GRONOVIVUS, the Latinized form of GRONOV, JOHN FREDERICK, a learned scholar and critic, was born at Hamburg on the 10th of September 1611. His father, who was councillor to the Duke of Holstein, having been appointed syndic or town-clerk of Bremen, carried his son to that city, where he went through his early studies with great distinction. He then visited the universities of Leipzig and Iena, and proceeded to Altdorf, where he studied law under the learned professors who had conferred celebrity on that school. After the death of his father he returned to Bremen, and having settled his affairs, he, in 1634, repaired to Groningen to enjoy the benefit of the society and instructions of Antony Mathieu, a great jurisconsult, and the friend of his family. Here, however, he remained only a short time. For, being desirous to extend his knowledge by travel, he visited the principal cities of Holland, in order to converse with the learned and explore the libraries; passed, with the same design, into England in 1639; and the year following proceeded to France. He stopped several months at Paris; received the degree of doctor of law at Angers; and then travelled into Italy, whence he returned, through Switzerland and Germany, to Deventer, where he was offered the chair of literature and history. In 1658, he succeeded Daniel Heinsius, the celebrated professor of belles-lettres in the university of Leyden, and died in that city on the 28th of December 1671. Gronovius was a man of equal learning and modesty, and, as he was naturally disinclined to controversy, he avoided those literary disputes by which so many then sought to obtain distinction. For a correct list of his numerous works, we refer to the Biblioth. Erudit. Præc. et Klefeker, and to the Dictionnaire de Chaffépié, and shall only mention the following: 1. Diatribæ in Statii poëtae Sylvas, Hague, 1637, in 8vo; 2. De Sestercis sive subsessivorum Pecuniæ veteris Græcæ et Romanæ libri iv. Deventer, 1643, in 4to; 3. Observationum libri iv. Deventer, 1652, in 12mo; 4. Laudatio funebris Joannis Golii, Leyden, 1668, in 8vo; 5. De Musæo Alexandrino Exercitationes Academicæ, inserted in the eighth volume of the Thesaurus Antiquitatum Græcarum; 6. Lectiones Plautinæ, quibus non tantum fabulae Plautinæ et Terentianæ, verum etiam Cæsar, Cicero, Livius illustrantur, Amsterdam, 1740, in 8vo; 7. Notes on the treatise of Grotius De Jure Belli et Pacis. Gronovius also revised
Gronovius the text, and published editions with notes, of Titus Livius, Statius, Pliny the Elder, Justin, Tacitus, the Senecas, Aulus Gellius, Phædrus, and Paulinus, almost all of which form part of the Variorum collection. (A.)