HOFFMANN 



IMMJAKTH 



731 



caricaturist, wan born at Kttnigsberg on 24th Janu- 

 ary 1776. (Later in life, to show his admira- 

 tion of Mozart, he substituted for \\illirlm the 

 mime Aiiiadeiis. ) Holl'iii.-uiii qualified hiins<>lf tOi 

 a legal career, and in 1779 was appointed assessor 

 in a court at Poaen. Hut his irrestrainahle lo\e <>i 

 caricature got him into trouble with hi- superiors, 

 uiid In- was degraded to an inferior post at Plock. 

 Recovering ground again, for he was all his life 

 long most exemplary in the discharge of his official 

 duties, lie was transferred to Warsaw (1804) ; but 

 the occupation of that city by the French two years 

 later threw him entirely out of office. For the 

 next ten years he led a very precarious existence, 

 being often on the verge of want, yet always paint- 

 ing, composing music, and leading a wild and 

 merry life. His great ideal was to live for and by 

 art, especially music, and in 1808 he was for two 

 months director of the theatre at Bam berg. Dur- 

 ing these same years he wrote a remarkable essay 

 on Mozart's Don Juan, and composed an opera on 

 Fouque's Undine. In 1815 he was enabled to 

 resume his career in the service of Prussia ; and 

 from 1816 down to his death in 1822 (25th June) 

 he held a high position in the supreme court at 

 Berlin. 



His career as an author did not properly begin 

 until 1814. But his tales cannot be rightly un- 

 derstood without some acquaintance with the 

 strange personality of the writer a little restless 

 man, with a Roman nose and thin lips, and hawk- 

 eyed, a brilliant talker, full of drollery and wit, 

 vain, wayward, fantastic to an extreme, the child 

 of impulse, and the bond-slave of his wild imagi- 

 nation. Educated on the dreams and ideals of 

 German romanticism at the period of its most 

 exuberant growth, he became himself the arch- 

 priest of ultra-German romanticism. At Posen, at 

 Warsaw, at Bam berg, and in his last years at 

 Berlin, he was the brilliant centre of the literary 

 and artistic Bohemianism of the place. Amid the 

 riot and revelry at Posen he learned two of the 

 lasting lessons of his lifetime, to wit, that company 

 amusing company and much rum were essential 

 to his happiness. A fierce hater of dullness, Hoff- 

 mann waged incessant war upon the stiff-necked 

 sticklers for routine and commonplace convention- 

 alism, and upon the dilettanti who dealt so glibly 

 in the phrasemongery of art-criticism. His wit 

 constantly bubbled over in irony, ridicule, sarcasm, 

 and was often both savage and malicious. His 

 imagination was inexhaustible, but utterly un- 

 disciplined, wild, and fantastic, yet wonderfully 

 vivid. Apart from music and painting, nothing 

 fettered his interest so keenly as the extravagant 

 and the marvellous, the grotesque, the weird, and 

 the horrible. An impressionist above all things, 

 Hoffmann's literary strength lies in his power of 

 graphic and vivid description : he describes what 

 he actually saw and felt, and he describes, as 

 a painter paints pictures, in the spirit of concrete 

 realism. He used to affirm that ne did actually 

 see the imps and hobgoblins and nightmare ap- 

 paritions which his perfervid imagination conjured 

 up before him. In short, Hoffmann's tempest- 

 tossed soul was put in such jeopardy by his un- 

 controllable imagination, conjoined with his lack 

 of firm principle, that it barely escaped being 

 wrecked upon the rock of insanity. 



His shorter tales, upon which his reputation as a 

 writer mainly rests, were mostly published in the collec- 

 tions entitled Phantasiettiicke in Callot't Manier ( 1814 ), 

 Nnchtstilcke (1817), and Die Serapionsbriidcr ( 1819-25 ). 

