he prepared "Greek versions," he says; "also | Where could I learn good manners, elegance, Greek verses; and by and by could write a right way of thought? where could I attain down in Greek prose, and at last, in Greek as any culture for heart and spirit. well as Latin verses, the discourses he heard in church!" Some ray of hope was beginning to spring up within his mind. A certain small degree of self-confidence had first been awakened in him, as he informs us, by a "pedantic adventure."

:

"Upwards, however, I still strove. A feeling of honour, a wish for something better, an effort to work myself out of this abasement, incessantly attended me; but without direction as it was, it led me rather to sullenness, misanthropy,

and clownishness.

"At length a place opened for me, where some training in these points lay within my reach. One of our senators took his motherin-law home to live with him; she had still two children with her, a son and a daughter, both about my own age. For the son private lessons were wanted; and happily I was chosen for the purpose.

"There chanced to be a school-examination held, at which the superintendent, as chief school-inspector, was present. This man, Dr. Theodor Krüger, a theologian of some learning for his time, all at once interrupted the rector, who was teaching ex cathedra, and put the question who among the scholars could tell him what might be made per anagramma from the word Austria. This whim had arisen from "As these private hours brought me in a gulthe circumstance that the first Silesian war den monthly, I now began to defend myself a was just begun; and some such anagram, little against the grumbling of my parents. reckoned very happy, had appeared in a news- Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work paper.* No one of us knew so much as occasionally, that I might not be told how I was what an anagram was; even the rector looked eating their bread for nothing; clothes, and oil quite perplexed. As none answered, the lat- for my lamp, I had earned by teaching in the ter began to give us a description of anagrams house; these things I could now relinquish: in general. I set myself to work, and sprang and thus my condition was in'some degree imforth with my discovery, Vastari! This was proved. On the other hand, I had now opporsomething different from the newspaper one: tunity of seeing persons of better education. I so much the greater was our superintendent's gained the goodwill of the family; so that beadmiration, and the more as the successful as-sides the lesson-hours I generally lived there. pirant was a little boy, on the lowest bench of the secunda. He growled out his applause to me, but at the same time set the whole school about my ears, as he stoutly upbraided them with being beaten by an infimus.

Such society afforded me some culture, extended my conceptions and opinions, and also polished a little the rudeness of my exterior."

In this senatorial house he must have been somewhat more at ease; for he now very privately fell in love with his pupil's sister, and made and burnt many Greek and Latin verses in her praise; and had sweet dreams of sometime rising "so high as to be worthy of her." Even as matters stood, he acquired her friend

"Enough! this pedantic adventure gave the first impulse to the development of my powers. I began to take some credit to myself, and in spite of all the oppression and contempt in which I languished, to resolve on struggling forward. This first struggle was in truth in-ship and that of her mother. But the grand coneffectual enough; was soon regarded as a piece of pride and conceitedness; it brought on me a thousand humiliations and disquietudes; at times it might degenerate on my part into defiance. Nevertheless, it kept me at the stretch of my diligence, ill-guided as it was, and withdrew me from the company of my class-fellows, among whom, as among children of low birth and bad nurture could not fail to be the case, the utmost coarseness and boorishness of every sort prevailed. The plan of these schools does not include any general inspection, but limits itself to mere intellectual instruction.

"Yet on all hands," continues he, "I found myself too sadly hampered. The perverse way in which the old parson treated me: at home the discontent and grudging of my parents, especially of my father, who could not get on with his work, and still thought, that had I kept by his way of life, he might now have had some help; the pressure of want, the feeling of being behind every other; all this would allow no cheerful thought, no sentiment of worth, to spring up within me. A timorous, bashful, awkward carriage shut me out still further from all exterior attractions.

cern for the present was how to get to college at Leipzig. Old Sebastian had promised to stand good on this occasion; and unquestionably would have done so with the greatest pleasure, had it cost him nothing; but he promised and promised, without doing aught; above all, without putting his hand in his pocket; and elsewhere there was no hope or resource. At length, wearied perhaps with the boy's importunity, he determined to bestir himself; and so directed his assistant, who was just making a journey to Leipzig, to show Heyne the road; the two arrived in perfect safety: Heyne still longing after cash, for of his own he had only two gulden, about five shillings; but the assistant left him in a lodging house, and went his way, saying he had no farther orders!

