GERVI`NITS, GEORG GOTTFRIED, an historian of German literature, and politician, was b. at Darmstadt, May 20,1805. He received a mercantile education, and was for some time employed in the counting-house of a merchant in his native town. By a diligent course of self-instruction. he supplied what was wanting in his school-education, and in 1826, was so far advanced as to be ready to enter the university of Heidelberg. After completing his studies, during which a taste for history had been awakened in Min by Schlosser's lectures, he became teacher in an educational institution at Frank furt-on-the-Maine. In 1835, he was appointed a professor extraordinary at Heidelberg. Previous to this; he had published his Geschiehte der Angelsaehsen Ueberblick (Frank. 1830), which was followed by his Historische Schriften (Frank. 1833). In 1836, he was appointed ordinary professor of history and literature at G3ttingeo. He had now begin' to publish his Gesehicte der Poetischen Nation,alliteratur der Deutschen (3 vols., Leip. 1835-38). This was by the Notre Gesch. der Poetischen Nationalliteratur der Deutschen (2 vols., Leip. lt310 12). These two works were afterwards published together under the title Geseh. der Deutschen Diehtung (5th ed. 1871): In 1837, he was one of the Gottingen professors who signed the famous protest against the abolition of the Hano verian constitution, in consequence of which he lost his chair, and was ordered to leave the country within three days. He first went to Darmstadt, then to Heidelberg, and in
the spring of 1838, to Italy. He spent the winter in Rome, engaged in historical studies. In 1844, lie was appointed honorary professor in the university of Heidelberg. From this period, his career was that of a political writer. Constitutional liberty was the object which he had in view, and for which he ardently labored. His pamphlets and writings in different periodicals exercised a very great influence over the national mind. In July, 1847, along with some others, he established the Deutsche Zeitung in Heidelberg, to advocate the political views of the Constitutionalists. In 1848, he was deputed to attend the diet in behalf of the Hanse towns, and was elected a member of the national assembly by a district of Prussian Saxony. After the failure of the national democratic party in Germany, Gervinus returned to his literary"pursuits, the proofs of which are his suggestive work on Shakespeare (4 vols., 1849-50) and his Gesehichte des Jahr. hundert (Leip. 1853-66). Handel and Shakespeare appeared in 1868, and Handels Orato rientarte was published in 1873. Gervinus died March, 1871.