GRESHAM, SIR THOMAS, founder of the Royal Exchange, born in London; son of Sir Richard Gresham, a wealthy mercer, who was knighted and made Lord Mayor in Henry VIII.’s reign; after studying at Cambridge entered the Mercers’ Company, and in 1552, as “King’s agent” in Antwerp, negotiated important loans with the Flemish merchants; under the Catholic regime of Mary he was dismissed, but was shortly after restored, and in 1559 appointed ambassador in Antwerp; between 1566 and 1571 he carried through his project of erecting an Exchange, and his munificence was further displayed in the founding of a college and eight almshouses; in 1569 he was instrumental in bringing about the important fiscal arrangement of borrowing from home merchants instead of as formerly from foreign merchants (1519-1579).

GRESHAM COLLEGE, college founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1575, and managed by the Mercer’s Company, London, where lectures are delivered, twelve each year, by successive lecturers on physics, rhetoric, astronomy, law, geometry, music, and divinity, to form part of the teaching of University College.

GRETCHEN, the German diminutive for Margaret, and the name of the guileless girl seduced by Faust in Goethe’s tragedy of the name.

GRETNA GREEN, a village in Dumfriesshire, over the border from England, famous from 1754 to 1856 for clandestine marriages, which used latterly to be celebrated in the blacksmith’s shop.

GRETRY, a celebrated musical composer, born at Liege, composed 40 operas marked by feeling and expression, the “Deux Avares,” “Zemire et Azor,” and “Richard Coeur de Lion” among them; he bought Rousseau’s hermitage at Montmorency, where he died (1741-1813).

GREUZE, JEAN BAPTISTE, a French painter, much esteemed for his portraits and exquisite genre pieces; he died in poverty (1725-1805).

GREVE, PLACE DE, place of public execution in Paris at one time.

GREVILLE, CHARLES CAVENDISH FULKE, celebrated for his “Memoirs”; after quitting Oxford he acted as private secretary to Earl Bathurst, and from 1821 to 1860 was Clerk of the Council in Ordinary; it was during his tenure of this office that he enjoyed exceptional opportunities of meeting the public men of his times, and of studying the changing phases of political and court-life of which he gives so lively a picture in his “Memoirs” (1794-1865).

GREVILLE, FULKE, a minor English poet, born at Beauchamp Court, Warwickshire; was educated at Cambridge and Oxford; travelled on the Continent; played a part in the court-life of Elizabeth’s time; was knighted in 1597, and in 1620 was created Lord Brooke; he was murdered in a scuffle with his valet (1554-1628).

GREVILLE, HENRY, the pseudonym of Madame Alice Durand (nee Fleury), novelist, born at Paris; her works, which are numerous, contain lively pictures of life in Russia, in which country, in St. Petersburg, she spent 15 years of her life (1857-72), and married Emile Durand, a French professor of Law; since 1872 she has lived in France; b. 1842.