The miseries of a poor scholar's life were now to be Heyne's portion in full measure. Illclothed, totally destitute of books, with five shillings in his purse, he found himself set down in the Leipzig university, to study all learning. Despondency at first overmastered the poor boy's heart, and he sunk into sickness, from which indeed he recovered; but only, as he says, "to fall into conditions of life where he became the prey of desperation." How he contrived to exist, much more to study, is scarcely apparent from this narrative. The unhappy old Sebastian did at length send him

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

some pittance, and at rare intervals repeated | little employment as a private teacher. This the dole; yet ever with his own peculiar grace; might be more useful than his advice to iminot till after unspeakable solicitations; in tate Scaliger, and read the ancients so as to quantities that were consumed by inextinguish- begin with the most ancient, and proceed regu able debt, and coupled with sour admonitions; larly to the latest. Small service it can do a bednay, on one occasion addressed externally, "A rid man to convince him that waltzing is preferaMr. Heyne, ETUDIANT NEGLIGEANT." For half ble to quadrilles! "Crist's Lectures," says he, a year he would leave him without all help; then "were a tissue of endless digressions, which, promise to come, and see what he was doing: however, now and then contained excellent recome accordingly, and return without leaving marks." But Heyne's best teacher was himself. No him a penny; neither could the destitute youth ever obtain any public furtherance; no freytisch pressure of distresses, no want of books, ad(free-table) or stipendium was to be procured. visers, or encouragement, not hunger itself and such Many times he had no regular meal; "often could abate his resolute perseverance. What not three-halfpence for a loaf at mid-day." He books he could come at he borrowed; longed to be dead, for his spirit was often sunk was his excess of zeal in reading, that for a "One good heart whole half year he allowed himself only two in the gloom of darkness. alone," says he, “I found, and that in the ser-nights' sleep in the week, till at last a fever vant girl of the house where I lodged. She laid obliged him to be more moderate. His diliout money for my most pressing necessities, gence was undirected, or ill-directed, but it and risked almost all she had, seeing me in never rested, never paused, and must at length such frightful want. Could I but find thee in prevail. Fortune had cast him into a cavern, the world even now, thou good pious soul, that and he was groping darkly round; but the priI might repay thee what thou then didst for soner was a giant, and would at length burst forth as a giant into the light of day. Heyne, me!" without any clear aim, almost without any hope had set his heart on attaining knowledge; a force, as of instinct, drove him on, and no promise and no threat could turn him back. It was at the very depth of his destitution, when he had not "three groschen for a loaf to dine on," that he refused a tutorship, with handsome enough appointments, but which was to have removed him from the University. Crist had sent for him one Sunday, and made him the pnɔposal: "There arose a violent struggle within me," says he, "which drove me to and fro for several days; to this hour it is incomprehensible to me where I found resolution to determine on renouncing the offer, and pursuing my object in Leipzig." A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road; a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest, and will reach his purpose if there be a little wisdom in it.

Heyne declares it to be still a mystery to him "What carried me forhow he stood all this. ward," continues he, "was not ambition; my youthful dream of one day taking a place, or aiming to take one, among the learned. It is true, the bitter feeling of debasement, of deficiency in education and external polish; the consciousness of awkwardness in social life, But my chief incessantly accompanied me. strength lay in a certain defiance of fate. This gave me courage not to yield; everywhere to try to the uttermost whether I was doomed without remedy never to rise from this degradation."

Of order in his studies there could be little expectation. He did not even know what profession he was aiming after; old Sebastian was for theology; and Heyne, though himself averse to it, affected, and only affected to comply; besides he had no money to pay class fees: it was only to open lectures, or at most to illguarded class-rooms that he could gain admission. Of this ill-guarded sort was Winkler's; into which poor Heyne insinuated himself to hear philosophy. Alas! the first problem of all philosophy, the keeping of soul and body together, was wellnigh too hard for him. Winkler's students were of a riotous description, accustomed, among other improprieties, to scharren, scraping with the feet. One day they chose to receive Heyne in this fashion; and he could not venture back. "Nevertheless," adds he, simply enough, "the beadle came to me sometime afterwards, demanding the fee: I had my own shifts to take before I could raise it."

