LIFE OF MUSÆUS.
Musæus 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 Musæus, 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. Musæus 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 profession of an ecclesiastic, and he gave up altogether the idea of becoming a clergyman. In 1763 he became Master of the Pages at the court of Weimar, where he remained seven years, and afterwards obtained a professorship at the college of Weimar. There he married a young lady, Juliana Kruger, by whom he had two sons.
The famous German poet Wieland was an intimate friend of his; and the dramatic writer Augustus von Kotzebue, who was his pupil, has written his biography, and published a volume of his posthumous miscellaneous writings. In speaking of the kindness of his heart and temper, Kotzebue says, “Weep, ye that have known Musæus, for he is no more; and weep, ye also that have not known hin, for not having known the man,—unique in his kindness of heart, in his philanthropy, and good temper.” As a farther proof of his excellence in private life, Kotzebue says, “He wrote satires, and had no enemies; he was esteemed by his superiors, and beloved by his inferiors.”
Among his first writings was “Grandison the Second;” a parody of the Grandison of Richardson, replete with vivid satire. It was reprinted in 1787. The rage which Lavater’s system had excited in Germany, gave occasion to his “Physiognomical Travels,” which had the greatest success. In 1782 he first published his popular “Fancy Tales,” which made his name immortal. Afterwards he published “The Apparitions of Friend Heins,” in 1786. He also published “The Gardener’s Daughter,” a comic opera; “The Four Degrees of Human Age,” a prelude, with music; besides several satires, poems, and critical essays. He commenced a new collection of Tales, under the title of “Ostrich Feathers,” when, after the publication of the first volume, he suddenly died, October the 28th, 1787, at the age of fifty-two, of a disease which is very rare,—the polypus of the heart.
At the latter end of his life he had purchased a country-seat on the Altenberg, near Weimar, which the Duchess Amelia of Saxe Weimar, the great patroness of authors, and herself a poet, had furnished for him.
An unknown hand has erected a monument to him in the cemetery of Weimar, simple as was his life, but full of taste. A similar monument in bas-relief was erected to his memory by his friends in the church of St. Jacob: an urn upon an open book, with the inscription, “To the Immortal Musæus.”