Heyne

A German classical scholar, born at Chemnitz in Saxony, September 25, 1729. His father was a poor weaver, and for a number of years the son struggled with poverty and disappointment, being sometimes reduced almost to actual starvation. In 1753, however, he secured the position of under-clerk in the Brühl Library at Dresden, and before long published an edition of Tibullus (1755), and one of the Enchiridion of Epictetus (1756), works which won for him the notice of the great Dutch scholar Ruhnken of Leyden. The Seven Years' War occurring at this time unfortunately threw Heyne out of employment, and reduced him to his former straits, his only source of income being the hack-work which he did for the booksellers. This period of want, however, was finally ended by his appointment, through the favour of Ruhnken, to the chair of Eloquence at the University of Göttingen, an office which he held until his death, and in which his profound scholarship and stimulating lectures raised the reputation of Göttingen to an unquestioned pre-eminence among the universities of Germany. It is said that he trained and sent forth more than 130 professors. He died on July 14, 1812. Heyne's principal works are his edition of Vergil (4 vols. 1767, new ed. 1830-44); of Pindar (1773), of Apollodorus (1782, 2d ed. 1802), and of the Iliad in eight vols. (1802). He also put forth a number of translations of the classics; six volumes of miscellanies in his Opuscula Academica (1785-1812); and between 7000 and 8000 book reviews in the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeiger, of which he was the editor for more than thirty years. His life has been written by his son-in-law Heeren (Göttingen, 1813). See also Carlyle, Miscellanies, vol. ii. and Bursian, Geschichte der class. Philologie, pp. 476- 500 (Munich, 1883).