755 



WOLF, JOHANN CHRISTOPH. 



WOLFE, REV. CHARLES. 



rectorship of the same institution, and obtained in addition to it the 

 office of librarian of the public library of the city of Augsburg. These 

 offices he held until his death, on the 8th of October 1580. 



Hieronyuius Wolf was a man of very extensive learning, and parti- 

 cularly distinguished for his knowledge of Greek, which he is said to 

 have written with greater facility than Latin. Some of his works 

 have Greek prefaces, which show that he possessed a perfect know- 

 ledge of Greek. His Latin translations from the Greek are more 

 faithful and correct than elegant. He was a man of a very discon- 

 tented disposition, and was often in a state of melancholy. He had 

 scarcely any friend, and was never married. He was fond of astrologi- 

 cal speculations. Among his editions and translations of Greek writers 

 the following deserve to be mentioned, and some of them are still of 

 great value, as he made good use of manuscripts : 1, An edition of 

 Nicephorus Gregoras, with a Latin translation and notes, folio, Basel. 

 1552; 2, An abridged edition of Suidas, with a Latin translation, 

 folio, Basel, 1581 ; 3, An edition of Demosthenes and Aeschines, with, 

 a Latin translation, the commentary of Ulpian, Greek scolia, various 

 readings and notes, folio, Basel, 1572 ; 4, A very good edition of all 

 the works of Isocrates, with a Latin translation and notes, folio, Basel, 

 1570. The edition of these three Attic orators is the best among his 

 editions of ancient authors ; 5, An edition of Zonaras, with a Latin 

 translation, for which he collated five manuscripts, folio, Basel, 1557; 

 6, The first edition of Nicetas Acominatus, with a Latin translation, 

 folio, Basel, 1557. He also wrote notes on several works of Cicero, 

 which however are not of much value, and some original treatises, 

 such aa ' Dialo^us de Usu Astrologise,' and several others. 



WOLF, JOHANN CHUISTOPH, a learned Lutheran divine, was 

 born on the 21st of February 1683, at Wernigerode, where his father 

 was ecclesiastical superintendent. In 1695 the family removed to 

 Hamburg, where the father died three months after his arrival ; but 

 young Wolf found a friend in Johann Albert Fabricius, who received 

 him into his house, allowed him the use of his extensive library, and 

 also gave him. great assistance in his studies. The young man availed 

 himself of these opportunities, and before he had attained his twentieth 

 year, and before he went to the university, he had not only read the 

 most important among the ancient writers, but also the whole Com- 

 mentary of Eustathius upon Homer, and conjointly with Peter Zorn 

 he drew up a list of the authors mentioned in that commentary. This 

 list is printed, with a few improvements, in Fabricius's ' .Bibliotheca 

 Grseca' (vol. i, p. 457-501). Subsequently he made a similar list of 

 authors referred to in the Scholia on Apollonius Rhodius, which is 

 likewise printed in Fabricius (vol. iv., p. 279-286). Having obtained a 

 scholarship, which enabled him to continue his studies, ho went in 

 1703 to the University of Wittenberg. 



He took his degree of M.A. the year after, and in 1706 he began 

 lecturing at Wittenberg on philosophical subjects, but as the dis- 

 turbances then caused by the Swedes in northern Germany drew away 

 many of the students, Wolf left Wittenberg in 1707, and returned to 

 Hamburg. In the same year he was appointed conrector of the 

 gymnasium at Flensburg, but he employed the year 1708 in a journey 

 through Holland and England, and spent the greater part of the time 

 in examining the libraries of these countries, especially the Bodleian 

 library. On his return he resigned his office at Flensburg, and after 

 having visited Denmark in 1710, and the University of Copenhagen, he 

 went to Wittenberg, where he again commenced the career of an 

 academical teacher, as professor extraordinary in the philosophical 

 faculty. His lectures were favourably received, but a few years after 

 he accepted the offer of the professorship of Oriental languages at the 

 gymnasium of Hamburg, and being soon after promoted to the rector- 

 ship of the same institution, he also obtained with it the office of 

 preacher in the cathedral. In 1716 he was appointed pastor ill the 

 church of St. Catherine, and he held this post until his death, on the 

 25th of July, 1739. 



J. C. Wolf was never married : his unwearied studies and his love 

 of books, which he seems to have imbibed from Fabricius, left no room 

 for any other attachment. He had collected an immense number of 

 Oriental and Rabbinical works, both printed and manuscript, and his 

 library amounted ,to upwards of 25,000 volumes, which in his will 

 he bequeathed to the city of Hamburg, where it still exists. Wolf did 

 for Jewish and Rabbinical literature what Fabricius did for Greek and 

 Roman literature, and his works on those subjects are still indispen- 

 sable to those who study that branch of literature. His principal 

 works in this department are 1, ' Bibliotheca Hebraica, sive notitia 

 turn auctorum Hebrseorum cujuscunque setatis, turn scriptorum, quse 

 vel Hebraice primum exarata vel ab aliis conversa sunt,' Hamburg, 

 4 vols. 4to, 1715-33. A supplement to this important work was 

 published by H. F. Kocher, under the title ' Nova Bibliotheca He- 

 braica,' Jena, 2 vols. 4to, 1783 and 1784. 2, ' Historia Lexicorum 

 Hebraicorum,' Wittenberg, 8vo, 1705. Besides these he wrote several 

 treatises on Hebrew, on the history of the Manicheans, and on the use 

 of the Rabbinical literature. He also translated Lardner's ' Credibility ' 

 into Latin. His merits as a classical scholar are not much inferior to 

 his merits as a rabbinical scholar. The following list contains his 

 most important works connected with classical literature, and his 

 editions of ancient authors : 1, ' Dissertatio epistolica, qua Hieroclis 

 in aurea Pythagorse carmina commentarius nuper in Anglia editus 

 (by Needham) partim illustratur efc partim emendatur,' &c., Leipzig, 



BIOG . DIV. VOL vi. 