With his first two years' residence in Leipzig, Heyne's personal narrative terminates; not because the nodus of the history had been solved then, and his perplexities cleared up, but simply because he had not found time to relate further. A long series of straitened hopeless days were yet appointed him. By Ernes ti's or Crist's recommendation, he occasionally got employment in giving private lessons; at one time, he worked as secretary and classical Cruscius, the philosopher," who hodman to " felt a little rusted in his Greek and Latin; everywhere he found the scantiest accommodation, and, shifting from side to side in dreary vicissitudes of want, had to spin out an exist ence, warmed by no ray of comfort, except the

Ernesti was the only teacher from whom he derived any benefit: the man, indeed, whose influence seems to have shaped the whole sub-fire that burnt or smouldered unquenchably sequent course of his studies. By dint of excessive endeavours he gained admittance to Ernesti's lectures; and here first learned, says Heeren, "what interpretation of the classies meant." One Crist also, a strange, fantastic Sir Plume of a Professor, who built much on taste, elegance of manners, and the like, took some notice of him, and procured him a

within his own bosom. However, he had now chosen a profession, that of law, at which, as at many other branches of learning, he was labouring with his old diligence. Of prefer ment in this province there was, for the pre sent, little or no hope; but this was no new thing with Heyne. By degrees, too, his fine talents and endeavours, and his perverse situa

tion, began to attract notice and sympathy; | books. A licentiate in divinity, one Sonntag, and here and there some well-wisher had his eye on him, and stood ready to do him a service. Two and twenty years of penury and joyless struggling had now passed over the man; how many more such might be added was still uncertain; yet, surely, the longest winter is followed by a spring.

took pity on his houselessness, and shared a garret with him; where, as there was no unoccupied bed, Heyne slept on the floor, with a few folios for his pillow. So fared he as to lodging: in regard to board, he gathered empty pease-cods, and had them boiled; this was not unfrequently his only meal.-O, ye poor naked wretches! what would Bishop Watson say to this ?—At length, by dint of incredible solicita tions, Heyne, in the autumn of 1753, obtained, not his secretaryship, but the post of underclerk, (copist) in the Brühl Library, with one hundred thalers of salary; a sum barely suffi cient to keep in life, which, indeed, was now a great point with him. In such sort was this young scholar "taken care of."

"the rudiments of all those excellences, by which Heyne afterwards became distinguished as a commentator on the classics, are more or less apparent in it." The most illustrious Henry Count von Brühl, in spite of the dedication, paid no regard to this Tibullus; as indeed Germany at large paid little; but, in another country, it fell into the hands of Rhunken, where it was rightly estimated, and lay waiting, as in due season appeared, to be the pledge of better fortune for its author.

Another trifling incident, little better than that old "pedantic adventure," again brought about important changes in Heyne's situation. Among his favourers in Leipzig had been the preacher of a French chapel, one Lacoste, who, at this time, was cut off by death. Heyne, is said, in the real sorrow of his heart, composed a long Latin Epicedium on that occasion; the poem had nowise been intended for the press; but certain hearers of the deceased Nevertheless, it was under these external were so pleased with it, that they had it print- circumstances that he first entered on his proed, and this in the finest style of typography per career, and forcibly made a place for himand decoration. It was this latter circum-self among the learned men of his day. In stance, not the merit of the verses, which is 1754, he prepared his edition of Tibullus, which said to have been considerable, that attracted was printed next year at Leipzig; a work the attention of Count Brühl, the well-known said to exhibit remarkable talent, inasmuch as prime-minister and favourite of the Elector. Brühl's sons were studying in Leipzig; he was pleased to express himself contented with the poem, and to say, that he should like to have the author in his service. A prime minister's words are not as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered; but rather as heavenly manna, which is treasured up and eaten, not without a religious sentiment. Heyne was forthwith written to from all quarters, that his fortune was made: he had but to show himself in Dresden, said his friends, with one Meanwhile the day of difficulty for Heyne voice, and golden showers from the ministerial was yet far from past. The profits of his Ticornucopia would refresh him almost to satu-bullus served to cancel some debts; on the ration. For, was not the Count taken with strength of his hundred thalers, the spindle of him; and who in all Saxony, not excepting Se- Clotho might still keep turning, though lanrene Highness itself, could gainsay the Count? guidly; but, ere long, new troubles arose. His Over-persuaded, and against his will, Heyne superior in the library was one Rost, a poetasat length determined on the journey; for which, ter, atheist, and gold-maker, who corrupted his as an indispensable preliminary, "fifty-one tha- religious principles, and plagued him with lers" had to be borrowed; and so, following this caprices: Over the former evil Heyne at length hopeful quest, he actually arrived at Dresden triumphed, and became a rational Christian; in April, 1752. Count Brühl received him but the latter was an abiding grievance; not, with the most captivating smiles; and even indeed, for ever, for it was removed by a assured him in words, that he, Count Brühl, greater. In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke would take care of him. But a prime minis-out; Frederic advanced towards Dresden, aniter has so much to take care of! Heyne danced attendance all spring and summer, happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had not to "blow his fingers in a cold lobby," the weather being warm and obtained not only promises, but useful experience of their value

