CLASSICAL STUDIES.

SCHOOLS OF GERMAN PHILOLOGY.

NOTHING in Germany attracts the attention of the literary world more than the philological attainments of her great scholars. While, on the one hand, we are interested to know the results of their immense learning and toil, in order that, we may not remain ignorant of those things pertaining to antiquity, with which so many are familiar, we are not less concerned, on the other hand, to ascertain the process by which such scholarship is formed, so that we, also, may enter upon the same course of improvement.

In giving some account of the principal classical philologists of Germany, we shall best accomplish our object, by exhibiting the peculiar character of the different schools of German philology, accompanied by examples of individuals, who have risen to eminence in Greek and Roman literature, only by efforts of an extraordinary character.

Heyne and Winckelmann are the two individuals who have contributed most to the formation of the present character of German philology, and who, therefore, deserve our first attention.

Heyne was a native of Chemnitz, in the kingdom of Saxony. His parents lived in the greatest poverty. Want was the earliest companion of his childish sports. The first impressions made upon his heart were those produced by a mother's tears, on returning to her house, at the close of the week, without having sold enough of the cloth woven by her husband, to furnish bread for their children. His earliest employment was to wander about, endeavoring to force the sale of this article, in times of great commercial depression. Indeed, his father's condition was not unlike that of the starving English operatives at this moment. The heart of young Heyne was driven to desperation, and the hungry boy was naturally enough a violent Chartist in feeling; and he afterwards attributed it to the kindness of Providence, that there was no popular tumult to set fire to his patriotic soul. He entered the school in the fauxbourg, and, during the first year, gave lessons to little children, in order to raise money to pay his own tuition. At length, the ordinary instruction in the school no longer met his wants, and, to take lessons in Latin, would cost three cents a week more, which neither he nor his parents could provide. One day, as he was sent to a distant relative for a loaf of bread, his countenance showed that he had been weeping. On inquiry, it was ascertained that poverty kept him from those studies which he longed to pursue, and the three cents a week were at once promised him. The boy returned, tossing his loaf into the air, and bounding, with his bare feet, like a lamb. As he made rapid progress in his studies, the time soon came, when he could learn no more at the school in the suburbs. At this period, if there had been the least encouragement to industry, he would have become a weaver, like his father. His fondest desire was to enter the Latin school within the walls of the town; but whence could he obtain

his gulden a week for tuition, his books, and his blue mantle? A pastor in the fauxbourg had received good accounts of the boy's talents and scholarship, and was, moreover, his second sponsor. These circumstances induced the good preacher to have the youth examined by a competent instructor; and, the examination turning out favorably, he sent him to the Latin school, at his own expense. In this school he remained seven years, during which period he made great progress in his studies.

At the age of nineteen, he went to Leipsic; but, on arriving at the university, he learned, for the first time, that his support was to be discontinued. Indeed, he had earned his living, for some time, by giving private lessons; but he had been encouraged to expect the continued aid of the old preacher. Thus, with but two guldens in his pocket-less than two dollars-with a slender wardrobe, and with no books, he found himself a stranger, in a large city, about to enter the university. Most boys would have returned home at once, and have abandoned a pursuit beset with so many difficulties. Heyne was willing to endure any hardship, if he might go on with his studies. His sufferings, at this period, were almost incredible. He was reduced to such extreme distress, that a waiting-maid was moved to compassion, and actually supplied him daily with food from her own wages. "Dear creature," he afterwards exclaimed, when at the head of the critics of his age, "could I now but find thee among the living, how gladly would I repay thee!" Some of the professors admitted him gratuitously to their lectures; one of them lent him books, and gave him advice; and, among other things, advised him to follow Scaliger's example, and read the Greek authors through, in chronological order. He followed the advice with such ardor, or, in his own language, "with such folly," that, for more than six months, he slept only two nights in the week. But

another professor sent the beadle to demand the tuition for a course of lectures, a part of which only he had attended. Heyne was in distress. He had never succeeded in obtaining a stipend. He often had to buy his dinner with less than three pfennigs, or about one cent. At this time, he had an opportunity of becoming a private tutor in a family. "But I perceived," he observes, in his autobiography, "that "that to leave the university then, would ruin my scholarship for life. For several days, I struggled under these contending influences. I cannot now comprehend how it was, that I had the courage to decline the offer, and to pursue my studies at the university." These are among the most interesting incidents in Heyne's early life. But his evil star followed him to the very day of his appointment to the most important philological professorship in Germany. Even after he had finished his course in the university, and while he was in Dresden, living on promises of promotion, he could not afford to hire lodgings. A friend permitted him to stay in his room, but could offer him no bed. He slept on the floor, with books for his pillow. Heeren, his son-in-law, and biographer, says, that "a sort of soup, made of the empty pods of peas, was often his only repast." After a few years, when the place of Gesner, the celebrated professor of languages in Göttingen, became vacant by his death, Ruhnken, of Leyden, was invited to fill it. But he preferred not to leave Holland, where he had resided so long, and was so advantageously situated, and declined the appointment, adding the inquiry, why the university should think it necessary to go out of the country to find a worthy successor of Gesner; and affirming, that there was a young man in Saxony, who would soon fill Europe with his fame; that his name was Christian Gottlob Heyne. A letter was immediately addressed to Ernesti, in Leipsic, to ascertain where the

individual was to be found. All that Ernesti could say was, that there was such a young man, and that he was somewhere in Dresden. Letters were then sent to the Saxon capital, but no information respecting Heyne could, at first, be obtained. Thus the residence of the candidate for the most important professorship in Germany could not, without difficulty, be found! Ruhnken and Hemsterhuys, in Holland, had read his edition of Tibullus, and predicted his future greatness; and their word overcame all the doubts arising from the fact of his obscurity.

From the hour of that appointment, we are to date the origin of the present school of German philology. Gesner and Ernesti had previously introduced a better taste; but the comprehensiveness and thoroughness of modern German philology are first found in Heyne. Until his time, classical literature did not form a distinct profession. It was but a subsidiary branch of the other professions, especially of theology, Heyne was the first man who took his position, not as a theologian, or jurist, but as a philologist by profession. He enlarged the domain of philology, marked out its boundaries, and arranged its parts into a complete and independent system.

We would not claim undue regard for this distinguished man, nor exalt him at the expense of others. Ernesti and Gesner have their just fame, and they can never be despoiled of it. But it would argue great ignorance of the facts in the case, to deny the distinction just made. Nor would we attribute to Heyne, what has been accomplished by his successors. Wolf, and Hermann, and Böckh have, unquestionably, made great advances upon him.

But it would be wrong to attribute all the improvement, made in philology, to Heyne. Twelve years earlier, another poor boy, son of a cobbler, was born in Stendal, about midway between Berlin and Hamburg. The extraordinary force of his character alone raised him above