HEYNE, CHRISTIAN GOTTLOB, a German scholar of great celebrity, was b, at Chem nitz, in upper Saxony, Sept. 25, 1729. His father was a poor weaver. The pastor of Chemnitz, himself very poor, got Heyne educated at a school in the suburbs, and after wards sent him to Leipsic university, but forgot to give him money for his support. His sufferings here were frightful, but his endurance was heroic. In 1753 Ire obtained the situation of under-clerk in the Bruhl library at Dresden. While in this humble office, he prepared his edition of Tibullus, which saw the light in 1755, and happening to fall into the hands of Rhunken of Leyden, excited the admiration of that scholar. In 1756, unfortunately for Heyne, the seven years' war broke out. Frederick the great marched against Dresden, and burned, among other things, the Briffil library, but not before Hun° had edited, from a codex there, the Enchiridion of Epictetns. For some time he led a precarious life, being often without employment and without bread. In 1761 he married, and supported himself as best he could by writing for the book sellers;. and in 1763, on the death of Gessner, professor of rhetoric at Gottingen, he was appointed his successor on the recommendation of Rhunken of Leyden (who had not forgotten his editions of Tibullus and Epictetus). This closed his period of misfortune.
The rest of his long life was spent in peace and comfort and professorial activity. He (lied July 12, 1812. The principal works of Heyne, besides those mentioned, are his editions of Virgil (1767, 6th ed. 1808), Pindar (1774), Apollodorus (1787), Pliny (1790). Canon and Partlienius (1798), and Homer (8 vols. 1802; 2d ed. 1804). He also executed "almost a cart-load of translations," besides "some ten or twelve thick volumes of prolusions, eulogies, and essays," of which six volumes were published separately under the title of Opuscula Academica (Gutting. 1785-1812); and, finally, about 7,500 reviews of books in the Gottinger Gelehrten Anzeigen, of which he was director from 1770. In addition to this herculean work, lie had a private class or seminarium for the advanced study of philology and classical antiquity, from which he sent forth, in the course of his life, no less than 135 professors. Compare the Life of Heyne by his son-in-law, Ludwig Heeren (Miffing. 1813), and Carlyle's essay on the same.