but more especially Henry VII's. chapel in Westminster Abbey may testify. After this period we became for a time superstitiously afraid of superstition; and whatever painting or statuary was required for the decoration of houses, tombs, &c., was supplied from abroad. The best existing specimens of this imported skill is found in the statues of raving and melancholy madness at the New Bedlam gates, the bas relief on the pedestal of the London column, the kings in the Royal Exchange, &c. : Roubilliac executed several of the best monuments for Westminster Abbey.

The establishment of the Royal Academy has been the resurrection of this art. Banks, Bacon, and Flaxman need only be named to prove this; and many of the works of living sculptors may be with advantage compared with the best productions of the continent.

Before the Reformation there was but one kind of music in Europe worth notice, the plain sacred chant, and the descant built upon it.That music likewise was applied to one language only, the Latin. Hence the compositions of

Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Flanders, and England, kept pace with each other in style and excellence. All the arts seem to have been the companions of successful commerce, and during the sixteenth century became general in every part of Europe. In this century music was an indispensable part of polite education. There is a collection preserved in MS. called Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book. Tallis, profound in musical composition, and Bird his admirable scholar, were two of the authors of this collection.

In the seventeenth century musical writers and composers, who acquired fame in England, were, Dr. N. Giles, Thomas Tomkins and his son, Elway Bevin, Dr. Orlando Gibbons, William Lawes, Dr. John Wilson, Hilton, Playford, captain Henry Cook, Humphrey, Dr. Blow, Dr. Turner, Dr. Christopher Gibbons, Dr. Benjamin Rogers, and Henry Purcell. About the end of the reign of James I. a music lecture or professorship was founded in the university of Oxford by Dr. William Hychin. In the reign of Charles I. a charter was granted to the musicians of Westminster, incorporating them as the king's musicians, into a body politic, with powers to prosecute and fine all who, except themselves, should 'attempt to make any benefit or advantage of music in England or Wales.'

manner.

About the end of the reign of Charles II. a passion was excited in England for the violin, and for pieces composed for it, in the Italian Prior to 1600 there was little other music except masses and madrigals; but, from that time to the present, dramatic music became the chief object. The year 1710 is distinguished in the annals of music by the arrival in Britain of George Frederic Handel. See HANDEL. The fame of this great musician, if not altogether the property, may redeem the musical taste of this country from that utter contempt in which some foreign writers hold it: for here he was cherished and enriched. Since Purcell's time the chief composers for the church in England have been Clark, Dr. Holder, Dr. Creighton, Tucker, Dr.Aldrich, Goldwin, Weldon, Dr. Croft, Dr. Greene, Dr. Boyce, Dr. Nares, Kent, and Stanley, and finer cathedral music is known in no part of the world. On the state of ENGRAVING in England, see that article.

6. Our colonial establishments and dependencies may be thus exhibited :

Including the specie exported.

£1,371,666

453,666

418,333

£2,243,665

The value of goods imported is increased by the freight, interest of money, expected profit, &c.; and, though fluctuating, may be averaged at this period at £3,000,000 sterling; and the seamen employed, at 6000. Since the trade has been laid open to the out-ports, it has been much altered, and has been so fluctuating as at present to be altogether uncertain in amount. The tonnage of shipping cleared outwards to the East Indies, was, according to the custom-house returns, dated 1st of May, 1818:

But the average size of a West Indiaman,which, in 1783, was only 200 tons (registry), is now fully 320. The revenue arising from West India imports is £5,000,000, annually, of which about £3,000,000 are from sugar; the rest chiefly from rum. The trade of these colonies has been long exposed to great fluctuations.

