JOHANN GOTTFRIED

SEUME (1763–181o)  , German author, was born at Poserna, near Weissenfels, on the 29th of January 1763 . He was educated, first at Borna, then at the Nikolai school and university of Leipzig . The study of Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke weakened his interest in theology, and, breaking off his studies, he set out for Paris . On the way he was seized by Hessian recruiting officers and sold to England, whereupon he was drafted to Canada . After his return in 1783 he deserted at Bremen, but was captured and brought to Emden; a second attempt at flight also failed . In 1787, however, a citizen of Emden became surety for him to the amount of 8o talers, and he was allowed to visit his home . He did not return, but paid off his debt in Emden with the remuneration he received for translating an English novel . He taught languages for a time in Leipzig, and became tutor to a Graf Igelstrom, whom, in 1792, he accompanied to Warsaw . Here he became secretary to General von Igelstrom, and, as a Russian officer, experienced the terrors of the Polish insurrection . In 1796 he was again in Leipzig and, resigning his Russian commission, entered the employment of the publisher Goschen . In December 18or he set out on his famous nine months' walk to Sicily, described in his Spaziergang nach Syrakus (1803) . Some years later he visited Russia, Finland and Sweden, a journey which is described in Mein Sommer im Jahr 1805 (1807) .

His

health now began to fail, and he died on the 13th of June 1810, at Teplitz . His reputation rests on the two books just mentioned, to which may be added his autobiography, Mein Leben (1813, continued by C . A . H . Clodius) . These works reflect Seume's sterling character and sturdy patriotism; his style is clear and straightforward; his descriptions realistic and vivid . As a dramatist (Miltiades, 18o8), and as a lyric poet (Gedichte, 18or), he had but little success . Seume's Gesammelte Schriften were first edited by J . P . Zimmermann (1823—1826) ; his Samtliche Werke (1826—1827) passed through seven editions . The most recent edition is J . G .

Seume's Prosaische and poetische Werke (10 vols., 1879) . See O . Planer and C . Reissmann, J . G . Seume . Geschichte seines Lebens and seiner Schriften (1898) .