CHRISTOPHER MARTIN, was born near Biberach, in Swabia, in 1733. His father was a Protestant clergyman, and educated him with great care. His pains were well rewarded by the extraordinary scholarship of his son, who wrote poems in German and Latin while only in his twelfth year. The young Wieland was sent when fourteen to the neighbourhood of Magdeburg, with the view of being prepared for the University; and while there he not only acquired an intimate knowledge of the classics, but made himself acquainted with the productions of the great masters of French and English literature: with Voltaire, with Steele, with Addison, and, above all, with Shaftesbury, whose style and speculations seem to have exercised a peculiar fascination over more than one German writer. In 1750, he was sent, much against his will, to the University of Tubingen, to study law; but he still remained devoted to literature, and in 1751 issued his first work, Ten Moral Letters, addressed to Sophia, a lady of whom he had become enamoured in Biberach. They met with a favourable reception; and the next year, abandoning his legal studies, he went to Zurich, where he acted as a sort of literary assistant to Bodmer, a German poet of some note, who translated the Iliad, Odyssey, and Paradise Lost, into German, but whose hasty habits of composition were likely to exert a very unfavourable influence over a young and enthusiastic mind like Wieland's. Several of Wieland's writings were produced at this period, but they were written hurriedly, and have not retained any reputation. During the seven years' war he began a poem on the story of Cyrus, which was intended to be an encomium on Frederick the Great, the hero of the war, for whom Wieland entertained a very high admiration; but it was never completed, and the fragment of it which was published was not much esteemed. About the same time, also, he composed his beautiful story, Araspe and Penthea. In 1760 he returned to his native town, and while there undertook to translate Shakspeare into German, the earliest German version of our great dramatist, but by no means the best. His works after this date exhibit a considerable change of style, and are unfortunately tinged with a slight hue of sensuality, which might lead the reader to form an erroneous estimate of the moral character of their author. Of the various productions of this period it is unnecessary to particularize any other than Agathon, his best novel, which appeared in 1766. In 1769 he removed to Erfurt, where he had been appointed Professor of Philosophy, and where he had to defend himself against attacks which were made upon him from all quarters. Employing satire and humorous invective as the best instruments of defence, he bantered his assailants in his amusing poem "Cupid Accused" (Der Verblute Amor) and "Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope" (Nachless des Diogenes Von Sinope). He also directed his ridicule against the speculations of Rousseau, which he satirized in a whimsical novel, entitled Kozkox und Kikeguelzet. At Erfurt also he composed, in a very different mood from the preceding, his "Golden Mirror" (Goldener Spiegel), a collection of the lessons which history might teach those in power. In 1772, the Duchess of Weimar invited him to come to Court to superintend the education of her two sons; and he at once complied with her request, as it afforded him an abundant income and plenty of leisure for literature. The patronage of the duchess speedily made Weimar the centre of a galaxy of distinguished writers, the greatest of which Germany could then boast, including, among other names of minor note, Goethe and Herder. At Weimar, Wieland devoted himself with ardour to literary pursuits; he wrote tragedies, he composed poetry, he compiled histories, and edited a monthly critical journal, the German Mercury. Of his poems the best is his "Oberon," an epic romance, which, though open to censure on various accounts, is the most meritorious of his works. To this period of his life also belongs his "History of the Abderites" (Die Abderiten), in which, under the guise of giving a humorous account of the manners of the Abderites, he satirizes, as Swift had done, but with less acrimony, the follies and foibles of mankind. Towards the end of his life he devoted himself more especially to the elucidation of the Latin and Greek authors; and he himself considered his Letters and Commentaries on Horace the most valuable of all his works. For a short time he retired to an estate which the labours of his pen had enabled him to purchase, but afterwards returned to Weimar, where he spent the remainder of his days, and died in honoured old age in 1813.