Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/213

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permutations of his predecessors and the comprehensive generalizations under which he himself ranged them. The extension of the law to High German is also entirely his own. The only fact that can be adduced in support of the assertion that Grimm wished to deprive Rask of his claims to priority is that he does not expressly mention Rask s results in his second edition. But this is part of the plan of his work, made absolutely necessary by its enormous extent, viz., to refrain from all controversy or reference to the works of Others, leaving his readers to assign to each investigator his due. In his first edition he expressly calls attention to Rask s essay, and praises it most ungrudgingly. Rask himself refers as little to Ihre, merely alluding in a general way to Hire s permutations, although his own debt to Ihre is infinitely greater than that of Grimm to Rask or any one else. . It is true tliat 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 explana tion 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 disre garding mere superficial resemblance. Even the lawless English etymologist bows down to the authority of Grimm s law, though it must be confessed he honours it almost as mu^h 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. Of the grammar as a whole we can only say that it stands quite alone in the annals of science for com prehensiveness, method, and fulness of detail. Every law, every letter, every syllable of inflexion in the different Ianguag2s, is illustrated by an almost exhaustive mass of material, drawn from every period and every dialect. 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 pro found influence on the wider study of the Indo-Gernianic 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 alphabeti cal 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. We may describe the dictionary, as far as it was worked out by Grimm himself, as a collection of disconnected anti quarian essays of, it need hardly be remarked, high value. In summing up Grimm s scientific character we are struck by 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 narrow corner of science, as from the shallow dabbler who feverishly attempts to master the details of half a dozen discordant pursuits, which have no central point of interest round which to rally. Even within his own special studies there is the same wise concentration ; no Mezzofanti-like parrot display of useless polyglottism. The very founda tions of his nature were harmonious ; his patriotism and love of historical investigation received their fullest satis faction 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 v T ere pursued in every direction as far as his unerring instinct of healthy limitation would allow. He was equally fortun ate 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 lias ever exercised a profounder influence on the destinies of mankind than he has an influence which is still only in its infancy. His was the very ideal of the noblest type of German character.

The following is a compk-te lint 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., sec vol. v. of his Klcincrc Schriftcn, from which the present list is taken. His life is best studied in his own " Selbstbiographie," in vol. i. of the Klcincrc Schriftcn. There is also a brief memoir by Dr Godeke in Gbttingcr Profcssoren, Gotha (Perthes), 1872.

Oeber den aUdevtschen Meitfergegang, Gottingen. 1811 ; * Kinder- vnd Ifaus- Marehen, Berlin, 1812-15 (many editions) ; *Das Lied ran Jfi/debrand vnd das Weisstnbrunner Gebet, Cassel, 1812; Attdeutsche Wd/der, Cassel, Frankfort, 1813-16, 3vols.; *Der arme Heinrieh ran Hartmann von der A ue, Berlin, 1815; Irmen- ftrasse vnd Irmensdule, Vienna, 1815; *Die Lieder der alien Edda, Berlin 1815, Silva de romances viejo.t, Vienna, 1815; * Deutsche Sagen, Berlin, 181G-18, 2d ed., Berlin, 1865-00; Deutsche Grammatik, Gb Uingen, 1819, 2d ed., Gottingen, 1822-40, reprinted 1870 by W. Scherer, Berlin ; Wtik Stephanovitsch s Kleine serbitche Gram matik, verdeutscht mite tier Vorrede, Leipsic and Berlin, 1824; Zur liecension der deittschen Grammatik, Cassel, 1826; *Irische Elfenmarchen, avs dim eng/isciien, Leipsic, 1826; Deutsche Recht sal terthilmer, Gottingen, 1828, 2d ed., 18. r ,4; J/ymno- rum veteris ecclesiceXXVI inlerpretatio Theodisca, Gb ttlngen, 18:jO; Jlriti fiart f ucJit, Berlin, 1S34; Deutsche Mythologie, Gottingen, 1835, 3d ed., 1854, 2 vols.; Taciti Germania tdidit, Gottingen, 1835 ; Ueber meine Entlatsung, Basel, 1838 ; (together with Schmeller) Lateinische Gedichte des X. vnd XI. Jahrhunderts. Gottingen, 1838; Sendschreiben an Karl Lachmann fiber Reinhart Fuclis, Berlin, 1840; Weisthumer, th. i., Gottingen, 1840 (continued, partly by others, in 5 parts, 1S40-69); Andreas und Efene, Cassel, 1840; jfrau Arenture, Berlin, 1842 ; Gencliichte der deutschen Sprache, Leipsic, 1848, 3d ed., 1868, 2 vols.; Das Wort des fiesitzes, Berlin, 1850 ; *Deutsches Wbrterbuch, bd. i., Leipsic, 1854 (still in progress) ; Kede auf Wilhelm Grimm und Rede iiber das Alter, Berlin, 1868, 3d ed., 1865; Kleinere

Sc hriften, Berlin. 1864-70, 5 vols.
(IH. SW.)


GRIMM, Wilhelm Carl (1786-1859). The chief events in the life of Wilhelm Grimm have been narrated in last article. The two brothers were indeed so inti mately associated both in their lives and in their works that a separate biography of the younger is almost super fluous. 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 school days 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. Ixix.), "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 in him, 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, and the majority of his works, including those he carried on in common with his brother, are con cerned either with literary problems, or popular traditions, or else are text-editions. 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