JUNG, JOHANN HEINRICH (1740-1817), best known by his assumed name of
HEINRICH STILLING, German author, was born in the vlllage of Grund near
Hilchenbach in Westphalia on the 12th of September 1740. His father,
Wilhelm Jung, schoolmaster and tailor, was the son of Eberhard Jung,
charcoal-burner, and his mother was Dortchen Moritz, daughter of a poor
clergyman. Jung became, by his father's desire, schoolmaster and tailor,
but found both pursuits equally wearisome. After various teaching
appointments he went in 1768 with "half a French dollar" to study
medicine at the university of Strassburg. There he met Goethe, who
introduced him to Herder. The acquaintance with Goethe ripened into
friendship; and it was by his influence that Jung's first and best work,
_Heinrich Stillings Jugend_ was written. In 1772 he settled at Elberfeld
as physician and oculist, and soon became celebrated for operations in
cases of cataract. Surgery, however, was not much more to his taste than
tailoring or teaching; and in 1778 he was glad to accept the appointment
of lecturer on "agriculture, technology, commerce and the veterinary
art" in the newly established Kameralschule at Kaiserslautern, a post
which he continued to hold when the school was absorbed in the
university of Heidelberg. In 1787 he was appointed professor of
economical, financial and statistical science in the university of
Marburg. In 1803 he resigned his professorship and returned to
Heidelberg, where he remained until 1806, when he received a pension
from the grand-duke Charles Frederick of Baden, and removed to
Karlsruhe, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of April 1817.
He was married three times, and left a numerous family. Of his works his
autobiography _Heinrich Stillings Leben_, from which he came to be known
as Stilling, is the only one now of any interest, and is the chief
authority for his life. His early novels reflect the piety of his early
surroundings.
A complete edition of his numerous works, in 14 vols. 8vo, was
published at Stuttgart in 1835-1838. There are English translations by
Sam. Jackson of the Leben (1835) and of the _Theorie der Geisterkunde_
(London, 1834, and New York, 1851); and of _Theobald, or the Fanatic_,
a religious romance, by the Rev. Sam. Schaeffer (1846). See
biographies by F. W. Bodemann (1868), J. v. Ewald (1817), Peterson
(1890).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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