d i^pinay, his relations with whom led to an irreconcilable rupture between him and Rousseau. The exact amount of Grrimm s blame worthiness it is impossible to determine, and the whole matter would be of little consequence but for the fact that Rousseau allowed his resentment to gain such a complete possession of his mind as to induce him to give in his Confessions a wholly mendacious portrait of Grimm s character, by which his reputation was for a consider able time injuriously affected. After the death of Count Friesen Grimm obtained the patronage of the duke of Orleans, through whom he was appointed secretary to Marshal d Estrdes during the campaign of Westphalia in 1756-57. Subsequently he was named minister of Saxe- Gotha at the court of France, but he was deprived of that office on account of having criticized rather caustically certain French ministers in a despatch that was intercepted by Louis XV. His introduction to Catherine II. of Russia took place in 1773, when he accompanied the suite of the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt to St Petersburg on occasion of the marriage of a daughter of that prince to the only son of Catherine. After the Revolution Grimm retired to Gotha, and in 1792 he emigrated to Russia, where he enjoyed high favour at the court of Catherine, and had assigned him the nominal and agreeable duty of entertaining her for so many hours a day by his conversation. This state of things came, however, to an end in 1795, when, notwithstanding his supplications to be retained at court if only as one of her majesty s dogs, he was appointed minister of Russia at Hamburg. He died at Gotha, 19th December 1807. The correspondence of Griinm forms perhaps the most valuable of existing records of any important literary period. It embraces nearly the whole period from 1750 to 1790, and although parts of it during his absence from France wore written by Diderot, Madame d Epinay, and others, the work as a whole may be regarded as substantially his. At first he contented himself with enumerating in the simplest manner the chief current views in literature and art, and indicating only very slightly the contents of the principal new books, but gradually his criticisms became more extended and trenchant, and he touched on nearly every subject political, literary, artistic, social, and religious which interested the Parisian society of the time his narrative, which moves lightly and easily from one theme to another, being frequently seasoned by piquant anecdotes or witty reflexions. Not only, however, did he aim to give a truthful and just account of the subjects on which he wrote ; his purpose extended considerably beyond that of affording a few hours amusement to his royal patrons, and his descriptions and criticisms were fitted to satisfy more than a superficial Curiosity. His notices of contemporaries are somewhat severe, and he exhibits in all the nakedness of truth the foibles and selfishness of the society in which he moved ; but he appears to have been unbiassed in his literary judgments, and such is their justness and penetration that time has only served to confirm them. In style and manner of expression he is thoroughly Jrench. He is generally somewhat cold in his appreciation, but his literary taste is delicate and subtle; and it is the opinion of Sainte-Beuve that the quality of his thought in his best moments will compare not unfavourably even with that of Voltaire. His religious and philosophical opinions were entirely negative, and his references to Christianity generally assume the form of either a sneer or a witticism.
Grimm s Corrcspondance litterairc, premiere partie de 1753 a 1770, was published at Paris in 1813 in 6 vols. 8vo ; deuxieme partif de 1771 a 1782, in 1812 in 5 vols. 8vo ; and troisieme jtarlie, pendant une partie dcs annees 1775 et 1776, ct pendant les nnnxs 1782 ft 1790 inclusivement, in 1813 in 5 vols. 8vo. A supplementary volume appeared in 1814; the whole correspond ence was collected and published by M. Jules Taschereau in a Nouvelle edition, revue ct mise dans nn meillcur ordre, avecdes noics et dcs eclaircissements, ct oil sc trmivent retablies pour la premiere fois les phrases supprimies par la censure imperiale, Paris, 1829- 1831, 15 vols. 8vo ; and the Corrcspondance inedite, ct recueil de lettres, poesies, morceaux, et fragments rctranches par la censure imperiale en 1812 et 1813 was published in 1829. Grimm s Memoire Mstoriquc sur Vorigine et les suites de mon attachement pour I imperatrice Catherine II. jusqu au dices de sa majeste imperiale, and Catherine s correspondence with Grimm to September 1774, have been published in the Collection of the Russian Imperial Historical Society. She treats him very familiarly, and calls him Heraclite. George Dandin, &c. He signs himself " Pleureur." See also Mine, d lllpinay s Mimoires ; Rousseau s Confessions ; the notice by Galgues in the introduction to the second part of the Corrcspond ance, and that by Taschereau in the introduction to the new edition ; Sainte-Beuve, Causcrics du lundi, vol. vii.
GRIMM, Jacob Ludwig Carl (1785-1863), was born on the 4th of January 1785 at Hanau, in Hesse-Cassel. His father, who was a lawyer, died while he was still a child, and the mother was left with very small means ; but her sister, who was lady of the chamber to the landgravine of Hesse, helped to support and educate her numerous family. Jacob with his younger brother Wilhelm (born on the 24th of February 1786) was sent in 1798 to the public school at Cassel. In 1802 he proceeded to the university of Marburg, where he applied himself to the study of law, a profession for which he had always been destined by his father, and which seemed to offer the best prospect of speedy independence. His brother joined him at Marburg a year later, having just recovered from a long and severe illness, and likewise began the study of law. Up to this time Grimm had been actuated only by a general thirst for knowledge and the instinct of intellectual activity, and his energies had not found any aim beyond the practical one of making himself a position in life. The first definite impulse came from the lectures of Savigny, the celebrated investigator of Roman law, who, as Grimm himself says (in the preface to the Deutsche Grammatik), first taught him to realize what it meant to study any science, whether that of law or any other. Savigny s lectures at the same time awakened in him that love for historical and antiquarian investigation which forms the basis of all his work. Then followed personal acquaintance, and it was in Savigny s well-provided library that Grimm first turned over the leaves of Bodmer's edition of the Old German minnesingers and other early texts, and felt an eager desire to penetrate further into the obscurities and half-revealed mysteries of their language. In the beginning of 1805 he received an invitation from Savigny, who had removed to Paris to continue his researches among the libraries there, to join him and help him in his literary work. This offer was joyfully accepted by young Grimm, who passed a very happy time in Paris, enjoying the society of Savigny, and strengthening his taste for the literatures of the Middle Ages by his studies in the Paris libraries. Towards the close of the year he returned to Cassel, where his mother and Wilhelm had settled, the latter having finished his studies. The next year he obtained a situation in the war office with the very small salary of 100 thalers. One of his grievances was, as he himself tells IKS ! in his autobiography, that he had to exchange his stylish I Paris suit for a stiff uniform and pigtail. But he had full 1 leisure for the prosecution of his studies. In 1808, soon ! after the death of his mother, he was appointed superintendent of the private library of Jerome Buonaparte, king of Westphalia, into which Hesse-Cassel had been incorporated by Napoleon. He was treated with marked favour by the king, who appointed him an auditor to the state council, while he still retained his other post. His salary was increased in a short interval from 2000 to 4000 francs, which removed all anxiety as to the means of subsistence, and his official duties were hardly more than nominal. After the expulsion of Jerome and the reinstalment of an elector. Grimm was appointed in 1813 secretary of legation.
