PERTHES, FRIEDRICH CIERISTOPIT, an eminent German publisher, distinguished not only in Isis professional capacity, but for his sincere piety and ardent patriotism, was born at Rudolstadt. April 21, 1772. In his 15th year he was apprenticed to a Leipsic bookseller, with whom he remained six years, devoting much of his leisure time to the acquisition of knowledge. In 1793 he passed into the establishment of Hoffmann„ the Hambnrg bookseller; and in 1796 started business on his own account; and, by his keen and wide appreciation of the public wants, his and his honorable reputation, he ultimately made it the most extensive oe'the kind in modern Germany. During the first few years or so of his Hamburg apprenticeship his more intimate friends hail been either Kantian or skeptical in their opinions, and Perthes, who was not distin guished for either learning or speculative talent, had learned to think with his friends; but a friendship which he subsequently formed with Jacobi (q.v.), and the Holstein poet and humorist, Matthias Claudius, led him into a serious but liberal Christianity. The iron rule of the French in northern Germany, and the prohibition of intercourse with Eng land, nearly ruined trade, yet Perthes, even in this great crisis of affairs, found ways and means to extend his. He endeavored to enlist the intellect of Germany on the side of patriotism, and in 1810 started the .Arational Museum, with contributions from Jean Panl Richter, count Stolberg, Claudius, Fouque, Heeren, Sartorius, Schlegel, GOrres, Arndt, and other eminent men. Its success was far beyond Perthes'S expectations, and encour aged him to continue his patriotic activity, till Hamburg was formally incorporated with the French empire. lie subsequently took a prominent part in forcing the French gar
ris'm to evacuate hamburg, Mar. 12, 1813; and on its reoccupation by the French, be was one of the ten Hamburgers who were specially excepted from pardon. After peace bad been restored to Europe, Perthes steadily devoted himself to the extension of his buSiness, and to the consolidation of the sentiment of German national unity, as far as that could be accomplished by literature and speech. In 1822 be removed' to Gotha, transferring his Hamburg business to his partner Besser. here he laid himself out mainly for the publication of great historical and theological works. His subsequent correspondence with literary, political, and theological notabilities—such as Niebuhr (one of his dearest friends), Neander, Schleiermacher, Dicke, Nitszch,-Tholuck, Schell ing, and Umbrcit—is extremely interesting, and throws a rich light upon the recent inner life of Germany. lIe died May 18, 1843.—See Friedrich Perthee'e Lcben (12th edit. 18:53), written by his second son, Clemens Theodor Perthes, professor of law at Bonn,who died in 1867.--The uncle of Friedrich Christoph Perthes was JOHANN GEOR. Junes PEwruEs, who established a publishing and bookselling house at Gotha in 1785, which has acquired, in the hands of his sons, a great reputation, and from which issues the famous Almanach de Gotha. He died in 1816.