of philosophy of mind and logic. The emoluments of this sum were, however, to be held over and added to the principal if at any time the holder of the chair should be “a minister of the Church of England or of any other religious persuasion.” In 1850 the senate of the university was reconstituted, and Grote was one of seven eminent men who were added to it. Eventually he became the strongest advocate for open examinations, for the claims not only of philosophy and classics but also of natural science, and, as vice-chancellor in 1862, for the admission of women to examinations. This latter reform was carried in 1868. He succeeded his friend Henry Hallam as a trustee of the British Museum in 1859, and took part in the reorganization of the departments of antiquities and natural science.
The honours which he received in recognition of these services were as follows: D.C.L. of Oxford (1853); LL.D. Cambridge (1861); F.R.S. (1857); honorary professor of ancient history in the Royal Academy (1859). By the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences he was made correspondent (1857) and foreign associate (the first Englishman since Macaulay) (1864). In 1869 he refused Gladstone’s offer of a peerage.
2. Political Career.—In politics Grote belonged to the “philosophic Radicals” of the school of J. S. Mill and Bentham, whose chief principles were representative government, vote by ballot, the abolition of a state church, frequent elections. He adhered to these principles throughout, and refused to countenance any reforms which were incompatible with them. By this uncompromising attitude, he gradually lost all his supporters save a few men of like rigidity. As a speaker, he was clear, logical and impressive, and on select committees his common sense was most valuable. For his speeches see A. Bain in the Minor Works; see also Ballot.
3. The History of Greece.—It is on this work that Grote’s reputation mainly rests. Though half a century has passed since its production, it is still in some sense the text-book. It consists of two parts, the “Legendary” and the “Historical” Greece. The former, owing to the development of comparative mythology, is now of little authority, and portions of part ii. are obsolete owing partly to the immense accumulations of epigraphic and archaeological research, partly to the subsequent discovery of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens, and partly also to the more careful weighing of evidence which Grote himself misinterpreted. The interest of the work is twofold. In the first place it contains a wonderful mass of information carefully collected from all sources, arranged on a simple plan, and expressed in direct forcible language. It is in this respect one of the few great comprehensive histories in our possession, great in scope, conception and accomplishment. But more than this it is interesting as among the first works in which Greek history became a separate study, based on real evidence and governed by the criteria of modern historical science. Further Grote, a practical man, a rationalist and an enthusiast for democracy, was the first to consider Greek political development with a sympathetic interest (see Greece: History, Ancient, section “Authorities”), in opposition to the Tory attitude of John Gillies and Mitford, who had written under the influence of horror at the French Revolution. On the whole his work was done with impartiality, and more recent study has only confirmed his general conclusions. Much has been made of his defective accounts of the tyrants and the Macedonian empire, and his opinion that Greek history ceased to be interesting or instructive after Chaeronea. It is true that he confined his interest to the fortunes of the city state and neglected the wider diffusion of the Greek culture, but this is after all merely a criticism of the title of the book. The value of the History consists to-day primarily in its examination of the Athenian democracy, its growth and decline, an examination which is still the most inspiring, and in general the most instructive, in any language. In the description of battles and military operations generally Grote was handicapped by the lack of personal knowledge of the country. In this respect he is inferior to men like Ernst Curtius and G. B. Grundy.
4. In Philosophy Grote was a follower of the Mills and Bentham. J. S. Mill paid a tribute to him in the preface to the third edition of his Examination of Sir Wm. Hamilton’s Philosophy, and there is no doubt that the empirical school owed a great deal to his sound, accurate thinking, untrammelled by any reverence for authority, technique and convention. In dealing with Plato he was handicapped by this very common sense, which prevented him from appreciating the theory of ideas in its widest relations. His Plato is important in that it emphasizes the generally neglected passages of Plato in which he seems to indulge in mere Socratic dialectic rather than to seek knowledge; it is, therefore, to be read as a corrective to the ordinary criticism of Plato. The more congenial study of Aristotle, though incomplete, is more valuable in the positive sense, and has not received the attention it deserves. Perhaps Grote’s most distinctive contribution to the study of Greek philosophy is his chapter in the History of Greece on the Sophists, of whom he took a view somewhat more favourable than has been accepted before or since.
His wife, Harriet Lewin (1792–1878), was the daughter of Thomas Lewin, a retired Indian civilian, settled in Southampton. After her marriage with Grote in 1820 she devoted herself to the subjects in which he was interested and was a prominent figure in the literary, political and philosophical circle in which he lived. She carefully read the proofs of his work and relieved him of anxiety in connexion with his property. Among her writings are: Memoir of Ary Scheffer (1860); Collected Papers (1862); and her biography of her husband (1873). Another publication, The Philosophical Radicals of 1832 (privately circulated in 1866), is interesting for the light it throws on the Reform movement of 1832 to 1842, especially on Molesworth.
Bibliography.—The History of Greece passed through five editions the fifth (10 vols., 1888) being final. An edition covering the period from Solon to 403, with new notes and excursuses, was published by J. M. Mitchell and M. O. B. Caspari in 1907. The Plato was finally edited by Alexander Bain in 4 vols. See Mrs Grote’s Personal Life of George Grote, and article in Dict. Nat. Biog. by G. Croom Robertson. (J. M. M.)
GROTEFEND, GEORG FRIEDRICH (1775–1853), German
epigraphist, was born at Münden in Hanover on the 9th of June
1775. He was educated partly in his native town, partly at
Ilfeld, where he remained till 1795, when he entered the university
of Göttingen, and there became the friend of Heyne, Tychsen
and Heeren. Heyne’s recommendation procured for him an
assistant mastership in the Göttingen gymnasium in 1797.
While there he published his work De pasigraphia sive scriptura
universali (1799), which led to his appointment in 1803 as
prorector of the gymnasium of Frankfort-on-Main, and shortly
afterwards as conrector. Grotefend was best known during his
lifetime as a Latin and Italian philologist, though the attention
he paid to his own language is shown by his Anfangsgründe der
deutschen Poesie, published in 1815, and his foundation of a
society for investigating the German tongue in 1817. In 1821
he became director of the gymnasium at Hanover, a post which
he retained till his retirement in 1849. In 1823–1824 appeared
his revised edition of Wenck’s Latin grammar, in two volumes,
followed by a smaller grammar for the use of schools in 1826;
in 1835–1838 a systematic attempt to explain the fragmentary
remains of the Umbrian dialect, entitled Rudimenta linguae
Umbricae ex inscriptionibus antiquis enodata (in eight parts); and
in 1839 a work of similar character upon Oscan (Rudimenta
linguae Oscae). In the same year he published an important
memoir on the coins of Bactria, under the name of Die Münzen der
griechischen, parthischen, und indoskythischen Könige von Bactrien
und den Ländern am Indus. He soon, however, returned to his
favourite subject, and brought out a work in five parts, Zur
Geographie und Geschichte von Altitalien (1840–1842). Previously,
in 1836, he had written a preface to Wagenfeld’s translation of the
spurious Sanchoniathon of Philo Byblius, which was alleged to
have been discovered in the preceding year in the Portuguese
convent of Santa Maria de Merinhao. But it was in the East
rather than in the West that Grotefend did his greatest work.
The cuneiform inscriptions of Persia had for some time been
attracting attention in Europe; exact copies of them had been
published by the elder Niebuhr, who lost his eyesight over the
work; and Grotefend’s friend, Tychsen of Rostock, believed
