Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/55

Rh HOFFMANN, (–),   (for whose  Wilhelm his own substitute, in homage to, was Amadeus), was  at,  24,. His parents, who lived unhappily together, separating or  after his, he was brought up in his grandmother’s , under the care of a bachelor uncle. His relations seem to have been fairly puzzled at the waywardness, cunning, and precocity of the boy, who neglected his and hated routine, but applied himself with passionate zest to the study of  and, extemporized marvellously on the , and with his  d friend and foe alike with terrible facility. Incited by his friend, Hoffmann on leaving turned to the hereditary  of the ; but, as no immediate post offered itself, he gave lessons in  and , and  two s, for which he could not find a. A discreditable episode with one of his pupils drove him at this time from, and he went to act as assistant to another  uncle at  in. In he became  in the  at, and in  passed his final  and was appointed  to the  of. Here he seems to have led a dissipated life, and to have contracted the habit of excessive which marred his whole. He subsequently made enemies in by sending a series of scandalous s for distribution at a , and his appointment was on this account changed to a councillorship at , where, having  ere this time, he spent two  in ,  in his   the , translating , and sketching plans for future ; but in , again in favour at headquarters, he was transferred as councillor to. There he found a true friend in, his colleague, and made the acquaintance of , at whose request he set to some parts of the Kreuz an der Ostsee. He soon became the centre of al in, helped to institute a - or &ldquo;Ressource,&rdquo; found  not only to  its  but to  for its , and was actually  this  before enthusiastic audiences when  was taken by the  in. For some time he lingered in ; but in the spring of, having recovered from a to find himself almost penniless, he returned to  to seek some means of livelihood. His only child died in while he was in ; and, though he succeeded in obtaining the post of -director to the , the  soon after became , and Hoffmann was once more destitute. He now found occasional as a  of tic, and, as a last resource, attempted. The editor of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung enlisted his services, and in that appeared a series, afterwards, with a preface by Jean Paul Richter, as Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier (4thed., ). He at this time, among other things, a Miserere by order of the  of, and, for the proprietors of the  ,  to Kotzebue’s  Das Gespenst; and he also gave lessons in  and , decorated , and  s to order. The misery of his condition was enhanced by his wife’s and his own light-hearted recklessness. The which he  at the death of his uncle did not suffice to pay his s; and he had been reduced to  his last  for  when his friends obtained for him the post of -director to another , performing alternately at  and. Hoffmann was s in a garret in, or, bedridden by , was  s of the &ldquo;verwünschte Franzosen&rdquo;  while  and the allied  were struggling round its. In appeared his Vision auf der Schlachtfelde von Dresden; and in the, on the fall of , he returned to , and was reinstated in the. he was appointed councillor in the, and from enjoyed a good , a dignified position, and the  of his best friends. He was already, in virtue of his Fantasiestücke, regarded as one of the most notable  of his day, but most of his works were yet to come. These followed each other in quick succession. Die Elixire des Teufels appeared in ; Nachtstücke in ; Seltsame Leiden eines Theaterdirektors in ; Die Serapionsbrüder, a collection of, in –; Klein Zaches, genannt Zinnober, in ; Prinzessin Brambilla in ; Meister Floh in ; and Lebensansichten des Katers Murr in –. He also the  Undine, the  of which was prepared by Fouqué himself. It was performed with success in ; but the was lost in the subsequent destruction of the - by. Hoffmann’s prospects in were ruined by the old habit of intemperance, which had grown upon him during the  of his poverty. We are told that his duties were scrupulously performed, and that the remainder of his  was spent in, but that, when this was over, he avoided refined , and his s became a series of wild  revels. His soon gave way; and, after intense suffering from , he died at , July 24,. Der Feind, his last, remained unfinished. Versatility is the chief characteristic of Hoffmann’s genius, and it is also its greatest weakness. He is admitted to have been an excellent. His were clever, though. He was a popular and a brilliant -. But this very versatility prevented his rising to eminence in any one ; and, even as a -, in which capacity he will be longest remembered, he was deficient in some of the highest attributes. His was unbounded, his  light and acrid, his  stirring. His descriptive passages, in their minute vividness, have been compared to those of Sir Walter Scott, and his romances abound in the and ical, that  element which is so peculiarly, and which in Hoffmann amounted almost to a frenzy. But, with all this, a perusal of his writings leaves a disagreeable impression on the, a feeling of dissatisfaction and unrest. They are the production of a misdeveloped, of a man full of ish impulses, oddities, and weakness, not devoid of tenderness, but whose temper was unforgiving and malicious, whose prevailing mood was the sarcastic, and whose only  was a blind, headlong. There is also a strong element in his writings which Carlyle in his biography of Hoffmann has called &ldquo;playerlike,&rdquo; a glitter which is of, a something &ldquo;false, brawling, and tawdry.&rdquo; His writings, like his character, are a curious mixture of what is really beautiful and rare with much that is petty and sordid. Their cleverness is irresistible; but the dignity of true greatness is not there. Die Elixire der Teufels, his longest completed, contains in a narrative form some of his own wildest and most revolting delusions; and the derisive Kater Murr, of which the third is wanting, is not less characteristic. Some of his smaller pieces have justly been thought the most pleasing and perfect of his works. Among these are Der goldene Topf, Das Fräulein von Scudery, Doge und Dogaresse, and Meister Martin und seine Gesellen. The delicacy and finish of the last, slight though it is, have stamped it as Hoffmann’s masterpiece.