GRIMM, JAKOB Ltrowto, German philologist and antiquary, was b. Jan. 4. 1785, at Hanau, in Hesse Cassel. He was educated m classical and legal studies at Marburg, and afterwarwards visited Paris, where he pursued a variety of studies, and assiduously cultivated his taste for medimval literature. On his return to Germany he was appointed secretary to the minister of war at Hesse Cassel, and became successively librarian of Willelmshohe, and auditor to the council of state. In 1814 he was secre tary to the ambassador of the elector of Hesse, whom he attended at Paris, and at the congress of Vienna. In 1815 he was appointed a commissioner by the Prussian government to claim the restoration of valuable manuscripts, which had been removed to Paris by the•armies of Napoleon I. ' In 1830 he received the appointment of pro fessor of German literature, and librarian of the university of Gottingen. In this position he devoted seven years to the study of the language, ancient laws, history, and literature of Germany. He was one of seven professors who protested in 1837 against the abolition of the constitution by the king of Hanover, for which act he was outlawed, and obliged to retire to Cassel. In 1841 he was invited to Berlin, where as a member of the academy he was entitled to give lectures. He sat as a member of the assembly of Frankfort in 1848. Though holding at various times important public offices, his life was devoted to philological and antiquarian studies, and to works which are mines of erudition, and the results of a wonderful industry combined with excessive enthusiasm for everything German. His German Grammar, in four volumes, the first volume of
which was published in 1819, and the last in 1837, is perhaps the greatest philological work of the age; it may be said to have laid the foundation of the historical investi gation of language. It traces the German language through all its dialects. Some idea of its thoroughness may be got from the fact that the vowels and consonants alone occupy 600 pages. His Deutsche Rechts-Alterthilmer (antiquities of German law pub lished 1828), and Deutsche Mythologie (German Mythology, 1835), are exhaustive works upon the society of the middle ages in central Europe, and the religious traditions and superstitions from the earliest times. His Geschichte der .Deutschen Sprache (History of German Language), and Ueber den Unsprung der Sprache (On the Origin of Language), are also works of great importance. In company with his brother Wilhelm he pub lished numerous works of a more-popular character, the best known of which is Kinder wnet Hausnuirchen (Niirsery and Fireside StorieS). The greatest joint mdertaking of the two brothers (now carried on by other scholars) is the Deutsches Worterbudh, begun in 1852, and yet far from completion. Jakob Grimm died Sept., 1863.