GRESHAM’S LAW, in economics, the name suggested in 1857 by H. D. Macleod for the principle of currency which may be briefly summarized—“bad money drives out good.” Macleod gave it this name, which has been universally adopted, under the impression that the principle was first explained by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1558. In reality it had been well set forth by earlier economic writers, notably Oresme and Copernicus. Macleod states the law in these terms: the worst form of currency in circulation regulates the value of the whole currency and drives all other forms of currency out of circulation. Gresham’s law applies where there is under-weight or debased coin in circulation with full-weight coin of the same metal; where there are two metals in circulation, and one is undervalued as compared with the other, and where inconvertible paper money is put into circulation side by side with a metallic currency. See further [Bimetallism]; [Money].
GRESSET, JEAN BAPTISTE LOUIS (1709-1777), French poet and dramatist, was born at Amiens on the 29th of August 1709. His poem Vert Vert is his main title to fame. He spent, however, the last twenty-five years of his life in regretting the frivolity which enabled him to produce this most charming of poems. He was brought up by the Jesuits of Amiens. He was accepted as a novice at the age of sixteen, and sent to pursue his studies at the Collège Louis le Grand in Paris. After completing his course he was appointed, being then under twenty years of age, to a post as assistant master in a college at Rouen. He published Vert Vert at Rouen in 1734. It is a story, in itself exceedingly humorous, showing how a parrot, the delight of a convent, whose talk was all of prayers and pious ejaculations, was conveyed to another convent as a visitor to please the nuns. On the way he falls among bad companions, forgets his convent language, and shocks the sisters on arrival by profane swearing. He is sent back in disgrace, punished by solitude and plain bread, presently repents, reforms and is killed by kindness. The story, however, is nothing. The treatment of the subject, the atmosphere which surrounds it, the delicacy in which the little prattling ways of the nuns, their jealousies, their tiny trifles, are presented, takes the reader entirely by surprise. The poem stands absolutely unrivalled, even among French contes en vers.
Gresset found himself famous. He left Rouen, went up to Paris, where he found refuge in the same garret which had sheltered him when a boy at the Collège Louis le Grand, and there wrote his second poem, La Chartreuse. It was followed by the Carême impromptu, the Lutrin vivant and Les Ombres. Then trouble came upon him; complaints were made to the fathers of the alleged licentiousness of his verses, the real cause of complaint being the ridicule which Vert Vert seemed to throw upon the whole race of nuns and the anti-clerical tendency of the other poems. An example, it was urged, must be made; Gresset was expelled the order. Men of robust mind would have been glad to get rid of such a yoke. Gresset, who had never been taught to stand alone, went forth weeping. He went to Paris in 1740 and there produced Édouard III, a tragedy (1740) and Sidnei (1745), a comedy. These were followed by Le Méchant which still keeps the stage, and is qualified by Brunetière as the best verse comedy of the French 18th century theatre, not excepting even the Métromanie of Alexis Piron. Gresset was admitted to the Academy in 1748. And then, still young, he retired to Amiens, where his relapse from the discipline of the church became the subject of the deepest remorse. He died at Amiens on the 16th of June 1777.
The best edition of his poems is A. A. Rénouard’s (1811). See Jules Wogue, J. B. L. Gresset (1894).
GRETNA GREEN, or Graitney Green, a village in the south-east of Dumfriesshire, Scotland, about 8 m. E. of Annan, 9 m. N.N.W. of Carlisle, and ¾ m. from the river Sark, here the dividing-line between England and Scotland, with a station on the Glasgow & South-Western railway. The Caledonian and North British railways have a station at Gretna on the English side of the Border. As the nearest village on the Scottish side, Gretna Green was notorious as the resort of eloping couples, who had failed to obtain the consent of parents or guardians to their union. Up till 1754, when Lord Hardwicke’s act abolishing clandestine marriages came into force, the ceremony had commonly been performed in the Fleet prison in London. After that date runaway couples were compelled to seek the hospitality of a country where it sufficed for them to declare their wish to marry in the presence of witnesses. At Gretna Green the ceremony was usually performed by the blacksmith, but the toll-keeper, ferryman or in fact any person might officiate, and the toll-house, the inn, or, after 1826, Gretna Hall was the scene of many such weddings, the fees varying from half a guinea to a sum as large as impudence could extort or extravagance bestow. As many as two hundred couples were married at the toll-house in a year. The romantic traffic was practically, though not necessarily, put an end to in 1856, when the law required one of the contracting parties to reside in Scotland three weeks previous to the event.
