KLINGEXSTIERNA, SAMTTEL. 



KLOPSTOCK, FRIEDRICH GOTTLIEB. 



lit 



FropyloM are good illoitrationi of his belt style. The former building, 

 which has an interior more I!oman than Greek, was elaborately 

 embellished iotniaUj like mo t of the Munich buildings. Within 

 the entrant* are three inscriptions, each over a doorway, one in 

 honour of the king, another of the architect, and tbo third of the 

 painter Cornelius. Klenze's attempt* in other earns are leas suc- 

 oeatful, as in the Kunusbau, which resembles the I'itti I'alaoe at 

 Florence with some alterations. Hi* few works in the (iothio dyle 

 are singularly wanting in feeling of the spirit and character of the 

 style, which however he has not thought highly of, having said it 

 had the character of "stupendous littlenwis." Like all architects 

 who achieve much that is great, he trusts mainly to himself for 

 drawings, of which Mrs. Jameson says that he told her, before the 

 completion of the Kesidens, that he had made 700 with his own 

 hand. As an architectural painter he is laid to be very skilful 



The Walhalla was completed externally in 1839, and inaugurated 

 in 1842; the Imperial Museum was designed about the year 1839, 

 and completed within the lost few years, as also the Ruhmeshalle. 



In 1834 Klenze was sent to Athens to suggest any requisite improve- 

 ment* in Kin; Otbo's capital One result of the visit was bis 

 4 Aphoristischo Eemerkungen,' published in 1838. Another of his 

 works is a collection of designs for churches, wherein he attempted 

 to show that the Grecian style ought to be exclusively adopted by 

 Christiana of all sects. The greater number of the designs are how- 

 ever very much below the measure of his ability ; and the publication 

 was attacked by Wiegmanu in a publication with the title ' Der Hitter 

 Leo von Klenze und unsere Kunst," wherein also he depreciates the 

 design for the Walhalla ; to which it had originally been intended to 

 give an interior of Komixn character, and therefore it was thought 

 inconsistent. Klenze has also published his designs for the decora- 

 tions of the palace ; but he will be beet appreciated from his 

 'Sammlung ArcLitectonischen Entwiirfe,' which! con tains the best of 

 his Greek designs. This work however illustrates a too general fault 

 in German publication?, which has contributed to tardy appreciation 

 of German art, for the publication in parts has not only extended 

 over very many years, bnt the parta are of all sizes, and description 

 is wanting where required. Amongst the distinctions which have 

 been conferred by various princes and academies in Europe on Leo 

 von Klenze, may be named the Royal Medal of the Institute of 

 British Architects. Few architects, ancieut or modern, have had the 

 same opportunities of distinguishing themselves; and few perhaps in 

 a similar situation could have achieved more success. It is Klenze' s 

 especial merit that he is not only an assiduous cultivator and student 

 of the antique, bnt he is still the architect and originating artist; 

 and all lovers of classical architecture owe him a debt for the practical 

 proof which he has attbrded of the real vitality of the principle of 

 art in the Greek style; regarding which, the inability to do the like, 

 in this country at tho same date, is the chief reason of tho revulsion 

 in taste which now depreciates the style below its merits. 



KLIXGENSTIERNA, SAMUEL, a Swedish mathematician and 

 philosopher, was born in 16S9 at Tolefors, near Linkoeping, and 

 received his education at Upsal. It was intended by bis parents that 

 he should follow the law as a profession ; but, after having made some 

 progress in the study of jurisprudence, he abandoned that pursuit, 

 his taste inclining him to the cultivation of the mathematical sciences. 



His first production was a dissertation on the height of the atmos- 

 phere ; and this was followed by one on the means of improving the 

 thermometer : both dissertations were, in 1723, inserted in the 

 ' Memoirs' of the Royal Society of Upsal. In 1727 be set out from 

 Sweden for the purpose of improving himself by travelling ; and, after 

 passing through parts of Germany and France, he made a visit to 

 England, whence he returned in 1730. At Marburg he became 

 known to the celebrated professor Wolf, and applied himself diligently 

 to the study of bis philosophy with a view of introducing it into 

 Sweden on his return. At Paris he was introduced to Clairaut, 

 Fontenelle, and Mairan ; and he is paid to have communicated to those 

 eminent mathematicians some useful remarks concerning the integral 

 calculu* and the figure of the earth. 



Shortly after his return to Sweden he was appointed professor of 

 mathematics; and being thwarted in his project of teaching the philo- 

 sophy of Wolf, which was supposed to be in some respects at variance 

 with the doctrines of Christianity, he devoted himself the more ardently 

 to the immediate dutirs of his professorship. He numbered among 

 his pupiU Stroemer, Wargentin, Melanderhcilm, and Mallet; and at 

 the same time he contributed greatly by his writings to the improve- 

 ment of mathematical science. 



On the retirement of Dnliu, the tutor of the Prince Royal of Sweden, 

 afterwards Uustavus III., Klingenstierna was chosen to fill his post : 

 he acquitted himself in the performance of this important duty with 

 great sucoess ; sod, as a recompence of bin zeal, he received the title of 

 Councillor of State, and was made a Knight of the I'olnr Star. On the 

 termination of this public duty, Klingenstierna, feeling his health 

 decline, quitted the court and pawed several years in strict retirement 

 The Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg having however offered a 

 prize for the best essay on the means of correcting or diminishing the 

 ohromatio and spherical aberrations of li^ht in refracting telescopes, 

 he onco more exerted himself ; and, having collected his various papers 

 on optic?, he composed from them a general theory with relation to 



the proposed subject, which he sent to the Academy, when the mem- 

 tiers of that body unanimously awarded him the sum of one hundred 

 ducats. This work, which was entitled ' Tvntamen de definiendis et 

 corrigendis aberrationibus radioruui luminis spbsoriois refract!, et de 

 perfioiendo telesoopio diuptrico,' was published at St Petersburg in 

 it,, in 1762. 



