HEYNE, CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB (1729-1812), German classical scholar and
archaeologist, was born on the 25th of September 1729, at Chemnitz in
Saxony. His father was a poor weaver, and the expenses of his early
education were paid by one of his godfathers. In 1748 he entered the
university of Leipzig, where he was frequently in want of the
necessaries of life. His distress had almost amounted to despair, when
he procured the situation of tutor in the family of a French merchant in
Leipzig, which enabled him to continue his studies. After he had
completed his university course, he was for many years in very
straitened circumstances. An elegy written by him in Latin on the death
of a friend attracted the attention of Count von Bruhl, the prime
minister, who expressed a desire to see the author. Accordingly, in
April 1752, Heyne journeyed to Dresden, believing that his fortune was
made. He was well received, promised a secretaryship and a good salary,
but nothing came of it. Another period of want followed, and it was only
by persistent solicitation that Heyne was able to obtain the post of
under-clerk in the count's library, with a salary of somewhat less than
twenty pounds sterling. He increased his scanty pittance by translation;
in addition to some French novels, he rendered into German the _Chaereas
and Callirrhoe_ of Chariton, the Greek romance writer. He published his
first edition of _Tibullus_ in 1755, and in 1756 his _Epictetus_. In the
latter year the Seven Years' War broke out, and Heyne was once more in a
state of destitution. In 1757 he was offered a tutorship in the
household of Frau Von Schonberg, where he met his future wife. In
January 1759 he accompanied his pupil to the university of Wittenberg,
from which he was driven in 1760 by the Prussian cannon. The bombardment
of Dresden (to which city he had meanwhile returned) on the 18th of July
1760, destroyed all his possessions, including an almost finished
edition of Lucian, based on a valuable codex of the Dresden Library. In
the summer of 1761, although still without any fixed income, he married,
and for some time he found it necessary to devote himself to the duties
of land-steward to the Baron von Loben in Lusatia. At the end of 1762,
however, he was enabled to return to Dresden, where he was commissioned
by P. D. Lippert to prepare the Latin text of the third volume of his
_Dactyliotheca_ (an account of a collection of gems). On the death of
Johann Matthias Gesner at Gottingen in 1761, the vacant chair was
refused first by Ernesti and then by Ruhnken, who persuaded Munchhausen,
the Hanoverian minister and principal curator of the university, to
bestow it on Heyne (1763). His emoluments were gradually augmented, and
his growing celebrity brought him most advantageous offers from other
German governments, which he persistently refused. After a long and
useful career, he died on the 14th of July 1812. Unlike Gottfried
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account