KARL**, a distinguished critic and philologist, was born at Brunswick, 4th March 1793. His love of literature displayed itself during his early education at his native town, and only became more deeply rooted as he advanced to the scientific study of languages at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen. It was at Göttingen, under G. F. Benecke, with whom he was afterwards associated in literary labour, that his attention was first directed to the early literature of Germany and northern Europe. During 1815 he served in the Prussian volunteer corps against Napoleon, and in the following year was appointed teacher in the Frederic Gymnasium of Königsberg, whence he was speedily promoted to a professorship in the university. In 1827, he was elevated to a chair in the university of Berlin, and he continued to discharge the duties of his office till his death in 1851. On the Continent he is perhaps best known as a careful editor of the classics, and a masterly critic both of classical and Teutonic antiquity; but in England his fame rests almost exclusively on his editions of the New Testament and Vulgate. These last were published, the smaller edition drawn from what he styles oriental sources alone, in 1842; the larger, embracing both eastern and western authorities, in 1850. His critical scheme is expounded by himself in the Studien und Kritiken for 1830. The text is peculiar, being compiled on a clear and definite, although too mechanical plan, and may be defined as the most historically attested reproduction, without by any means being the best representation, of the original. With mathematical precision he follows the authorities of the first four centuries, to which he attaches a value somewhat arbitrary; and it is inconsistent with his plan to avail himself of internal evidence, even in removing what is a blunder by confessed error.

His labours have thus only a partial utility; and Tischendorf has successfully pointed out various passages in which Lachmann has deviated from the mechanism of his plan. The East fails to furnish fragments of sufficient antiquity with which to construct one-half of the New Testament, and gaps so large and important must be filled up from occidental sources, that the attempt, by mere scissor-work upon old MSS., to reconstruct an oriental New Testament of the first four centuries, must be dismissed as impracticable. Lachmann himself, in the preface, takes care to warn his readers, that where the margins are free from the debris of various readings there is the feeblest evidence that the clear tracings of the text are original sculpture.

In the criticism of ancient literature, Lachmann's greatest works are his Essays On the Nibelungen Lied, and On Homer. Many valuable essays on other subjects are hid in the periodicals of the day. His editions of the classics embrace Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Terence, Badius, Avianus, and Caius. His other works are, The Sagabibliothek of Scandinavian Antiquity (trans.), 1816; Essay On the Original form of the Poem of the Nibelungen Calamities, 1816; Selection from the Poets of the 13th Century, 1820; The Nibelungen Lied (edited), 1826 and 1840; Hartmann's Iwein (ed.), 1827; The Poems of Walter von der Vogelweide (ed.), 1827; Songs of Wolfram von Eschenbach (ed.), 1833; Hartmann's Gregor von Stein (ed.), 1838; Shakespeare's Sonnets (trans.), 1820; Macheath (trans.), 1829; Lessing's Collected Works (ed.), 1838 to 1840, &c., &c.