Chapter Gradus to Grapes Painted of G by Brewer's Readers Handbook

and astifarous constellations;” and when Gradus says, “It is a rant in English,” the old man boils with indignation. “Zounds!” says he; “d’ye take me for a fool? D’ye think I don’t know my own mother tongue? ‘Twas no more like English than I am like Whittington’s cat!” and he drives off Gradus as a vile impostor.—Mrs. Cowley: Who’s the Dupe?

Granger. (See Edith, p. 314.)

Grangousier, father of Gargantua, “a g ood sort of a fellow in his younger days, and a notable jester. He loved to drink neat, and would eat salt meat” (bk. i. 3). He married Gargamelle, daughter of the king of the Parpaillons, and had a son named Gargantua.—Rabelais; Gargantua, i. 3 (1533).

“Grangousier” is meant for John d’Albret, king of Navarre; “Gargamelle” for Catherine de Foix, queen of Navarre; and “Gargantua” for Henri d’Albret, king of Navarre. Some fancy that “Grangousier” is meant for Louis XII., but this cannot be, inasmuch as he is distinctly called a “heretic for declaiming against the saints” (ch. xlv.).

Grania. (See Dermat O’Dyna.)

Grantam (Miss), a friend of Miss Godfrey, engaged to sir James Elliot.—Foote: The Liar (1761).

Grantmesnil (Sir Hugh de), one of the knights challengers at the tournament.—Sir W. Scott: Ivanhoe (time, Richard I.).

Grantorto, the personification of rebellion in general, and of the evil genius of the Irish rebellion of 1580 in particular. Grantorto is represented as a huge giant, who withheld from Irena [i.e. Ierne or Ireland] her inheritance. Sir Artegal [Arthur lord Grey of Wilton], being sent to destroy him, chall enged him to single combat, and having felled him to the earth with his sword Chrysaor, “reft off his head to ease him of his pain.”—Spenser: Faërie Queene, v. 12 (1596).

Grapes of God. Tennyson calls the wine-cup of the eucharist “the chalice of the grapes of God,” alluding, of course, to the symbolical character of the sacramental wine, which represents the death-blood of Christ, shed for the remission of sin.

Where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God.
   —Tennysen: In Memoriam, x.

Grapes Painted. Zeuxis of Heraclea painted grapes so admirably that birds flew to them and tried to eat them. (See Horse Painted.)

Therefore the bee did suck the painted flower,
And birds of grapes the cunning semblance pecked.
   —Sir J. Davies: Immortality of the Soul, ii. (1622).