DANIEL GEORG

See also:

• DANIEL GEORG MORHOF (1639-1691)

MORHOF (1639-1691)  , German man of letters, was born at Wismar on the 6th of February_ 1639 . He first studied jurisprudence and then literae humaniores at the university of Rostock, where his elegant Latin versification procured for him in 166o the chair of poetry . In 1665 he went to the new university of Kiel as professor of eloquence and poetry; this chair he exchanged for that of history in 1673 . He died at Lubeck on the 3oth of July 1691 . Of his numerous writings the most important are Unterricht von der deutschen Sprache and Poesie (1682; 3rd ed., 1718), the first attempt in Germany at a systematic survey of European literature, and Polyhistor, sive de auctorum notitia et rerum commentarii (Lubeck,1688, not completed till 1707; 4th ed., 1747), a kind of encyclopaedia of the knowledge and learning of his time . See Eymer, Morhof and sein Polyhistor (in the Xenia Austriaca, Vienna, 1893) ; and biography by R. v . Liliencron in Allgem . Deutsche Biographie (1885) .