GRÆVIUS, the Latinized form of GRÆFE, JOHN GEORGE, one of the most learned and laborious writers of his time, was born at Naumburg, in Saxony, on the 29th of January 1632. He began his studies in the gymnasium of Pforta, and completed them at the university of Leipzig, under Rivinus and Strauch. Grævius was led to the study of letters by his natural inclination, and every way he became more and more devoted to this pursuit. But his father wished that he should study the law; Strauch seconded this view; and Grævius obeyed, though with repugnance. About the same time it happened that his father had occasion to send him into East Friesland to accelerate the payment of a considerable debt. This journey fixed the destination of Grævius. Having successfully accomplished the object of his mission, he had the curiosity to visit Holland, where Salmasius, Heinsius, and Frederick Gronovius, were then in the zenith of their reputation. The conversation of Gronovius revealed to him the painful truth that his studies had been almost entirely unavailing, that he had been taught according to the principles of a bad school, and that he had no time to lose. He desired to correct the vices of its method of instruction. At this period the taste in Latinity had been corrupted in almost all the German universities. Justus Lipsius had first set the example. Despairing of ever attaining the classical elegance of Manucius, Muretus, and a small number of other learned men of their age, he had abandoned their model, Cicero, and betaken himself to the imitation of some writers of an inferior order, who belonged to the golden age of the Latin language. In a man of such merit as Justus Lipsius this was a temerity excused perhaps by other qualities of a superior order; in his imitators it implied the total absence of reason and taste. In the rudeness of Ennius, amongst the rugged archaisms of Æneus, and the ignoble trivialities of Plautus, they went to seek for words and phrases, which they accommodated to small subjects, even the gravest. They affected ridiculous punts, and certain finesses of thought, by which all the vigour of the style was enervated; and they cut down into small periods, of studied brevity, a language already rendered meagre and dry. Grævius, ill directed, had entered upon the same evil path. But he entreated Gronovius to become thenceforth his guide, nor could he have chosen one more able; so, having abandoned jurisprudence, he passed two years at Deventer, attending assiduously the lessons of his new master. He then proceeded to Amsterdam to hear Alexander Morus and David Blondel, whose counsels decided him to quit Lutheranism for the sect of Calvin. Peter Burmann, his panegyrist, anxious that this change of religion should not be misrepresented, declares that it did not proceed from interested motives, and that the new convert listened only to the voice of his conscience. Grævius, whose reputation had now begun to be extended, was, in 1656, called to the university of Duisburg; and he had been there two years, surpassing all the hopes which had been conceived of his talents, when Gronovius, who had entered the university of Leyden, solicited the magistrates of Deventer to appoint Grævius his successor. They agreed to this application, and Grævius, notwithstanding the efforts of the elector of Brandenburg, who, in order to retain him, offered an augmentation of fees, quitted an university for a simple gymnasium, influenced probably by the desire of living under a free government. After a stay of three years at Deventer he yielded to the solicitations of the university of Utrecht, which offered him the chair of history, then vacant by the death of Æmius. This satisfied all his ambition,
and, content with his situation, he declined the invitations of the magistrates of Amsterdam and Leyden, who twice attempted, by brilliant offers, to attach him to the schools in those cities. The elector palatine, who wished to draw him to Heidelberg, was also refused; the king of Prussia was not more fortunate; and the republic of Venice, which offered him a chair in the university of Padua, had as little success, although, in the hope of inducing him to accept, it had promised him, besides considerable appointments, full liberty on the score of religion, and all necessary protection against the importunity of the inquisitors. But none of these offers could overcome his resolution. The eager desire of foreigners to obtain his services was justified by the great reputation which he had attained as professor. Pupils crowded to his lectures, not only from all Holland, but from all Europe. In Germany, particularly, almost all the great lords sent their sons to be educated by him; and he reckoned amongst his auditors sons of princes, and even of kings; for William III., who made him his historiographer, had confided to his care the young Prince of Nassau. To the reputation of a great professor Grævius joined that of a learned writer and able critic. Paquot, and before him G. Burmann in the Trajectum Eruditum, have given a complete list of his works. The principal are, 1. An edition of the Letters of Casaubon, Brunswick, 1655; 2. The Solecist of Lucian, Amsterdam, 1668, in 8vo, with notes rich in grammatical erudition; 3. Hesiod, with a collection of excellent observations under the title of Lectiones Hesiodææ; 4. Justin, 1669, cum Notis Variorum; 5. Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, Utrecht, 1680, cum Notis Variorum; 6. Suetonius, 1672; 7. Florus, 1680; 8. The Commentaries of Cæsar; 9. The miscellaneous Letters of Cicero, his Letters to Atticus, his Treatise of Offices, and his Discourses, cum Notis Variorum. But his masterpiece is his Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum, in 12 vols. folio, a work of incredible labour and research, to which he afterwards added Thesaurus Antiqu. et Hist. Italiae, printed the year after his death, 1704, in 3 vols. folio, and continued by his successor Peter Burmann. Besides all these works, which are more than sufficient to have exhausted the industry of ten ordinary men, Grævius edited the Philological Lexicon of Martinus, the treatise of Junius De Pictura Veterum, the Greek and Latin Poetry of Huet, and several works of Meursius; and, in concert with Peter Burmann and Holthen, he had commenced a reimpression of the Inscriptions of Gruter. But in the midst of his labours death surprised this indefatigable scholar, who was suddenly carried off by an attack of apoplexy, on the 11th of January 1703, in the seventy-first year of his age. Fabricius has published a collection of his Prefaces and Letters, and Burmann a collection of his Discourses. (A.)