HOFFMANN, Christian Gottfried, a German jurisconsult, born 8th November, 1692, in Lusatia; studied law at Leipsic, where he entered in 1711, and became professor in 1718. In 1723 he removed to a professorship at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. He died in 1735, leaving many valuable works in German and Latin, mostly on ancient and modern law, with which he was profoundly acquainted.—B. H. C
HOFFMAN, Daniel, a Lutheran divine, who was super-intendant and professor at Helmstädt, and a celebrated controvertialist at the close of the sixteenth century. He maintained that the light of reason was opposed to religion, and that to cultivate the understanding by the study of philosophy was only to promote hostility to the faith. Several professors acting in concert attempted to correct his views in a private conference, but this only increased his obstinacy, and an exceedingly acrimonious controversy ensued. The court now thought it necessary to interfere, and appointed some persons to act as umpires of the dispute. Finally Hoffman was obliged to make a public recantation and acknowledge the utility of philosophy. He afterwards wrote against Beza on the eucharist, and a dispute which he had with Hunnius, ended in 1593 in his being threatened with excommunication. He died at Helmstädt in 1611.—J. B—r.
HOFFMANN, Ernst Theodor Amadeus, a musician, writer on music, novelist, painter, and jurist, was born at Königsberg, 24th January, 1776, and died at Berlin, 24th July, 1822. The life of this extraordinary man is a romance as wild as the most fanciful of his own fictions. His remarkable and various talents were so squandered, that neither the world nor himself derived the advantage from them which they ought to have yielded. Podbielsky, an esteemed organist, was his chief musical instructor, under whom he obtained considerable skill as a pianist; he studied law in the university of Königsberg, and devoted as much attention to painting and to modern languages. To check the extreme dissipation of his youth, he was sent in 1796 to complete his legal studies under a relation at Glogau; he went thence to Berlin, obtained the appointment of assessor at Posen in 1800, which he lost in consequence of his caricaturing all the government officials of the town; had another forensic engagement at Plozk in 1802, and another at Warsaw in 1803. Here he devoted his leisure to the study of musical composition; and besides writing several works which were not produced in public, brought out his first opera. The more steady course which he was now following was interrupted by the French war and the consequent derangement of public affairs in 1806. Hoffmann then passed two years at Berlin in the greatest indigence, supporting himself chiefly by teaching music. His affairs appeared to brighten in 1808, when he was engaged to be music director of a new theatre at Bamberg; he fetched his wife therefore from Posen, where during his poverty she had stayed with her family; but on arriving at Bamberg he found the scheme was abandoned on which he had depended for support. In this dilemma he applied to be engaged to furnish articles for the Musikalische Zeitschrift, sending a requiem of his composition to the publishers in Leipsic, as a proof of his fitness to write on musical subjects. His application was granted, and the papers he wrote are regarded as some of the most intelligent essays upon music that have ever been produced. The æsthetical analysis of Beethoven's C minor symphony is one of the most remarkable among these. In 1810 Hoffmann obtained a veritable appointment as music director, coupled with that of scene painter, at the Bamberg theatre; and in 1812 he was similarly engaged in a company that performed alternately at Dresden and Leipsic. An account of his privations in consequence of the bombardment of Dresden and the battle of Leipsic, might pass for a romance. Through the worst of these vicissitudes his whimsical humour never forsook him, and he supported himself and his wife, miserably enough indeed, by drawing caricatures of Napoleon and his soldiers, which had general circulation throughout Germany. When he had reached almost the point of starvation, the Prince von Hardenberg, who had already befriended him, procured him a councillorship in Berlin, upon which he entered in 1814, and he held it till his death. As soon as he was settled in the Prussian capital he produced his opera of "Undine," which he had composed at Leipsic, and of which La Motte Fouqué, author of the romance on which it is founded, wrote the libretto for him. The criticism of C. M. von Weber is sufficient testimony of the singular merit of this remarkable work, his comments on the characteristics of which might so appropriately be applied to his own Freischütz, that one might almost suppose "Undine" had prompted the conception of this genuine masterpiece. Hoffmann published his celebrated "Phantasiestüke" at Bamberg, with a preface by Jean Paul, whose style is said to be imitated in these spirited tales and essays, but who sincerely admired them. The collected literary works of our versatile author were printed at Stuttgart in 18 vols. in 1827. Not one of his many operas has been printed complete, and his numerous detached musical compositions have never been collected.—G. A. M.