While the improvement of refracting telescopes engaged the attention 

 of mathematicians it happened that Dollond, in England, proposed 

 objections to an assumption of Euler, that when light passes from air 

 to gr*** and from air to water, the logarithms of the refractions of the 

 mean refrangible rays an proportional to the logarithms of the refrac- 

 tions of the least refrangible rays; and assumed as a principle deduced 

 from the experiments of Newton, that with a prism of glass contained 

 in a prism of water, a constant ratio subsisted between the differences 

 of the sines of the refractions of the red and violet rays in passing 

 from air into the first medium, and from that medium into tho second. 

 This principle, and the accuracy of Newton's experiment on which it 

 was founded, were impugned by Klingenstierna, who, from his own 

 experiments, found that the light emergent after the refractions was 

 affected with colour, under the circumstances in which Newton sup- 

 posed that it would be wholly free from it. In 1754 he transmitted 

 to Dollond an account of his experiments, together with some : 

 gations relating to the dispersions of heterogeneous light in lenses ; 

 and these papers induced that distinguished artist to have again 

 recourse to experiments with a view of discovering more precisely 

 the phenomena of refraction. It was in the prosecution of these 

 experiments that Dollond discovered that combination of lenses of 

 flint and crown-glass by which the dispersions of light have been so 

 nearly corrected in optical instruments. 



Klingenstierna published in Latin an edition of Euclid's 'Elements;' 

 a translation in Swedish of Mueschenbroek's 'Physics;' and two 

 discourses in Swedish, which were delivered before the Academy of 

 Stockholm : one of these is an cloge on the mechanician Polhen, and 

 the other relates to some electrical experiments which had been made 

 at that time. He was early made a member of the Royal Society of 

 Upsal, and he was afterwards received in the Academy of Sciences at 

 Stockholm. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of 1. 

 in 1730, and in the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1731 there is a 

 paper by him on the quadrature of hyperbolic curves. Klingenstieru.-i 

 died October 28th, 1785. 



KLOPSTOCK, FKIEDRICH GOTTLIEB, was born in 1724, of 

 respectable parents, at Quedlinburg, nt the gymnasium of which place 

 he received his early tuition. In his sixteenth year he went to tin? 

 school at Naumburg, where his poetical character was first developed. 

 Here he perfected himself in the ancieut languages, and even at this 

 early age resolved to compose a long epic poem, though he had not 

 yet made up his miud as to the subject. At first he thought of 

 making the emperor Henry I , commonly called ' the Fowler,' the 

 hero of his work, and some, odes by him on this sovereign show that 

 he was then uppermost in his mind. In 1745 he studied theology at 

 Jena, where he seems to have decried on making the Redeemer the 

 subject of his epic, for it was then that he projected the first canto 

 of his 'Messiah,' and in 1748 the first three cantos appeared. Tho 

 excitement created by this poem was surprising ; some regarded him 

 as an cctype of the ancient prophets, while others deemed his poetical 

 treatment of so sacred a subject profane and presumptuous. 



After the publication of the first portion of his poem Klopstock 

 went to Langensalza to superintend the education of the childreu of a 

 relation named Weiss, with whose daughter he fell in love, but without 

 a return of his passion. This lady was the 'Fanny' of his odes. 

 Bodmer, the Swiss poet, invited him to Switzerland, where his poem 

 had made a great impression. In Switzerland he was received with 

 a reverence that bordered on adoration (1750). While in that 

 country his mind seems to have taken a patriotic tendency : the 

 ancient Hermann (the Arminius of Tacitus) became his favourite 

 hero, whose deeds he afterwards celebrated in some dramatic w,,i-k.-. 

 lu Denmark the minister Bernstorff had become acquainted with the 

 three cantos of th ' Messiah,' and Klopstock was offered a pension of 

 400 dollars on condition of coming to Copenhagen, and there finishing 

 his poem. He set off in 1751, travelled through Brunswick and 

 Hamburg, and at the latter place formed an intimacy with Margarutha 

 Moller, daughter of a respectable merchant. At Copenhagen he was 

 received by Bernstorff with the greatest respect, and introduced to 

 the king, Frederick V., whom he accompanied on his travels. In 

 1754 he went to Hamburg, and there married his beloved Margaretha, 

 who in 1758 died in childbed. From 1759 to 1763 he lived alter- 

 nately in Brunswick, Quedlinburg, and Blankenburg, but afterwards 

 returned to Copenhagen. He composed in 1704 bis drama ' Hermanns- 

 schlacht' (the battle of Arminius), the subject of which is the defeat 

 of the Roman general Varus by the ancient Germans, and which is 

 scarcely so much a drama, as a lyric poem in a dramatic form. His 

 other dramas are of a similar character. In 1771 he left Copenhagen 

 and settled at Hamburg, where 1m completed bis 'Messiah,' and in 

 1792 married a second wife. He died in 1803. 



Though Klopstock is still read and admired as a classic author, 

 that adoration which was paid him has long since evaporated, and 

 many have questioned whether ho was a poet at all in the genuine 

 sense of the word. Both in his ' Messiah ' and his odea he is dignified 



