BURGER, Godfrey Augustus, a celebrated German poet, born on the 1st of January 1748, at Wolmerswende, a village in the principality of Halberstadt, where his father was Lutheran minister. In his childhood he discovered little inclination to study; the Bible and the Canticles alone had any attraction for him: these he knew by heart; and his first attempts in versification were imitations of the Psalms, which, notwithstanding their defects, gave proofs of feeling and a correct ear. It is to this first direction of his studies that we are to attribute the biblical phrases, the allusions to Christianity, and the theological style, if we may be allowed the expression, which we find even in his amatory poetry. He was fond of solitude, and indulged in all the romantic sentiments which deserts and the gloom of forests inspiret. From the school of Aschersleben, where his maternal grandfather resided, and which he quitted in consequence of a severe chastisement which had been inflicted on him for composing an epigram, he was sent to the institution at Halle; but at neither of these places did he make any very sensible progress. He discovered a taste only for the lessons in prosody and versification which were given to the scholars of the institution, in which his friend Gökingk was a class-fellow with him, who afterwards distinguished himself by his epistles and songs, and who has lamented the premature death of Bürger in an elegy to his memory. In 1764 Bürger, who was intended for the clerical office, began to attend the course of lectures given by the professors of the university. Klotz, a learned classical scholar, admitted him of the number of young people whose talents he took a pleasure in cultivating; but this society appears not to have produced the same favourable effect on the moral character of Bürger 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 1768, to repair to Göttingen to prosecute the study of the law instead of that of theology. This change did not make him more regular in his studies; his manners became corrupted; and his grandfather withdrew his protection. Bürger contracted a number of debts; and his situation would have become altogether desperate had it not been for the assistance of some friends. An association, memorable in the annals of German literature, had just been formed at Göttingen: it reckoned among its members Boje, Biester, Sprengel, Hölty, Müller, Voss, the two Counts Stolberg, C. F. Cramer, and Leisewitz. Bürger was admitted into it. All of these persons were versed in the Greek and Roman literature, and, at the same time, all of them idolized Shakspeare. The Germans are the only foreigners who seem to relish or understand the merits of this great genius in the same degree as his own countrymen profess to do; and they do not seem to like his genius the less on account of the irregularities objected to it by other nations. Bürger, in a great measure, owed his style to the enthusiasm which he showed, in common with his literary friends, for our celebrated tragic writer. 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 the productions which his countrymen admire the most. Of all his friends, Boje was the one who exercised the greatest influence over him in the choice and management of his compositions. He taught him to make easy verses by taking pains; and it is to his severe observations that the poetical stanza of Bürger owes a great part of that elegance and roundness which characterize it. To the same friend he was indebted also for some improvement in his circumstances, which, till the year 1772, had been very uncomfortable. On the recommendation of Boje he was appointed to the collectorship of Alvenglei-chen, in the principality of Calenberg. The winter following, some fragments of a ghost story, which he heard a peasant girl singing by moonlight, caught his imagination, and his Leonora appeared, which soon became popular in all parts of Germany. Soon after the publication of this ballad, a circumstance occurred to give him still greater confidence in his talents. Going a journey to his native place, he one evening heard the schoolmaster of the village, in the room next to that in which he lay, reading to the assembled audience collected at the inn the ballad of Leonora, which had just come out, and which was received with the liveliest marks of admiration. This proof of success flattered him more than all the compliments of his friends. About this time he married a Hanoverian lady, named Leonhart; but this union proved only a source of bitterness to him, an unhappy attachment to her younger sister having 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 the embarrassment of his circumstances. The taking of a large farm, which he did not know how to manage, increased it; and the dismissal from his place, which he was obliged to submit to 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; and it is but too certain that her death was hastened by the culpable passion which Bürger cherished in his heart. Left with two children, and reduced to the inconsiderable emoluments of The Almanack of the Muses, published at Göttingen, which he had edited since 1779, he removed to this city, with a view to give private lessons there, and in the hope of obtaining from the [7:5:710]Hanoverian government a professor’s chair in the belles-lettres. Five years afterwards, the title was conferred on him, but without a salary; yet 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 enjoyed the highest reputation. Scarcely were the ashes of his wife cold when he espoused her sister Molly, whose name his poems have made but too famous, and who had embittered the existence of his first wife; but he did not long enjoy the happiness after which he had sighed. She died in childbed in the beginning of 1786. 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 Bürger. Having studied the philosophy of Kant, he had an idea of deriving some advantage from it at Göttingen, 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 young people. The satisfaction which the university expressed to him for two cantatas which he composed in 1787, at the period of the fifty years’ jubilee of this illustrious institution, and his nomination to the situation of-professor extraordinary, reanimated his spirits. Fortune appearing to smile on Him once more, he formed the design of marrying again, in order to provide a mother for his children. During one of the moments when he was most occupied with this idea, he received a letter from Stuttgard, 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. Bürger spoke of the thing at first only in jest, but 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 ordered by foreign booksellers; but sickness and grief soon deprived him even of this resource, and he must have died in the most frightful state of want, if the government of Hanover had not extended some kindness to him. He died on the 8th of June 1794, of a disorder of the bowels, which he had never believed to be dangerous.

