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late empress of Russia, whose original name was Sophia Augusta Fredeiuca, the daughter of Christian Augustus, prince of Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, and of the princess of Holstein, was born at Stettin, in Prussian Pomerania, May 2, 1729. In early life she was distinguished by her good humour, intelligence, and spirit, and was fond of reading, reflection, learning, and employment. About the beginning of the year 1744, she was introduced at the court of Petersburg!], where the empress Elizabeth received her very graciously, and formed the scheme of a matrimonial union between her nephew, the grand-duke, afterwards Peter III. and Sophia; who, though instructed under the tuition of her mother in the Lutheran doctrines, embraced the religion of the Greek church, and on this occasion changed her name to that of Catherine Alcxievna. Before the nuptials were celebrated, the grand duke was seized with the small-pox, which so much deformed his face, as to render it for a time almost hideous. This metamorphosis produced a horror in the mind of the young princess at the first Interview, which, however, she had sufficient art to disguise, and which proved no impediment to their marriage, which took place in 1745. At first their attachment appeared to be mutual, but their dispositions and accomplishments were soon discovered to be different. Catherine displayed a superior understanding, which in time Peter felt, and thus the seeds of mutual dislike were very early sown. Their consolations were now also different. Peter had recourse to drinking and gaming, while Catherine entered into all the arcana of political measures, and began to form a party. She also now formed the first of those personal attachments for which she has been so remarkable, with Soltikof, the prince’s chamberlain; and although, when accused, she defended her character with some address and spirit, her intercourse with Soltikof was renewed, and became less secret. At length, the grand chancellor Bestuchef prevailed with the empress to appoint Soltikof minister plenipotentiary from the court of Russia to Hamburgh. For some time Catherine corresponded with him, but in 1755 formed a new connection of the same kind with Stanislaus Poniatowsky, the late king of Poland, and he being appointed plenipotentiary from Poland at the court of Russia, their intimacy was long visible to all, except the grand duke Peter. His jealousy being at length roused, he forbade the grand duchess to be seen with Poniatowsky, and prevailed on the empress to banish Bestuchef, who had been the means of Poniatowski’s mission to the court of Russia, and incensed her majesty against Catherine to such a degree, that it required her utmost cunning to effect a reconciliation, which was however at length brought about, and on the death of the empress Elizabeth, Dec. 25, 1761, Peter III. ascended the throne.

, one of the scientific travellers, employed by the late empress of Russia to explore her vast dominions, was born in Westrogothia, a province in Sweden, about 1727. He studied medicine in the university of Upsal, and went through a course of botany under the celebrated Linnæus, to whose son he was, tutor. He publicly defended the dissertation (in the Linnaei “Amcenitates Academics”) which that famous botanist had composed on a new species of plants, which he called astromeTi'a. In 1760, he was so deeply affected with depression of spirits, that Linnæus, in order to amuse his mind, sent him to travel over the island of Gothland, to make a collection of the plants it produces, and the various kinds of corals and corallines which the sea leaves on its shores; but this journey was attended with no diminution of his distemper, which found a continual supply of aliment in a sanguine melancholy temperament, in a too sedentary way of life, and in the bad state of his finances.

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.