8vo, 1710; 2, ' Origenia Philosophumena,' Hamburg, 8vo, 1706: 3, 

 'Libanii Epistolte,' with notes and a Latin translation, Amsterdam, 

 fol. 1738. This is still the best edition of the Letters of Libanius, and 

 contains about one hundred letters which are not in any previous 

 edition, and which Wolf had before edited separately. 4, ' Anecdota 

 Grieca sacra et profana, ex codicibus manu exaratis nuno primum 

 in lucem edita, versione Latina donata et notis illustrata,' Hamburg, 

 4 vols. 8vo, 1722 and 1723. 



(Scelen, Commentatio de Vita et Scriptis J. C. Wolfii ; Moller, dm- 

 bria Literata; Gotte, Jelzt lebendes Gelehrtes Europa, Braunschweig. 

 1735, &c.) 



WOLFE, REV. CHARLES, was born at Dublin on the 14th of 

 December, 1791, and was the youngest son of Theobald Wolfe, Esq. 

 of Blackball, in the county of Kildare (of the same family with General 

 Wolfe). The death of his father while Charles was still a child occa- 

 sioned the removal of the family to England. After being at several 

 schools he was finally sent to Winchester college, where under Mr. 

 Richards, sen., he distinguished himself by his rapid progress in classical 

 knowledge and especially by the talent he showed for Greek and Latin 

 versification. In 1809 he entered the university of Dublin, where at 

 the usual period he obtained a scholarship, and became a very active 

 college tutor. Most of his poems, his biographer tells uo, were 

 written within a very short period, during his abode in college. He 

 took his degree of B.A. in 1814, and soon after commenced the task of 

 reading for a fellowship; but although he is said to have evinced a 

 decided genius for mathematics, his habits of study were always 

 impulsive and desultory, and he soon flagged in this attempt. A dis- 

 appointment in love which he met with at last determined him, in 

 1817, to give it up altogether; the income of the scholarship would 

 have enabled him to marry the lady to whom he was attached ; " but, 

 unhappily," says his biographer, " the statute which rendered marriage 

 incompatible with that honourable station had been lately revived." 

 It is stated however that this circumstance had no influence in deter- 

 mining the choice of his profession ; that the prevailing tendency of 

 his mind had always been towards the ministry. Accordingly, he took 

 holy orders in 1817, and immediately entered upon the duties of the 

 curacy of Ballyclog in the county of Tyrone, from which however in 

 the course of a lew weeks he removed to the extensive parish of 

 Donoughmore, where he officiated in the same capacity. Here Wolfe 

 devoted himself with activity and zeal to his spiritual calling, and 

 soon acquired in an extraordinary degree the attachment of his 

 parishioners of all denominations. But his exertions, and, still more 

 perhaps than his attention to the welfare of others, his neglect of his 

 own health and comfort, speedily began to wear him down; a con- 

 sumptive tendency in his constitution, of which some symptoms had 

 appeared while he was at college, was confirmed ; a hurried journey 

 which he made to' Scotland in May 1821 (in the course of which he 

 spoke at a public meeting held in Edinburgh to receive a deputation 

 from the Irish Tract Society), brought his malady suddenly to a 

 height ; and immediately after his return home he was obliged to 

 leave his parish and place himself under medical treatment at Dublin. 

 There for a short time he continued to preach occasionally with his 

 usual energy; but he gradually got worse; as winter approached it 

 was thought advisable that he should go to the south of France, but 

 after being twice driven back to Holyhead he gave up the attempt, 

 and fixed himself near Exeter; on the return of summer he came 

 back to Dublin ; in August he made & voyage to Bordeaux ; in 

 November, as a last remaining hope, he removed to the shelter of the 

 Cove of Cork ; and there he expired on the morning of the 21st of 

 February 1823, in the commencement of his thirty-second year. 



His literary compositions were collected and published in 1825 by 

 his friend the Rev. John A. Russell, M.A., archdeacon of Clogher, 

 under the title of ' Remains of the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, A.B., 

 Curate of Donoughmore, Diocese of Armagh. 1 From this small volu:ue, 

 which has been very popular, and passed through many editions, the 

 above facts have been taken. An interesting sketch of Wolfe's history 

 is also given in a 12mo volume entitled ' College Recollections,' 

 published at London in the same year with Archdeacon Russell's 

 work, but we believe some months before it. The ' Remains ' (filling 

 368 pp.) consist principally of Fifteen Sermons, an appendix of mis- 

 cellaneous thoughts and other fragments, and some juvenile poems, 

 some letters, and other compositions inserted in the Memoir, which, 

 including these, occupies nearly half the volume. Wolfe's literary 

 reputation rests on his famous ode entitled ' The Burial of Sir John 

 Moore,' which he composed in 1817, on reading Southey's prose 

 narrative in the ' Edinburgh Annual Register,' and which first appeared 

 soon after with his initials, though without his knowledge, in the 

 ' Newry Telegraph,' from which it was immediately copied into the 

 London papers, and from them into those of Dublin. The poem, 

 which in the pathos of a noble simplicity has rarely been surpassed, 

 drew much attention from the first; but its authorship remained 

 unknown, except to a small circle of Wolfe's friends or associates, 

 until the question came to be publicly discussed in consequence of a 

 high encomium stated in Captain Medwin's ' Conversations of Byron ' 

 (published in 1824), to have been passed upon it by his lordship. The 

 lines were attributed to various writers ; and claimants to the honour 

 of having produced them have started up from time to time ; but 

 none of these attempts to defraud the true author of his rights have 



3 E 



