Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/261

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Lane in 1755; his oratorio of "Judith" was not written until 1764, five years after Handel's death. In 1762 he wrote his opera of "Artaxerxes," the text of which he translated from Metastasio. This was an attempt to appropriate to the English language and to the English stage the form of the Italian opera, the action being conducted without speaking, having the dialogue set to recitative; it was an attempt also to Anglicise the Italian style of florid vocalization. In both of these attempts he was so completely successful, that for eighty years Artaxerxes kept uninterrupted possession of the stage. The character of Mandane, the prima donna, was regarded as a necessary test of the powers of any lady who pretended to excellence as an English dramatic singer; this was originally written for the composer's pupil, Miss Brent, the other principal characters being sustained by Italians. In 1765 he wrote his Italian opera of "Olimpiade," which was produced with applause at the King's Theatre. In the same year he lost his wife. He continued his successful career as a composer until within two years of his death, which took place at the age of sixty-eight, on the 5th of March, 1778. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Besides the works that have been named, he wrote music for the following dramatic pieces:—The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, 1741; The Fall of Phaeton, 1736; Britannia, 1744; King Pepin's Campaign, 1745; The Temple of Dullness, 1745; Don Saverio, 1749; Eliza, 1750; Cimona, Elfrida, and also Caractatus, of Mason; The Guardian Outwitted, 1765; The Birth of Hercules, 1766; Achilles in Petticoats, 1774; Thomas and Sally, 1760; The Ladies' Frolic, 1770; The Trip to Portsmouth; The Fairies; Ode on Shakspeare; further, he wrote additional music to Dryden's King Arthur, which Purcell had originally set; he adapted the old airs and wrote some original music for Midas and for Love in a Village; he produced countless songs and other detached pieces at Vauxhall, (including the especially successful dialogue of Colin and Phœbe,) many of which are contained in The Oracle, or the Resolver of Questions, in Mayday, and in other collections; he wrote many glees, some of which are still popular; he is also the author of several sonatas for the violin, and of a suite of pieces for the harpsichord. Arne's oratorios made no impression in their own time, and they have not survived to ours; his operas, though they are now out of date, were so extensively popular, and had such consequent influence upon the music of their period, that they merit consideration in the history of the art; his immortality will rest, however, upon his detached melodies, which had a style entirely their own, until it was copied by Shield and Dibdin, and less successful imitators, and which have had a decided effect upon the character of English music.—(Biogr. Dict. of Mus.; Harmonicon; Penny Cyclop.; Biog. Dram.; and original sources. Fètis, Schilling.)—G. A. M.

ARNE, Susannah Maria. See Cibber.

ARNEMANN, Justus, a German physician, author of a number of medical treatises of no great merit, and editor of various medical journals, was born at Luneburg in 1763. After filling the chair of medicine at Gottingen for a short period, he settled as a practitioner at Altona, near Hamburg. He committed suicide in 1807.—J. S., G.

ARNIGIO, Bartolommeo, an Italian physician and poet, author of a series of volumes of miscellanies; was born at Brescia in 1525, and died in 1577.

