GLEIM, JOHANN WILHELM LUDWIG

born April 2, 1719, Ermsleben, near Halberstadt, Saxony died Feb. 18, 1803, Halberstadt German Anacreontic poet. Gleim studied law at Halle and was successively secretary to Prince William of Brandenburg-Schwedt at Berlin, to Prince Leopold of Dessau, and secretary (1747) of the cathedral chapter at Halberstadt. Father Gleim was the title accorded him throughout literary Germany on account of his generosity to young poets. Although he looked with some suspicion on their revolutionary tendencies, he helped them none the less. Gleim himself wrote feeble imitations of Anacreon, Horace, and the minnesingers, a dull didactic poem entitled Halladat oder das rote Buch (1774), and collections of fables and romances. Of higher merit is his Preussische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier (1758), inspired by the campaigns of Frederick II.