See MILL.
GRINDAL, Edmund (c. 1519-1583), archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Hensingham in the parish of St Bees, Cumberland, about 1519. He was educated at Cambridge, where he became fellow of Pembroke Hall in 1538, and president in 1549. In the following year he was appointed chaplain to Bishop Ridley, in August 1551 precentor of St Paul’s, in November chaplain to Edward VI., and in July 1552 prebendary of Westminster. On the accession of Mary in 1553 he took refuge on the Continent, staying chiefly at Strasburg, where he acquired a competent knowledge of German, and occupied himself also in collecting the “writings and stories of the learned and pious sufferers in England,”—the result of his inquiries being afterwards communicated to John Foxe, and incorporated by him in his Book of Martyrs. Returning to England under the new regime in 1558, he assisted in the preparation of the new liturgy, and was also one of the eight Protestant divines chosen to hold public disputes with the popish prelates. In 1559 he was appointed to the mastership of Pembroke Hall, and in the same year he succeeded Bonner as bishop of London, in which capacity he, along with Archbishop Parker, shared in 1565 in the responsibility of suspending those of the London clergy who refused to submit to the Act of Uniformity, on which account an indignant mob of clergymen’s wives appeared before his house at St Paul’s, and were with difficulty persuaded by one of the suspended clergymen to go away quietly. In 1570 Grindal was appointed to the see of York, from which he was translated to Canterbury in February 1576. Having in the same year incurred the royal displeasure by refusing to suppress the meetings held among the clergy for “the exercise of prophesying,” he was ultimately, in June 1577, ...by order of the Star Chamber confined to his house and sequestered for six months. As in November he refused to make a formal submission to the queen, his suspension was continued for several years; but though a petition for his restoration, which was drawn up by convocation in 1580, was not immediately granted, it would appear that in 1582 he had resumed, at least partially, the exercise of his ecclesiastical functions. About the end of this year the queen, on account of his blindness, requested him to retire on a pension, but the negotiations connected with his resignation were not completed till April 1583, and it was only after his death at Croydon, July 6th of the same year, that Whitgift, who had been nominated his successor, entered upon the see. Though Grindal yielded to the peremptory orders of Elizabeth in regard to the clergy who refused to sign the Act of Uniformity, he seems on all other occasions, while conducting himself with great moderation and manifesting unvarying courtesy and an earnest desire to avoid every cause of offence, to have strenuously upheld the spiritual independence of his office. His aims were on the whole noble and unselfish, and he was zealous in his endeavours to reform the abuses of his predecessor, to improve the moral and intellectual status of the clergy, and as far as possible to conciliate and reclaim the Puritans. He was sincerely attached to Protestantism, and laid much stress on the function of preaching, a “gift” in which he himself is said to have excelled. Grindal is alluded to (as Algrind) in the seventh “aeglogue” of Spenser’s Shepheards Calender.
His literary remains, which are unimportant, have been published by the Parker society, with a biographical notice by the Rev. Wm. Nicholson, 1853. See also Strype’s Life of Grindal, London, 1710, Oxford, 1821; A Brief and True Account of Edmund Grindal, 1710; Memorials regarding his Suspension, &c., supposed by some to have been written by Sacheverel, 1710; Fuller’s Worthies ; and Hook’s Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. viii.
GRINDSTONE. Sandstones which possess the property of abrading steel and other hard substances are extensively used in arts and manufactures under the name of grindstones. In its simplest form a grindstone consists of a stone disc, more or less circular, mounted on a horizontal iron spindle carried on the tops of two wooden posts fixed in the ground. A winch handle, or occasionally a rude crank with treadle, provides the means of giving a slow rotation to the stone, against the cylindrical face of which the steel or other substance which is to be ground is held. Such grindstones—possessing neither truth of figure nor the means of obtaining it—are unsuitable for any but the roughest purposes; and although by mounting them in a frame to which a rest can be attached it is possible to keep them true and tolerably efficient, they are always slow in their action....
Cutlers employ grindstones which are roughly mounted but which act well, being driven at a much higher speed by a strap from a large wheel or pulley, and they carefully preserve the truth of the cylindrical face. And in many manufacturing processes the surface speed of the face is still further increased by employing very large stones, and giving them the greatest number of revolutions per minute that is compatible with safety,—this limit even being sometimes exceeded, when the centrifugal force overcomes the rather slight cohesive strength of the stones, and breaks them up into fragments which fly to great distances with disastrous results. Sandstone suitable for grindstones of various degrees of hardness and fineness is found in the coal districts of the north of England, and also in those of the midland counties. A favourite stone for tool-grinding at a low speed is quarried at Bilston in Staffordshire. The neighbourhood of Sheffield also affords some useful qualities of grindstone.
