WELCICER, Fnunomen Gorrimr.u, cue of the most distinguished scholars of Germany, was b. in the year 1784 at Grtinberg, in Hesse-Darmstadt; studied at Giessen; was appointed one of the masters of the gymnasium there in 1803; and in the year 1806 traveled to Rome, where he remained two years. Here he became acquainted with the celebrated Danish archteoltrist, Zoega, whose life and essays he afterward published, and by whose example he was stimulated to that subtle appreciation of the works of ancient art which appears everywhere in his works, On his return from Italy, he was appointed to a professorship of ancient literature, first in Giessen, then in G6ttingen, and finally (1819) in the newly erected Prussian university of Bonn, which continued to be the scene of his scholarly activity till his death in 1868.
Wacker belonged to that class of scholars who, since Heyne and Wolf, have given such a lofty inspiration, such a philosophical significance, and such a historical comprehensiveness to those studies which, for want of a better name, we arc forced still to designate philology. But philology in this country generally means the history and phi losophy of language ; with the Germans, as it. did originally with the Alexandrian Greeks, it means, the sympathetic understanding and the imaginative reconstruction of the life and thought of famous aucieut peoples, based on the critical treatment of ancient docu ments, or the tasteful appreciation of the monuments of ancient art. It is needless to say that this "philology" is a very different thing from the minute verbal and metrical preciseness which was long the leading characteristic of scholarship in this country. For however important these minutia may be in their place, they are manifestly valua ble only as means to an end; and even when the end has been steadily kept in view, it cannot be denied that some of our greatest intellects have spent more of their strength on these subsidiary matters than their importance deserves. In Welcker, Otfried Mul ler, and other German scholars of the first class, we see a general reaction against this narrow school; and a reaction which was sure to prosper, as it was based on thorough academic training, and had learned to neglect no trifle and despise no minute point which could be made subservient to higher purposes. If it was the fault of German
scholarship generally that it was too professhinal and too academic, it is the praise of Muller, 'Wacker, and the school to which they belong that they have bridged over the gulf which separates learning from life, and inspired the dry bones of tradition with a spirit which makes them intelligible to the present, and significant of the future. The long academic career of Welcker was distinguished by an uninterrupted course of scholarly activity. Many of his works. are tracts and essays on archaeological sub jects without external unity, but all exhibiting a remarkable combination of extensive and accurate learning, fine taste, delicate sensibility, and sound judgment. We can only note here his three most important works of a larger compass. The first is the E.,ehylean Trilogy (1824), in which the organic connection and sequence of the Greek dramas are set forth with a richness of constructive detail not altogether free from that fanciful and problematic element which is one of the most distinguishing characteristics • of German scholarship. The second is the Epic Cycle (1835-40), a work which has done great service to the right appreciation of early Greek literature, by taking Homar out of that region of mysterious isolation in which he had been previously allowed to remain. The third, and perhaps his greatest work is the Gotterlehre, or Greek Mythology (1857-62), which embraces all that is good, and rejects all that is bad in the wide German literature of this subject, with a delicate tact and a just discrimination as valuable as they are rare. Of all works, this is the one that would most probably bear with credit the ordeal of an English translation.