or GRUTERE, JAN, in Latin Janus Gruterus, a celebrated philologist and antiquary, was born at Antwerp on the 3d of December 1560. His father was burgomaster of that city, but having been banished on account of religion, he retired into England with his wife, who was a native of that country. This lady, whose name was Catherine Tishem, had received an excellent education and made considerable progress in learning; she spoke several of the living languages, understood the Latin, and was so well acquainted with the Greek as to be able to read Galen in the original. "There is perhaps not one physician in a thousand," says a panegyrist of Gruter, "who could do as much." The English wife of the Antwerp burgomaster was the first instructor of her son. Gruter continued the studies in which he had thus been initiated, at the university of Cambridge; and at the age of nineteen he quitted England, and proceeded to Leyden, where he studied civil law, and took the degree of doctor in that faculty. In a short time he began to make himself known by his poetical essays; and as works of a more solid kind soon extended his reputation, he became successively attached to different universities. In the capacity of professor, he taught at Rostock, at Wittemberg, and at Heidelberg, in which last city he fixed his residence, and had the charge of the palatine library, the manuscripts of which, transported to Rome in the year 1622, had recently been restored to their original locality. Gruter was called to France and to Denmark, but declined the invitations in both instances. The university of Padua also made him advantageous offers; but as it would have been necessary, in the event of accepting these, to renounce the public exercise of the Protestant religion, he preferred remaining in Germany. This circumstance proves that he has been unjustly accused of irreligion, and that Pareus, who reproached him with being an atheist, and attaching more importance to a single thought of Petronius or Apuleius than to all the precepts of Jesus Christ, has published a calumny. Bayle cites another proof of the religious sentiments of Gruter. "This pretended atheist," says he, "replied to those who proposed the alternative, 'You must either leave your country or change your religion;' I prefer the former to the latter; if I cannot pass my days in a town, I will pass them in the fields or the woods; God will there supply me with some herbs or roots which will support the little of life that remains to me." For this Bayle refers the reader to the panegyric of Gruter by Venator. But he is mistaken. It is not to Gruter, but to Sched, his old and faithful servant, that Venator attributes this answer. Gruter was very laborious, and exceedingly anxious to be productive; nor are there many learned men to whom Roman literature owes so many obligations. We shall take a short survey of his works. His essays in Latin poetry, which have already been mentioned, appeared in 1587, under the title of Pericula. In the verses of Gruter there is more science than energy. His Elegies are rugged and dissonant, from the affectation of employing polysyllabic words in the end of his pentameters. This is an imitation of the manner of the Greeks, and of that of Propertius, particularly in his first book; but it is not executed with sufficient taste, or a due regard to the measure. He next published, under the title of Suspiciones, conjectures on the Latin authors, in nine books, which he wished to extend to thirty; but he had not time to execute his design, in which, however, he appears to have made considerable progress. Burmann the second, whose library was so rich in works of criticism, possessed a large portion of this inedited supplement. In 1594 Gruter published a commentary on Seneca the philosopher, in which, notwithstanding the saucy remark of Scaliger (labour d'esclaver ou d'imprimer), he gave proofs of great accuracy. Seneca the tragic poet, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Martial, and Florus, of which author he published two editions; Statius, on which he left inedited notes, cited by Taubmann (ad Plaut. Amph. l. i. p. 83); Plautus, which was the occasion of a long and indecent quarrel between him and Pareus; Paterculus, Pliny the younger, the Panegyrists, the writers of the Augustin History, Cicero, and Publius Syrus, successively occupied his attention. In the edition of this last author, published by Havercamp and Preyger, may be found a posthumous commentary of Gruter, in which the text of Publius Syrus disappears amidst an enormous assemblage of parallel passages.

Gruter collected, under the title of Delicia Poetarum Italorum, Gallorum, Belgiorum, the best Latin poems of the Italians, the French, the Flemings, and the Dutch, and, in the title-page of this collection, assumed the name of Romulus Gherus, which is the anagram of Janus Gruterus. When he published the Delicia Poetarum Germanorum, a collection of the same kind as the preceding, he concealed himself under the initials A. F. G. G., which, read backwards, signify Gruterus Gaultheri filius, Antuerpianus. Lamonnois on Baillet (tome iv. p. 184) has given a list of all the poets contained in the fifteen volumes to which these collections extend. The Lompaes see Fox Artium Liberalium, is another compilation, in six large volumes, wherein Gruter has collected a great number of commentators and critics, who had become rare in his time, or whose works had not been printed. A table of their names may be found in the Bibliographia Antiquaria of Fabricius (c. 3, sect. 7). In 1737 Paleisi commenced a new edition of this collection, but he died before it was completed, and only four volumes appeared. To the six volumes of the original edition, Frankfort, 1603-1612, a seventh was, after the death of Gruter, added by Pareus in 1634, containing remarks on Plautus, in which Gruter, who had concealed his name under that of Pfug, in order to attack Pareus, is, by way of reprisal, outrageously insulted. In publishing his Chronicon Chronicorum he assumed the name of Johannes Gualterius; but this was a more honourable disguise; for the name he assumed was that of his father, which he no doubt hoped to immortalise by means of that useful and excellent work. We are also indebted to Gruter for other vast compilations, particularly a continuation of the Polyanthusa of Langius; the Bibliotheca Exulorum, Strasbourg, 1624, in 12mo; and the Corpus Inscriptionum, Heidelberg, 1601, in folio. This last work is one of great importance, and of itself would be sufficient to sustain the literary reputation of Gruter. It is an immense collection of Greek and Latin inscriptions, which had been begun by Suetius, and which he considerably augmented, subjoining the Notae Romanorum veterum Tullii Tironis et Annae Senecae; but the only edition now consulted is that of Graevius, 1707, in four volumes folio. The Emperor Rodolph II., to whom Gruter had dedicated his Inscriptions, wished to grant him, as a proof of his imperial satisfaction, the privilege of publishing all his books, and the title of count palatine; but his majesty died before having signed the "acts," as they are called; and Gruter, who had all the modesty of true learning, not choosing to bring his claims under the notice of the new emperor, lost without regret the favours which he had so well merited. The war which ravaged the palatinate disturbed his last years, and probably accelerated his end. His books were pillaged, and the palatine library, where he might have consoled himself for the loss of his own, was despoiled of its numerous manuscripts. Exiled, persecuted, and wandering from town to town, Gruter died on the 20th of September 1627, at the moment when the university of Groningen had offered him the chair of history and of Greek.