GRÉTRY, ANDRÉ ERNEST MODESTE (1741-1813), French composer, was born at Liége on the 8th of February 1741, his father being a poor musician. He was a choir boy at the church of St Denis. In 1753 he became a pupil of Leclerc and later of Renekin and Moreau. But of greater importance was the practical tuition he received by attending the performance of an Italian opera company. Here he heard the operas of Galuppi, Pergolesi and other masters; and the desire of completing his own studies in Italy was the immediate result. To find the necessary means he composed in 1759 a mass which he dedicated to the canons of the Liége cathedral, and it was at the cost of Canon Hurley that he went to Italy in the March of 1759. In Rome he went to the Collège de Liége. Here Grétry resided for five years, studiously employed in completing his musical education under Casali. His proficiency in harmony and counterpoint was, however, according to his own confession, at all times very moderate. His first great success was achieved by La Vendemmiatrice, an Italian intermezzo or operetta, composed for the Aliberti theatre in Rome and received with universal applause. It is said that the study of the score of one of Monsigny’s operas, lent to him by a secretary of the French embassy in Rome, decided Grétry to devote himself to French comic opera. On New Year’s day 1767 he accordingly left Rome, and after a short stay at Geneva (where he made the acquaintance of Voltaire, and produced another operetta) went to Paris. There for two years he had to contend with the difficulties incident to poverty and obscurity. He was, however, not without friends, and by the intercession of Count Creutz, the Swedish ambassador, Grétry obtained a libretto from Marmontel, which he set to music in less than six weeks, and which, on its performance in August 1768, met with unparalleled success. The name of the opera was Le Huron. Two others, Lucile and Le Tableau parlant, soon followed, and thenceforth Grétry’s position as the leading composer of comic opera was safely established. Altogether he composed some fifty operas. His masterpieces are Zémire et Azor and Richard Cœur de Lion,—the first produced in 1771, the second in 1784. The latter in an indirect way became connected with a great historic event. In it occurs the celebrated romance, O Richard, ô mon roi, l’univers t’abandonne, which was sung at the banquet—“fatal as that of Thyestes,” remarks Carlyle—given by the bodyguard to the officers of the Versailles garrison on October 3, 1789. The Marseillaise not long afterwards became the reply of the people to the expression of loyalty borrowed from Grétry’s opera. The composer himself was not uninfluenced by the great events he witnessed, and the titles of some of his operas, such as La Rosière républicaine and La Fête de la raison, sufficiently indicate the epoch to which they belong; but they are mere pièces de circonstance, and the republican enthusiasm displayed is not genuine. Little more successful was Grétry in his dealings with classical subjects. His genuine power lay in the delineation of character and in the expression of tender and typically French sentiment. The structure of his concerted pieces on the other hand is frequently flimsy, and his instrumentation so feeble that the orchestral parts of some of his works had to be rewritten by other composers, in order to make them acceptable to modern audiences. During the revolution Grétry lost much of his property, but the successive governments of France vied in favouring the composer, regardless of political differences. From the old court he received distinctions and rewards of all kinds; the republic made him an inspector of the conservatoire; Napoleon granted him the cross of the legion of honour and a pension. Grétry died on the 24th of September 1813, at the Hermitage in Montmorency, formerly the house of Rousseau. Fifteen years after his death Grétry’s heart was transferred to his birthplace, permission having been obtained after a tedious lawsuit. In 1842 a colossal bronze statue of the composer was set up at Liége.
See Michael Brenet, Vie de Grétry (Paris, 1884); Joach. le Breton, Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de Grétry (Paris, 1814); A. Grétry (his nephew), Grétry en famille (Paris, 1814); Felix van Hulst, Grétry (Liége, 1842); L. D. S. Notice biographique sur Grétry (Bruxelles, 1859).