Rask or any one else. It is true that a certain bitterness of feeling afterwards sprang up between Grimm and Rask, but this was the fault of the latter, who, impatient of contradiction and irritable in controversy, refused to acknowledge the value of Grimm’s views when they involved modification of his own. The importance of Grimm’s generalization in the history of philology cannot be overestimated, and even the mystic completeness and symmetry of its formulation, although it has proved a hindrance to the correct explanation of the causes of the changes, was well calculated to strike the popular mind, and give it a vivid idea of the paramount importance of law, and the necessity of disregarding mere superficial resemblance. The most lawless etymologist bows down to the authority of Grimm’s law, even if he honours it almost as much in the breach as in the observance.
The grammar was continued in three volumes, treating principally of derivation, composition and syntax, which last was left unfinished. Grimm then began a third edition, of which only one part, comprising the vowels, appeared in 1840, his time being afterwards taken up mainly by the dictionary. The grammar stands alone in the annals of science for comprehensiveness, method and fullness of detail. Every law, every letter, every syllable of inflection in the different languages is illustrated by an almost exhaustive mass of material. It has served as a model for all succeeding investigators. Diez’s grammar of the Romance languages is founded entirely on its methods, which have also exerted a profound influence on the wider study of the Indo-Germanic languages in general.
In the great German dictionary Grimm undertook a task for which he was hardly suited. His exclusively historical tendencies made it impossible for him to do justice to the individuality of a living language; and the disconnected statement of the facts of language in an ordinary alphabetical dictionary fatally mars its scientific character. It was also undertaken on so large a scale as to make it impossible for him and his brother to complete it themselves. The dictionary, as far as it was worked out by Grimm himself, may be described as a collection of disconnected antiquarian essays of high value.
Grimm’s scientific character is notable for its combination of breadth and unity. He was as far removed from the narrowness of the specialist who has no ideas, no sympathies beyond some one author, period or corner of science, as from the shallow dabbler who feverishly attempts to master the details of half-a-dozen discordant pursuits. Even within his own special studies there is the same wise concentration; no Mezzofanti-like parrot display of useless polyglottism. The very foundations of his nature were harmonious; his patriotism and love of historical investigation received their fullest satisfaction in the study of the language, traditions, mythology, laws and literature of his own countrymen and their nearest kindred. But from this centre his investigations were pursued in every direction as far as his unerring instinct of healthy limitation would allow. He was equally fortunate in the harmony that subsisted between his intellectual and moral nature. He made cheerfully the heavy sacrifices that science demands from its disciples, without feeling any of that envy and bitterness which often torment weaker natures; and although he lived apart from his fellow men, he was full of human sympathies, and no man has ever exercised a profounder influence on the destinies of mankind. His was the very ideal of the noblest type of German character.
The following is a complete list of his separately published works, those which he published in common with his brother being marked with a star. For a list of his essays in periodicals, &c., see vol. v. of his Kleinere Schriften, from which the present list is taken. His life is best studied in his own “Selbstbiographie,” in vol. i. of the Kleinere Schriften. There is also a brief memoir by K. Gödeke in Göttinger Professoren (Gotha (Perthes), 1872): Über den altdeutschen Meistergesang (Göttingen, 1811); *Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin, 1812–1815) (many editions); *Das Lied von Hildebrand und das Weissenbrunner Gebet (Cassel, 1812); Altdeutsche Wälder (Cassel, Frankfort, 1813–1816, 3 vols.); *Der arme Heinrich von Hartmann von der Aue (Berlin, 1815); Irmenstrasse und Irmensäule (Vienna, 1815); *Die Lieder der alten Edda (Berlin, 1815), Silva de romances viejos (Vienna, 1815); *Deutsche Sagen (Berlin, 1816–1818, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1865–1866); Deutsche Grammatik (Göttingen, 1819, 2nd ed., Göttingen, 1822–1840) (reprinted 1870 by W. Scherer, Berlin); Wuk Stephanovitsch’s kleine serbische Grammatik, verdeutscht mit einer Vorrede (Leipzig and Berlin, 1824); Zur Recension der deutschen Grammatik (Cassel, 1826); *Irische Elfenmärchen, aus dem Englischen (Leipzig, 1826); Deutsche Rechtsaltertümer (Göttingen, 1828, 2nd ed., 1854); Hymnorum veteris ecclesiae XXVI. interpretatio theodisca (Göttingen, 1830); Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1834); Deutsche Mythologie (Göttingen, 1835, 3rd ed., 1854, 2 vols.); Taciti Germania edidit (Göttingen, 1835); Über meine Entlassung (Basel, 1838); (together with Schmeller) Lateinische Gedichte des X. und XI. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 1838); Sendschreiben an Karl Lachmann über Reinhart Fuchs (Berlin, 1840); Weistümer, Th. i. (Göttingen, 1840) (continued, partly by others, in 5 parts, 1840–1869); Andreas und Elene (Cassel, 1840); Frau Aventure (Berlin, 1842); Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (Leipzig, 1848, 3rd ed., 1868, 2 vols.); Das Wort des Besitzes (Berlin, 1850); *Deutsches Wörterbuch, Bd. i. (Leipzig, 1854); Rede auf Wilhelm Grimm und Rede über das Alter (Berlin, 1868, 3rd ed., 1865); Kleinere Schriften (Berlin, 1864–1870, 5 vols.). (H. Sw.)
