See Coxe, Travels in Switzerland; Theobald, Naturbilde aus den Rhätischen Alpen; Ball, Central Alps; Mrs H. Freshfield, A Summer Tour in the Grisons; Caviezel, Engadine; Lechner, Piz Languard; Dr Burney Yeo, A Season at St Moritz (for medical and botanical information); Fortnightly Review, No. cxi., new series.
ENGEL, Johanna Jakob (1741–1802), a German writer, chiefly distinguished as a dramatist, was born at Parchim, in Mecklenburg, on the 11th September 1741. His father was a clergyman, and he himself studied for the church, though he did not enter upon the clerical profession. He studied at Rostock and Bützow, and afterwards at Leipsic, where he took his doctor’s degree in 1769. In the same year he produced his first drama, Der dankbare Sohn, which was received with marked approval. In 1776 he was appointed professor of moral philosophy and belles-lettres in the Joachimsthal gymnasium at Berlin, and a few years later he became tutor to the Prussian crown-prince, afterwards Frederick William III. The lessons which he gave his royal pupil in ethics and politics were published in 1798, with the title Fürstenspiegel, and furnish a favourable specimen of his powers as a popular philosophical writer. In 1787 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, and in the same year he became director of the royal theatre. In the latter situation he was not successful, owing chiefly to an infirmity of temper, and he resigned it in 1794. For some time he resided at Schwerin, but on the accession of his former pupil Frederick William III. to the throne he was invited to return to Berlin, and received a pension. He died while on a visit to his native place on the 28th June, 1802.
Besides numerous dramas, some of which had a considerable success, Engel was the author of several valuable works on æsthetical subjects. His Anfangsgründe einer Theorie der Dichtungsarten (Leipsic, 1783) was one of the earliest works on the theory of poetry produced in Germany, and showed fine taste and acute critical faculty, if it lacked the loftier qualities of imagination and true poetic insight. The same excellences and the same defects were apparent in his Ideen zu einer Mimik (2 vols. Leipsic, 1785) written in the form of letters. His Philosoph für die Welt (Leipsic, 1788) consists chiefly of dialogues on men and morals, written in an attractive style, and containing much just reflection and criticism. His last work, a romance entitled Lorenz Stark (Leipsic, 1795), though its plot was weak, achieved a great success, in virtue of the purity of its style, the marked individuality of its characters, and the interest of its dialogues. Engel’s Sämmtliche Schriften were published in 12 volumes at Berlin in 1801–6, and a new edition of them appeared at Frankfort in 1857.
ENGELBRECHTSDATTER, Dorthe (1634–1716), a Norwegian poetess, who enjoyed a very wide reputation throughout Scandinavia and over Germany during the first half of the 18th century. She was born at Bergen in January 1634; her father, Engelbrecht Jörgensen, was originally rector of the high school in that city, and afterwards dean of the cathedral. In 1652 she married Ambrosius Hardenbech, a theological writer famous for his flowery funeral sermons, who succeeded her father at the cathedral, when the latter died in 1659. By the poetess Hardenbech had five sons and four daughters. In 1678 her first volume appeared, Sjælens aandelige Sangoffer (The Soul’s Spiritual Offering of Song), published at Copenhagen. This volume of hymns and devotional pieces, very modestly brought out, had an unparalleled success, and surpassed in popularity every similar collection of that age. The fortunate poetess was invited to Denmark, and on her arrival at Copenhagen was presented at court. She was also introduced to Thomas Kingo, the father of Danish poetry, and the eminent pair greeted one another with a brace of improvised couplets, which have been preserved, and of which the poetess’s reply is incomparably the neater. The next fifteen years of her life were extremely unhappy. In 1683 her husband died, and before 1698 she had buried all her nine children. In the midst of her troubles appeared her second work, the Taareoffer (Sacrifice of Tears), which is a continuous religious poem in four books. This was combined with the Sangoffer, and no less than three editions of the united works were published before her death, and many after it. In 1698 she brought out a third volume of sacred verse, Et kristeligt Valet fra Verden (A Christian Rejection of the World), a very tame production. In her old age she was honoured by a visit from the great poet of her time, Petter Dass, who made the laborious journey to Bergen merely to see her. She died, aged eighty-two, in 1716. The first verses of Dorthe Engelbrechtsdatter are the best; her Sangoffer was dedicated to Jesus, the Taareoffer to Queen Charlotte Amalia; the change is significant of her different position in the eyes of the world. She is, all through, a dull and tiresome writer, but her immense fame among her contemporaries, and her merit as one of the earliest writers of verse in modern Norway, give her a position in literature.
