WOLFE WOLFF. 



ritation to Leyden, in 1796, and, in 1798, to 

 Copenhagen, as director-general of the higher 

 schools, and, in 1805, to Munich, he was made 

 Prussian privy counsellor. Whilst he was occu- 

 pied with a new edition of the Homeric works 

 (1804 to 1807), the high school at Halle was 

 abolished. Wolfe was novv in a very disagree- 

 able situation. In 1807, he went to Berlin, and 

 became member of the department for public in- 

 struction in the ministry of the interior, professor 

 of the university, and member of the academy ; but 

 he gave up all these appointments, reserving only 

 the right to lecture, according to his pleasure, in 

 the university of Berlin. To the leisure which 

 he now enjoyed, we owe his incomparable Darstel- 

 lung der Alterthumswissenschaft, and the transla- 

 tions from Horace, Homer, and Aristophanes, which 

 are as spirited as skilful. His Analecta, one of the 

 most scientific periodicals, he suddenly discontinu- 

 ed, and from that time, published nothing more, 

 being indignant at the censorship which had been 

 established. His health had become broken, and 

 his physician had advised him to visit the south of 

 Europe. In July, 1824, he arrived at Marseilles, 

 where he died, August 8, of an affection of the 

 lungs. The classical ground of the ancient Massilia 

 covers the bones of him who may be said to have 

 first elevated philology to a real science. The dis- 

 ciples of Wolf are numerous, animated with the 

 independent spirit of their great master, and free 

 from the trammels of a school. Wolf's face was 

 noble, and expressed his high-minded character. 

 Fred. Tieck made several marble busts of him. 

 One of his pupils, professor Hanhart, in Basle, has 

 published Reminiscences of Frederic Augustus 

 Wolf (1825.) 



WOLFE, CHARLES, a young Irish divine, of 

 great poetical talent and much promise, was born 

 in Dublin, in 1791. His mother, removing to Eng- 

 land on the decease of his father, placed him at 

 Hyde abbey school, in Winchester, where he re- 

 mained till 1808, when the family returned to Ire- 

 land. The following year he entered Trinity col- 

 lege, Dublin, and soon acquired distinction by his 

 abilities and assiduity, which were eventually re- 

 warded by a scholarship. Having taken orders, he 

 obtained the curacy of Castle Caulfield, in the dio- 

 cese of Armagh ; but the active labour in which 

 the superintendence of a large and populous parish 

 involved him, combined with a disappointment of 

 a tender nature, made rapid inroads upon a consti- 

 tution naturally far from robust, and unequivocal 

 symptoms of consumption displayed themselves. 

 After lingering till the winter of" 1822, he died 

 about the end of February, in the following year. 

 The composition which has given him considerable 

 posthumous celebrity, is his Ode on the Death of 

 Sir John Moore, commencing 



" Not a drum was heard," 



which lord Byron pronounced " the most perfect 

 ode in the language." Besides this piece, which 

 first appeared anonymously in an Irish newspaper, 

 Mr Wolfe was the author of several minor poems 

 of great beauty. His Remains were published at 

 Dublin (2 vols., 1825), with a notice of his life. 



WOLFE, JAMES, a distinguished English general 

 officer, was the son of lieutenant-general Wolfe, 

 and was born at Westerham, in the county of Kent, 

 in 1726. He applied himself early to the profes- 

 sion of arms, for which he was particularly adapted 

 by the bravery, elevation, and decision of his charac- 



ter. Even at the early age of twenty, he attracted 

 attention by his military skill, and, during the whole 

 of the German war, was actively employed, and re- 

 garded as a great and rising soldier. At length he 

 was called into high and independent command by 

 the first Mr Pitt, who appointed him to the charge 

 of the important expedition against Quebec. Here 

 he, singly and alone in opinion, formed that great, 

 hazardous, but necessary plan of operation, which 

 drew out the French to their defeat, and insured 

 the conquest of Canada. Having surmounted all 

 obstacles, he encountered the enemy on the heights 

 of Abraham, where, in the moment of victory, he 

 received a ball in the wrist, and another in the body, 

 which rendered it necessary to bear him off to a 

 small distance in the rear. There, roused from 

 fainting in the agonies of death, by the sound of 

 *' They run," he eagerly asked, " Who run ?" and 

 being told the French, and that they were defeat- 

 ed, he exclaimed, " Then I thank God, and die 

 contented," and almost instantly expired. This 

 event took place Sept. 13, 1759, in the thirty- 

 fourth year of his age. A national monument is 

 erected to the memory of this officer in Westmin- 

 ster abbey. West's picture of the Death of Wolfe 

 has become generally known by Woollett's admi- 

 rable engraving. The Life and Correspondence of 

 General Wolfe was published in London, in 1827 

 (2 vols., 8vo.) 



WOLFENBUTTEL; a principality of Ger- 

 many. In a wider sense, Wolfenbiittel formerly 

 comprised the possessions of the elder line of the 

 house of Brunswick, or Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, 

 in the circle of Lower Saxony (see Brunswick} ; 

 in a narrower sense, that part of the above-men- 

 tioned region which now forms the districts of 

 Wolfenbiittel, Schoningen, Harz, and Weser. The 

 town of Wolfenbiittel, till 1754, the residence of 

 the dukes of Brunswick, lies in a low, marshy dis- 

 trict, on the Oker, thirty-seven miles south-east of 

 Hanover; lat. 52 10' north; Ion. 10 40' east. 

 Its fortifications have been demolished. Popula- 

 tion, 5810. There is here an old ducal castle,- an 

 arsenal, and a celebrated library, containing 10,000 

 manuscripts, and a great number of the early im- 

 pressions of printed works : the whole number of 

 volumes is stated to be nearly 200,000. The se- 

 cond volume of Ebert's work on Manuscripts (Zur 

 Handschriftenkunde}, published at Leipsic in 1827, 

 contains a catalogue of the Wolfenbiittel manu- 

 scripts. 



WOLFF, Pics ALEXANDER, and his wife ; two 

 of the most distinguished and accomplished theatri- 

 cal performers whom Germany has produced. Af- 

 ter the stiff and showy mannerism, the conventional 

 pathos, the declamatory rather than dramatic per- 

 formance of the French, particularly in the higher 

 drama, had given place, in Germany, to a careful 

 imitation of reality, or to noise and violence in the 

 expression of emotion, and every one thought him- 

 self intended for an actor, if he had an imposing 

 figure and sonorous voice, the true genius of dra- 

 matic art arose, awakened particularly by Gb'the at 

 Weimar, and by the union of thought and feeling, 

 of the strength of nature, with the regulated tone 

 of art, as well as by the subordination of reality to 

 ideality, showed the true aim of the actor. The 

 stage at Weimar was adorned by a number of mas- 

 terly performers, among whom was Wolff. He 

 was born about 1782, at Augsburg, received a 

 very good education, and went upon the stage ani- 

 mated by the idea, that it is the actor's duty to 



