NIEBUHR, BARTROLD GEORG, one of the most acute historians, critics, and philolo gists of modern times, was b. Aug. 27, 1776. at Copenhagen, where his father, Karsten Niebuhr (q.v.).. then resided. The - aptitude -for learning-which NieMilir displayed, almost from infancy, led him to be re aided a juvenile prodigy, and unlike many other precocious children, his powers of acquiring knowledge kept pace with his advanc ing years. After a carefully conducted preliminary education, under the superintend mice of his father, he spent a session at Gottingen studying law, and from thence proceeded in his 10th year to Edinburgh, where he devoted himself more especially to the natural sciences. On his return to Denmark, he became private secretary to the finance minister, Schimmelmanu, and from that period till 1804 held several appoint ments under the Danish government, which, however, he was led to resign in couse quence of his strongly pronounced political tendencies, which made him enter heart and fiOR1 into the feeling of hatred of Napoleon, which was at that time agitating the minds of Germans. In accordance with these views, Niebuhr entered the Prussian civil service in 1806, and during the three succeeding years he shared in the vicissitudes which befell the government of his chief, count Hardenberg, after the disastrous battle of Jena, and the consequent pressure of the Napoleonic influence on the management of the state. The opening of the university of Berlin in 1810 was a new era in the life of Niebuhr, who, with a view of promoting the interests of the new institution, gave a course of lec tures on Roman history, which, by making known the results of the new and critical theory which he had applied to the elucidation of obscure historical evidence. estab lished his position as one of the most original end philosophical of modern historians. His appointment, in 1816, to the post of Prussian ambassador at the papal court, where he remained till 1823, gave him an opportunity of testing on the spot the accuracy of his conjectures in regard to many questions of local and social bearing. On his return from Rome, Niebuhr took up his residence at Bonn, where, by his admirable lectures and expositions, he contributed very materially to the development of classical and archxo logical learning. He was thus employed when the revolution of 1830 roused him from the calm of his literary pursuits. Niebuhr's sensitive nature, unstrung by physical debility, led him to take an exaggerated view of the consequences of this movement, and to anticipate a recurrence of all the horrors of the former French revolution, and the result was to bring about a state of Mental depression and bodily prostration, which ended in his death in January, 1831. Niebuhr's attainments embraced a more extensive
range than most men are capable of grasping, for he was alike distinguished as a shrewd man of business. an able diplomatist, an accurate scholar, and a man of original genius. Ha had mastered 20 languages before the age of 30, while the mass of facts which his tenacious memory retained, and the intuitive sagacity that enabled him to sift true from false historic evidence, and often to supply by felicitous conjecture the link wanting in some imperfect chain of evidence, exhibit the extraordinary scope of his intellect. It is not to be denied, however, that he is often arbitrary and unhistorical in his conjectures, and the stricter sort of skeptical critics, like the late sir George Cornewall Lewis, even go so far as to regard his effort to construct a continuous Roman history out of such legendary materials as we possess as, on the whole, a failure. Among the many import ant works with which he enriched the literature of his time, the following are some of the most noteworthy: llontiseite Geschichte (3 Bde. Berl. 1811-32; 2d edit. 1827-42; 1833; 1853), the first two volumes have been translated by J. C. Hare and C. Thirlwall, and the third by Dr. W. Smith and L. Schmitz; Gruudzitge far die Veifassung Nieder lands (Berl. 1832); Griech. Hewengeschieltte (liamb. 1842), written for his sou Marcus; the Kleinen historischen and philologisdten Schriften (2 Bde. Bonn, 1828-43), contain his introductory lectures ou Roman history, and many of the essays which had appeared in the transactions of the Berlin academy. Besides these, and numerous other essays on philological, historical, and arclimolGgical questions, Niebuhr co-operated with Bekker and other learned annotators in re-editing Seriptores historite Byzantine; he also discov er6d hitherto unprinted fragments of classical authors, as, for instance, of Cicero's Orations and portions of Gains, published the Inscriptions Nubienses (Rome, 1821), and was a constant contributor to the literary journals of Germany. See Miss Winkworth's -Life and Letters of Niebuhr (3 vols., 1852); Classen's Niebuhr (1876).