GRUBER, JOHANN GOTTFRIED (1774-1851), German critic and literary historian, was born at Naumburg on the Saale, on the 29th of November 1774. He received his education at the town school of Naumburg and the university of Leipzig, after which he resided successively at Gottingen, Leipzig, Jena and Weimar, occupying himself partly in teaching and partly in various literary enterprises, and enjoying in Weimar the friendship of Herder, Wieland and Goethe. In 1811 he was appointed professor at the university of Wittenberg, and after the division of Saxony he was sent by the senate to Berlin to negotiate the union of the university of Wittenberg with that of Halle. After the union was effected he became in 1815 professor of philosophy at Halle. He was associated with Johann Samuel Ersch in the editorship of the great work _Allgemeine Encyklopadie der Wissenschaften und Kunste_; and after the death of Ersch he continued the first section from vol. xviii. to vol. liv. He also succeeded Ersch in the editorship of the _Allgemeine Literaturzeitung_. He died on the 7th of August 1851. Gruber was the author of a large number of works, the principal of which are _Charakteristik Herders_ (Leipzig, 1805), in conjunction with Johann T. L. Danz (1769-1851), afterwards professor of theology at Jena; _Geschichte des menschlichen Geschlechts_ (2 vols., Leipzig, 1806); _Worterbuch der altklassischen Mythologie_ (3 vols., Weimar, 1810-1815); _Wielands Leben_ (2 parts, Weimar, 1815-1816), and _Klopstocks Leben_ (Weimar, 1832). He also edited Wieland's _Samtliche Werke_ (Leipzig, 1818-1828).