Bürger is only remarkable as a lyric poet. He has tried all the different species of this class of the productions of genius; but he 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 sparkles by its clearness, its energy, and from 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. Always clear and forcible, he is never either low or trivial; 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 intention of the majority of his pieces altogether irreproachable. Some breathe the loftiest piety and the purest love of virtue. Wieland said of him (see the German Mercury, 1778), that in composing his poem entitled Mcennerheuschheit (on Chastity), Bürger had deserved better of the present and future generations, than if he had written the finest treatise of morality. This little piece has been inserted in most of the collections of hymns for the use of the Lutheran church.

There are three editions of Bürger’s works. The first two appeared in his lifetime, in 1778 and 1789, in 3 vols. 8vo; and the third, after his death, was published by his friend Ch. Reinhard, in 4 vols. 1796. All three were printed at Göttingen. The last contains some posthumous pieces, and miscellanies in prose. We must confine ourselves to a short notice of those for which their merit or the singularity of the subject has procured the greatest degree of celebrity. 1. A translation, or rather an imitation, of the Vigil of Venus {Pervigilium Veneris.') It is a fine piece of poetic diction and rythmical harmony. 2. Leonora, a romance; which belongs to the class which Bürger himself called the epic lyric. This story is borrowed from a popular tradition, of which the traces are to be found in the different countries of the north. Leonora was translated into Danish in 1788, six times into English, by Stanley, Pyc, Spencer, Taylor, &c·, and from English into French by De la Madelaine in 1811. The translation by Mr Spencer is accompanied with engravings after designs by Lady Diana Beauclerc∙ Two German composers have set it to music. Bürger often appeared very ill contented with the vast success of this production of his youth. He preferred a great number of his other poems, and was himself the first to blame the puerile trick of the play upon sounds which he has here indulged in. 3. The Ministers Daughter of Taubenhain is the story of the seduction and tragical end of a young girl. There are in this, as in the other productions of the same author, some objectionable details, but the whole leaves a deep impression. 4. The Inhuman Huntsman. 5. The Song of the Brave ; in which the heroism of a peasant, who saves a family from the fury of the waves, is related with admirable feeling. 6. The Song of Songs, conceived at the foot of the altar. This is a hymn or ode in praise of his Molly. 7. A Travestie of the Fable of Jupiter and Europa. This is a piece of humour of the most clumsy kind, and in a taste the most wretched, yet it had a great run when it first appeared. 8. A translation in iambic verse, of some boohs of the Iliad. The choice of the measure is by no means happy. He was accordingly requested ironically, to set about translating Anacreon into hexameters, when he had finished his version of Homer into German iambics. 9. An excellent Translation of Shakspeards Macbeth, lθ∙ Pieces of Poetry and of Rhetorical Prose. He had begun to write critical observations on his own works, with equal severity and sagacity; but he has only left some fragments of this work. 11. He was editor of the Göttingen Almanach of the Muses, from 1779 to 1794. Vetterlein, Politz, and Engel, have published a selection of the poetry of Bürger, with notes; and celebrated composers, such as Schulz and Reichardt, have set a great number of his songs to music. Bürger’s third wife, whom German biography has thought worthy to have her name associated with his on account of her taste for literature, and particularly poetry, is author of several pieces in verse i ns ξR' ed in the collections. The one having for its title Th e Raillery of a Mother, is sufficient to prove her poetica talent.