at courts.

He was to be made a secretary, with five hundred, with four hundred, or even with three hundred thalers, of income: only, in the meanwhile, his old stock of "fifty-one" had quite run out, and he had nothing to live upon. By great good luck, he procured some employment in his old craft, private teaching, which helped him through the winter; but as this ceased, he remained without resources. He tried working for the booksellers, and translated a French romance and a Greek one, Chariton's Loves of Chareas and Callirhoe; however, his emoluments would scarcely furnish him with salt, Lo speak of victuals. He sold his few

mated with especial fury against Brühl; whose palaces accordingly were in a few months reduced to ashes, as his 70,000 splendid volumes were annihilated by fire and by water,† and all his domestics and dependents turned to the street without appeal.

Heyne had lately been engaged in studying Epictetus, and publishing, ad fidem Codd. Muspt, an edition of his Enchiridion ;+ from which, quoth Heeren, his great soul had acquired much stoical nourishment. Such nourish

Albii Tibulli que extant Carmina, noris Curis casti-
Illustrissimo Domino Henrico Comiti de Brühl
rata..
Inseripta Lipsia, 1755.

+ One rich cargo, on its way to Hamburg, sank in the Elbe; another still more valuable portion had been, for safety, deposited in a vault, through which passed certain pipes of artificial waterworks; these the cannon broke, and, when the vault came to be opened, all was reduced to pulp and mould. The bomb-shells burnt the remainder.

Lipsi, 1756. The Codices, or rather the Coder, was in Brühl's library.

THE LIFE OF HEYNE.

ment never comes wrong in life; and, surely,
at this time Heyne had need of it all. How-
ever, he struggled as he had been wont: trans-
lated pamphlets, sometimes wrote newspaper
articles; eat, when he had wherewithal, and
resolutely endured when he had not. By and
by, Rabener, to whom he was a little known,
offered him a tutorship in the family of a Herr
von Schöuberg, which Heyne, not without re-
luctance, accepted. Tutorships were at all
times his aversion; his rugged plebeian proud
spirit made business of that sort grievous; but
want stood over him, like an armed man, and
was not to be reasoned with.

were the efforts she made to relieve my em-
barrassment, the fruit of my down-bent pride,
and to keep me, a stranger, entering among
familiar acquaintances, in easy conversation.
Her good heart reminded her how much the
unfortunate requires encouragement; espe-
cially when placed, as I was, among those to
whose protection he must look up. Thus was
my first kindness for her awakened by that
good-heartedness, which made her, among
thousands, a beneficent angel. She was one
at this moment to myself; for I twice received
letters from an unknown hand, containing
money, which greatly alleviated my difficul
ties.

"In a few days, on the 14th of October, I
commenced my task of instruction. Her I did
not see again till the following spring, when
she returned with her friend from Prague;
and then only once or twice, as she soon ac-

In this Schöuberg family, a novel and unexpected series of fortunes awaited him; but whether for weal or for wo might still be hard to determine. The name of Theresa Weiss has become a sort of classical word in biography; her union with Heyne forms, as it were, a green cypress-and-myrtle oasis in his other-companied Frau von Schöuberg to the counwise hard and stony history. It was here that he first met with her; that they learned to love each other. She was the orphan of a "professor on the lute;" had long, amid poverty and afflictions, been trained, like the Stoics, to bear and forbear; was now in her twenty-seventh year, and the humble companion, as she had once been the school-mate, of the Frau von Schöuberg, whose young brother Heyne had come to teach. Their first interview may be described in his own words, which Hereen is here again happily enabled to introduce.

