Burger

BURGER (Gomm Ey Avevirrus), a celebrated German,Poet, born the ist of January 1748, at Wel. merswende, a village in-the principality of Halber stadt, where his father was Lutheran minister. In his childhood he discovered little inclination to study; the Bible and the Canticles alone had any attraction for him : these he knew by heart, and his first at tempts in versification were imitations of the Palms, which, notwithstanding their defects, ,gave,proofs of feeling and a correct ear. It is to this first direction of his studies that we are to attribute the Biblical phrases, the allusions to Christianity, and the thee legical style, if we may be allowed the expression, which we find even in his amatory poetry. He was fond of solitude, and indulged in all the romantic sentiments which deserts and the gloom of forests in spire. From the school of Aschersleben, where his maternal grandfather resided, and which he quitted in consequence of a severe chastisement, which had been inflicted on him for composing an epigram, he was sent to the Institution at Halle; but, at neither of these -places did he make any very sensible pro gress.. He discovered a taste only for the lessons in prosody and versification which were given to the scholars of the Institution, in which his friend Gokingk was a •class-fellow with him, who afterwards distinguished himself by his Epistles and Songs; and who has lamented the premature death of Bur. ger in an elegy -to his memory. In 1764, Bible; who was intended for the clerical office, began to • attend the course of lectures given by the paw soca of the university. Mots, a learned classical scholar, admitted him of the number of young people whose talents he took a pleasure in cultiva ting ; •but this society appears not to have produced the same favourable effect on the moral character of Biirger as on his genuis. -His conduct prejudiced his grandfather Bauer against him, and it was with difficulty that he obtained from him some farther as sistance, with permission, in the year 1768, to *Or to Gottingen, to prosecute the study of the law, in stead of that of theology. This change did not make him more regular in his studies ; his manners became corrupted, and his grandfather withdrew hie protection. Burger contracted a number of debts, and his situation would have become altogether despe rate, had it not been for the assistance of some friends. An association, memorable in the annals of German literature, had just been formed at Giittingen : it reckoned among its members Boje, Biester, Spren gel, Hiilty, Miller, Voss, the two Counts Stolberg, C. F. Cramer, and Leisewitz. Burger was admitted into it. All of these persons were versed in the Greek and Roman literature ; and, at the same time, all of them idolised Shakespeare. The Ger mans are the only foreigners who seem to relish or understand the merits of this great genius in the same degree as his own countrymen profess to do ; and they do not seem to like his genius the less on account of the irregularities objected to it by other nations. Burger, in a great measure, owed his style to the enthusiasm which he showed in common with his literary friends for our celebrated tragic writer. The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published about this time by Dr Percy, gave an adffi mu' impulse to the direction which his mind had taken, and suggested to him some of the produc tions which his countrymen admire the most. Of all his friends, Boje was thq one who exercised the greatest influence over him in the choice and ma nagement of his compositions. He taught him to make easy verses, by taking pains ; and it is to his severe observations that the poetical stanza of Bur ger owes a great part of that elegance and round ness which characterize it. To the same friend he was indebted, also, for some improvement in his cir cumstances, which, till the year 1772, had been very uncomfortable. On the recommendation of Boje,t be was appointed to the Collectorship of Alvengleichen, in the principality of Calenberg. The winter following, somefragments of a ghost story, which he heard a peasant girl singing by moon-light, caught his imagination, and his Leo nora appeared, which soon became popular in all parts of Germany. Soon after the publication of this ballad, a circumstance occurred to give him still greater confidence in his talents: Going a journey to his native place, he one evening heard the school master of the village, in the room next to that in which he lay, to the assembled audience collected at the inn, the ballad of Leonora, which had just come out, and which was received with the liveliest marks of admiration. This proof of

sucoess flattered him more than all the compli ments of his friends. About this time, he marri ed a Hanoverian lady, named Leonhar; ; but this union proved only a source of bitterness 'to him, an unhappy attachment to her younger sister having sprung up in his heart. The loss of a sum of money, of which his grandfather had made him a present, was the first commencement of the embarrass ment of his circumstances. The taking a large farm, which he did not know how to manage, increased it, and the dismissal from his place, which he was i obliged to submit to in 1784, in consequence of sus picions (probably ill-founded) raised against the fi delity of his accounts, gave the finishing stroke to kis misfortunes. He had, a little before, lost his wife ; and it is but too certain •that her death was hastened by the culpable passion which Burger che rished in his heart. Left with two children, and re duced to the inconsiderable emoluments of The Al ntanack of the Muses, published at GOttingen, which he had edited since 1779, he removed to this city, with a view to give private lessons there, and in the hope of obtaining from the Hanoverian government a Professor's chair in the Belles-lettres. Five years after, this title was conferred on him, but without a salary ' • yet this was the only public recompence obtained during his whole life by a man who was one of the favourite authors of his nation ; and who, while yet young, had enjoyed the highest reputa tion. Scarcely were • the ashes of his wife cold, when he espoused her sister Molly, whose name his poems have made but too famous, and who bad em bittered the existence of his first wife; but he did not long enjoy the happiness after which he had sighed. She died in child-bed, in the beginning of 1786. From that moment, his own life only lingered on ; and the fire of his genius seemed extinguished with the passion which hadso long nourished it. He had scarce. ly strength enough, in the intervals of his dejection, to finish his Song of Songs, a sort of dithyrambic .or nuptial hymn, to celebrate his second marriage, and which is a strange mixture• of frantic passion, religious devotion, and the most bombastic ex pression. It was the last production of Burger. Hay the philosophy of Kant, he had an idea of deriving some advantage from it at G8ttingen, where it had not yet been taught. He undertook to ex plain it in a course of lectures, which were attend ed by a great number of young people. The satis faction which the university expressed to him for two Cantatas which he composed in 1787, at the period of the fifty. years' jubilee of this illustrious in stitution, and his nomination to the situation of Pro fessor Extraordinary, reanimated his spirits. For tune appearing to smile on him once more, he form ed the design of marrying again, in order to provide a mother for his children. During one of the mo ments when he wail most occupied with this idea, he received a letter from Stu4ard, in which a young woman, whose style indicated a cultivated mind, and her sentiments an elevated and feeling heart, after describing to him, with enthusiasm, the impression which his poetry had made upon her, offered hhn her hand and heart. Burger spoke of the thing, at first, only in jest, but the information which he re ceived respecting the character, the fortune, and personal accomplishments of his correspondent, hav ing excited his curiosity, he took a journey to Stutt gard, and brought back with him a wife who embit tered and dishonoured the rest of his days. In less than three years, he saw himself under the necessi ty of obtaining a divorce from her, and the ruin of his health aggravated the absolute disorder of his finances. Confined to a small chamber, the favour ite poet of Germany wasted the remainder of his strength in translations ordered by foreign book sellers ; but sickness and grief soon deprived him even of this resource, and be must have died in the most frightful state of want, if the Government of Hanover had not extended some kindness to him. He died the 8th of June 1794, of a disor der of the bowels, of which he had never believed the danger.