On the whole it has been calculated, that the authority of Britain extends over nearly twothirds of the globe, with respect to longitude. There are consequently, various places within these limits that have noon and midnight at the same moment, and the sun never sinks below the horizon of the whole. Stretching also from the sixty-first degree of north latitude to the thirty-third of south, the four seasons of the prevail at the same time. It appears, in fact, says a modern writer, that at this time the British possess more territory, more wealth, greater variety of produce, greater population, superior religion, as much liberty, greater security, more commerce, superior agriculture, and greater revenues, than ever were possessed by any other

nation, ancient or modern.'

year

GREAT ISLAND, an island in Bass's Strait, between New Holland and Van Diemen's Land, about forty miles long, and from fifteen to twenty in breadth. The soil is shallow, and vegetation low. The shore is frequented by immense quantities of seals and sea-fowl. Long. 148° E., lat. 40° S.

GREAT ISLAND, an island on the coast of Ireland, in the county of Cork, five miles long, and from one to three broad. It is formed by the river Lee in Cork harbour.

as much.

As may renown thy workmanship, and honour him Chapman's Iliads. GREAVES (John), an eminent physician and antiquary, was born in 1602, and educated at Baliol College, Oxford, from which he removed to Merton. He was afterwards chosen professor of geometry, in Gresham College. His ardent thirst of knowledge led him to travel into several parts of Europe. He next undertook a voyage to the east, where, with indefatigable industry, and even at the peril of his life, he collected a considerable number of Arabic, Persic, and Greek MSS. for archbishop Laud. He also collected for that prelate many oriental gems and coins, and took a more accurate survey of the pyramids than any traveller who went before him. On his return from the east he visited several parts of Italy a second time. Soon after he finished his second voyage he was chosen Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, for which he was eminently qualified. His books relating to Oriental learning, his Pyramidographia, or a description of the pyramids in Egypt, and his Epocha Celebriores, prove him to have been a man of no small literary attainments. He

died in 1652.

GREBNA, a town of European Turkey, in Thessaly, situated at the junction of a number of roads leading from Albania, Livadia, and the north-east of Macedon. It is a place of considerable traffic, and the country adjacent is fertile. Fifty miles north by east of Joannina, and fiftysix south-west of Salonica.

GRE'CISM, n. s. Lat. græcismus. An idiom of the Greek language.

GRECOURT (Jean Baptiste Joseph Villart de), a French ecclesiastic and poet, was born in 1683 at Tours, in which city he obtained the benefice of St. Martin. But he was found more commonly at Paris, where he had received his education, and associated with most of the leading wits of his day, particularly with the marechal d'Estrées. He excelled in epigrams, tales, and sonnets, a collection of which was made and published, in three octavo volumes, about twenty years after his decease, in 1743.

Good will; favor; good graces. Obsolete. GREE, n. s. Fr. gré, probably from gratia.

For sith a woman wos so patient, Unto a mortal man, wel, more, we ought Receiven all in gree that God us sent. Chaucer. The Clerkes Tale. ⚫ And falling her before on lowly knee, To her makes present of his service seen, Which she accepts with thanks and goodly gree. Spenser.

GREECE, n. s. Corrupted from degrees. It is written likewise greeze or grice. A flight of steps. Obsolete.

Every greece of fortune

Shakspeare.

Is smothered by that below. After the procession, the king himself remaining seated in the quire, the lord archbishop, upon the Bacon. greece of the quire, made a long oration.

GREECE, in many respects the most deservedly celebrated country in the world, was anciently bounded on the north by Macedonia and the river Strymon; on the west by the Ionian Sea; on the south by the Mediterranean; on the east by the Egean Sea and Archipelago. It extended from the Strymon, by which it was parted from Thrace, to the promontory of Tænarus, the southmost point of the Peloponnesus, now the Morea, about 6° 20′ of latitude, or nearly 440 English miles, and in breadth from east to west about 359 miles.

