Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/761

Rh friendships and of progress in study. About this time, on the advice of Ruhnken, Wyttenbach began the issue of his Bibliotluca Critica, which appeared at intervals for the next thirty years. The object professed in the preface was to help in rescuing classical studies from the neglect into which they had fallen, by creating an interest in new works of merit, through critical notices, embody ing the results of original research by the writer himself. It was in fact a kind of critical review written by one man. The methods of criticism employed were in the main those established by Hemsterhuis, and carried on by Valckenaer and Ruhnken, and the publication met with acceptance from the learned all over Europe. In 1777 the younger Burmann (&quot; Burmannus Secundus &quot;) retired from his professorship at the Athenreum, and Wyttenbach hoped to succeed him. When another received the appoint ment, he was sorely discouraged. Only his regard for Ruhnken and for Dutch freedom (in his own words &quot; Ruhnkeui et Batavw libertatis cogitatio &quot;) kept him in Holland. For fear of losing him, the authorities at Amsterdam nominated him in 1779 professor of philosophy. Some of his lectures given in this capacity were worked up for publication ; in particular a treatise on logic belongs to this period. In philosophy Wyttenbach never shook off the influence of Wolff, and the Kantians were irate because he failed to appreciate their master. In 1785 Toll, Burmann s successor, resigned, and Wyttenbach was at once appointed to succeed him. His full title was &quot; pro fessor of history and eloquence and Greek and Latin liter ature.&quot; He had hardly got to work in his new office when Valckenaer died, and he received a call to Leyden. Greatly to Ruhnken s disappointment, he declined to abandon the duties he had so recently undertaken. In 1787 began the internal commotions in Holland, afterwards to be aggra vated by foreign interference. Scarcely during the re maining thirty-three years of Wyttenbach s life was there a moment of peace in the land. He held entirely aloof from factions, and yearned continually after quiet and reconciliation. About this time two requests were made to him for an edition of the Moralia of Plutarch, for which a recension of the tract &quot; De sera numinis vindicta &quot; had marked him out in the eyes of scholars. One request came from the famous &quot; Societas Bipontina,&quot; the other from the delegates of the Clarendon Press at Oxford. Wyttenbach, influenced at once by the reputation of the university, and by the liberality of the Oxonians in tendering him assistance of different kinds, declined the offer of the Bipontine Society, very fortunately, since their press was soon destroyed by the French. The fortunes of Wyttenbach s edition curiously illustrate the text &quot; habent sua fata libelli.&quot; The first portion was safely conveyed to Oxford in 1794. Then war broke out between Holland and Great Britain. Randolph, Wyttenbach s Oxford correspondent, advised that the next portion should be sent through the British ambassador at Hamburg, and the MS. was duly consigned to him &quot; in a little chest well pro tected by pitch.&quot; After sending Randolph a number of letters without getting any answer, Wyttenbach in disgust put all thought of the edition from him, and a shudder ran through his frame whenever Plutarch was mentioned. At last, after simultaneous letters had been despatched to a good many delegates of the Clarendon Press, the missing box was discovered in a forgotten corner at Hamburg, where it had lain for two years and a half. The work was finally completed in 1805. Meanwhile Wyttenbach received repeated invitations to leave Amsterdam, which were refused. One came from his native city Bern, another from Leyden, where vacancies had been created by the refusal of professors to swear allegiance to the new Dutch republic set up in 1795, in which Wyttenbach had 715 acquiesced. But he only left Amsterdam in. 1799, when on Ruhnken s death he succeeded him at Leyden. Even then his chief object in removing was to facilitate an arrangement by which the necessities of his old master s family might be relieved. His removal came too late in life, and he was never so happy at Leyden as he had been at Amsterdam. Before long appeared the ever-delightful Life of David Ruhnken. Though written in Latin, this biography deserves to rank high in the modern literature of its class. It is composed in a style that is lucid, flowing, and graceful, not imitated from any one ancient author, but (a few grammatical matters apart) such as we can imagine that some gifted Roman of the classical time might well have struck out for himself. One of Ruhnken s friends called it &quot;a Milesian tale,&quot; partly from the fascin ation of the style, and partly because the book often took such a wide range that Ruhnken was lost amid extended observations springing out of his relation to the classical studies of his age. Of Wyttenbach s life at Leyden there is little to tell. The continual changes in state affairs greatly disorganized the universities of Holland, and Wyttenbach had to work in face of much detraction ; still his success as a teacher was very great. In 1805 he narrowly escaped with his life from the great gunpowder explosion, which killed 150 people, among them the Greek scholar Luzac, Wyttenbach s colleague in the university. One of Wyttenbach s letters gives a vivid account of the disaster. During the last years of his life he suffered severely from illness and became nearly blind. After the conclusion of his edition of Plutarch s Moralia in 1805, the only important work he was able to publish was his well-known edition of Plato s Phxdo. Many honours were conferred upon him both at home and abroad, and in particular he was made a member of the French Institute. Shortly before his death, he obtained the licence of the king of Holland to marry his sister s daughter, Johanna Gallien, who had for twenty years devoted herself to him as housekeeper, secretary, and aider in his studies. The sole object of the marriage was to secure for her a better provision after her husband s death, because as the widow of a professor she would be entitled to a pension. Johanna Gallien was a woman of remarkable culture and ability, and wrote works held in great repute at that time. On the festival of the tercentenary of the foundation of the university of Marburg, celebrated in 1827, the degree of doctor was conferred upon her. Wyttenbach died of apoplexy in 1820, and he was buried in the garden of his country house near Amsterdam, within sight, as he noted, of the dwellings of Descartes and Boerhaave. Although his work can hardly be set on the same level as that of Heinsterhuis, Valckenaer, and Ruhnkeu, yet he was a very eminent exponent of the sound methods of criticism which they established. These four men, more than any others after Beutley, laid the foundations of Greek scholarship as.it exists to-day. The precise study of grammar, syntax, and style, aud the careful criticism of texts by the light of the best manuscript evidence, were upheld by these scholars in the Netherlands when they were almost entirely neglected elsewhere on the Continent, and were only pursued with partial success in England. Wyttenbach may fairly be regarded as closing a great period in the history of scholarship. He lived indeed to see the new birth of German classical learning, but his work was done, and he was unaffected by it. Wyttenbach s criticism was less rigorous, precise, and masterly, but perhaps more sensitive and sympathetic than that of his great predecessors in the Netherlands. In actual acquaintance with the philosophical writings of the ancients, he has probably never been surpassed. In character he was upright and simple-minded, but shy and retiring, and often failed to make himself appreciated. His life was not passed without strife, but his few friends were warmly attached to him, and his many pupils were for the most part his enthusiastic admirers. Wyttenbach s biography was written in a somewhat dry and lifeless manner by Mahuc, one of his pupils, who also published some of his letters. His Opitscula, other than those published in the Billiotlicca Critica, were collected in two volumes (Ley den, 1823). (J. S. R.)