"It was on the 10th of October, (her future death-day!) that I first entered the Schöuberg house. Towards what mountains of mischances was I now proceeding! To what endless tissues of good and evil hap was the thread here taken up! Could I fancy that at this moment Providence was deciding the fortune of my life! I was ushered into a room, where sat several ladies engaged, with gay youthful sportiveness, in friendly confidential talk. Frau von Schöuberg, but lately married, yet at this time distant from her husband, was preparing for a journey to him at Prague, where his business detained him. On her brow still beamed the pure innocence of youth; in her eyes you saw a glad soft vernal sky; a smiling loving complaisance accompanied her discourse. This, too, seemed one of those souls, clear and uncontaminated as they come from the hands of their Maker. By reason of her brother, in her tender love of him, I must have been, to her, no unimportant guest.

"Beside her stood a young lady, dignified in aspect, of fair, slender shape, not regular in feature, yet soul in every glance. Her words, her looks, her every movement, impressed you with respect,-another sort of respect than Good sense, what was paid to rank and birth. good feeling disclosed itself in all she did. You forgot that more beauty, more softness, might have been demanded; you felt yourself under the influence of something noble, something stately and earnest, something decisive that lay in her look, in her gestures; not less attracted to her, than compelled to reverence her.

"More than esteem, the first sight of Theresa did not inspire me with. What I noticed most

16

try, to Ensdorf, in Oberlausitz (Upper Lusatia.) They left us, after it had been settled that I was to follow them in a few days with my pupil. My young heart joyed in the prospect of rural pleasures, of which I had, from of old, cherished a thousand delightful dreams. I still remember the 6th of May, when we set out for Ensdorf.

"The society of two cultivated females, who belonged to the noblest of their sex, and the endeavours to acquire their esteem, contributed to form my own character. Nature and religion were the objects of my daily contemplation; I began to act and live on principles, of which, till now, I had never thought: these, too, formed the subject of our constant discourse. Lovely nature and solitude exalted our feelings to a pitch of pious enthusiasm.

"Sooner than I, Theresa discovered that her friendship for me was growing into a passion. Her natural melancholy now seized her heart more keenly than ever: often our glad hours were changed into very gloomy and sad ones. Whenever our conversation chanced to turn on religion, (she was of the Roman Catholic faith,) I observed that her grief became more apparent. I noticed her redouble her devotions; and sometimes found her in solitude, weeping and praying with such a fulness of heart as I had never seen.'

Theresa and her lover, or at least beloved, were soon separated, and for a long while kept much asunder; partly by domestic arrange ments, still more by the tumults of war Heyne attended his pupil to the Wittenberg University, and lived there a year; studying for his own behoof, chiefly in philosophy and German history, and with more profit, as he says, than of old. Theresa and he kept up a correspondence, which often passed into melancholy and enthusiasm. The Prussian cannon drove him out of Wittenberg: his pupil and he witnessed the bombardment of the place from the neighbourhood; and, having waited till their University became "a heap of rubbish," had to retire elsewhere for accommodation. The young man subsequently went to Erlangen, then to Göttingen. Heyne remained again without employment, alone in Dresden. The resa was living in his neighbourhood, lovely

L

and sad as ever; but a new bombardment | with her friend was staying: the mother-indrove her also to a distance. She left her little law of the latter being also on a visit to them. property with Heyne, who removed it to his In the fiercest heat of the sun, through tracts lodging, and determined to abide the Prussian of country silent and deserted, I walked four siege, having indeed no other resource. The leagues to Bischopfwerda, where I had to sack of cities looks so well on paper, that we sleep in an inn among carriers. Towards midmust find a little space here for Heyne's ac- night arrived a postilion with return horses; count of his experience in this business; I asked him to let me ride one; and with him though it is none of the brightest accounts; I proceeded, till my road turned off from the and indeed contrasts but poorly with Rabe- highway. All day, I heard the shots at poor ner's brisk sarcastic narrative of the same Dresden re-echoing in the hills. adventure; for he, too, was cannonaded out of Dresden at this time, and lost house and home, and books and manuscripts, and all but good humour.