777 



ST1UJVE, BURKHARD GOTTHELF. 



STRUVE, BURKHARD GOTTHELF. 



778 



him ; but towards the formation of which his robust yet tranquil 

 constitution both of miud and body, his clearness of apprehension, 

 self-posseasion, and moral courage, but above all hia high and pure 

 sense of moral rectitude, were invaluable ingredients. His influence 

 in the development of German jurisprudence was exercised as pre- 

 siding judge in an important appellate tribunal ; as a consulting lawyer 

 whone opinions were highly valued throughout all Germany ; and as 

 a judicious former of the minds of youth. He worked more through 

 the jurists he trained, than by his own works. Georg Adam Struve 

 was one of those robust, quiet, powerful natures which are of more 

 importance in society than nine-tenths of the more glaring personages 

 who engross the admiration of the multitude. 



(Pii Manes Struviani, sive de Vita et Scriptis Georgii Adami Struvii, 

 Illustris quondam Jureconsulti quibus justa persolvit moestissimus filius 

 Burcard OuUhelf Slruve, Jense, apud Johannem Biulkium, 1705.) 



STRUVE, BURKHARD GOTTHELF, third son by the second 

 marringe of Georg Adam Struve, was born at Weimar on the 26th of 

 May 1671, and was carried to Jena, when his father transferred his 

 residence to that university, on receiving the appointment of Ordi- 

 narius of the Judicial College there, in 1674. Great pains were taken 

 with his education by his parents ; and in after life Struve often 

 acknowledged his obligations to Johaun Friedrich Durre, who had the 

 charge of his elementary education. An incident mentioned in the 

 Memoir of his father, which he published in 1705, almost leaves the 

 impression that the old gentleman treated him in boyhood like a 

 favourite plaything. The last time Georg Adam Struve presided at 

 the creation of a number of doctors of law, in 1680, he commanded 

 Burkhard, then a boy of nine years only, to make his remarks, and 

 put questions with the rest of the assembly. Not long after this event 

 the boy was sent to the gymnasium at Zeitz, and confided to the care 

 of Christopher Cellarius, rector of the institution. Young Burkhard 

 made himself BO useful to his preceptor, both in his private study and 

 in the public library, that he gained his confidence sufficiently to be 

 employed as an assistant upon the corrected and enlarged edition of 

 Faber's ' Lexicon/ which he had undertaken to publish. 



Burkhard Gotthslf Struve, having attained his seventeenth year, 

 returned to Jena for the purpose of commencing his university 

 studies, in 1788. His father, who was then engrossed with the labours 

 which fell to his share as president of the regency of the duchy of 

 Jena, had relinquished for a time the active discharge of tLe profes- 

 sorial office. At the urgent request of his son however he consented 

 to give private instruction, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, to him and 

 eleven of his young associates, in the system of Romano-Germanic law 

 recognised by the tribunals of Germany, and the plan of tuition 

 pursued was to examine the pupils upon the elementary treatise on 

 this branch of law compiled by their instructor, and to exercise them 

 in arguing upon controverted doctrines. Burkhard attended at the 

 same time the prelections of Johann Hartung and Peter Miiller in 

 Roman law. He seems however to have been a more assiduous 

 frequenter of the literary classes of Jacob Miiller, Andreas Schmidt, 

 and especially of Georg Schubart, then rector of the university, under 

 whose presidency he held, in 1689, a public disputation upon some 

 theses appended to his dissertation 'Dd Ludis Equestribus.' Not 

 long after he disputed in the juridical faculty on the legal doctrines 

 ' De Auro Fluviatili ;' and on both occasions he is said to have im- 

 pressed his auditory with admiration of his precocious talents. While 

 thus engaged, he did not neglect pursuits more consonant to the tastes 

 of his age, country, and academical associates. He learned dancing, 

 and was for a time a frequent attendant in the fencing-school. Tiring 

 however of these pursuits, he devoted himself with, ardour, in his 

 leisure hours, to the study of the French language. In the Memoir of 

 his father, already alluded to, he mentions that about this time he 

 was employed by his father in a collation of his Latin treatise 'Juris- 

 prudentia Romano-Germauica Forensis,' with his work on the same 

 subject in German, to show that the one was not a mere translation of 

 the other, but a different work. The statement which Burkhard drew 

 up on this occasion was meant to be inserted in the pleadings of the 

 publisher of the German work, against whom the publisher of the 

 other had brought an action ; but it was published, at a later period, 

 by the bookseller, as a preface to a new edition, without the compiler's 

 knowledge or consent. An exercise of this kind, and the repetitions 

 under his father, were well calculated to impress the leading doctrines 

 of the law upon his memory. 



Towards the close of the same year in which he maintained his first 

 public disputations, Burkhard Gotthelf Struve repaired to the Univer- 

 sity of Hrluistadt, for the purpose of studying history under Heinrich 

 Meiborn, and civil law under Georg Engelbrecht. After a year's resi- 

 dence at Helmstiidt he went to Frankf'urt-on-the-Oder, in order to 

 profit by the instructions of Samuel Stryk and Peter Schulz. During 

 his abode at Frankfurt he engaged in a controversy which led him to 

 appear for the first time in print. An obscure jurist of the name of 

 Schuegas had published, in 1689, a treatise 'De Concursu Creditorum,' 

 in which he attacked some doctrines laid down by the elder Struve, in 

 his ' Institutes of Forensic Law,' regarding the classification of creditors 

 and the ri.-ht of property in dowry. Burkhard asserted the correctness 

 of his father's views in a pamphlet, which he called 'Struvius nou 

 Errans,' and which, to judge by the warmth with which he speaks of 

 the controversy at a much riper age, must have been rather bitter. 