HOFFMAN, François Benoit, the son of an officer in the Austrian service, was born at Nancy in 1760. A painful stammer prevented him from going to the bar, and he ultimately came to Paris and devoted himself to literary work. Several of his dramas and operas obtained much success; but his highest triumphs were obtained as a journalist. His critical articles in the Journal des Débats displayed erudition without pedantry, and wit without affectation. Of a manly and independent character, and almost morbidly conscientious in his work, he held himself aloof from literary society that his judgment of the author might not be biassed by his liking for the man. In 1828 he died very suddenly, while seated by his fireside. His works were published in ten volumes after his death.—W. J. P.
HOFFMANN, Friderich, a celebrated German physician, was born at Halle in Saxony in 1660, and was descended from a family engaged for two centuries in the practice of medicine. His father made him commence his studies by teaching him mathematics, a science to which young Hoffmann always attributed his success in the study of medicine. At the age of fifteen he lost both his parents, and shortly afterwards became deprived, through a fire, of the little property left him. Undismayed, however, he prosecuted his studies, and in 1678 went to Jena to study medicine. Having a decided taste for chemistry, he repaired in 1680 to Erfurt, to which place he was attracted by the fame, as a chemist, of Gaspard Cramer. In this science he made such progress as speedily procured him a high reputation as a practical chemist, and a crowd of pupils to the lectures which he commenced on his return to Jena to receive the degree of M.D. After practising for two years at Minden in Westphalia, and after having made a journey into Holland and to England, he repaired to Halberstadt, where he married. In 1693 Frederick, third elector of Brandenburg and afterwards king of Prussia, having just founded the university of Halle, named Hoffmann primarius professor of medicine. He composed the statutes of the university, and was intrusted with the selecting of his colleagues. His fame soon spread throughout Europe, and he was elected into the academies of St. Petersburg and Berlin, and the Royal Society of London. Solicited by the king to fix his abode at Berlin and attach himself to the court, he repaired thither, and spent three years in that capital. Disgusted, however, by some envious attacks made upon him by less successful rivals, and finding the life of a courtier unfavourable to the prosecution of his studies, he left Berlin, remarking, "In aulis est splendida miseria; imo omnis aularum ratio liberalibus ingeniis est inimicissima." He returned to Halle to his favourite occupations, and there he remained, with the exception of several visits to court, till his death, which took place on the 12th November, 1742. As a practitioner and teacher Hoffmann enjoyed a celebrity only second to the illustrious Boerhaave, who contemporaneously occupied the chair of medicine at Leyden. As an author he was well known and esteemed throughout Europe, though it was only at sixty years of age that he commenced his great work, "Medicina Rationalis Systematica," a work published in nine quarto volumes, and which occupied him twenty years. Before his death his voluminous works were collected, and published in eleven folio volumes. These contain an immense mass of practical information. The humoral pathology then prevailed in the schools, which ascribed all diseases primarily to a morbid condition of the fluids; but Hoffmann set himself to demonstrate that the solids were more often the primary seat of disease than the fluids. His theory has long ceased to be studied; but it had great effect at the time, and Cullen did not hesitate to acknowledge that his own doctrines were founded upon it. As a disputant upon controverted subjects, Hoffmann never exceeded the bounds of politeness, while his urbanity and skill as a practitioner obtained for him an immense reputation, great wealth, and titles of honour. Haller asserts that he amassed a
