Friedrich August, one of the greatest of modern German scholars, was the son of an organist, and was born at Hainrode, near Nordhausen, on the 15th February 1759. His father meant him to follow his own occupation of a musician; but as Friedrich August could only regard this profession as an elegant amusement, he resolved to pursue his own course of study at the University of Göttingen. Hake had already influenced him deeply, and taught him, or rather evolved into distinct consciousness, that maxim of self-reliance of "one thing at a time, and in disputed questions call no man master," which characterized Wolf so much during the rest of his life. He sought the presence of Heyne in 1777; but that crotchety scholar was lording it, as a capricious sovereign, over his pupils at that time; and Wolf, who was fond of private study, and attended the lecture-rooms very irregularly, was not at all disposed to humour the master so much as he wished. The consequence was, a rupture took place between the professor and the pupil, which time only made wider. In 1779 Wolf was made teacher in the Pedagogium at Ilfeld, and during his residence here he made himself known to the learned by an edition of Plato's Symposium in 1782. The same year he was elected rector of the public school of Osterode, at the foot of the Hartz mountains. Next year he was chosen professor of philosophy in the University of Halle, and rector of the Pädagogical Institute connected with the university. In time Wolf became one of the most popular teachers in all Germany; he gave his whole soul to the work, and was amply rewarded by seeing his lecture-rooms filled by eager listeners from all parts of Europe. An edition of Hesiod's Theogony, in 1784, made way for his great critical work on Homer, entitled Prolegomena ad Hominem, in 1795. The theory which Wolf advanced regarding the Homeric poems was, that they were not the work of Homer, but of several rhapsodists, whose labours were subsequently combined into the present form of the Iliad and Odyssey. All the scholars in Europe were up in arms, either in defence or assault, of the "father of verse." The method which Wolf had brought to bear upon his inquiry was unquestionably just; but this method was unfortunately carried too far. So the majority of scholars are inclined to think at the present day. While the literary storm raged over Europe, Wolf quietly pursued his studies, and brought out, in 1801 and 1802, five orations of Cicero, an edition of Suetonius, in 4 vols. 8vo, a collection of his smaller essays and occasional orations, and had engaged in an edition of the text of Homer, in 4 vols., when, after the political disasters of 1806, the University of Halle was closed. Removing to Berlin, he engaged in editing the Museum der Alterthumswissenschaft, with Buttman as his colleague. In 1812 he took up his old favourite, Plato, and edited the Euthyphro, the Apologia Socratis, and Crito. He next engaged in editing the Literarische Analysen, 4 vols. 8vo, 1817-20, which is acknowledged on all hands to be the best philological journal that has ever been published. Wolf died at Marseilles, whither he had gone in quest of health, on the 18th of August 1824. A number of his more important educational papers were published in an interesting volume, in 1835, by Körte, his son-in-law. Stockmann, Gürtler, and Usteri, old pupils of Wolf's, brought out a number of his more important lectures; but they were much too carelessly edited. (See Körte's Leben u. Studien, Fr. A. Wolf's des Philologen, 2 vols. 1833.)