Gronovius, James

, son of the preceding, was born October 20, 1645, at Deventer, and learned the elements of the Latin tongue there; but, going with the family in, 1658 to Leyden, he carried on his studies in that university with incredible industry under the eye of his father, who had the greatest desire to make him a complete | scholar. In this view he not only read to him the best classic authors, but instructed him in the civil law. About 1670 he made the tour of England, and visited both the universities, consulting their Mss.; and formed an acquaintance with several eminent scholars, particularly Dr. Edward Pocock, Dr. John Pearson, and Dr. Meric Casaubon, which last died in his arms. He was much pleased with the institution of the royal society, and addressed a letter to them in approbation of it. After some months’ stay in England, he returned to Ley den, where he published an edition of Macrobius that year in 8vo, and another of Polybius the same year at Amsterdam, in '2, vols. 8vo. The same year he was also offered the professorship held by Hogersius but, not having finished the plan of his travels, he declined, though the professor, to engage his acceptance, proposed to hold the place till his return.

He had apparently other views at that time, for having experienced many advantages to his literary pursuits by his visit to England, he resolved to see France. In his tour thither, he passed through the cities of Brabant and Flanders; and arriving at Paris, was received with all the respect due to his father’s reputation and his own merit, which presently brought him into the acquaintance of Chaplain, d’Herbelot, Thevenot, and several other persons of distinguished learning. This satisfaction was somewhat damped by the news of his father’s death in 1672 soon after which he left Paris to attend Mr. Paats, ambassador extraordinary from the States-general to the court of Spain. They set out in the spring of 1672; and our author went thence into Italy, where, visiting Tuscany, he was entertained with extraordinary politeness by the great duke, who, among other marks of esteem, gave him a very considerable stipend, and the professor’s place of Pisa, vacant by the death of Chimentel. This nomination was the more honourable, both as he had the famous Henry Norris, afterwards a cardinal, for his colleague; and as he obtained it by the recommendation of Magliabecchi, whom he frequently visited at Florence, where he had an opportunity of consulting the Mss. in the Medicean library.

Having spent two years in Tuscany, he quitted his professorship; and visiting Venice and Padua, he passed through Germany to Leyden, whence he went to take possession of an estate left him by his mother’s brother, at Deventej. Here he sat down closely to his studies, and | was employed in preparing an edition of Livy in 1679, when he was nominated to a professor’s place at Ley den, which he accepted; and by his inaugural speech obtained an augmentation to the salary of 400 florins a year, which was continued to his death. He was particularly pleased with the honour shewn to his merit; and Leyden being the city preferred by him, as the place of his education and his father’s residence, he resolved never to leave it for the sake of any other preferment. In this view he refused the chair of the celebrated Octavio Ferrari at Padua, and declined the invitation of Frederic duke of Sleswick to accept u considerable stipend for a lecture at Kell, in Holstein. This post was offered him in 1696, and two years afterwards the Venetian ambassador at the Hague made him larger offers to engage him to settle at Padua; but he withstood all attempts to draw him from Leyden, as his father had done before him and, to engage him firmer to them, in 1702, the curators of that university gave him the lecture of geography, with the same augmentation to the stipend as had been given to his predecessor Philip Cluverius.