ARNIM, Elizabeth von, more usually styled Bettina Brentano, wife of Ludwig Achim, and sister of Clemens Brentano, was born in 1785 at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. She spent part of her youth in a cloister, where the solitary life she led fostered her naturally strong tendency to fantastic day-dreaming and eccentric disregard of the ordinary conventionalities of social life. She found a friend after her own heart in the Fräulein von Günderode, a young lady characterized by the same strong emotional susceptibilities as Bettina, and who restrained them even still less. F. von Günderode committed suicide, because Creuzer, a philological professor at Heidelberg, for whom she had formed an ardent attachment, did not respond to her passion with equal warmth; and Bettina, on her side, when still extremely young, conceived an equally extraordinary, though less tragical attachment, for the poet Goethe, at that time nearly sixty. It is to her connection with Goethe that Bettina owes most of her celebrity; we have an account of it in her singular and interesting book, "Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde" (Goethe's Correspondence with a Child), Berlin, 1835. Goethe appears on the whole to have tolerated merely, rather than encouraged, the strange mixture of childlike reverence, enthusiastic admiration, and womanly passion, with which this eccentric and gifted young creature approached him. Latterly, he peremptorily ended all intercourse with her; though at one time he amused himself with turning her letters into sonnets. These sonnets appear in his works, and when we compare them with the original letters of Bettina, it is astonishing to find what very slight alterations have been necessary to convert the effusions of a "child," as Bettina styles herself, into poems worthy of appearing among the most strictly original productions of the greatest German author. Professor Daumer, following in Goethe's track, published in 1837 a volume of verses constructed from the same letters, and entitled "Bettina's Poems, from Goethe's Correspondence with a Child." These are sufficiently favourable testimonies to the quality of Bettina's compositions, which, though frequently high-flown, strained, and obscure, are full, nevertheless, of profound intuitions, and a fine sympathy with Nature. Besides the letters from Goethe himself, the "Briefwechsel" contains some remarkable and really valuable communications from Goethe's mother, with whom Bettina was on terms of intimate friendship. The correspondence of Bettina with her unhappy companion before mentioned, appeared in 1840, under the title of "Die Günderode." In later years she turned her literary activity into the channel of social reform, as appears from her works entitled "Dies Buch gehort dem Könige" (This book is the King's), Berlin, 1843; and "Ilius Pamphilius und die Ambrosia," Berlin, 1848; productions which betoken more warmth and benevolence of heart, and greater exuberance of fancy, than practical wisdom.—A. M.

ARNIM, Georg Abraham von, born at Boitzenburg, in Ukermark, in 1651, entered the army when only sixteen, rose to the command of 8000 Brandenburghers in Italy during the war of the Spanish succession, and retired from the army in 1715, having been present at twenty-five battles and seventeen sieges. Died in 1734.

ARNIM or ARNHEIM, Johann Georg, Baron von, commander-in-chief of the Saxon army during a part of the Thirty Years' War, was born at Boitzenburg, in the Mark of Brandenburg, in 1586. His first military services were performed under Gustavus Adolphus, whom he deserted in 1626, to accept a command under Wallenstein, in which his genius for diplomacy, as well as his military talents, had to be exerted. He entered the service of the elector of Saxony in 1630, and the year following, commanded the Saxons in the great battle of Leipzig. On the 3rd May, 1634, he defeated the imperialist forces at Liegnitz; but after the treaty of Prague, 1635, retired discontented to his castle of Boitzenburg. He died in 1641.—J. S., G.

ARNIM, Ludwig Achim von, an able and original, though very fanciful German romancist, of the baronial house of Arnim, was born in 1781 at Berlin, and died at his estate of Wiepersdorf, near Dahme, in 1831. He devoted himself in his earlier years to the natural sciences, and published at Halle, in 1799, a "Theory of Electric Phenomena." His first effort in fiction, "Ariel's Offenbarungen" (Ariel's Revelations), though strongly marked with his own peculiar genius, at once indicated his position as belonging to the modern "romantic school." Himself deeply interested in the popular lyric poetry of his country, Ludwig von Arnim materially contributed to excite among his countrymen a warmer and higher appreciation of the rich stores of "Volkslieder" which Germany possesses, by the publication, in 1806, of the well-known and favourite "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (Boy's Magic Horn), a collection of songs and ballads which he prepared, in conjunction with his relative, Clemens Brentano. In 1809 appeared the "Wintergarten," a collection of novelettes, and, in 1810, his highly interesting romance, "Armuth, Reichthum, Schuld und Busse der Gräfin Dolores" (Poverty, Riches, Guilt, and Penitence of the Countess Dolores). "Isabella of Egypt." Heidelberg, 1811, by some considered Arnim's finest work, is a romance of gipsy life. Between 1806 and 1813, the political troubles of the period fell severely upon Arnim and his connections, and personal and patriotic cares almost entirely precluded literary effort. In 1617, however, his romance of the "Kronenwächter, oder Berthold's erstes und zweites Leben" (Guardians of the Crown, or Berthold's first and second Life), showed that his fancy was still unimpaired, and his originality unexhausted. Arnim's fictions are deficient mainly in form, as he indulges too much his love for the fantastic and bizarre; but