GELLERT, CHRISTIAN FURCHTEGOTT, a distinguished German author, was born in 1715, at Haynichen, near Freiberg in Saxony. He was educated at the university of Leipzig, where, in his thirtieth year, he was appointed to the chair of belles-lettres, a position which he occupied till his death in 1769. His principal works are his Fabeln and Erzählung, and Sacred Odes and Songs, both of which were immensely popular in Germany during their author's lifetime; while the former, till a recent period, held its place as a text-book in nearly all the primary schools of Germany. Not a little of Gellert's fame is due to the time when he lived and wrote. Such a German literature as there was at the time of his appearance, was groaning under the yoke of the pedant Gottsched and his school. A band of high-spirited youths, of whom Gellert was one, resolved to free themselves from these hereditary and conventional trammels, and began that revolution which was finally consummated by Schiller and Goethe. Gellert's share in the attempt was enhanced by the excellence of his personal character, his gentle piety, and his singular knack of gaining the reverence and love of young people. Part of his influence was also doubtless attributable to his position as a professor, and to his eloquent lectures on the poetry of Germany. His collective works form part of the Karlsruher Deutscher Classiker, 1823-26. There are some interesting notices of Gellert in Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit. His life has been twice written; first by J. A. Cramer, Leipzig 1774; and more recently by Döring, Leipzig 1833.