GROTH, KLAUS (1819-1899), Low German poet, was born at Heide in Schleswig-Holstein, on the 24th of April 1819. After studying at the seminary in Tondern (1838-1841), he became a teacher at the girls’ school in his native village, but in 1847 went to Kiel to qualify for a higher educational post. Ill-health interrupted his studies and it was not until 1853 that he was able to resume them at Kiel. In 1856 he took the degree of doctor of philosophy at Bonn, and in 1858 settled as privatdocent in German literature and languages at Kiel, where, in 1866, he was made professor, and where he lived until his death on the 1st of June 1899. In his Low German (Plattdeutsch) lyric and epic poems, which reflect the influence of Johann Peter Hebel (q.v.), Groth gives poetic expression to the country life of his northern home; and though his descriptions may not always reflect the peculiar characteristics of the peasantry of Holstein as faithfully as those of F. Reuter (q.v.), yet Groth is a lyric poet of genuine inspiration. His chief works are Quickborn, Volksleben in plattdeutschen Gedichten Ditmarscher Mundart (1852; 25th ed. 1900; and in High German translations, notably by M. J. Berchem, Krefeld, 1896); and two volumes of stories, Vertelln (1855-1859, 3rd ed. 1881); also Voer de Goern (1858) and Ut min Jungsparadies (1875).
Groth’s Gesammelte Werke appeared in 4 vols. (1893). His Lebenserinnerungen were edited by E. Wolff in 1891; see also K. Eggers, K. Groth und die plattdeutsche Dichtung (1885); and biographies by A. Bartels (1899) and H. Siercks (1899.)
GROTH, PAUL HEINRICH VON (1843- ), German mineralogist, was born at Magdeburg on the 23rd of June 1843. He was educated at Freiberg, Dresden and Berlin, and took the degree of Ph.D. in 1868. After holding from 1872 the chair of mineralogy at Strasburg, he was in 1883 appointed professor of mineralogy and curator of minerals in the state museum at Munich. He carried on extensive researches on crystals and minerals, and also on rocks; and published Tabellarische Übersicht der einfachen Mineralien (1874-1898), and Physikalische Krystallographie (1876-1895, ed. 4, 1905). He edited for some years the Zeitschrift für Krystallographie und Mineralogie.
GROTIUS, HUGO (1583-1645), in his native country Huig van Groot, but known to the rest of Europe by the latinized form of the name, Dutch publicist and statesman, was born at Delft on Easter day, the 10th of April 1583. The Groots were a branch of a family of distinction, which had been noble in France, but had removed to the Low Countries more than a century before. Their French name was de Cornets, and this cadet branch had taken the name of Groot on the marriage of Hugo’s great-grandfather with a Dutch heiress. The father of Hugo was a lawyer in considerable practice, who had four times served the office of burgomaster of Leiden, and was one of the three curators of the university of that place.
In the annals of precocious genius there is no greater prodigy on record than Hugo Grotius, who was able to make good Latin verses at nine, was ripe for the university at twelve, and at fifteen edited the encyclopaedic work of Martianus Capella. At Leiden he was much noticed by J. J. Scaliger, whose habit it was to engage his young friends in the editing of some classical text. At fifteen Grotius accompanied Count Justin of Nassau, and the grand pensionary J. van Olden Barneveldt on their special embassy to the court of France. After a year spent in acquiring the language and making acquaintance with the leading men of France, Grotius returned home. He took the degree of doctor of law at Leiden, and entered on practice as an advocate.
Notwithstanding his successes in his profession, his inclination was to literature. In 1600 he edited the remains of Aratus, with the versions of Cicero, Germanicus and Avienus. Of the Germanicus Scaliger says—“A better text than that which Grotius has given, it is impossible to give”; but it is probable that Scaliger had himself been the reviser. Grotius vied with the Latinists of his day in the composition of Latin verses. Some lines on the siege of Ostend spread his fame beyond the circle of the learned. He wrote three dramas in Latin:—Christus patiens; Sophomphaneas, on the story of Joseph and his brethren; and Adamus exul, a production still remembered as having given hints to Milton. The Sophomphaneas was translated into Dutch by Vondel, and into English by Francis Goldsmith (1652); the Christus patiens into English by George Sandys (1640).
In 1603 the United Provinces, desiring to transmit to posterity some account of their struggle with Spain, determined to appoint a historiographer. The choice of the states fell upon Grotius, though he was but twenty years of age, and had not offered himself for the post. There was some talk at this time in Paris of calling Grotius to be librarian of the royal library. But it was a ruse of the Jesuit party, who wished to persuade the public that the opposition to the appointment of Isaac Casaubon did not proceed from theological motives, since they were ready to appoint a Protestant in the person of Grotius.