KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON, was born at Weimar in the year 1761. In his sixth year he made attempts at poetical composition, and his interest for theatrical matters was excited by the performances of a company of players at Weimar. At the gymnasium he was instructed by Musams, the celebrated author of the Volksmahreben ' (' Popular Tales'); and when he was sixteen years of age he went to the University of Jena, where an amateur theatre increased his love for the drama. Ho studied the law, but at the same time composed slight theatrical pieces. In 1781, at the instance of the Prussian ambassador at the Russian court, be went to Petersburg, and was kindly received by the emperor, who raised him to the rank of nobility, and made him president of the government of Esthonia. While at Revel he wrote several favourite works, and among them his well-known pieces 'Die Indianer in England' (' The Indians in England), which has been translated into English, and 'Menschen bass and Reue' (' Misanthropy and Repentance'), well known in this country under the title of The Stranger.' He travelled in 1790 to Pyrmont, and after the death of his wife visited Paris, but returned to Esthonia in 1795, where he wrote above twenty dramas. In 1798 he went to Vienna as poet to the Court Theatre, but gave up that place in two years, and received a yearly pension of 1000 crowns. He bad scarcely arrived in Russia, to which country be had returned, when, without knowing the cause, he was arrested and sent to Siberia. A translation made by a young Russian of a paltry little piece by Kotzebue, called Der Leibkutscher Peters des Grossen' (' The Body Coachman of Peter the Great'), so delighted the Emperor Paul that he was recalled from banishment, After the death of this emperor, Kotzebue went to Weimar, and thence to Jena. Some disagreement with Clothe caused him to remove to Berlin, where he edited the periodical Der Ereimiithige (' The Free-Humoured). About the same time he commenced bia ' Alma nach dramatischer Spiele,' an annual much in the style of those in England, though the plates are of an humbler character, and the literary part is exclusively dramatic. His 'Recollections' of Paris, of Rome, and of Naples, and his ' Early History of Prussia,' appear to have added little to hia reputation. The events of the year 1806 caused him to fly from Prussia to Russia, where in his writings he unceasingly attacked the Emperor Napoleon and the Freuch. His
political expressions at this time raised him to importance, and the turn of affairs in 1813, and the unpopularity of the French, procured him the editorship of a Russian-Prussian paper. In 1814 he went as Russian consul-general to Konigsberg, where he wrote several little plays, and an indifferent history of Germany. In 1817, after having again visited Petersburg, he was despatched to Germany by the emperor of Russia, with a large salary, to watch the state of literature and public opinion, and to communicate all that he could learn. He at the same time edited a weekly literary paper, but the German people had at last beeome disgusted with his scoffing at everything like liberal opinions. Against these and against the freedom of the press his writings were constantly levelled. He sneered at every expression of the popular wish for a constitutional government. He held up the state of Europe before the French Revolution as the perfection of happiness; till at last he roused the indignation of Sand, a student and political enthusiast, who, considering him an enemy to liberty, aaasssinated him in 1819.
Kotzebuo'a fame rests almost entirely on his dramas, which are nearly one hundred in number, and of the most various degrees of merit. The beat of them (excepting The Two Klingsbergs ') have been translated into English. Beaides The Stranger' and The Indians in England,' it is only necessary to enumerate 'Lovers' Vows' (' Der Straasenratiber aua Kinderaliebe), ' Pizarro' (' Die Spanier in Peru '), 'The Virgin of the Sun,' and aBenyowski: Unfortunately for a per manent reputation, he created too great a sensation at the time of his writing ; the public were at first delighted, and afterwards surfeited by his exaggerated expressions, his forced situations, and maudlin sentimentality. A reaction accordingly has taken place, and he is now as much despised as he was formerly overrated, and certainly more than he merits. It is not fair to criticise him in a merely literary point of view : he was an actual working writer for the stage, and hia knowledge of dramatic construction and of stage effect must call forth the approbation of every qualified judge. Gotha reckoned as the best of his playa ' Die beiden Kliogsberg ' ('The Two linage bergs '), a genteel comedy of great merit, but little known in this country.