The general names by which the inhabitants of this country were known to the ancients were those of Graioi, or Graicoi, whence the name of Greece is plainly derived. These are thought to come from Græcus, the father, or (according to some) the son, of Thessalus, who gave name to Thessaly; but some modern critics derive them from Raga, the same with Reu, the son of Peleg, by the transposition of a letter to soften the sound. These names were afterwards changed for Achæi or Achivi, and Hellenes; the first, as is supposed, from Achæus, the son of Xuthus, the son of Hellen, and father of Lon; or, according to the fable, the son of Jupiter: the other from Hellen, abovė mentioned, the son of Deucalion, and father of Dorus, from whom came the Dores, afterwards a famous nation among the Greeks. Another name by which the Greeks were known, in some parts of the country, was that of Pelasgi, which the Arcadians, the most ancient people in Greece, deduced from their pretended founder Pelasgus; who is said to have obtained such footing in Peloponnesus, that the whole peninsula from him was called Pelasgia. But the most ancient name of all is universally allowed to have been that of Iones, which the Greeks themselves derived from Ion, the son of Xuthus; or, as the fable has it, of Apollo, by Creusa the daughter of Erechtheus the grandson of Deucalion. Josephus, however, affirms, that their original is of much older date; and that Javan, the son of Japhet, and grandson of Noah, was the first who peopled these countries; which Bochart has also rendered very probable. It is true, indeed, that among the Greeks themselves, only the Athenians and such colonies as sprung from them, were called Iones; but it is also plain beyond exception, that other nations gave this name to all the inhabitants of Greece.

The inhabitants of Greece in the first ages, according to their own historians, appear to have been perfectly barbarous. They lived indifferently on every fruit, herb, or root that came in their way; and lay either in the open fields, or

at best sheltered themselves in dens, caves, and hollow trees: while the country itself remained one uncultivated desert. The first improvement they made, was the exchanging of their old food for the more wholesome acorns, building huts for themselves to sleep in, and covering their bodies with the skins of beasts. For all this, it seems, they were beholden to Pelasgus, above mentioned (supposed by some to be the Peleg of Scripture), and who was highly reverenced by them on that account. This reformation in their way of life, however, it seems, wrought none in their manners. On the contrary, they who had nothing to fight for but a hole to sleep in, began now to envy and rob one another. This, in process of time, put them under a necessity of joining themselves into companies under some head, that they might either more safely plunder their neighbours, or preserve what they had got. Laws they had none except that of the sword; so that those only lived in safety who inhabited the most barren and craggy places; and hence Greece for a long time had no settled inhabitants; the weak being always expelled by the strong. Their gigantic size and strength, if we may believe Plutarch, added so much to their insolence and cruelty, that they seemed to glory in committing the greatest acts of violence and barbarity on those that unhappily fell into their hands.

The next advance towards civilisation was their forming themselves into regular societies to cultivate the lands, and build towns and cities. But their original barbarity and mutual violence prevented them from uniting as one nation, or even into any considerable community: and hence the great number of states into which Greece was originally divided. The most remarkable of these small principalities mentioned in history are the following: in Peloponnesus were those of Sicyon, Argos, Corinth, Messenia, Arcadia, and Lacedæmon. In Græcia Propria (that part of Greece which lay without Peloponnesus), were those of Attica, Megaris, Boeotia, Locris, Epicnemidia, Doris, Phocis, Ozolæa, and Ætolia. In Epirus, were the Molossi, Amphilochi, Cassiopæi, Dryopes, Chaones, Thesproti, Almeni, and Acarnanes. In Thessaly were those of Thessaliotis, Estiæotis, Pelasgiotis, Magnesia, and Phthiotis. All these were at one time or other severally governed by kings of their own, though we only find the names of some of them mentioned in the histories of the more considerable kingdoms of Sparta, Attica, Thebes, &c.

The erection of these kingdoms, however, for some time, did not much alter their manners; the inhabitants of the new kingdoms plundered and destroyed one another without mercy. Attica was the only place in any degree free from these incursions, because it was naturally destitute of every thing that could invite a plundering enemy; but those cities fared much worse which were situated on the sea-coasts; because they were in continual danger of being plundered either by sea or land; for pirates at that