Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/595

Rh moral character of Biirger as on his genius. His conduct prejudiced his grandfather Bauer against him; and it was with difficulty that he obtained from him some further assistance, with permission, in the year 17G8, to repair to Gottingen to prosecute the study of the law, This change did not make him more regular in his studies ; his morals became corrupted ; and his grandfather withdrew his pro tection. Burger contracted debts ; and his situation would have become altogether desperate had not some friends interfered to assist him. An association, memorable in the annals of German literature, and into which Burger was now admitted, had just been formed at Gottingen ; it reckoned among its members Boje, Biester, Sprengel, Holty, Miiller, Voss, the two Counts Stolberg, C. F. Cramer, and Leisewitz. All of these were persons versed in Greek and Roman literature, and at the same time they all idolized Shakespeare. Burger, in a great measure, owed his style to the enthusiasm which he showed, in common with his literary friends, for our great dramatist. The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, published about this time by Dr Percy, gave an additional impulse to the direction which his mind had taken, and suggested to him some of his most admired productions. Of all his friends, Boje was the one who exercised the greatest influence over him in the choice and treatment of his subjects ; and it is to his severe observations that the poetical stanza of Burger owes a great part of that elegance and roundness which characterize it. To the same friend he was indebted also for some improve ment in his circumstances. On the recommendation of Boje he was appointed to the collectorship of Altengleichen, in the principality of Calenberg. The following winter, some fragments of a ghost story, which he heard a peasant girl singing by moonlight, caught his imagination, and suggested his celebrated ballad of Leonora. This remarkable production at once established his reputation as a poet. About this time he married a Hanoverian lady, named Leonhart ; but this union proved only a source of bitterness, as an unhappy attachment to her younger sister soon after sprung up in his heart. The loss of a sum of money, of which his grandfather had made him a present, was the first commencement of his embarrassments ; the taking of a large farm, which he did not know how to manage, increased them. The dismissal from his place, in 1784, in consequence of suspicions (probably ill-founded) raised against the fidelity of his accounts, gave the finishing stroke to his misfortunes. He had a little before lost his wife, whose death was hastened by the culpable passion which Burger cherished in his heart. Left with two children, and reduced to the inconsiderable emoluments of The Almanack of the Muses, which he had edited since 1779, he removed to Gottingen with a view to giving private lessons there, and in the hope of obtaining a professor s chair in the department of belles-lettres. Five years later the title was conferred on him, but without a salary ; and this was the only public recompense obtained during his whole life by a man who was one of the favourite authors of his nation, and who, while yet young, had achieved the highest reputation. Scarcely were the ashes of his wife cold when he espoused her sister, whose name his poems have made but too famous. She died in childbed in the beginning of 1780. From that moment his own life only lingered on ; and the fire of his genius seemed extinguished with the passion which had so long nourished it. He had scarcely strength enough, in the intervals of his dejection, to finish his Song of Songs, a sort of dithyrambic or nuptial hymn, intended to celebrate his second marriage, and which is a strange mixture of frantic passion, religious devotion, and the most bombastic expression. It was the last production of Biirger. Having studied the philosophy of Kant, he had an idea of deriving some advantage from it at Gottingen, where it had not yet been taught. He undertook to explain it in a course of lectures, which were attended by a great number of students .. The satisfaction which the university expressed to him for two cantatas which he composed in 1787, on the occasion of the fifty years jubilee of this illustrious institu tion, and his appointment to the situation of professor extraordinary, reanimated his spirits. Fortune appearing to smile on him once more, he formed the design of marrying again. During one of the moments when he was most occupied with this idea he received a letter from Stuttgart, in which a young woman, whose style indicated a cultivated mind, and her sentiments an elevated and feeling heart, after describing to him with enthusiasm the impression which his poetry had made upon her, offered him her hand and heart. The information which he received respecting the character, the fortune, and personal accomplishments of his correspondent having excited his curiosity, he took a journey to Stuttgard, and brought back with him a wife who embittered and dishonoured the rest of his days. In less than three years he saw himself under the necessity of obtaining a divorce from her ; and the ruin of his health aggravated the absolute disorder of his finances. Confined to a small chamber, the favourite poet of Germany wasted the remainder of his strength in translations for foreign booksellers ; but sickness and grief soon deprived him even of this resource, and he must have died in a state of the most abject poverty if the Government of Hanover had not relieved his necessities. He died June 8, 1794, in the forty-seventh year of his age. Burger is only remarkable as a lyric poet ; for after having tried all the different species of this class of com positions, he has succeeded eminently only in the song and the ballad. We shall perhaps characterize his genius sufficiently by saying that his imagination is more fresh than rich, that he has more sensibility than elevation, more naivete and good nature than delicacy or taste. His style is striking from its clearness and its energy, and an elegance which is rather the result of labour than of natural grace ; he possesses, in short, all the qualities which please the multitude. Allowing the title of poet only to those whose writings were calculated to become popular, he early habituated himself to reject whatever appeared to him not sufficiently intelligible and interesting to all classes of readers. He is always clear and forcible ; and if at certain times there appears a want of selection and care in the details, yet the sentiments are uniformly noble, and the moral purpose of the majority of his pieces is irreproachable. Of the first three editions of Burger s works, published at Gottingen, two appeared in 1778 and 1789, in 3 vols. 8vo ; and the third, after his death, was published by his friend Ch. Keinhard, in 4 vols., 1796. Later editions of his poems are very numerous.  BURGERSDYK, or, a celebrated Dutch logician, was born at Lier, near Delft, in 1590, and died at Leyden in 1029, in the thirty-ninth year of his age. He studied at the university of Leyden, and after completing his academical career there with great distinc tion, travelled through Germany and France, On arriving at Saumur in the latter country he began to study theology, and was so successful, that, while still a very young man, he was appointed professor of philosophy in that town. This office he held for five years, at the end of which period he returned to Leyden, where he accepted the chair of logic and moral philosophy, and afterwards that of natural philosophy. His Logic was at one time widely used, and is still a very valuable compendium. His treatise on ethics, entitled Idea Philosophic Moralis, was published posthumously in 1644.  BURGESS, (1645-1712), a learned and witty dissenting divine of the 17th century, born at Staineu, 