The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Brun, Friederike Sophie Christiane

BRUN, Friederike Sophie Christiane, a German authoress, born at Gräfen-Tonna, near Gotha, June 8, 1765, died in Copenhagen, March 25, 1835. The daughter of Balthasar Münter, a German clergyman and poet, who removed to Copenhagen, she was early remarkable for her linguistic and poetical talents, and married in 1783 the wealthy Danish councillor Constantin Brun, with whom she went to St. Petersburg and to Hamburg, where she formed the acquaintance of Klopstock. She became deaf during the cold winter of 1788-'9, and subsequently travelled in various countries, and for some time in company with the princess of Dessau and the poet Matthisson. With the latter and with the historian Johannes von Müller she spent some time in Switzerland in the house of Bonstetten, who was afterward for several years her guest in Copenhagen, and who addressed many remarkable letters to her, which have been published. After a long residence in Italy, she spent nearly the last 25 years of her life in Copenhagen, gathering round her many eminent persons. Her husband survived her hardly one year. Her early poems, edited by Matthisson in 1795 (4th ed., Zürich, 1806), were followed by Neue Gedichte (Darmstadt, 1812), and Neueste Gedichte (Bonn, 1820). She described her travels in her Prosaische Schriften (4 vols., Zürich, 1799-1801), Episoden (4 vols., 1807-'18), Römisches Leben (2 vols., Leipsic, 1833), and in her Briefe aus Rom, addressed to her brother, the bishop of Seeland, edited by Böttiger (Dresden, 1816; new ed., 1820). Her last work, Wahrheit am Morgenträumen und Ida's ästhetische Entwickelung (Aarau, 1824), contains a partial autobiography and an account of her daughter Ida's education.