tury, for fifty-five pounds, thirteen
shillings. All these manuscripts were on vellum. The copies of the Roman
Breviary and the Greek Gospels are described by Dibdin in his
_Bibliographical Decameron_ (vol. i. pp. clxiii and xcii).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 90: Vol. ix. p. 653.]

RIGHT HON. THOMAS GRENVILLE, 1755-1846

[Illustration: THOMAS GRENVILLE. After a Portrait by Hoppner.]

The Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, who was born on the 31st of December
1755, was the second son of the Right Hon. George Grenville, the
statesman, who succeeded Lord Bute as Premier in 1763, and Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir William Wyndham. In 1771 he entered Christ Church,
Oxford, as a gentleman-commoner, and in 1778 he was appointed ensign in
the Coldstream Guards, which he left the following year to become a
lieutenant in the 80th foot. In 1780 he was elected Member for
Buckinghamshire, and became a follower of Lord Rockingham and Mr. Fox,
the latter of whom thought so highly of his talents that he intended, if
his India Bill had passed, to have made him Governor-General. Towards
the close of the war with the United States, Mr. Grenville was sent to
Paris to negotiate terms of peace, but only remained there a short time,
being recalled by the death of the Marquis of Rockingham and a change of
ministry. On his return to this country he continued for some time to
support Mr. Fox, but the course pursued by that statesman with regard to
the French Revolution caused him to transfer his allegiance to Mr. Pitt,
and in 1794 Mr. Grenville accepted the post of Minister Extraordinary
to the Court of Vienna. In 1798 he became a privy councillor, and in
1799 he was sent as Ambassador to Berlin to endeavour to prevent the
King of Prussia deserting the coalition against France; but the first
vessel in which he sailed was stopped by ice, and the second was
wrecked, and the delay which ensued rendered the mission an abortive
one. In 1800 he was made Chief Justice in Eyre to the South of the
Trent, a sinecure office of two thousand a year, of which he was the
last holder. On the fall of Mr. Pitt's ministry in March 1801, Mr.
Grenville ceased to support the Tory party, and renewed his political
connection with Mr. Fox, and in 1806, shortly after his brother, Lord
Grenville, became Prime Minister, he was appointed President of the
Board of Control. On the death of Mr. Fox on the 13th of September 1806,
he succeeded Lord Howick as First Lord of the Admi