Artificial grindstones closely resembling the natural stones, but of perfectly uniform texture, which the natural ones frequently are not, were made a few years ago by Mr Ransome's ingenious process. Their manufacture has been discontinued, but artificial grindstones of another kind, made with emery instead of sand, are now effecting a complete revolution in the art of the machinist. By means of these emery grinders, to which great variety of size and form can be given so as to suit the particular purposes for which they are intended, the operation of trueing up metal surfaces by hand, whether they are large or small, curved or flat, can in very many kinds of work be entirely dispensed with,—the results being superior in truth of figure, uniform in all cases, and obtained in a mere fraction of the time which the most skilful workman would require. The extensive use of these grinders in America (where the importance of labour-saving machines is properly appreciated) renders it certain that the system will gradually make its way also in England, and that hand-filing will thus to a large extent be superseded,—files being costly instruments in themselves, and many times more costly in their use, owing to the skill which they demand on the part of the workman who handles them.
Artificial wheels made with emery are by no means a new invention. In India and China they have been used for centuries; but, being made with lac and similar fusible materials, such wheels are not capable of being run at the high rate of speed which is a first essential to their efficiency. Others, however, which were not liable to these objections were made and patented in England more than thirty years ago; and it is surprising that these have not been more generally used. The chief advantage of those now made,—some of which are manufactured in the United States, some on the continent of Europe, and some in England,—is that they can be obtained of large size—up to about 3 feet in diameter—and that they are strong enough to be driven at a very high speed without breaking. At a surface speed of 5000 or 6000 feet per minute these wheels cut tempered steel readily, when used either wet or dry, and by their means it can be shaped, if necessary, in its hardest condition, with a facility previously unattainable. As in the case of common grindstones, truth of form is most important to their efficient working, and it is therefore desirable that the work under treatment should be held perfectly rigid, by means of some form of sliding rest, or otherwise. When so used the wear of the emery wheel, which is exceedingly slow, keeps it constantly true without attention. If from any cause this truth of figure be lost, or if it be desired to alter the form of the face, recourse must be had to turning it up with a diamond, nothing else in nature being sufficiently hard for the purpose.
GRINGOIRE, or Gringon, Pierre (c. 1480-1544), was the last of the mediaeval poets. He lived to see the old methods which he was taught to believe unchangeable entirely superseded. He was born about the time when King René, the last of the princely trouvères, died; he finished his career when Marot had already introduced a new and natural genre which he could not understand, and when Ronsard and Baif were beginning those studies which would interpose a barrier between the old language and the new. It was not to be expected that he should ever fall in with the new movements, or that he should understand the enormous value of the changes which were destined to consign his own works to oblivion....
The place of his birth is uncertain. Perhaps it was Lorraine, perhaps Normandy. His real name was Gringon, which he changed to Gringoire, for the poetical reason that it sounded better. His early history is almost entirely unknown; at the age of nineteen or twenty he produced his first poem, Le Chateau de Labour, in which he is supposed to have narrated his own experiences. Most probably he did. René, Charles of Orleans, Froissart, Deschamps, all the poets whose works he would study, began with a poetical exposition of their own experiences. There are, in Gringoire’s poem, the personages common to all mediaeval allegories, Raison, Donne Volonte, Talent de beau faire, for friends, and Souci, Tromperie, and the rest, for enemies. Finding that the trade in allegorical poems was ruined for want of demand, and discovering an opening in the direction of mysteries, Gringoire began to produce those dramas, and joined the “Enfants de Sans Souci.” The fraternity advanced him to the dignity of “Mère Sotte,” and afterwards to the highest honour of the guild, that of “Prine o des Sots.” For twenty years Gringoire seems to have been at the head of this,iilustrious confrérie, writing for them farces, soties, and satires. In this capacity of dramatist he exercised an extraordinary influence. At no time was the stage, rude and coarse as it was, more popular as a true exponent of the popular mind. Gringoire’s success lay in the fact that he followed, but did not attempt to lead; on his stage the people saw exhibited their passions, their judgments of the moment, their jealousies, their hatreds, and their ambitions. Brotherhoods of the kind existed all over France. In Paris there were the “Enfans Sans Souci,” the “Basochiens,” the “Confrérie de la Passion,” and the “Souverain Empire de Galilée”; at Dijon there were the “Mère Folle” and her family; in Flanders the “Société des Arbalétriers” played comedies; at Rouen the “Cornards” or “Conards” yielded to none in vigour and fearlessness of satire. There is every reason, therefore, to believe that Gringoire enjoyed considerable distinction as the leading spirit among the satirists of the capital. He adopted for his device, Tout par Raison, Raison par Tout, Par tout Raison. He has been called the “Aristophanes des Halles.” In one respect at least he resembles Aristophanes. He is serious in his merriment; there is purpose behind his extravagancies. Among his principal works are Les Falles Enterprises and Les Abus du Monde,— poems in which everything under the sun is criticized,— certain political pieces, such as La Chasse du Cerf des Cerfs {Serf des Serfs, i.e., servus servorum), under which title that of the pope is thinly veiled, and La Mère Sotte, with all her literary offspring. During the last twenty years of a long life he became orthodox, and contributed the Blason des Hereticques to orthodox literature. It was during this period also that he wrote the work by which he is best known, the Mystère de la Vie de Saint Louis, of which an analysis may be found in M. Leroy's Etudes sur les Mystères. After more than 300 years of oblivion this poet has been republished, not so much on account of his own merits as because of the position which he occupies in the history of dramatic literature.
