JOHANN GOTTLÖB, an eminent German philologist and naturalist, was born on the 18th of January 1780, in the village of Koln, in Saxony, whence the application of the epithet "Saxo," which he joined to his name on the title-page of his works. His father, who was a village mason, could do little to advance his prospects; but his uncle, who was in better circumstances, took him under his charge, and, after having prepared him for college, he sent him to the University of Leipzig to study law, at the age of eighteen. Ancient literature had more attractions for him than the pursuit of law, and he resolved to prosecute that study with untiring diligence. His first work was his Anmerkungen über den Anacron, Leipzig, 1700; and it was followed up next year by Periculum Criticum in Anthologiae Constantini Cephalae. Schneider left Leipzig for Göttingen, where he lived in great straits, till his engagement to assist Brunck, at Strasburg, with his edition of the Greek poets. Here he studied anatomy, botany, and zoology, and published works on Pinodar and Plutarch in 1774 and 1775. In 1776 he was called to the chair of philosophy and eloquence in the University of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder. He continued with unabated zeal his inquiries into the natural history of the ancients, and omitted no opportunity of informing himself regarding his favourite science. He began his work in his new sphere by publishing De Dubia Carminum Orphicorum Auctoritate et Vetustate. He likewise edited Demetrius Phalereus, Ælian, Xenophon, Nicander, and Aristotle on the history of animals and on politics; Theophrastus, Orpheus' Argonautica, Æsop, Epicurus, and Oppian. He also wrote Elogia Physica, 2 vols. 8vo, 1801, which contained the most important parts of natural history known to the ancients. A complete list of his works may be seen in Meuse's Gelehrtes Deutschland; and in the Biographie Universelle, which contains a life of him by Cuvier and Schoell. On the death of Bredow in 1816, the office of chief librarian to the university (then removed to Breslau) was conferred on Schneider, who held it till his death in 1822.