He was revising Tacitus in order to a new edition, when he lost his youngest daughter, September 12, 1716, and he survived her not many weeks. The loss proved insupportable; he fell sick a few days after it, and died of grief, October 21, aged seventy-one. He left two sons, both bred to letters; the eldest being a doctor of physic, and the youngest, Abraham, professor of history at Utrecht. His valuable library, long retained in the possession of the family, and for which 30,000 florins had been offered by the late empress of Russia, was sold by auction at Leyden about 1785, and produced only 5000 florins. It is remarked of James Gronovius, that he fell short of his father, in respect of modesty and moderation, as far as he exceeded him in literature: in his disputes, he treated his antagonists with such a bitterness of style as procured him the name of the second Scioppius, the justness of which censure appears throughout his numerous works, although they must be allowed to form a stupendous monument of literary industry and critical acumen. The following list is probably correct: 1. “Macrobius, cum notis variorum,” Leyd. 1670, 8vo, London, 1694, 8vo. 2. “Polybius cum suis ae ineditis Casauboni, &c. notis,” Gr. & Lat.“Amst. 1670, 2 vols. 8vo. 3.” Tacitus/* ibid. 1672, 2 vols, 8vo, and | Utrecht, 1721, 4to, enlarged by his son Abraham. Hanvood says it is an infinitely better and more useful edition than that of Brotier. 4. “Supplementa lacunarum in ^nea Tactico, Dione Cassio, et Arriano,Leyden, 1675, 8vo. 5. “Dissertationes Epistolicae,” Amst. 1678, 8vo, consisting of critical remarks on various authors. Those he made on Livy involved him in a dispute with Fabretti, who having attacked our critic in his work “De Aquis et Aqureductibus veteris Romoe,Gronovius answered him in, 6. “Responsio ad cavillationes R. Fabretti,Leyden, 1685, 8vo. Fabretti, who is treated here with very little ceremony, took his revenge in a work, the title of which is no bad specimen of literary railing, “Jasithei ad Gronovium Apologema, in ej usque Titivilitia seu de Tito Livio somnia animadversiones,Naples, 1686, 4to. 7. “Fragmentum Stephani Byzantini Grammatici de Dodone, &c.Leyden, 1681, 4to. 8. “Henrici Valesii Notae, &c. in Harpocrationem,Leyden, 16&2, 4to, reprinted in Blancard’s edition of Harpocration, in 1683. 9. “Senecae Tragediae,” Amst. 1682, 12mo. This is the edition which his father was preparing when he died. 10. “Exercitationes aca­<Jemicae de pernicie et casu Judoe,Leyden, 1683, 4to, an endeavour to reconcile the accounts of St. Matthew and St. Luke of the death of Judas. This involved him in a quarrel with Joachim Feller, against whom Gronovius defended himself in a second edition of this tract published at Leyden in 1702, and opened there a controversy with Perizonius. This produced from Gronovius, 11. “Notitia et illustratio dissertationis nuperse de morte Juda?,Leyden, 1703, 4to; to which Perizonius replied, but the combatants became so warm that the curators of the university of Leyden thought proper to silence them both. 12. “Castigationes ad paraphrasim Graeeam Enchiridii Epicteti ex codice Mediceo,Delft, 1683, 8vo. This includes the notes published in Berkelius’s edition of 1670. 13. “Dissertatio de origine Romuli,Leyden, 1684, 8vo, in which he treats the commonly received notion of the origin of Romulus and Remus, and their being nursed by a wolf, as fabulous. 14. “Gemmae et sculpturae antiquse, &c.” a Latin translation of Leonard Augustini’s Italian description of these antiquities, with a learned preface by our author. 15. “Pomponii Melae libri tres de situ orbis,Leyden, 1685, 8vo, without his name, and containing an on Vossius’s observations on that author. Vossius | having defended himself in an appendix to his “Observationes ad Melam,” printed at London in 1685, 4to, Gronovius replied in, 16. “Epistola de argutiolis Isaaci Vossii,1687, 8vo, with his usual severity, which he increased in his notice of Vossius in a new edition of P. Mela, in 1696. This edition, besides the extracts of the cosmography of Julius and Honorius, and that ascribed to Æthicus, which were inserted in the former edition, contains the anonymous geographer of Ravenna. 17. “Epistola ad Johannem Georgium Graevium V. Cl. de Pallacopa, ubi Descriptio ejus ab Arriano facta liberatur ab Isaaci Vossii frustrationibus,Leyden, 1686, 8vo. 18. “Notae ad Lucianum,” printed in Graevius’s edition of Lucian in 2 vols. Amst. 1686, 8vo. 19. “Variae Lectiones &, Notae in Stephanum Byzantinum de Urbibus:” inserted in the edition of that author published by Abraham Berkelius at Leyden in 1683, folio. 20. “Cebetis Thebani Tabula Graece & Latine,” Amst. 1689, 8vo. 21. “Auli Gellii Noctes Atticae, cum Notis & Emendationibus Johannis Frederici Gronovii,Leyden, 1687, 8vo, 1706, 4to. 22. “M. T. Ciceronis Opera quae extant omnia,Leyden, 1692, 4 vols. 4to, and 11 in 12mo. 23. “Ammiani Marcellini Rerum gestarum, qui de XXXI supersunt, Libri XVIII.Leyden, 1693, in folio and 4to. 24. “Johannis Frederici Gronovii de Sestertiis seu subsecivarum Pecuniae veteris Graecae & Romance Libri IV. &c.Leyden, 1691, 4to, with several additions. 