GEORGE CHRISTOPHER, the famous illustrator of Hogarth, and caricaturist of Lavater, was born in 1742 at Ober-Ramstadt, near Darmstadt, where his father was pastor. He studied at Darmstadt and Göttingen, at which latter university he was appointed to a professorship in 1770. He was raised to the chair of experimental philosophy in 1777. Previously to this he had twice visited Great Britain, and made himself thoroughly master of English literature. In his declining years he was subject to fits of depression and hypochondria, which severed him almost entirely from the world. He died in 1799. His works were collected by F. G. Kries, in 9 vols., Gött. 1800–1806; and his Erklärung der Hogarthischen Kupferstiche, which remained unfinished at his death, was published in 1794–99.

a principality of Germany, in the S. of Rhenish Prussia, and on the confines of Rhenish Bavaria. Area 232 square miles. The surface is mountainous and well wooded. It was ceded to Prussia by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in 1834, for an annual rent of 80,000 dollars (£11,583), and it now forms part of the government of Treves. The capital was St Wendel. Pop. about 38,000.