Chapter Greeley to Greene of G by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Greeley to Greene

Greeley, Horace (1811-1872).—Journalist and miscellaneous writer, was the son of a small farmer in New Hampshire. His early life was passed first as a printer, and thereafter in editorial work. He started in 1841, and conducted until his death, the New York Tribune. He was long a leader in American politics, and in 1872 was an unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency. His writings, which are chiefly political and economical, include Essays on Political Economy (1870), and Recollections of a Busy Life (1868).

Green, John Richard (1837-1883).—Historian, was the son of a tradesman in Oxford, where he was educated, first at Magdalen College School, and then at Jesus College He entered the Church, and served various cures in London, under a constant strain caused by delicate health. Always an enthusiastic student of history, his scanty leisure was devoted to research. In 1869 he finally gave up clerical work, and received the appointment of librarian at Lambeth. He had been laying plans for various historical works, including a History of the English Church as exhibited in a series of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and what he proposed as his magnum opus, A History of England under the Angevin Kings. The discovery, however, that his lungs were affected, necessitated the abridgment of all his schemes, and he concentrated his energies on the preparation of his Short History of the English People, which appeared in 1874, and at once gave him an assured place in the first rank of historical writers. In 1877 he married Miss Alice Stopford, by whose talents and devotion he was greatly assisted in carrying out and completing such work as his broken health enabled him to undertake during his few remaining years. Abandoning his proposed history of the Angevins, he confined himself to expanding his Short History into A History of the English People in 4 vols. (1878-80), and writing The Making of England, of which one vol. only, coming down to 828, had appeared when he died at Mentone in March 1883. After his death appeared The Conquest of England. The Short History may be said to have begun a new epoch in the writing of history, making the social, industrial, and moral progress of the people its main theme. To infinite care in the gathering and sifting of his material Green added a style of wonderful charm, and an historical imagination which has hardly been equalled.

Green, Matthew (1696-1737).—Poet, is known as the author of The Spleen, a lively and original poem in octosyllabic verse on the subject of low spirits and the best means of prevention and cure. It has life- like descriptions, sprightliness, and lightness of touch, and was admired by Pope and Gray. The poem owes its name to the use of the term in the author’s day to denote depression. Green, who held an appointment in the Customs, appears to have been a quiet, inoffensive person, an entertaining companion, and a Quaker.

Green, Thomas Hill (1836-1882).—Philosopher, was born at Birken Rectory, Yorkshire, and educated at Rugby and Balliol Coll., Oxford, where he became Whyte Professor of Moral Philosophy and, by his character, ability, and enthusiasm on social questions, exercised a powerful influence. His chief works are an Introduction to Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature (Clarendon Press ed.), in which he criticised Hill’s philosophy severely from the idealist standpoint, and Prolegomena to Ethics, published posthumously.

Greene, Robert (1560-1592).—Poet, dramatist, and pamphleteer, was born at Norwich, and studied at Cambridge, where he grad. A.B. He was also incorporated at Oxford in 1588. After travelling in Spain and Italy, he returned to Cambridge and took A.M. Settling in London he was one of the wild and brilliant crew who passed their lives in fitful alternations of literary production and dissipation, and were the creators of the English drama. He has left an account of his career in which he calls himself “the mirror of mischief.” During his short life about town, in the course of which he ran through his wife’s fortune, and deserted her soon after the birth of her first child, he poured forth tales, plays, and poems, which had great popularity. In the tales, or pamphlets as they were then called, he turns to account his wide knowledge of city vices. His plays, including The Scottish History of James IV. and Orlando Furioso, which are now little read, contain some fine poetry among a good deal of bombast; but his fame rests, perhaps, chiefly on the poems scattered through his writings, which are full of grace and tenderness. Greene died from the effects of a surfeit of pickled herrings and Rheinish wine. His extant writings are much less gross than those of many of his contemporaries, and he seems to have given signs of repentance on his deathbed, as is evidenced by his last work, A Groat’s-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. In this curious work occurs his famous reference to Shakespeare as “an upstart crow beautified with our feathers.”