25. “De Icuncula Smetiana qua Harpocratem indigitarunt,Leyden, 1693, 4to. 26. “Memoria Cossoniana; id est, Danielis Cossonii Vita breviter clescripta, cui annexa nova Editio veteris Monument! Ancyrani,Leyden, 1695, 4to. 27. “Abraham! Gorlaei Dactylotheca cum Explicationibus,Leyden, 1695, 4to. 28. “Harpocrationis tie Vocibus Liber; accedit Diatribe Henrici Stephani ad locos Isocrateos,Leyden, 1696, 4to. 29. “O ratio de primis Incrementis Urbis Lugduni,Leyden, 1696, 4to. 30. “Thesaurus GriEcarum Antiquitatum,Leyden, 1697, &c. 13 vols. folio. Gronovius cannot be sufficiently commended for having undertaken this work after the example of Graevius, who published a body of the Roman antiquities. Laurent Beger, having found some things to object to in the three first volumes of this work, published at Berlin in 1702, in folio, “Colloquii quorundam de tribus primis Thesauri Antiquitatum GriEcarum voluminibus, ad eorum Auctorem Relatio.” 31. “Geographia antiqua; | hoc est, Scylacis Periplus Maris Mediterranei, &c. &c.Leyden, 1697, 4to. 32. “Appendix ad Geographiam antiquani,Leyden, 1609, 4to. 33. “Manethonis Apotelesmaticorum Libri sex, nunc primum ex Bibliotheca Medicea eruti,Leyden, 1698, 4to. 34. “De duobus LapU dibus in agro Dnyvenvoordiensi repertis,Leyden, 1696, 4to. 35. “Rycquius de Capitolio Romano, cum Notis Gronovii,Leyden, 1696, 8vo. 36. “.Q. Cnrtius cum Gronovii & Variorum Notis,Amsterdam, 1696, 8vo. 37. “Suetonius a Salmasio recensitus cum Emendationibus J. Gronovii,Leyden, 1698, 12mo. 33. “Phredri Fabulae cum Joan. Fred. Gronovii & Jac. Gronovii Notis & Nicolai Dispontini collectaneis,Leyden, 1703, 8vo, 39. “Arriani Nicomediensis Expeditionis Alexandri Libri septem, & Historia Indica,”“Leyden, 1704, folio. This edition is a very beautiful one; and Gronovius displays in it the same extent of learning, which he does in all his other writings, and the same rude censure of all men of learning, who are not of his opinion. 40.” Minutii Felicis Octavius: accedunt Csecilius Cyprianus de Idolorum Vanitate, & Julius Firmicus Materuus de Errore profanarum Religionum,“Leyden, 1709, 8vo. 41.” Infamia Emendationum in Menandri Reliquias nuper editarum. Trajecti ad Rhenum, auctore Phiieleuthero Lipsiensi. Accedit Responsio M. Lucilii Profuturi ad Epistolam Caii Veracii Philelienis, qua; extat parte IX Bibliothecae selectte Jo. Clerici,“Leyden, 1710, 12mo. In this he attacks Dr. Bentley, who had assumed the name of Phileleutherus Lipsiensis; and Le Clerc, who had published an edition of the fragments of Menander and Philander, and to whom he ascribes the letter inserted in the” Bibliotheque choisie,“which he animadverts upon. 42.” Decreta Romana & Asiatica pro Judseis ad cultum divinum per Asios Minoris urbes secure obeundum, a Josepho coliecta in Libro XIV. Archseologiae, sed male interversa & expuncta, in ^ublicam lucem restituta. Accedunt Suidae aliquot loca a vitiis purgata,“Leyden, 1711, 8vo. The notes on Suidas are levelled against Ludolfus Knster, who had published an edition of Suidas at Cambridge in 1705 in 3 vols. folio, and who wrote in vindication of himgelf,” Diatriba L. K. in qua Editio Suidse Cantabrigiensis contra Cavillationes Jacobi Gronovii Aristarchi Leydensis defenditur,“inserted in the 24th tome of the Bibiiotheque choisie, p. 49, and printed separately in 12mo. There was likewise a new edition with additions published at | Amsterdam in 1712, 8vo, under the title of” Diatriba Anti-Gronoviana.“43.” Ludibria malevola Clerici, vel Prose riptio pravse Mercis ac Mentis pravissimae, quam exponit in Minutio Felice Joannes Clericus torn. 24. Bibliothecse selectae,“Leyden, 1712, 8 vo. 44.” Recensio brevis Mutilationum, quas patitur Suidas in Editione nupera Cantabrigise anni 1705, ubi varia ejus Auctoris loca perperam intellecta illustrantur, emendantur, & supplentur,“Leyden, 1713, 8vo. 45.” Severi Sancti, id est, Endeleichii Rhetoris de Mortibus Bourn Carmen ab Elia Vineto & Petro Pithseo servatum, cum Notis Job. Weitzii & Wolfgangi Seberi,“Leyden, 1715, 8vo, with a preface, though without his name. 46.” Herodoti Halicarnassei Historiarum Libri IX. Greece & Latine, cum Interpretatione Laurentii Vallx ex Codice Mediceo^“Leyden, 1715, folio. This edition had not the general approbation of learned men, who discovered very gross errors in it. The reader may see upon this subject a piece of Kuster, entitled” Examen Criticum Editionis novissimae Herodoti Gronovianae," inserted in the 5th tome of M. le Clerc’s Bibliotheque ancienne & moderne, p. 383, and another of Stephen Bergler in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipsic for 1716, p. 201, 337, and 417. Gronovius in this edition has attacked in the most furious manner several of the greatest men in the republic of letters, particularly Laurentius Valla, ^milius Portus, Henry Stephens, Holstenius, Dr. Thomas Gale, Ezechiel Spanheim, Salmasius, Isaac Vossius, Tanaquii Faber, John le Clerc, Kuster, Bochart, Grsevius, &c. He had a very extensive correspondence with the men of learning in Europe, and the utmost that can be said for his intemperate treatment of so many learned contemporaries, is, as we have been told, that his thoughts of many of them were kinder than his words. 1

1

Niceron, vol. II. Gen. Dict. —Moreri. Baillet Jugemens des Scavans. Morhoff Polyhistor. —Saxii Onomast