GROSSMITH, GEORGE, actor, famous for leading parts in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas, and since as giving single-handed dramatic sketches and songs, written by himself and set to music by himself; b. 1847.

GROSSMITH, WEEDON, actor, artist, and contributor to Art Magazine and Punch; brother of preceding.

GROSSETESTE, ROBERT, a famous bishop of Lincoln, born at Stradbroke, Suffolk, of peasant parents; a man of rare learning, he became a lecturer in the Franciscan school at Oxford, and rose through various stages to be bishop of Lincoln in 1235; he was an active Parliamentarian, and gave valuable assistance to his friend Simon de Montfort in the struggle with Henry III., and headed the Church reform party against the nepotism of Innocent IV.; according to Stubbs, “he was the most learned, the most acute, and most holy man of his time” (1175-1253).

GROTE, GEORGE, historian and politician, born at Clay Hill, near Beckenham, of German descent; was a banker to business; spent his leisure time in the study of philosophy and history; contributed to the Westminster Review, a philosophical Radical organ at that time; represented the City of London in that interest from 1833 to 1841, when he retired to devote all his time to his “History of Greece,” of which the first volumes appeared In 1846 and the last in 1856, making 12 volumes in all; this work contributed to dispel many erroneous impressions, in regard particularly to Athens and its political constitution; wrote on Plato and Aristotle, but his philosophical creed made it impossible for him to do justice to the Greek metaphysics (1791-1871).

GROTEFEND, GEORG FRIEDRICH, antiquary and philologist, born at Minden, Hanover; was director of the Lyceum, Hanover; was the first to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions, a discovery which he gave to the world in 1802 (1775-1853).

GROTESQUE, THE, the combination in art of heterogeneous parts, suggested by some whimsically designed paintings in the artificial grottoes of Roman houses.

GROTIUS, HUGO, or HUIG VAN GROOT, a celebrated Dutch jurist and theologian, born at Delft; studied at Leyden under Scaliger, and displayed an extraordinary precocity in learning; won the patronage of Henri IV. while on an embassy to France; practised at the bar in Leyden, and in 1613 was appointed pensionary of Rotterdam; he became embroiled in a religious dispute, and for supporting the Arminians was sentenced to imprisonment for life; escaped in a book chest (a device of his wife), fled to Paris, and was pensioned by Louis XIII.; in 1625 he published his famous work on international law, “De Jure Belli et Pacis”; from 1634 to 1645 he acted as Swedish ambassador at Paris; his acute scholarship is manifested in various theological, historical, and legal treatises; his work “De Veritate Religionis Christiana;” is well known (1583-1645).