[1] Weld was the author of several anti-slavery books which had
considerable influence at the time. Among them are _The Bible against
Slavery_ (1837), _American Slavery as It Is_ (1839), a collection of
extracts from Southern papers, and _Slavery and the Internal Slave
Trade in the U.S._ (1841).
GRIMM, FRIEDRICH MELCHIOR, BARON VON (1723-1807), French author, the son
of a German pastor, was born at Ratisbon on the 26th of December 1723.
He studied at the University of Leipzig, where he came under the
influence of Gottsched and of J. A. Ernesti, to whom he was largely
indebted for his critical appreciation of classical literature. When
nineteen he produced a tragedy, _Banise_, which met with some success.
After two years of study he returned to Ratisbon, where he was attached
to the household of Count Schonberg. In 1748 he accompanied August
Heinrich, Count Friesen, to Paris as secretary, and he is said by
Rousseau to have acted for some time as reader to Frederick, the young
hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha. His acquaintance with Rousseau, through
a mutual sympathy in regard to musical matters, soon ripened into
intimate friendship, and led to a close association with the
encyclopaedists. He rapidly obtained a thorough knowledge of the French
language, and acquired so perfectly the tone and sentiments of the
society in which he moved that all marks of his foreign origin and
training seemed effaced. A witty pamphlet entitled _Le Petit Prophete de
Boehmischbroda_ (1753), written by him in defence of Italian as against
French opera, established his literary reputation. It is possible that
the origin of the pamphlet is partly to be accounted for by his vehement
passion[1] for Mlle Fel, the _prima donna_ of the Italian company. In
1753 Grimm, following the example of the abbe Raynal, began a literary
correspondence with various German sovereigns. Raynal's letters,
_Nouvelles litteraires_, ceased early in 1755. With the aid of friends,
especially of Diderot and Mme d'Epinay, during his temporary absences
from France, Grimm himself carried on the correspondence, which
consisted of two letters a month, until 1773, and eventually counted
among his subscribers Catherine II. of Russia, Stanislas Poniatowski,
king of Poland, and many princes of the smaller German States. It was
probably in 1754 that Grimm was introduced by Rousseau to Madame
d'Epinay, with whom he soon formed a _liaison_ which led to an
irreconcilable rupture between him and Rousseau. Rousseau was induced by
his resentment to give in his _Confessions_ a wholly mendacious portrait
of Grimm's character. In 1755, after the death of Count Friesen, who was
a nephew of Marshal Saxe and an officer in the French army, Grimm became
_secretaire des commandements_ to the duke of Orleans, and in this
capacity he accompanied Marshal d'Estrees on the campaign of Westphalia
in 1756-57. He was named envoy of the town of Frankfort at the court of
France in 1759, but was deprived of his office for criticizing the comte
de Broglie in a despatch intercepted by Louis XV. He was made a baron of
the Holy Roman Empire in 1775. His introduction to Catherine II. of
Russia took place at St Petersburg in 1773, when he was in the suite of
Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt on the occasion of her marriage to the
czarevitch Paul. He became minister of Saxe-Gotha at the court of France
in 1776, but in 1777 he again left Paris on a visit to St Petersburg,
where he remained for nearly a year in daily intercourse with Catherine.
He acted as Paris agent for the empress in the purchase of works of art,
and executed many confidential commissions for her. In 1783 and the
following years he lost his two most intimate friends, Mme d'Epinay and
Diderot. In 1792 he emigrated, and in the next year settled in Gotha,
where his poverty was relieved by Catherine, who in 1796 appointed him
minister of Russia at Hamburg. On the death of the empress Catherine he
took refuge with Mme d'Epinay's granddaughter, Emilie de Belsunce,
comtesse de Bueil. Grimm had always interested himself in her, and had
procured her dowry from the empress Catherine. She now received him with
the utmost kindness. He died at Gotha on the 19th of December 1807.
The correspondence of Grimm was strictly confidential, and was not
divulged during his lifetime. It embraces nearly the whole period from
1750 to 1790, but the later volumes, 1773 to 1790, were chiefly the work
of his secretary, Jakob Heinrich Meister. At first he contented himself
with enumerating the chief current views in literature and art and
indicating very slightly the contents of the principal new books, but
gradually his criticisms became more extended and trenchant, and he
touched on nearly every subject--political, literary, artistic, social
and religious--which interested the Parisian society of the time. His
notices of contemporaries are somewhat severe, and he exhibits the
foibles and selfishness of the society in which he moved; but he was
unbiassed in his literary judgments, and time has only served to confirm
his criticisms. In style and manner of expression he is thoroughly
French. He is generally somewhat cold in his appreciation, but his
literary taste is delicate and subtle; and it was the opinion of
Sainte-Beuve that the quality of his thought in his best moments will
compare not unfavourably even with that of Voltaire. His religious and
philosophical opinions were entirely negative.
Grimm's _Correspondance litteraire, philosophique et critique ...,
depuis 1753 jusqu'en 1769_, was edited, with many excisions, by J. B.
A. Suard and published at Paris in 1812, in 6 vols. 8vo; _deuxieme
partie, de 1771 a 1782_, in 1812 in 5 vols. 8vo; and _troisieme
partie, pendant une partie des annees 1775 et 1776, et pendant les
annees 1782 a 1790 inclusivement_, in 1813 in 5 vols. 8vo. A
supplementary volume appeared in 1814; the whole correspondence was
collected and published by M. Jules Taschereau, with the assistance of
A. Chaude, in a _Nouvelle Edition, revue et mise dans un meilleur
ordre, avec des notes et des eclaircissements, et ou se trouvent
retablies pour la premiere fois les phrases supprimees par la censure
imperiale_ (Paris, 1829, 15 vols. 8vo); and the _Correspondance
inedite, et recueil de lettres, poesies, morceaux, et fragments
retranches par la censure imperiale en 1812 et 1813_ was published in
1829. The standard edition is that of M. Tourneux (16 vols.,
1877-1882). Grimm's _Memoire historique sur l'origine et les suites de
mon attachement pour l'imperatrice Catherine II jusqu'au deces de sa
majeste imperiale_, and Catherine's correspondence with Grimm
(1774-1796) were published by J. Grot in 1880, in the _Collection_ of
the Russian Imperial Historical Society. She treats him very
familiarly, and calls him Heraclite, Georges Dandin, &c. At the time
of the Revolution she begged him to destroy her letters, but he
refused, and after his death they were returned to St Petersburg.
Grimm's side of the correspondence, however, is only partially
preserved. He signs himself "Pleureur." Some of Grimm's letters,
besides the official correspondence, are included in the edition of M.
Tourneux; others are contained in the _Erinnerungen einer
Urgrossmutter_ of K. von Bechtolsheim, edited (Berlin, 1902) by Count
C. Oberndorff. See also Mme d'Epinay's _Memoires_; Rousseau's
_Confessions_; the notices contained in the editions quoted; E.
Scherer, _Melchior Grimm_ (1887); Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_,
vol. vii. For further works bearing on the subject, see K. A. Georges,
_Friedrich Melchior Grimm_ (Hanover and Leipzig, 1904).