Schnegas replied in the same strain, but his young antagonist was 

 induced by the advice of older and cooler friends to allow the matter 

 to rest. 



In 1691 Stryk having accepted of a chair in the University of 

 Wittenberg, Struve returned to Jena, and was soou after sent to Halle 

 by his father, with a view to hU attending the sittings of the supreme 

 court there, in order that he might make himself master of the forms 

 of process. The dry details of legal practice were repulsive to a mind 

 early accustomed to the self-indulgent habits of the abstract student, 

 and to the applause attendant upon skill in mere literary controversy. 

 Instead of frequenting the court, he directed himself almost exclu- 

 sively to the theory and antiquities of public and feudal law. In such 

 a frame of mind he lent a willing ear to the inducements held out by 

 an elder brother to make a tour to Belgium, and afterwards join him 

 at Darmstadt, where he was established as a practising lawyer. He in 

 consequence visited in succession Gotha, the Hague, Amsterdam, 

 Rotterdam, and Leyden, and was everywhere, on account of his father's 

 reputation, kindly received. He afterwards confessed that his thoughts 

 during this journey were rather distracted by the gaiety and splendour 

 of the towns he visited, than earnestly bent upon extending his know- 

 ledge ; nor was this very unpardonable in one who had only completed 

 his twentieth year. He did however derive some benefit from the 

 conversation of distinguished scholars in Utrecht and Leyden. 



At the request of his brother he repaired to Frankfurt to take charge 

 of some business for the transaction of which he required a confidential 

 agent in that town. It was the time of the fair, and the novelty and 

 bustle of the scene left a lasting impression upon Struve's mind. 

 The affairs which required his presence there being arranged, he 

 returned to the Htgue, and, the first distraction of travelling having 

 worn off, settled to study. The favourite pursuits of the Dutch 

 literati extended his field of inquiry. On the one hand, the Hague 

 being then a centre of an active diplomacy, his investigations regarding 

 public law were enabled to assume a more practical and real character. 

 The literary pursuits too of his new associates had more of the tone of 

 society than those which prevailed in the German universities. On 

 the other hand, the museums of Holland, and especially the collections 

 of coins and other antiquities, attracted him to inquiries for which his 

 investigations into the antiquities of feudal law had in some measure 

 prepared him. During his residence at the Hague he was indefatigable 

 in his visits to all the museums and libraries, and in his study of the 

 periodical literature, which opened in a manner a new world to him. 

 He made for himself a considerable collection of coins and antiquities. 

 While thus engaged, and projecting a tour through Spain and Great 

 Britain, he was seized with a violent illness, which interrupted his 

 pursuits. 



On his recovery he rejoined his brother, and was employed by him 

 at various times to conduct actions for him in the courts of Darmstadt, 

 Stuttgardt, and Cassel. He was induced about this time by the fair 

 promises of a Livonian nobleman to undertake a journey in his company 

 to Sweden for the purpose of obtaining a more intimate acquaintance 

 with the antiquities of Scandinavia. Struve with this view proceeded 

 to Hamburg, where he was to be joined by his companion. The count 

 not making his appearance however, he returned to his brother, and 

 in the same year (1692) visited Wetzlar, for the purpose of obtaining, 

 by attending the sittings of the imperial court, a more accurate know- 

 ledge of the practice of public law. While thus engaged, he was 

 attacked by a more severe illness than the preceding; and some of the 

 symptoms induced a suspicion that it was occasioned by poison. No 

 sooner was he convalescent than he received intelligence of the death 

 of his father, and was obliged to leave Wetzlar in order to look after 

 his share in the inheritance. During the period which elapsed between 

 his quitting the University and his return to Jena, his mind, though 

 stimulated to greater activity and familiarised with objects of greater 

 reality and importance than had previously engaged his attention, had 

 been dissipated and distracted with their multiplicity. To the end of 

 his life he occasionally expressed regret that he had not, in compliance 

 with the request of his father, remained at Jena, to digest under his 

 direction his collections for a commentary on the law of marriage, an 

 occupation which must have contributed to give him more precision 

 and more command over his thoughts. 



On his return to Jena, Struve found one of his brothers eagerly 

 engaged in pursuit of the philosopher's stone. He was of a facile 

 disposition, as is apparent from an anecdote he relates in the Life of 

 his father, of his incurring a rebuke by undertaking to solicit privately 

 for a person whose conduct was under judicial investigation. This 

 easiness of temper at first led him to join in his brother's experiments, 

 but the frenzy seized him in turn, and he was soon as zealous an adept 

 as the other. As might have been anticipated, the search after the 

 secret of making wealth ended in beggaring both. The brother was 

 only saved from a jail by Struve selling the collection of curiosities he 

 had made in Holland, and even a part of his wardrobe. To the intoxi- 

 cation of his golden dreams succeeded a state of miserable depression 

 which lasted for two years. He secluded himself from society, and 

 absorbed himself in the study of the Scriptures and the theological 

 writings of Tauler and Arndt. 



When he recovered his elasticity of mind, he found himself unable 

 to encounter the expense of following out the academical career to 

 which his father had destined him. Some time elapsed before any 



