a city of the province of West Prussia, and government of Dantzie. It is strongly fortified, and stands on the Vistula, where there is a bridge of boats. It contains 575 houses, and, including the military in the citadel, 7572 inhabitants. It has establishments of various kinds of a charitable nature and for education, and some trade in brewing, in distilling, and in corn. Long. 18.33. 25. E. Lat. 33.27. 30. N.

GRAUNT, John, the author of Observations on the Bills of Mortality, and the founder of Political Arithmetic, was born at London on the 24th of April 1620, bred up in all the strictness of puritan principles, and, being designed for trade, received no more education than was barely necessary for that purpose. At an early age he was put as apprentice to a haberdasher in the city, whose trade he afterwards followed; and when he entered into business on his own account, he gained the esteem and confidence of his fellow-citizens, passed with reputation through all the offices of his ward, and was first captain and then major of the trained bands. But his genius at length prompted him to seek distinctions of a higher kind, and enabled him to overcome all the disadvantages of a confined education, to form a new and noble design, and to execute it with a degree of ability equal to the sagacity he had displayed in forming it. It is not known at what precise time he first began to collect and digest the Bills of Mortality; but it appears, from his own statement, that he had directed his attention to the subject several years before he had any design of publishing the discoveries which rewarded his researches. His book, entitled Observations on the Bills of Mortality, was

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1 Edinburgh Review, vol. xxxviii. p. 58. published in 1661, 4to, and met with so favourable a reception that a second edition was called for the succeeding year, and others followed. Immediately after its publication, Louis XIV., by a royal ordonnance, provided that a more exact register of births and burials should be kept in Paris; and Charles II. conceived so high an opinion of his abilities, that, at the institution of the Royal Society, he recommended Graunt to the choice of the members, with this additional charge, that if they found any more such tradesmen, they should be sure to admit them. Graunt appears to have changed his religion, and become Roman Catholic, some time before his death, which took place on the 18th of April 1674. He left his papers in charge to Sir William Petty, who had all along befriended him, and who took care to adjust and insert them in a fifth edition of his work published in 1676, 8vo. The observations of Graunt may be considered as having formed the elements of that useful science afterwards styled Political Arithmetic, which, therefore, he is entitled to the honour of having founded; and whatever merit may be ascribed to Sir William Petty, Mr Daniel King, Dr Davenant, and others, there can be no doubt that the Observations on the Bills of Mortality served as the model, if not as the basis, of all their investigations.