Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/571

Rh lishment in 1870 of an united German empire, could rc- coucile him to a dynasty one sickly scion of which had foiled the national aspirations of Germany. Gervinus now t0ok refuge among his literary and historical studies, more especially devoting himself to the study of Shakespeare, the result of which was his great work Shakespeare (184-9, 1850), in four Volumes. He also revised his magnum opus, the IIz'story of German Literature, for a fourth edition (1853), and began at the same time to plan his 11 [story of the 19th. Century, which was to be a continuation of the History (3f the 18th Century by his guide and teacher, Schlosser. lIe heralded that voluminous work by a pro- gramme or manifesto entitled Einleituny in die Geschichte (les neunzehnten Jahrhuntlerts, which was issued in 1853, and made a great stir in the literary and political world, chiefly owing to the circumstance that the Government of Biden imprudently instituted a prosecution against the author for high treason. Gervinus had prophesied in his famous pamphlet the ﬁnal victory of democracy, and based his prediction on the theory that all the great revolutionary outbreaks follow each other in a kind of geometrical pro- gression,—to wit, 1820, 1830, and 1848. Hence he con- cluded that the next great revolutionary shock would take place about 1888-1890, and that it would insure the ﬁnal victory to democracy, just as the same decade brought in former centuries freedom and independence to the Ameri- cans, the French, the English, and the inhabitants of the Netherlands. Arraigned before a tribunal, he defended himself with a great display of ability and manly courage, but was nevertheless condemned to an imprisonment of two months, and all the copies of the “ seditious publication ” were to be destroyed. Fortunately for Germany, this dis— grace was spared her, the verdict having been rescinded by a higher tribunal. This occurrence, which would have aroused a more elastic temper to greater political activity, had the contrary effect upon the sensitive mind of Gervinus. IIe buried himself still more among his books, and even forebore to deliver lectures. With unwearied energy he now devoted himself to his above-mentioned great his— torical work, Gesehz'ehte des neunzehnten Jalu‘h-u-nderts seit (Zen lf’z'ener l'ertrdiqen, which he issued in eight volumes, the ﬁrst in 1855 and the last in 1866. In the midst of his historical studies he found relief in his devotion to the works of his favourite musician Handel. He founded, and liberally supported, the Handel Society in Germany, whose object it was to restore the com- positions of the great master in an authentic form, and to issue German versions of the texts suitable to the com- positions. The result of his Handel studies was his critical and :esthetical work [Itintlel uml Shakespeare, zur xEstheti/c (Ier Tonicunst (1868), in which he drew an ingenious parallel between his favourite poet and his favourite composer, showing that their intellectual afﬁnity was based on the Teutonic origin common to both, on the same healthiness of their mental capacities, on their analogous intellectual dev010pment, and even on a similarity of their inclinations and fates. This philosophical treatise fell ﬂat on the German public, who could not forgive the author for having extolled Handel above the great national masters, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. The ill-success of that publica- tion, and the indifference with which the latter volumes of his History of the 19th Century were received by his countrymen, together with the feeling of disappointment that the unity of Germany had been brought about in another fashion and by other means than he wished to see employed, combined to embitter in the highest degree the writer and the politician, but it could not sour in him his kindly and humane disposition, nor did it in the least affect his sociable temper, and he cultivated refined society to the last. He died rather suddenly, on the 18th of March 1871.

1em  GESENIUS, (1786–1842), Orientalist and biblical critic, was born at Nordhausen, Hanover, on the 3d of February 1786. From the gymnasium of his native town he passed in 1803 as a student of philosophy and theology to the university of Helmstadt, where Henke was his most inﬂuential teacher; but the latter part of his undergraduate course was taken at Gtittingen, where Eichhorn and T. C. Tychsen were then at the height of their popularity. In 1806, shortly after graduation, he became “ rcpetent ” and “ privat-docent ” in that university ; and, as he was fond of afterwards relating, had Neandcr for his ﬁrst pupil in Hebrew. In 1809, on the recommendation of Johann von Miiller, he was appointed to a masters-hip in the gymnasium of Heiligenstadt, West— phalia, whence, in the following year, he was transferred to the university of Halle, where, from being professor extra- ordinarius in theology, he was in a very short time promoted to an ordinary chair (1811). Many oﬁ'ers were subsequently made to him of high prefermeut elsewhere, but he clung to Halle for the remainder of his life, and taught with great