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Rh a Greek fiction, Wieland described his own spiritual and intellectual growth. This work, which Lessing recommended as &ldquo;a novel of classic taste,&rdquo; marks an epoch in the development of the modern psychological novel. Of equal importance was Wieland's translation of twenty-two of Shakespeare's plays into prose (8 vols., 1762-1766); it was the first attempt to present the English poet to the German people in something approaching entirety. With the poems Musarion oder die Philosophie der Grazien (1768), Idris (1768), Combabus (1770), Der neue Amadis (1771), Wieland opened the series of light and graceful romances in verse which appealed so irresistibly to his contemporaries and acted as an antidote to the sentimental excesses of the subsequent Sturm und Drang movement. Wieland married in 1765, and between 1769 and 1772 was professor of philosophy at Erfurt. In the last-mentioned year he published Der goldene Spiegel oder die Könige von Scheschian, a pedagogic work in the form of oriental stories; this attracted the attention of duchess Anna Amalie of Saxe-Weimar and resulted in his appointment as tutor to her two sons, Karl August and Konstantin, at Weimar. With the exception of some years spent at Ossmannstedt, where in later life he bought an estate, Weimar remained Wieland's home until his death on the 20th of January 1813. Here, in 1773, he founded Der teutsche Merkur, which under his editorship (1773-1789) became the most influential literary review in Germany. Of the writings of his later years the most important are the admirable satire on German provinciality &mdash; the most attractive of all his prose writings &mdash; Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte (1774), and the charming poetic romances, Das Wintermärchen (1776), Das Sommermärchen (1777), Geron der Adelige (1777), Die Wünsche oder Pervonte (1778), a series culminating with Wieland's poetic masterpiece, the romantic epic of Oberon (1780). Although belonging to a class of poetry in which modern readers take but little interest, Oberon has still, owing to the facile beauty of its stanzas, the power to charm. In Wieland's later novels, such as the Geheime Geschichte des Philosophen Peregrinus Proteus (1791) and Aristipp und einige seiner Zeitgenossen (1800-1802), a didactic and philosophic tendency obscures the small literary interest they possess. He also translated Horace's Satires (1786), Lucian's Works (1788-1789), Cicero's Letters (1808 ff.), and from 1796 to 1803 he edited the Attisches Museum which did valuable service in popularizing Greek studies.

Without creating a school in the strict sense of the term, Wieland influenced very considerably the German literature of his time. The verse-romance and the novel &mdash; more especially in Austria &mdash; benefited by his example, and even the Romanticists of a later date borrowed many a hint from him in their excursions into the literatures of the south of Europe. The qualities which distinguish his work, his fluent style and light touch, his careless frivolity rather than poetic depth, show him to have been in literary temperament more akin to Ariosto and Voltaire than to the more spiritual and serious leaders of German poetry; but these very qualities in Wieland's poetry introduced a balancing element into German classical literature and added materially to its fullness and completeness.

(J. G. R.)

WIELICZKA, a mining town in Galicia, Austria, 220 m. by rail W. of Lemberg and 9 m. S.E. of Cracow. Pop. (1900) 6012. It is built on the slopes of a hill which half encircles the place, and over the celebrated salt-mines of the same name. These mines are the richest in Austria, and among the most remarkable in the world. They consist of seven different levels, one above the other, and have eleven shafts, two of which are in the town. The levels are connected by flights of steps, and are composed of a labyrinth of chambers and passages, whose length aggregates over 65 m. The length of the mines from E. to W. is 2⅓ m., the breadth from N. to S. is 1050 yds. and the depth reaches 980 ft. Many of the old chambers, some of which are of enormous size, are embellished with portals, candelabra, statues, &c., all hewn in rock-salt. There are also two large chapels, containing altars, ornaments, &amp;c., in rock-salt, a room called the dancing saloon (Tanzsaal), where the objects of interest found in the mines are kept; the Kronleuchtersaal, and the chamber Michatovice are also worth mention. In the interior of the mines are sixteen ponds, of which the large lake of Przykos is 195 ft. long, 11o ft. broad, and 10-26 ft. deep. The mines employ over 1000 workers, and yield about 60,000 tons annually. The salt of Wieliczka is well known for its purity and solidity, but has generally a grey or blackish colour. The date of the discovery of the mines is unknown, but they were already worked in the 11th century. Since 1814 they have belonged entirely to the Austrian government. The mines suffered greatly from inundations in 1868 and 1879, and the soil on which the town is built shows signs of subsidence.

WIELOPOLSKI, ALEKSANDER, Marquis of Gonzaga-Myszkowski (1803-1877), Polish statesman, was educated in Vienna, Warsaw, Paris and Göttingen. In 1830 he was elected a member of the Polish diet on the Conservative side. At the beginning of the Insurrection of 1831 he was sent to London to obtain the assistance, or at least the mediation, of England; but the only result of his mission was the publication of the pamphlet Mémoire présenté a Lord Palmerston (Warsaw, 1831). On the collapse of the insurrection he emigrated, and on his return to Poland devoted himself exclusively to literature and the cultivation of his estates. On the occasion of the Galician outbreak of 1845, when the Ruthenian peasantry massacred some hundreds of Polish landowners, an outbreak generally attributed to the machinations of the Austrian government, Wielopolski wrote his famous Lettre d'un gentilhomme polonais au prince de Metternich (Brussels, 1846), which caused a great sensation at the time, and in which he attempted to prove that the Austrian court was acting in collusion with the Russian in the affair. In 1861, when Alexander II. was benevolently disposed towards the Poles and made certain political and national concessions to them, Wielopolski was appointed president of the commissions of public worship and justice and subsequently president of the council of state. A visit to the Russian capital in November still further established his influence, and in 1862 he was appointed adjutant to the grand-duke Constantine. This office he held till the 12th of September 1863, when finding it impossible to resist the rising current of radicalism and revolution he resigned all his offices, and obtained at his own request unlimited leave of absence. He retired to Dresden, where he died on the 30th of December 1877.

(R. N. B.)

WIENER-NEUSTADT, a town of Austria, in Lower Austria, 31 m. S. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900) 28,438. It is situated between the Fischa and the Leitha and is close to the Hungarian frontier. It was almost entirely rebuilt after a destructive fire in 1834, and ranks among the handsomest provincial towns in Austria. Its ancient gates, walls and towers have disappeared, but it still possesses a few medieval edifices, the most important of which is the old castle of the dukes of Babenberg, founded in the 12th century, and converted by Maria Theresa in 1752 into a military academy. The Gothic chapel contains the remains