GRIMM, WILHELM CARL (1786–1859). For the chief events
in the life of Wilhelm Grimm see article on Jacob Grimm above.
As Jacob himself said in his celebrated address to the Berlin
Academy on the death of his brother, the whole of their lives
were passed together. In their schooldays they had one bed
and one table in common, as students they had two beds and
two tables in the same room, and they always lived under one
roof, and had their books and property in common. Nor did
Wilhelm’s marriage in any way disturb their harmony. As
Cleasby said (“Life of Cleasby,” prefixed to his Icelandic
Dictionary, p. lxix.), “they both live in the same house, and in
such harmony and community that one might almost imagine
the children were common property.” Wilhelm’s character
was a complete contrast to that of his brother. As a boy he was
strong and healthy, but as he grew up he was attacked by a long
and severe illness, which left him weak all his life. His was a less
comprehensive and energetic mind than that of his brother, and
he had less of the spirit of investigation, preferring to confine
himself to some limited and definitely bounded field of work;
he utilized everything that bore directly on his own studies, and
ignored the rest. These studies were almost always of a literary
nature. It is characteristic of his more aesthetic nature that he
took great delight in music, for which his brother had but a
moderate liking, and had a remarkable gift of story-telling.
Cleasby, in the account of his visit to the brothers, quoted above,
tells that “Wilhelm read a sort of farce written in the Frankfort
dialect, depicting the ‘malheurs’ of a rich Frankfort tradesman
on a holiday jaunt on Sunday. It was very droll, and he read
it admirably.” Cleasby describes him as “an uncommonly
animated, jovial fellow.” He was, accordingly, much sought in
society, which he frequented much more than his brother.
His first work was a spirited translation of the Danish Kæmpeviser, Altdänische Heldenlieder, published in 1811–1813, which made his name at first more widely known than that of his brother. The most important of his text editions are—Ruolandslied (Göttingen, 1838); Konrad von Würzburg’s Goldene Schmiede (Berlin, 1840); Grave Ruodolf (Göttingen, 1844, 2nd ed.); Athis und Prophilias (Berlin, 1846); Altdeutsche Gespräche (Berlin, 1851); Freidank (Göttingen, 1860, 2nd ed.). Of his other works the most important is Deutsche Heldensage (Berlin, 1868, 2nd ed.). His Deutsche Runen (Göttingen, 1821) has now only an historical interest. (H. Sw.)
GRIMMA, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, on the left bank
of the Mulde, 19 m. S.E. of Leipzig on the railway Döbeln-Dresden.
Pop. (1905) 11,182. It has a Roman Catholic and
three Evangelical churches, and among other principal buildings
are the Schloss built in the 12th century, and long a residence of
the margraves of Meissen and the electors of Saxony; the town-hall,
dating from 1442, and the famous school Fürstenschule
(Illustre Moldanum), erected by the elector Maurice on the site
of the former Augustinian monastery in 1550, having provision
for 104 free scholars and a library numbering 10,000 volumes.
There are also a modern school, a teachers’ seminary, a commercial
school and a school of brewing. Among the industries of
the town are ironfounding, machine building and dyeworks,
while paper and gloves are manufactured there. Gardening
and agriculture generally are also important branches of industry.
In the immediate neighbourhood are the ruins of the Cistercian
