FREDERICK MILCHIOR, Baron, born at Ratibon in 1723, is a remarkable instance of the power of letters in the eighteenth century. He was born of poor parents, who, however, gave him an education far beyond their station. On completing his studies, he tried his fortune as a dramatic writer, and, failing utterly, went to Paris as tutor to the young Count Schönberg, whose father was Polish minister at the court of Versailles. He there became reader to the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, and attached himself to the Encyclopedists, who then numbered in their ranks nearly all the intellect of Paris. In the contest as to the respective merits of French and Italian music, which at this time divided the French capital, Grimm sided with the partizans of the latter, and published on the subject a very witty little pamphlet, entitled Le petit Prophète de Bohémischbroda, which covered the champions of the national music with ridicule, while Rousseau drove them out of the field altogether by his Lettre sur la Musique Francaise. Their common fondness for music was the origin of a sincere friendship between Grimm and Rousseau. Grimm's reputation as a man of wit and talent now threw open to him the best salons in Paris. His inimitable social tact, his fine conversational powers, and the perfect elegance of his manners and person (on which last he bestowed infinite pains), all strengthened the impression which he had made on his first appearance as an author. His success was still further ensured by his powers of fascinating the fair sex, with several of whom simultaneously he contrived to pass as the perfect model of a passionate and disinterested lover. After the death of the Comte de Friesen (nephew of Marshal Saxe), to whom Grimm owed much, and whose secretary he had been, he attached himself to the Duke of Orleans, and began writing, for the benefit of some of the German princes, those literary bulletins, in which, with great ability, he analyzed the current literature of France. In 1776 he became the Duke of Saxe-Gotha's minister at the French court. When the Revolution broke out he retired to Gotha. In 1795, Catherine II. of Russia appointed him her minister at Hamburg, and her successor Paul confirmed him in this office. A sudden illness deprived him of the sight of an eye, and he once more returned to Gotha, where he died in 1807, at the advanced age of eighty-four.

Grimm's only title to remembrance by posterity is his Correspondence Litteraire, Critique et Philosophique, of which there have been several editions, the best being that in 15 vols., Paris, 1829. This work is an invaluable guide to all who desire to know the secret, literary, and social, and even political history of France during the middle and towards the close of the eighteenth century. But it must be remembered that its author was till his death—what he had been all his days—an adventurer, without fixed principles, a professed atheist, and, on the score of morale, infinitely inferior to the Diderots and D'Alemberts, who respected, and even feared him. Of these men Rousseau alone seems to have thoroughly understood the intense selfishness, egotism, and spirit of intrigue that constituted the real basis of Grimm's character. To the latter quality he owed mainly his success in life; and that he possessed it in no common degree may be easily imagined from the skill with which he finally worked his way to the top of the social ladder.