Gottfried, a German writer, who obtained considerable celebrity from having first reduced statistics to a regular branch of study, and excited much of the attention of others to the subject. He was born at Elbing, in East Prussia, in October 1719. He studied, ac- According to the custom of Germany, in several universities; and was at Jena, Halle, and Leipzig, before he took a degree at the last of those cities. He removed to Marburg in 1746, where he continued during two years to read lectures on history, and on the law of nature and of nations, and commenced those inquiries in statistics by which his name became known. In 1748 he removed to Göttingen, where he resided till his death in 1772. He was married in 1752 to a lady named Walther, who obtained some celebrity by a volume of poems published in 1750.