 His longer works include Elixiere det TeufeU ( 1816 ; Eng. 

 trans. 1824), Seltsame Leiden einet Theaterdirektors 

 (1818), Klein Zaches (1819), and Lebentantichten det 

 Katers Murr (2 vols. 1821-22), this last being partly 

 autobiographical. Of his fairy tales Der Gotdene Topf 



WM translated by Carlyle (1827). Hoffmann*! Autge- 

 wd/ilte Kchriften appeared in 10 yoU. in 1827-28, the 

 latent and the most complete edition of bin (JemmmeUe 

 tkkHflm in 15 vol*. in 1S79-H3. Collection* of hu tale 

 have been translated into Knglmh in IH2<J ;illie), 1886, 

 with biography (Healby), and 1880 (Ewing). Hu writ- 

 ings, and translations and imitation* of them, bare been 

 very popular in France. See HitziK, Hoffmann'i Leben 

 (1823); Funck's Erinnerungen (1836); and Carlyle' 

 Miscellaneous E*ays, vol. i. 



Hoffmann, FRIEDKICH, a German physician, 

 was born at Halle, 19th February 1060, and died in 

 that city, 12th Noveml>er 1742. On the conclusion 

 of his studies at Jena and Erfurt he commenced 

 practice at Minden in Westphalia in 1685, Jmt 

 three years later removed to Halberstadt. In 1693 

 he was appointed to the professorship of Medicine 

 in the newly-constituted university of Halle. He 

 gained a European reputation as a practitioner, 

 and was body physician to Frederick I. of Prussia. 

 His medical theories are now for the most part 

 antiquated, though some of his pharmaceutical 

 preparations, once highly esteemed, are still in 

 use. The most important of his works, Medicina 

 Rationalis Systematica ( 9 vols. 4to ), was published 

 in 1718-40. His Opera Omnia were printed at 

 Geneva in 1740, in six folio volumes, with three 

 supplementary volumes in 1753-60. 



Hofhuf, one of the chief towns of the Arabian 

 district of El-Hasa, situated a short distance inland, 

 over against the islands of Bahrein in the Persian 

 Gulf. It has a fortress, believed to have been built 

 by the Carmathian princes. It has been in the 

 hands of Turkey since 1872. Pop. 25,000. 



Hofmann, AUGUST WILHELM, chemist, was 

 born at Giessen, 8th April 1818. After obtaining 

 the degree of doctor of philosophy, he became 

 assistant to Liebig in the laboratory at Giessen. 

 When the Royal College of Chemistry was estab- 

 lished in London in 1845 Hofmann was, on Liebig's 

 recommendation, made superintendent of the new 

 institution, and from 1856 to 1865 he was chemist 

 to the royal mint. In 1865 he went to Berlin as 

 professor of Chemistry. His contributions to the 

 scientific journals here and in Germany are mainly 

 on organic chemistry. It was in the course of these 

 researches that from coal-products he obtained ani- 

 line (see ANILINE, DYEING). He devoted much 

 time and labour to the development of the theory 

 of chemical types. His Introduction to Modern 

 Chemistry ( 1865 ; 7th ed. 1877) led to great reforms 

 in the teaching of chemistry. He wrote on The 

 Life-work of Liebig (1876), and, in German, on the 

 work of the chemists Wb'hler (1883) and Dumas 

 (1885), as also Chemische Erinnerungen (1882). 

 He succeeded Liebig as editor of the Annalen der 

 Chemie. Ennobled in 1888, he died 5th May 1892, 



Hofmann* JOHANN CHRISTIAN KARL, theo- 

 logian, was born at Nuremlierg, 21st December 

 1810, studied at Erlangen and Berlin, and, having 

 been docent and extraordinary professor of Theology 

 at. Erlangen, was called as professor to Rostock, 

 whence, in 1845, he returned to Erlangen. He was 

 ennobled in 1857, and died 20th December 1877. In 

 his numerous works he maintained an unswerving 

 Lutheranism, the chief l>eing the work on prophecy 

 (]\'i-ixsit(jnnij mid Erfiilliinii, 1841-44) ami the de- 

 fence of Christianity from its records, Der Schrifl- 

 beweis( 1852-56; 2ded. 1857-60). 



Hog. See BOAR (WiLD), PIG. In Scotland a 

 sheep that has not yet lost its first fleece is called 

 a Hog or Hogg ; a sheep two years old is a Hogget. 



Hogarth, WILLIAM, a celebrated painter, 

 engraver, ana pictorial satirist, born in Bartholo- 

 mew Close, London, on the 10th November 1697, 

 served his apprenticeship to a silversmith named 

 Ellis Gamble, in Cranlwurne Allev, Leicester Fields, 

 and studied art at Sir James ThornhiH's school in 



