Page:Libussa, Duchess of Bohemia; also, The Man Without a Name.djvu/13



was born at Jena, in 1735. His father was provincial judge in that town, and afterwards councillor and mayor in Eisenach. The uncle of young Musus, who was general ecclesiastical superintendent (equivalent to the rank of a bishop in England), took the promising youth at the age of nine years into his house, where he treated him as a son during ten years.

At the age of nineteen John Charles A. Musus went to the university of Jena, where he remained three years and a half, during which time he took his degrees, and shortly afterwards became member of the German Society,—no small distinction at that time for a young man. He then returned to Eisenach to his father, where he preached with considerable success, in the expectation of obtaining a living, which was soon offered to him at a village called Pfarrwitz; where, however, the inhabitants objected to him, having heard that he had danced on several occasions. This disgusted him with the