_Vita_.--I was born on October 15, 1844, on the battlefield of Lützen. The first name I heard was that of Gustavus Adolphus. My ancestors were Polish noblemen (Niëzky); it seems the type has been well maintained, in spite of three generations of German mothers. Abroad I am usually taken for a Pole; this very winter the visitors' list at Nice entered me _comme Polonais_. I am told my head occurs in Matejko's pictures. My grandmother belonged to the Schiller-Goethe circles of Weimar; her brother was Herder's successor in the position of General Superintendent at Weimar. I had the good fortune to be a pupil of the venerable Pforta School, from which so many who have made a name in German literature have proceeded (Klopstock, Fichte, Schlegel, Ranke, etc., etc.). We had masters who would have (or have) done honour to any university. I studied at Bonn, afterwards at Leipzig; old Ritschl, then the first philologist in Germany, singled me out almost from the first. At twenty-two I was a contributor to the _Litterarisches Centralblatt_ (Zarncke). The foundation of the Philological Society of Leipzig, which still exists, is due to me. In the winter of 1868-1869 the University of Basle offered me a professorship; I was as yet not even a Doctor. The University of Leipzig afterwards conferred the doctor's degree on me, in a very honourable way, without any examination, and even without a dissertation. From Easter 1869 to 1879 I was at Basle; I was obliged to give up my rights as a German subject, since as an officer (Horse Artillery) I should have been called up too frequently and my academic duties would have been interfered with. I am none the less master of two weapons, the sabre and the cannon--and perhaps of a third as well.... At Basle everything went very well, in spite of my youth; it sometimes happened, especially with candidates for the doctor's degree, that the examinee was older than the examiner.